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Show WHAT DOES HE WAST? In another column of today's Dispatch Dis-patch will be found an article signed; "Ootimiet," for which we ask a careful reading. We have hardly space enough left to answer the complaints set forth, in our article today, but will again recur re-cur to the subject at an early date. Under Mr. Cleveland's leadership the party has most certainly departed, in BO far as he is concerned, from one of the ancient land-marks of the party faith, viz: the hard-money tenet. Optimist Opti-mist may claim that gold is hard money. True, but not In the sense of the ancient tenet. That meant cold and silver upon a perfect equality and at the ratio of 16 to 1. The party has broken its pledges only in regard to silver. The Chieago platform pledged that the democratic party favored bimetallism. bi-metallism. What is bimetalism? Plain-ly Plain-ly gold and silver both. How do we preserve bimetalism? By concurring in the republican policy of the demon-itization demon-itization of silver? We, if our pledge in this Lrespect is unbroken, with a demoocratic president, lower house and senate should be doing something to remonetize the metal which alone will give us bimetalic currency. Have we done bo?. Optimist himself can make no such claim. The money plank of the Chicago platform if it meant anything, any-thing, meant remonetization. It was either a vile subterfuge or else we are confronting a broken pledge. , Is the party in the hands cf the plutocrats? plu-tocrats? Since the passage of the seig- niorage bill by a big democratic major ity in congress and approved by a vast majority of the democrats of the nation, we believe, whose voice tuts tne president presi-dent listened to? Was it not the Toice of the New York chamber of commerce, mainly made up of the plutocrats of Wall street? What is this save being in the hands of the plutocrats? Were Optimist president would he not rather obey the democratic majority in con-gresB con-gresB than the minority of the party inhabiting Wall street? We are not disturbed by Optimist's astonishment. A democratic paper which dares not point out and protest against the unfaithfulness of the party or any member of it, even the president presi-dent himself, is not the sort of a democratic demo-cratic paper The Dispatch is. Whenever When-ever a political critic meets an argument argu-ment he cannot, or does not want to understand, it is so easy to call it a generalization, gen-eralization, and that goes, of course. We fear he generalizes himself when he says the facts do not bear us out and our predictions are untrue. We fear that unless Mr. Cleveland changes hie policy, or the party refuses to follow fol-low him further into the gold bug camp, the party is doomed. How cheerfully we subscribe to the declaration that Mr. Cleveland is not the democratic party, but if we con tinue blindly to follow him without question or protest, as Optimist seems to desire, he becomes to all intents and purposes, the party, and whether Optimist Op-timist likes it or not, we will be so judged. True, the members of congress con-gress have shown their independence in many ways, of the president, but the little veto soon settles all that, and yet, when The Dispatch condemns the president and upholds congress, Optimist Op-timist understands that it is going either into the republican party, the populist party or to Mrs. Leasism, whatever that may be be. We are afraid Optimist has gone over to the Splatterblotch for that idea and if it does any good for him to get off that little witticiem, all right, it doesn't lessen our democratic self-esteem, even a little bit. Force bills and tariff bills are very well in their way, or at least congressional congres-sional action upon them is, but what we need now, especially in the west, is relief. Take some action by which silver sil-ver will advance to a dollar, or even eighty-five cents an ounce, and that act alone will get the party more votes, especially in Utah, man all the tariff' tinkering and force bills we could beat or pass, in a thousand years. Optimist seems anxious for the party in Utah. We say to him that if con - gieBBwoum pass an act which would put Bilver to a dollar an ounce and in- j duce Cleveland to sign it.it would make more democrats in Utah than we could make were we to sing praises to Cleveland Cleve-land and congress forever. The repeal re-peal of the Sherman law has done port to giya Utah to republicanism p 1 ' than we could do in all time by point ing cu- the faults of the president ai d congress with the sole hope of effecting their democratic reformation, in a thousand years. What we would have you to do, Mr. Optimist, is, stay by your party principles, no matter if the president and congsess both go over to republicanism, Mrs. Leasism, or to the devel. Never desert the party, but growl and fight and criticise, scold and protest till the party comes back to all the old party faith, even on the point of silver. That's what we intend to do. OptimiBt grows almost insulting when he asserts that we point to any ism he names as the way out of our difficulties. We are not so broad or so good as Optimist, we fear, we are writ ing tor Utah and from a Utah standpoint stand-point alone. Secure free coinage and be assured that Utah will applaud and vote for the democratic Dartv which secured the boon, and against the republican party which demonetized demon-etized silver long ince. Our trembling friend may calm his fears as tc our leading Utah democrats into the popu-listic popu-listic camp, but we do not intend to abandon the old democratic doctrine of free coinage, simply because r the populists popu-lists have adopted it. We find no fault with democracy, nor with the president.save in the readiness of the former to follow the latter in his blind crusade against what we regard as the very life's blood of the west, including in-cluding Utah. Our friend, we hope, does not claim that devotion to free coinage is anti-democratic even if it is not the criterian of political fealty. We worship at the shrine of an undivided party faith and growl only when Mr. Cleveland or John Sherman attempt to pass a mutilated party faith off for the pure article. Again if we can only build up the party in thia county by going against one of the oldest and most valuable tenets of the party faith, or by giving a mutilated and emascu lated faith io the people as pure dem ocracy, we, for one, say frankly we neyer want to see it built up. We have never failed to point out the party's virtues and it is false that we ever exaggerated its faults. However, we never yet failed to remonstrate when we have found it going wrong or following off after false gods. We have earned the right by nearly forty year's service in the ranks to chide when wron? is done and loyinKly attempt to right the wrong. |