The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-08-30
THE JEWEL CONSISTENCY.

THE JEWEL CONSASTENCFs
 The world does not look for thorough consistency in a public man, In poli- tician. The world knows that consis-i tency Is oftentimes merely a synonym for hardheadiness and wrong-headiness and whether the man fs in public life or not, they are quite prepared to ap- plaud such a speech as this. You say I am inconsistent: freely grant 1t. have learned something" To claim consistency where there is none. to misrepresent, in plain terms. to lie about the opinions once entertained, would not be condoned in a private citizen and in a politician of the lowest stripe, the false pretension being taken simply as a gauge of that mans moral character.
 When President Roosevelt made his speech of acceptance, he boasted among other boasts. we know what we mean when we speak of an honest and stable currency. We mean the same thing from year to year." Now 1t cannot be said that this childish utter ance in the light of the notoriously muddled and 'fhiHed condition of the Re- publican mind with respect to silver for twenty years prior to 1896. includ- ing 1896 even. was not put forth with the deliberate intention to deceive. Meaning the same thing from year to year. did they mean to establish and secure the gold standard when they enacted the Sherman silver purchase clause of bill into law in 1890? Sena- tor Lodge Is now the intimate and con- fidant of the President and most often his spokesman. Did Senator Lodge hold the same opinions in, 1895 when he made a speech on the money ques- ton. that he does today. On April 9th of that year in the Senate he declared among other things that the gold monometallic policy of Great Britain now in force among all great civilized nations is. I believe. the great enemy of good business throughout the world at this moment"
 And in 1896 the Republicans in national convention adopted among others this plank:
 We are unalterably opposed to every measure calculated to debase our cur rency or impair the credit of our coun- try. We are, therefore. opposed to the free coinage of silver. except by inter- national agreement with the leading commercial nations of the world. which we pledge ourselves to promote: and until such agreement can be obtained the existing gold standard must be pre- served.
 Does this paragraph show they have always meant the same thing? What has become of the demand for an in- ternational agreement? We know a commission was appointed in 1897 and went abroad at the expense of the gov- ernment to inquire into the feasibility of this plan and came back in a sheep ish state of mind, confessing they had been on a fools errand. !, Does the Republican Party still believe in an international agreement looking to the free coinage of the white metal. ,-
 Take the great somersault artist himself, the President, who brags so loudly. and put some of his expressions of an earlier period together and ex- anime them in the light of his Oyster Bay speech. In the Century for Novem- Der. 1895 discussing the issues of 1895. he took occasion to say:
 Some of the anti-free silver men, the extreme gold men, are as unreas0na- ble in their fanaticism as any repre- sentatives of the Rock Mountain mine owners.
 He proceeded to discuss the propos- ed international agreement, that ap- peared later as a plank in the platform and eased his frenzied mind thus: There is grave doubts as to whether the agreement can be reached; but the end is of such importance as to justify an effort to attain 1t. The people who oppose the move are, as a rule, men whom the insane folly of the ultra free silver men has worked into @ panic of folly only less acute.
 Good men are often honestly deluded into supporting dangerous policies, but we believe never in our history has a party so boldly dared to challenge his- tory and challenge facts of common knowledge, as the Republican hypo- critics have attempted on the money question in this campaign.