The National tribune., 1905-10-19

Never in the history Of parties in an,
country was there one left in 50 abject
a position as the Democratic Party by
the issue of the last Presidential cleo.
ton. Its downfall began a half-cen-
fury ago, when the better portion Of IL
refused to be prostituted to the wicked
lschemes of those who would have ex-
TENDED slavery all over the country and
fastened the blighting curse permanent
ly upon the Nation. Those who re-
manned with the organization dragged
it through the unholy venom of the
lCopperhead period, and then tried to
resurrect it through the meretricious
demasoguery of Greenbackism. After
keeping the country in a tremor of
| fears for many years and seriously re-
tarding it's development by danger from
| this source its next move was an eff
| fort to blight the growing manufac-
lures of the Nation and it's rapid rise
to wealth and power by the vicious her.
esy of Free Trade. Fo several cam
paigns it prosecuted a contest against
our manufactures and home industries
as malevolent and vindictive as the
spirit with which it had precipitated the
country into the rebellion. In a most
unlucky day it achieved to National
power in 1892, and the announcement
of its victory checked the mill-wheels
all over the country. put out the furn-
ace-fres from Maine to California,
started banks to topping and money
| No. ~, 70 ho 1n1
in vaults and strong-boxes. Before the
votes had been officially canvassed mill
| lions of men found themselves out Of
employment, with their wives and chill
dren watching with haggard faces and
scared eyes the approach of the Win
ter season. The number Of rusting
mill-wheelS; of furnaces IN which the
fires had died; of stores and banks
which had put up their shutters; Of the
millions who vainly sought work and
starved because they found it not; of
women and children who wore patched
clothes and went supperless to bed; of
little homes which went under the
Sheriff's hammer, increased like the
spread of a pestilence with every day
| that the Democratic Party remained in
power. There was no ray of light in
all that long night of gloom and de-
preston until the Republicans began
to carry the various States and the day
of better things dawned when the YER
dict of the people turned every Demo-
crat out that held National Office
and elected as President of the United
States William Mckinley, who had at
tanned to National reputation by a
| lifelong and successful battling with
everything which Democracy repre-
scented. Like quacks in medicine and
mountebanks in other affairs, the De-
mocracy merely turned from one ex-
posed and repudiated faulty to another
| equally specious, equally false, equally
misleading and equally dangerous. AS
| the wickedness of slavery extension was
| followed by the malignity of Copper
headism. SO this was succeeded by the
arrant delusion of Greenbackism, to be
| in turn discarded for the ruinous policy
of Free Trade. When the indisputable
| demonstration of the wicked folly of
| Free Trade came in a country pros
| trated from prosperity to the verge of
ruin the Democrats came forward with
the nOstrum Of Free Silver to distract
attention from the grievous results of
their former prescriptions. 1t was like
the old quack who attempted to re-
store the strength of the patient which
he had exhausted with calomeI by
taking from his veins quarts of his
blood. Again the party was repudiated
by vote SO decisive that it seemed as
if its power for harm had been perma-
nently destroyed. Freed from the night
mare of its possible return to power.
the country has made such strides in
prosperity as were never before wit
messed in it's history. Since the tri-
umphant reelection of William McKin-
ley the country has had advancement
in every good thing which has aston
ished the world. Great as may have
been our progress in the earlier periods
of the country's history, that made in
the past nine years has been richer in
all that contributed to the comfort and
happiness Of every man and woman
than any previous half-century of our
National career. 1t was sanguinely
hoped that party bearing such a load
of Ubiquitous history and SO overwhelm-
ingly defeated would disappear and
leave not even its name as a reminder.
1t has not. The same men whose names
are associated so intimately with all
the party's ignoble past. with it's con-
tinual plots against the well-being and
prosperity of the country are now found
working together as they have in the
past, and no matter what guise or flag
they may assume, it must be believed
that their purposes are no better than
those which leagued them together in
their former efforts. This is not a
harsh assumption. All men are prone
to error, and every man is mistaken
more or less often in life. But when
We find the same men perpetually in
the same political aggregation. per-
petually advocating something which is
inimical to the country and which the
country decides eventually is strongly
inimical, and when we find the same
men have never In the past been col
. leagued together for anything which