Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1905-02-02
DEMOCRACY AND PEOPLE.
Issues and Following Certain, Eat
Leaders of Integrity in
Demand.

The annual output of after-dinner
eloquence incident to the celebration OF
the birth of Andrew Jackson has left a.
few worthy utterances for the Ameri-
can people to reflect upon this year, and
notably so in the speech delivered by
William Jennings Bryan before the Jack
son club, at Lafayette, Ind, says the At
lanta Constitution.
Mr.. Bryan voiced a great abstract
truth that must be reduced to concrete
development if the democratic party is
to fulfill its historic mission and its rea-
son for existence, when he declared that
the old party of Jefferson and Jackson
must stand for the people with an eye
single to popular rights, regardless OF
whether, for the time being, such an at
titude spells defeat or victory at the
polls.
Thes are Mr.. Bryan's words, referring
to the democratic party of to-day:
1T cannot hope either to win or deserve
success until it becomes in reality a jack
son party, and, like Old Hickory, is ready
to take the peoples side of every question
NfIH ~ Nohit Al . vi y
measure the prospects of immediate sue
cess"
There were aspects and phases of the
late campaign, more personal than 9TH
erwise, which threw a g%rotesquely in
c%ongruous shadow over the st. Louis
declaration OF principles. One swallow
does not makS q summer, nor does a plat
form bristling with sound doctrine join
the issue squarely with the enemy I'M
less the activ2 forces in the campaign
back up the platform with a consistent
seriousness and a personality that will
admit of no popular skepticism.
We need not be more specific, essay
ing no DECENTRALIZATION as to incongru-
tiles so patent on their face that a mil
lion or more democratic voters did not
go to the polls at all, while thousands OF
others voted with the opposition in a
spirit of indignant protest.
The democratic party is the party of
the masses in contradistinction to the
classes or the beneiciaries of special
privileges from government, or it is
nothing. There is no temporization pos
sible between democracy and the SIMS
ter forces of public spoilation. The peo-
pie are quick to detect that common spe-
cies of campaign strategy which puts
ultra-democratic aphorisms in the
mouths of wolves in Sleeps clothing and
plays the game of verbal discrimination
to the galleries in order to betray the
electorate, once power is attained. The
homely proverb of Lincoln about fool
ing the people has more than one appli-
cation in recent political history.
The democratic party must either grid
its loins for uncompromising and eternal
contest with the Goliath of privilege in
every governmental way, shape and
form, or it must stand aside for the new
David that the outraged people will
oon or later send up against the NAL
evolent influences that to-day menace
the very life of the republic, or, at least,
its continued existence as a republic.
1t is all very we'll to wax platitudin-
Gus about the ''old landmarks and the
fathers" of democracy, but the tenets of
Jefferson are but sounding brass in mod
ern politics, if the democratic party is
not progressive enough and brave
enough to apply them to existing gov
ernmental conditions. Historically, the
democratic party is great, and its foun-
dations reach down to the bedrock OF
free institutions and popular sovereign
ty, but is it meeting the demands upon
it by the abuses and perversions of gov
eminent to-day? Is it rising grandly
and bravely to it's full opportunity, nay,
to its historic duty, in championing the
rights and demands of the great common
people to-day?
1t is, so far as the rank and file are
concerned, but there is something pain
fully lacking in its leadership. 1t has
too many opportunists accredited with
leadership who lead nowhere save into
an abyss and a slough of despond.
The issues are ready at hand. The
following is large and certain. The dem
ocratic army is clamoring for men to lead
| who will not barter the vital elements of
democracy for a mess of expediency pot
tage.
The future Of the democratic party is
secure when it lives ~squarely up to the
axiom that Mr.. Bryan propounded at
the Jackson banquet in Indiana.
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