Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1908-05-18
WHYIAMA DEMOCRAT
REASONS GIVEN BY WARREN v,
TOLLMAN, OF SPOKANE.
Probable Democratic Candidate for
Congress Tells the Reasons for
His Political Faith. Democratic
Party Opposed by Organized Graft
and Greed.

| was born without political belief
so far as | can now remember, and
my father was at that time an Abra-
ham Lincoln republican. Not because
1t pays in a financial sense to be a
democrat, for | have been a demo-
cratic voter for twenty-six years and
have never made any money by it
yet. Not from desire to hold office
for it has always been my luck to
live in a republican ward, of a re-
publican city, of republican county,
of republican state and have only
once aspired to hold a political Of
flee and then with the assistance of
republican votes, | was elected.
Let us consider for moment what
a democrat really is. Many people
used to think and some may still
of a traitor, or rebel, a man who is
against all that is good and for all
that is bad. But from my standpoint
democrat is man who loves lib
erty, who loves his country and who
seeks the greatest good to the great
est number, a man who believes that
the government should represent the
will of the majority. Our forefathers
who settled this country, fleeing from
monarchy, giving up their homes to
go to wilderness in search of free
dom, no matter by what name they
called themselves, were in my judg-
ment, democrats. Our ancestors who
fought to throw off the yoke of Eng
land and make this free country,
were democrats, the father of the
democratic party wrote the Declara-
tiOn of Independence and was then
and is still by some considered pa
triOt. Andrew Jackson, who fought
the battles of the plain people
against the bank monopoly and won
them, was democrat, and for fifty
years in the early history of the ma
tiOn the people remained democratic,
the democratic party was kept in
power and the foundation for our fu-
ture greatness was laid, without a
high tariff wall building up system
of trusts, without the organization of
IA money power, and without private
monopoly and special interests being
enthroned in high places.
| am a democrat because | believe
the will of the people should be car
ried out in the policies of the gov
ernment and that the government
should be conducted not for the pur-
pose of giving special privileges to a
few, but to bring the greatest good to
the greatest number.
The tendency during the past forty
years has been for those in power to
listen to the plea of special interests.
a high tariff law was enacted as a
war measure and after the war, was
continued because few of the peo-
pie were thereby enabled to build up
fortunes at the expense of the many.
Out of the high tariff has grown up
our system of trusts. The home mar
ket is secured to them by reason of
the tariff wall and by combining they
rob the consumers at their leisure,
sell their surplus product abroad
with transportation charges paid at a
less price than the man at home who
perhaps made the article can buy for,
and fix the price of labor and raw ma
terial at will. For forty years the
democratic party has been demand
ing relief from this oppression only
to be told that to tinker with the
tariff meant business depression
and yet the demands of the people
have grown SO strong that even the
republican party of today admits its
error and pledges itself to revise the
tariff after election. With full con-
troll of every branch Of the national
government they could remove the
tariff from trust-controlled articles in
week. Is it because they desire to
raise a campaign fund that they post
pone the task until after election?
The republican party has cast a
halo around money and in all OF
their campaigns within my memory
have advanced and advocated their
issues not because they were right,
but because they would pay, they
have always put money above man. y
This is we'll exemplified by our fin
ancial and banking system which
gives peculiar advantages to those
who have money at the expense OF
those who need 1t, and by the failure