Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1893 — REPUBLICAN LEADERS AND THE SCARE. [ARTICLE]

REPUBLICAN LEADERS AND THE SCARE.

The action of Washington Connor in withdrawing from the New York Republican Club because of certain resolutions passed by tliat club ascribing the present financial situation to the election of Cleveland and the ascendancy of the democratic party is not only creditable to his judgment anc sense of fairness but it is a most patriotic . xample. A more un - scrupulous, unprincipled charge never was made. The democratic party is n > more responsible for the present fiuancial situation than it was responsi ble for the financial situation of 1873, \ The legislation that has brought about the present condi tion, like the leg’slation that pr§ ceded 1873, is republican legisla tion.

The iniquitous Sherman silver law and the iniquitous McKinley tariff law were republican meas ures passed by a republican congress and assented to by a repub lican president. If any legisla tion has brought upon us the financial disasters from whioh we are suffering it is the legislation of the fifty-first congress. That the Sherman law has greatly contributed to this state of affairs all financiers of ability are agreed, and the odious McKinley tariff haß been quite as potent to the same end. Eight years ago, at the beginning of Cleveland’s first term, the republicans prophesied all sorts of diro disasters as the result of democratic ascendancy. There were no statesmen in the democratic party, nor were there any democrats fitted to hold office!— They were a set oi. ignorant, uneducated and unskilful men, who had been so lon gout of power that it was not possible that the government could staud under their bungling administration of it! Then the charge was made that everythi. g would be turned over to the south and that wo would see the confederacy in the ascendancy ai d all the resftlts of the wav swept away. All sorts of maliguant lies were told.

But the country swept onward to he highest prosperity it has known and when Cleveland surrendered he executive mansion to his successor the financial standing of the government and of the. nation was unquestioned. The national debt lad been reduced, there was a great surplus in the treasury and the current in business channels flow’d smoothly. In tour years this was all changed by the addition of an unwise financial policy on the part of the republican party, and some people have been plunged into an abyss of gloom. And now I lie authors of these calamities charge hem to the democratic party! For colossal impudence this has never leen equaled. Besides their unwise and wicked

legislation, the , t publican leaders, from Harrison dow", are res r<«nsible for the present state of alarm in the public n.ind because of their efforts to create that alarm. From the moment Cleveland entered the White House they commenced to clamor for an extra session, so that “the worst might be known.” r,, hey assumed that, whatever legislation would be adopted, it could not be other than bad legislation. They declared that it would unsettlo the business of the whole country, and that no certainty was assured to business men engaging in new ens terprises. By their cries and their appeals they frightened capitalists - always timid —and encouraged manufacturers to reduce their output and to narrow their enterprises. And now in the very midst of the fear that has seized so many business circles, as a result of their panic breeding, they have the impudence to ascribe the inevitable consequences of their own bad policies to the democratic part /. On the fulfillment to the letter of democratic pledges depends in great measure the future prosperity of the country. The laws that have been made for the classes st the expense of tne masses must be wiped out