Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1907-04-21
CLEVELAND AND REFORM
BY SAYOYARD

casting pearl before swine. Again he has pointed the way for his party to tread if it would enjoy victory and rescue the country from the frenzied statesmanship of the hour Here is some of the wisdom contained in Mr. Cleveland's last utterance:
 T have observed these passionate outbursts during a life of three-score Years and ten. l trust have d fitting appreciation of the justice which lies beneath the present popular clamor against corporations, and especially railroad corporations, but l believe that as a frenzy it will pass, and that the people will demand of the party to which they give their suffrage the enunciation of a principle rather than the deliberation of a condition.
 It must be obvious to the most ob- tuse that We have had too much de- nunciation of a condition and toe little appreciation of a correct principle
 | just cause for the present discontent with railroad management, but Mr. Cleveland knows that the tariff robs the people of more in a day than the railroads ever eNtorted from them in a month. When the Democratic par ty comes to understand that stubborn fo ct uri11 o:,, +Jo o1n tion, and not until then.
 Mir. Cleveland rescued this country from the ruin which the Republican party plunged it by the enactment of the Sherman silver law. and for that service to the American people mar TOW and bigoted Republicans will nev- CT forgive him nor cease to slander him. The Sherman silver law was passed because the Republican party was too pusillanimous to allow Pres ident Harrison to veto a free silver bill. The Ffty-first Congress was Re- publican in both houses, and stood on it's head to enact 16 to l. This was
 
 than the more brazen repudiation of
 the unconstitutional legislation ere ating the greenback. As soon as the Sherman silver law Was signed by Harrison-and Cleveland would have vetoed 1.-the country started on the road to the silver basis. By the time toI well on the way to repudiation, and the Harrison administration had pre- pared to sell bonds to get gold 10 maintain gold payments. and thds avoid the silver basis.
 When Cleveland was inaugurated practically no gold was flowing into When Harrison was inaugurated prae- tically nothing but gold went from the custom house into the Treasury. In 1889 Cleveland left to Harrison serene financial skies; in 1893 Harri- son left to Cleveland skies black with financial storm In a few weeks the storm burst and then it was that Grover Cleveland saved the ship from total and ruinous commercial wreck. This is history. Every intelligent man in the country knows it; every candid man in the country comedies it. The Republican party devoted the Treasury to the silver basis. Gro var Clavo1opd pnctorod if tO fhp un1d basis. It was the grandest achieve ment in economic statesmanship in the entire history of the American republic. Sherman's return to spe- cie payment was child's play in com parison.
 "Oh, but" they say, "he didn't do it right; he could have done it for less money" They criticse him for getting too small a price for the bonds he exchanged for gold to pre- serve the public credit and reproach him'for not threatening to allow the l Treasury to go upon the silver basis. am not talking about the silver 
 bugs who are enraged with Clevc- land for correcting the folly of Re publican legislation of the Fifty-first Congress. Cleveland stands for truth, strength, Integrity, and would no more lie to a man with whom he was negotiating public loan than he would lie to his God in prayer. He did not threaten to go on the silver basis because he never intended to go on the silver basis. The bankers drove hard bargain with him, ap- but the banker too. risk, a great risk. Suppose 16 to 1 had prevailed? Suppose Bryan had been elected in 1896? The bankers would have lost half their investment. And in 1884 1t was only Grover Cleveland