The Irish standard., 1905-01-14
'rang from a leadership more Eng

llSn tnan American, more arlStrOcratiC
than democratic. 1t was ever party
of privilege, always ready to subor-
dinate the masses to the classes. 1t
is the party of robber tariff that
wrung tribute from the poor to prop
the fortunes of the powerful. 1t is
the party of the criminal trusts that
hold the commodities of life in an iron
and arbitrary grip, and beyond all eco
nomic necessity or business law holds
up the people with Coal Trust in Win
ter, with an Ice Trust in summer and
a Meat Trust all the time, and inso-
lently answers to every protest, You
can pay our prices or you can freeze or
starve.'
s'It is a party of sectionalism that
for 25 years faunted it's bloddy shirt
in the face of Il reunited country, and
prospered upon the bitterness that it
bread. 1t is a party of race antagon-
ism and sectional bitterness. Only one
man in it's history has moved like Il
prophet of peace. William Mckinley
was an apostle Of union and an evan
gel of fraternity. He poured oil upon
the stormy waters of Wilmington and
rebuked at Tuskegee the negro i'll
clination to lay down upon the Gov
ernment. In the balm of his kindness
and the serenity Of his counsel, Sec
ionalism was lying and the race ques-
tion was as near to healing as it ever
can be.
"But McKinley's party, pledged
upon his bier to preserve the policies
and spirit of his Administration, for
got or forswore the solemn obligation,
and before the grass was sodden on the
martyrs grave, angered the South
with policies rudely .mtlde and in
solently pressed over the protest of
virtue, intelligence and probity as they
would never have dared to do in the
North. They blotted in a week the
fair irecord of NIcKinley's fraternal
years, and divided the sections, solidi-
fled the South and reopened a racial
agitation whose end no man can see,
but whose existence and menace all
true men cannot fail to fear.
"Nlr. President, the Democratic
party never had clearer mission or a
brighter promise than today. Defeat
is discipline and disaster is education.
Out Of the wreck of our fortunes we
will build nobler and more enduring
usefulness. The Democratic party is
going to be reborn, reformed and re-
consecrated to the constitution and to
popular rights and liberty. We can
not afford any longer to be party of
mere negation, party of opposition,
or a servile imitation Of the party
in power. We are going to believe
something and we are going to do
something. We are going to be
party Of creeds and not merely
before the juggernauts of power, and
we are going to quit trucking like
w" oA uS " IuC 6AduOW VI Il lucIGly
temporary success. We are going to
find and to follow real leaders if we
have to smash every slate and annihi-
late every politician that has fattened
upon our suffrages for 40 years. We
are going to make platform that will
be an open opposition and bold chal-
lenge to the Republican creed every
where.
"Men may fall like leaves when the
wind walks through the forest on its
way to meet the roar Of the climbing
waves, but principles are as eternal
as the granite hills. And the principles
Of the Democratic party, written in
government and pledged in the rights
and liberties of the people, will be
young, fresh and triumphant when
the Republican party, wrapping the
mantle Of it's sins about it, shall fall by
the pillars Of the constitution that it
has stained forever with it's history"