Fort Mill times. [volume] (Fort Mill, S.C.) 1892-current, 1912-07-04
JUSTICE ALTON B. PARKER MAKES THE
KEYNOTE SPEECH FOR DEMOCRACY
STRIKING PARALLEL BETWEEN THE QUIET DIGNITY AT
BALTIMORE THE DIseRAcEFUL SCENES AT CHICAGO
NATIONAL CONVENTION.
ARIFF WAS ONE OF HIS PRINCIPAL TOPICS IN SPEECH
Opposes Demands Laws For the Masses and
Also Combinations Wealth
ns Upon Poo-Many Were Present Hear the Speech
ThereW Cheering Done.

Baltimore.-Former Justice Alton b.
Parker Of New York, who was elected
temporary chairman Of the convention,
was greeted with great applause as
he stepped upon the platform to de-
liver the keynote speech.
Judge Parker said in part:
1--WE meet while the hills yet echo
to wild cries of liar, thief, and trai-
tor, and furious walls Of fraud, bri-
berry, treachery and corruption; and
our ears are weary with the din OF
the articulate shrieking and passion
ate villifcation of the most shameful
brawl Of our political history. Our
candidates, however, are, without cA-
ception, men OF such lofty mien that
we meet immune from the distemper
which seized the Chicago convention
and privileged to discharge solemn
public duty calmly, deliberately, SER
iously.
"The cause of government by The
people the world over has been ma
terially checked by the dissraceui
brawl which terminated in the bedian:
of Chicago. Every good citizen has
been put to shame by the brutality and
the abuse which characterized this
wrangle between a President and ex-
President. Gratitude, friendship, party
loyalty, patriotism and common de-
cency were forgotten IN the tusslc.
"The assault upon the unwritten
prohibition against third term made
in the wild scramble for the Repu2-
lican nomination warns us OF the vital
necessity of incorporating in our con'
stitution a safeguard against repeated
terms.
"The man who split his party ut
Chicago, once recognized the third
term tradition and acknowledged its
application to his situation. On the
eve of his triumph in nineteen hun
dred four he said: The wise custom
which limits the President to two
terms regards the substance and not
the form, and under no circumstances
will l be a candidate for or accept
another nomination
Wrong in this year OF grace, he
was right in that. Peradventure he
was honest with his soul and he
may have confessed to it that even
a President may be tempted to resort
to sordid devices and shameless i'm
portunities to gain his ambition. II
so, he was in mental condition to real
ize to the full the danger to the
republic involved in setting aside a
custom constituting the only bulwark
against assaults Of men whose ambi-
ton chokes their patriotism and
whose selfish desire for personal vic
tory and power throttles those moral
scruples with which they may once
have been endowed.
Would the man who threw his hat
In the ring and sought to slug his
opponent over the ropes in his fight
for third term rest satisfied with its
achievements?
Clearly his lust Of power would
have brooked no such limitation. A
third term would but have whetted
his desire for more and as the terms
slipped away each renewal would dis
cover greater injury to our constitu'
tion, to the form Of government estab-
lished under it and TO every legal curb
on his imperious will. This is the
man who menaced us with an increase
OF Federal power by usurpation of
states rights and without authority of
constitutional amendment; the man
who took the Isthmus of Panama, and
let Congress debate about it after
wards the man who having enough
money to send the fleet on its famous
cruise to the Pacific sent it without