OCR Text |
Show DEMOCRACY. How the memories of the triumphs of the grand old party and its glorious past glitter and dance before the eyes and warm the hearts of the patriotic men who still love liberty and who still have confidence in the future of the nation! Democracy, as a party in the United States, had its birth, won its victories and planted its seeds while those mirhty men of the French revolution revol-ution . by . their" va'or and patriotism were teaching the world that the people peo-ple were worthy of self-government, were worthy to be charged with the task of working out the destiny of freemen. free-men. It is true that here there were no Austerlitz, no Ulm, no Borodino; but here existed what even those renowned re-nowned victories could never bring to France in that generation, the true germ of human freedom. Jefferson won afar prouder victory than was even dreamed of by Napoleon, when he wrested a proud people from the clutch of Gary 9 III. Then for the first time it had ..tered the brains of the kings of the old world that perhaps after all the peoplr had not only the ability to govern th'mselves, but they also had the virtc ind the integrity to do it honestly. Notwithstanding even here, existed a party willing and anxious to return . 1 monarchical forms, yet so strong ""re t' .j democrats that while fronting a. to scy in the old world, they had sJ rettUi enough left to contend with the dc--stlc factions of home Bacuessfui' virr . tue fate of the experiment experi-ment wiL.Y i"e people's government was eaie. i in a great memory of a great triumph ; bat alas! almost only a memory. In lees th&a a hundred years after the immortal declaration was penned, the American government promulgated a law by the passage of the demonetizing demone-tizing act which reduced silver from its proud position as one of the precious metals orne, the people's standard of I value which has placed us under a far more dangerous set of tyrants than any known in Europe in either ancient or modern times the tyranny of mone y, the mastery of the plutocrats. We are no longer ruled from Washington by tb,e representative s of the people". We j get our law from Wall street fresh from the inspiration of the millionaires. How the mighty have fallen! How abject have become the men who wrested from George a whole continent and the dearer pledge of the people's rights. Today the people in and out of congress are debating favorably the Cleveland-Carlisle plan of giving the finances of the government over into the hands of the national banks. Shade of Jackson! is it true? Can it be that after all we have learned nothing by the mighty lessons of the past? Have we been retrograding rather than advancing? ad-vancing? Have we so little spirit left that we voluntarly return and are anxious to hug the chains which are to bind ua to the rich parvenues, at the bidding even of democrats? Perish the thought. No! no! Let the people arouse themselves and fight to the bitter end rather than re-establish as - an American sentiment the plutocracy of the old federal party. This national bank scheme is nothing other than pure centralization. It is the establishment estab-lishment of a power which will be able to say in a word jost how poor the masses may be made and how rich ihe favored classes may become. Are the people of the United States eunkeu to these depths? If so, then there is no use struggling further, W3 might as well give up the battle and return re-turn to the allegiance of what is far more manly and noble, kingly rule. If such a ssntiment grows and becomes be-comes a law we .might as well take a long last farewell of liberty. Thede cadence of the republic will date from the day such a law blackens the statute books of the nation. Let us beware! We are being betrayed into the hands of the Shylocks, or what is the same thing, Rothschilds. It is not too late yet. Let the people speak in thunder tones as they did when Hamilton Ham-ilton would have crowned the general of the armies. Let ue reitsrate, the people rule, and no national bank shall give the law to us. We hare had a I taste or what that rule will be already I in the dumb silence resting over the westj in our silent and voiceless silver I mines and in the Impoverished condi- Ition of a once rich and prosperous people peo-ple Let the people stop it, the servants ser-vants of the bankers will not do it. s The people must themselves act, even i if they are compelled to abandon the political theories of a lifetime to accomplish accom-plish the return to a fair honest government gov-ernment in the interests of all, the poor as well as the rich. Think of this, democrats of the west, ere everything, even the money of the nation, goes altogether into the hands j of the plutocrats, " . |