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Show QQ A DEMOCRAT'S OPINION OF THE ADMINISTRATION. One of the most remarkable attacks ever made on a Democratic administration adminis-tration was launched last Saturday, when Governor 0 B. Colqrudtt of Texas, in a public statement under his signature, declared the 'Wilson administration ad-ministration the greatest failure in the history of the presidency. Had the charges come from a Re publican source they would hove been discounted as in part due to the strabismus of a strong partisan In viewing the acts or the other side, but being the utterances of a Democratic goiornor from the strongest Democratic Demo-cratic state In the Union they strike with great force. Governor Colquitt declares that because be-cause oT the utter Incompetency of the men in charge of the government, the south, a land literally flowing with milk and honey, has been prostrated, pros-trated, its credit impaired and Its people reduced to penury. Then he proceeds to find a general indictment, indict-ment, saying: "The administration's tariff law was pledged to lower the cost of living and it has had the contrary effect. By putting raw material on the free list and keeping the protective protec-tive tariff on manufactured goods, it has condemned American farmers by hundreds of thousands to peonage and has enabled the manufacturers, getting get-ting their raw material cheaper, to charge higher prices for their goods, which they have done. ' Hides were free-listed and shoes have gone higher. This is true of virtually even.' single item similarly treated in the administration tariff law The American farmer gets less for his raw materials, the American working man pays more for the flu ished product and both are robbed to further enrich ihe protected manufacturing manufac-turing trusts and combines. "The administration's foreign policy has been Imbecile It has allowed England to dictate conditions as to cotton shipments to European countries coun-tries that enabled English spinners to rob the American cotton growers of half the value of their crop. England stopped American shipments until the English spinners had bought their supply at ilc a pound and stored it In Texas and other southern warehouses. ware-houses. "Then England consented to declare de-clare cotton not contraband and Prance followed suit a day or two later. Our government weakly submitted sub-mitted to England's dictation, playing Into the hands of the English spinners spin-ners and betraying the American cot-(oi cot-(oi growers as completely as if this country were an English vassal state. "If I had been president I would have served notice on England's pre-K)ie pre-K)ie thai our foreign trade in cotton and other non-contraband commodities commodi-ties was going forward with or without with-out England's consent and if net ss-sary ss-sary I would have sent American Iron-dads Iron-dads to England's door to enforco that notice. ''The administration's repeal of the rftnatta canal toll exemption law In violation of the party's national platform plat-form was another weak surrender to England. If free tolls for American I ships had not been repealed hundreds hun-dreds of American-owned ships flying I a foreign flag would have come under i rhe Amorican flag to get the benefit of the exemption and we would today to-day have an American merchant marine ma-rine competent to carry our goods to foreign markets. We have no such merchant marine and to supply it the Wilson administration is proposing propos-ing to spend money, taxpayers' money, mon-ey, buying a subsidized national shipping ship-ping service. "The Wllson-Bryafl management of 'he Mexican affair has bepn a failure They landed an army In Vera Cruz to force Huerta to salute the flag and have brought It back without getting the salute They now ask congress to appropriate ?500.000 to pay the expenses ex-penses of that ridiculous expedition For what? What did It accomplish? "It set all Mexico aflame against the Americans, not only In Mexico, but in Texas, where, all along the north bank of the Rio Grande, there are ten Mexicans for one American. , It brought on a reign of terror all along the Texas border, so that when the federal government refused to afford protection for our people in their own state I was forced to send 1200 Texas troops down there to give it. "Mexican bandit gangs were crossing cross-ing the Icrder into Texas, raiding and terrorizing our scattered people. Women Wom-en and children were huddled together to-gether in brick houses, always menaced men-aced with murder and worse. My desk was flooded with telegrams from chambers of commerce. bankers, stockmen and other responsible citizens citi-zens praying for protection all along our 1200-mile frontier. "The federal government had only sixty troopers at Brownsville to cover more than two-thirds of that long border. When I rushed tho Texas state troops down there, stationing a company at each of the principal border bor-der towns, I instructed them not to cioss the river nor in any way to violate the neutrality laws, but at all costs to protect the lives and property of Texas people. "Secretary of War Garrison telegraphed tele-graphed me that he thought it unwise un-wise to have two military forces occupying oc-cupying the same territory under separate sep-arate commanders and suggested that I withdraw the state troops I wired him that 1 would withdraw the Texas troops when he sent an equal number of regu.ars to replace them at every place where our men were stationed, I understand they had everything pre-pared pre-pared at Washington to have me In-dicte In-dicte 1 to a federal grand Jury and put in a Federal prison on the assumption assump-tion that 1 meant to invade Mexico I a palpable absurdity which only! men in i. ibijouiiu oi me situation could have enterrained It is a fact! that the whole country does not know that when our Texas troops arrived in Brownsville the Mexican commander comman-der at Matamoros, across the river, offered to surrender that city to the troops of United States cavalrymen. 'Ihe commander at Matamoros evidently evi-dently believed that the Texas troops I meant to take his city and thought i the United States troops were more; friendly than the Texans The Washington Wash-ington conception of our business on the border was as ridiculous as that of the Mexican commander Wii.sui and Bryan have stood by. encouraging one gang of bandits alter another, w hile people were : being I Diitchered all over Mexico, while the vast American interests In that country coun-try vere being confiscated and shot' to pieces, and today the Mexican chaos is worse than at any time since Madera was assassinated. Villa is the dictator of the country and I understand un-derstand that all he wants is to be chiet of police of the City of Mexico with control of the gambling concessions conces-sions in the cities of Mexico and Juarez. "Our government has kept England and Germany from restoring order in Mexico and has itself done nothing but contribute to the disorder and lawlessness by its vacillating "watch-i ing anu waiting" policy if it can be called ? policy. The property interests inter-ests of Mexico and the big exploiters of Mexico resources have got control of the situation absolutely and these same interests have got the ear of our povernment at Washington. "The administration's anti-trust laws are barefaced fakers so far as protecting the people from trust oppression op-pression Is concerned. These laws please nobody so well as the Standard Oil, the steel and other great trusts. "I believed at first that the federal fed-eral reserve banking act was the administration's ad-ministration's one meritorious achievement, but now bankers tell me it is going to prove a failure. The control of the system in practice appears ap-pears to rest in New York City instead in-stead of in Washington. "I am fully convinced the national election of 1916 will end the Demo-1 cratie regime. The policies of the Democratic national administration have wholly failed either to curb monopolies mo-nopolies or lower the cost of living for the people, and they have materially mate-rially contributed to deprive millions of wage earners of employment. "The administration valorized $20,-000,000 $20,-000,000 worth of corporate securities owned in the north and east by a treasury department order to national banks to loan money on listed securities securi-ties at not less than the closing quotations quo-tations of July, 1914, but the same administration ad-ministration when asked to allow the people to use a quarter of a billion dollars of their collective credit for two or three years to save them from losing .$500,000 on their cotton crop regarded the valorization as violative ot 30iind government." |
