The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-09-01

| is an index to the future. An ounce
of performance is worth a ton OF
promise.
In striking contrast to this match
less record is the record of the Demo-
cratic party, yet fresh in the minds
Democratic management, from '92 to
SO, are not yet forgotten by the
american people. Fireless furnaces.
Coxey armies, free soup houses, three
million wageless workers, and average
monthly deficit of five million dollars
Tor TOUR years, an increase of one hun
dred and sixty two million dollars in
the bonded debt, paralysis in agricul-
tural interests. an enormous deprecia-
ton of property, bank and other bust
ness failures of daily occurrence-in
short financial loss greater than the
entire cost of the civil war-this is
country is asked to repeat
A Pitiful Party.
Pitiful is the condition of the DEM
ocratic party in this campaign. Moth
ing in the history of American poll
tics equals the humiliating spectacle
presented by this party at it's recent
national convention. Wrestling for
sixteen long, weary hours over a ques-
ton which for eight years it had vo-
ciferously declared to be the para
mount issue before the American peo-
ple-the financial question: finally
decided that it now has no opinion
at all on the subject. 1t dared not
reafhrm its adherence to free silver
lest it lose again its gold contingent,
and it was equally afraid to declare
for gold lest it ALLEVIATE its silver sup
porters,. and SO after the diplomacy of
the familiar school teacher who
taught that the world was both round
and fiat, it decided to be for neither.
But hardly had this humiliating scene
been enacted and its candidate thrust
INTO the vacuum, when the nominee
sprung the worst piece of fakir poll
tics ever perpetrated upon a conven-
uon-his celebrated telegram, in
which he said, "I regard the gold
standard as firmly and irrevocably set
tied. Mr.. Bryan had been trying for
months to get an expression from Mr..
Parker on this subject, but it came
after the nomination was made, and
when too late for Mr.. Bryan and his
followers to parry the thrust. No Won
der Mr. Bryan promptly declared that
the nomination had been obtained by
fraud and deception and no wonder
Democratic leaders in Kansas wish to
change the subject and discuss only
state issues. But they will not he
permitted to do this. they must face
the music. With Judge Parker's teIe-
gram in mind, 1 wish to call your
attention, my fellow citizens, to the fol-
lowing planlks in the Republican state
platform, thus handsomely endorsed
and confirmed by Candidate Parker
four months after it was written:
We call attention with pardonable
pride to the fact that the wisdom of
Republican financial policies is now so
well attested by the logic of results
that the subject has been practically
from national politics.
Mr. Parker puts the stamp of his
approval upon the plank and declares
that the gold standard is firmly and
lrreVocably settled" But who settled
it? Certainly not Mr.. Parker and the
six millions of his party associates who
voted against the gold standard in '96
and 1900 With cutting sarcasm and
logic, Hon. Thomas E.
Watson, Peoples party nominee for
president, in his recent speech of ac-
ceptance, says on this subject:
BY what right do the Democratic
leaders undertake to preach and ex-
pound to the American people any
economic question? Never i'll the
world could it emphasize itself on any
ssue as it did on the money question
book of 1895 the Demo-
cratic leaders say: We are unaIter-
ably opposed to monometalIism.' In
the famous telegram of 1904 their
candidate says. in effect, that he is
1nalterably in favor of monometal-
ism. All of the literature of eight
years is to be destroyed. Did they
know what they were talking about
Turing those eight years, or We're they
simply deceiving the American peo-
amazing piece of effrontery for
the Democratic party to goI
before the American people
and proclaim that for eight years
hey have been wrong and the Repub-
Iicans have been right, and at the
same time demand that the crowd
which has been wrong shall be put in
the places of those who have been
right. 1t would indeed be miracle
4 any such thing Would happen, and
so far as 1 am concerned 1 do not be-
ieve it will happen. Why do 1 say
30? Because I believe that if the gold
standard be right as both of the old
parties now say it is. the people of the |
will give the credit and the
support to the men who were brave |
enough to prefer it's way, fight its
battles and win its triumphs"
Other Issues.
The limitations of this address will |
lot permit a review of the position of |
he parties upon the tariff question, |
he Panama question, the Philippine |
question, and other questions of ma
ional concern, except to say that
IpOn these questions the Democratic |
party is equally as ridiculous as 1t is |
lpon the money question. For in |
tance, in its st. Louis platform it de-
lOunceS protection as robbery of the |
many to enrich the few" and in the
anne paragraph favors revision and /
,radual reduction of the tariff" In
'ther words. robbery must not be |
topped at once, but gradually! Was
more ludicrous than that
'ver put into platform Protection
S not robbery. 1t is only called that
~ this straddling platform to please
he free trade wing of the party, while
he gradual reduction" clause was
,ut in to reassure the protective wing
# the party-a sort of winking the
'ther eye performance. Protection
las been invoked in every financial
risis of our history and it has never
allied to restore prosperity. 1t has
Yearly paid the national debt and it
as given remunerative wages to mil
ions of laborers who without its help
would have been wageless. Like the
money question it is the settled policy
the 'irrevocably settled policy, if
on rnlaa Se-Of this cO11ntrv Nha T.