The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-07-24
charged by the law with some power
and duty in that direction.
Features of the Platform.

publican platform against existing
sectional and racial peace by the de-
moraliZation of business and labor
and race relations in a great section
of our common country, at present
highly prosperous. 1t called the at
tention of the country to the danger
Gus character of it's present chief exec
utive: his usufpation of legislative ana
judicial functions; his jerky disregard
of international and constitutional OBJ
legations, and it invoked the restora-
ton of that time-honored and sensi-
BILE foreign policy so distinctively
American. 1t pledged itself to an
equal and just treatment of capital and
labor. contrary o the opinion seeming
to prevail in certain circles that the
former is a thing more sacred, and
possessed of more inalienable and
greater "vested rights" than the lat
ter, which seems indeed frequently ac-
corded only such rights as 1T may
obtain by strike. In word, the
platform was a call to arms for an
attack on present evils; for the de-
fence Of fundamental rights, the es-
tablishment of safe and sound and
sane government, and it was, in its
expressions and omissions, an agree
ment to disagree about all questions
not now issues, or capable of being
made issues. in the present, in the
immediate future, or, perhaps, in any
future at all. Hence, what has been
so much misunderstood in certain
quarters-its silence concerning what
is popularity called the silver question,
or, more accurately, the question of
the monetary standard. That cause
right or wrong, had been fought out.
and the contention Of the organized
Democracy with regard to it lost. If
that had been all, it would not have
constituted a sufficient cause to desert
it. But the result sought to be
achieved by the contention, to-wit, an
increase in the volume of metallic or
real money and therefore a decrease
in the value of money, a correspond
ing increase in the prices of other
things as measured in money, and the
consequent encouragement thereby
given to productive enterprise and
discouragenen to mere boarding.
all conducting to that prosperity
which. but for it. could not have been
so completely realized nor SO long
maintained--had been accomplished.
The unparalleled increase in the
annual output of gold by the discov-
cry of new mines, and by the i'm
proved methods of treating gold ore,
was moreover recognized as an out
put, which, when you consider the
two causes for it, and especially the
second is not apt to suffer any mate
rial diminution in the term of the
natural life of man now full grown.
The Mississippi Plank Not Presented.
Some expression of this, in some
thing like these words. was mace,
and the acknowledged of it's effect
in relegating the silver question to
the rear was recognized, in what is
known as the Mississippi platform,
and it or something like it would. if
submitted, have been adopted by a
majority of the delegates. The plank
was, however, never presented by it's
author to the convention, nor to the
committee on resolutions. for the SIM
pie reason that before leaving Missis-
sippi he had found that it was not
accepta BILE to either extreme faction
and especially not to the extreme gold
standard coterie. who wanted in the
platform no pretence of justification
even of the votes and political con-
duct of six and half millions of their
fellow citizens who had voted for Mr..
Bryan. even though this justification,
or attempted justification. take it as
you will. was followed by an acknowl-
edgment of. defeat and an expression
of acquiescence in the defeat, as a
any rate, and destined to remain ac-
complished for at least an indeter
inmate time.
You may say they ought to have
been overridden. If you have no in
terest in the welfare of the Demo-
cratic party, and none in the success
of the cause aiming to reform great
existing abuses of govcernment-in a
word, if you are theoretical and not
you may well say so. The
author found. moreover. that the
plank would not be acceptable to the
other extreme because. although they
knew, and would admit. in conversa-
ton, that free silver was not an is
sue" that the gold standard was es-
tablished by the law as it had been
since 1898, and could not at this times
be disturbed, they were not willing
ito write it down So" not willing 10
say as much in a platform. This
sounds unreasonable too, to a man
of theory only, and he would ask
again. Why not override them?" But
to a man practically acquainted with
human nature it is not so very strange
that one may confess defeat in q
duel, his inability to renew the fight,
and perhaps even his Willingness to
quit talking about it, and yet not de-
sire to h Nye salt rubbed in his wounds.
L never !. ct an old Confederate sol
dier, for lample. who wasn't ready
to confess that "the war was over"
that, moreover. we had gotten along
very we'll without a separate Southern
Confederacy and that the Union was
an established fact, not to be dis
turbed, in his case, now or ever. But
never met a single one of them,
willing to say that he was whipped,
certainly not that he ought to have
been whipped. Moreover. l never met
brave man who wanted one of them
to say anything of the kind. To keep
silence and quit fighting, to travel
onward, looking forward, with the de-
sire to make yet more glorious des-
TIMES for yet greater, because thor
oughly reunited, country, was always
accounted enough. without any humll-
iating confession.
The Mississippi platform plank, re-
ferred to, or something like 1t. couid
easily have been passed ana thruSt
down the throats' of both extremes
if the great conservative body or the
convention which stood between thetl
had so wiIIed it, and the result would
have been perfectly delighttul-to
Republican: to any one who dlo ns
want present abuses corrected or tht
present government-drift checked. 1t
would have been pleasant. too, to Il
small coterie of so-called Democrats