Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 August 1896 — POLITICS OF THE DAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POLITICS OF THE DAY

A MANLY MAN. It is every day becoming plainer that the gold forces recognize William J. Bryan as the most formidable candidate that could have been placed in the presidential race. Aside from the wonderful strength given the Democratic party by its fearless declaration for the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1, the unassailable character of Mr. Bryan both as a statesman and a citizen makes him the nominee upon whom all eyes are fixed. The opposition Is laying’inueh stress upon the youth of the Nebraska man, yet therein lies his great power to win the support of the majority of the voters. His nomination marks a new era In the history of the country. It writes the word “finis” to a period that covers more than thirty years. The war heroes have passed by and the nation Is glad to turn to a leader who represents the union of North and South, and who champions a cause that affects the prosperity of all the people. Mr. Bryan was only five years old when the civil strife ended, and the events that have been personal exi>eriences to the men who have occupied the White House since Lincoln’s time are a stirring part of a written history to him. With tbe exception of Mr. Cleveland, every president since William J. Bryan’s childhood has served In the field of battle. Four years hence, tvhen the next term of office as chief executive of the United States shall be concluded, all the active business of the country will be in the hands of the new generation.

Citizens of the great republic who were voters before the war will be aged men. These veterans in politics will have surrendered their places to successors who are contemporaries of the man now opposed because he has not numbered two score years. As a type of this latter day, no man could be more representative than Mr. Bryan. Born of parents who stood as the best examples of American citizenship, he was given the opportunities that belong to every boy reared in this great country. He inherited with his extraordinary intellectual talents a patriotism that became the keynote of Ids ambitions. Realizing the full meaning of the opportunity called life, he has steadily held the highest aspirations and patiently performed the every-day duties that came to him. Accepting his talents as a sacred trust, he has always made the best use of them. Winning many laurels as a statesman before he had readied the thirties, lie never realized that he had achieved more than most n\en. He simply appreciated the responisbillties put upon them and tried to discharge them for the good of the people and not for the acquirement of personal fame. With the warmest sympathy in humanity in general, and having experienced alt the financial struggles that come to the man who has his way to make, he is in the closest touch with the people. Yd the real secret of his power does not lie in this fact. Mr. Bryan still retains the high ideals of youth, the abiding faltli in the destiny of the nation, the vivid apprehension of the possibilities eucompasing each Individual. When he speaks, ’ his words are the outpouring of earnest thought and sincere conviction. Being true to himself, the man who has been acknowledged the finest orator of the day lifts up and inspires all who come under his influence.

Since acts are the outgrowth of thoughts, Mr. Bryan’s biography is au honorable record, in which no one can find any unworthy pages. The American people will do credit to themselves and to their country by electing him president.—Denver Sun. A Word to the Deserters. The right of any man to shake the dust from his feet and depart from the Democratic party at any time is denied by nobody. A political organization is a consorting together of persons aiming at the same ends and purposes of public policy. If a member changes his mind he has full liberty to betake himself elsewhere, whither he will. But he has uo moral right to assume that his act of secession has so changed both his own nature and that of his former associates as to elevate him away above the equal level they all formerly occupied, and to depress them relatively in the same degree. Jn other words, he assumes any aim of new superiority with a bad grace; end if he has abusive things to say, or even to Insinuate, concerning his former comrades, he undertakes in doing so a perilous adventure. For retort and

reply are sure to come, and the final judgment of mankind invariably favors the mass and not the straggling individual. Certain Democrats who have been ?iigh in their party’s councils, and have been overwhelmed by it with honors, have lately seen fit to go out of our camp and to indulge in offensive declarations as to the conduct and motives of the great multitude they have left behind. They claim to be “honest,” to lie “sound,” to be “honorable.” They consider it their privilege to say that those with whom they disagree are "Anarchists,” "rabble,” “enemies of society.” If their zeal will allow them to reflect, they will see that in all this they are acting unwisely. The bandying of epithets does not advance any cause. Furthermore, it is an exercise which all can Indulge in. We would, therefore, caution these distinguished renegades to go slow. We have no desire to quarrel needlessly with them. We look to them to go their way, to lie down on the resting place they may find and prefer. In the noble language of Jefferson, we hold them "enemies in war, in peace friends.” We shall not copy nor follow them. We shall not suffer them to continue to Insult their former brethren; but beyond that we do not care to encounter them. Let them go in peace. In the words of the pious old patriarch of Scripture* who contemplated around him confusion, treachery and dishonor, and who had resource but in the old faith he had so long professed, we can only exclaim: “As for us and our house,

we will serve the Lord!”—New York News. Queer Protection Lottie. Knowing that' the American people are united in hatred of the great trusts which rob tbe consumers through high prices, the MeKinleyite organs, little and big, agree in charging that the Wilson tariff was changed in the Senate at the dictation of the Sugar Trust, Steel Combine, Iron Ore Trust and other great monopolies which warded higher duties than were levied by the tariff bill when it left the House. The unpopularity of the McKinley tariff is so universal that the Republican party’s only hope lies in fastening on the Wilson law the stigma of being “a u-ust tariff.” The peculiar feature of this attempt to gain votes for McKioleyism by denouncing the trust portions of the present tariff, is in tts proposed remedy for the higher duties secured by a combination of Democratic protectionists like Gorman and Brice with the Republicans in the Senate. If it be true, as charged by the high tariff press, that the duties on trust products in the law of 1894 were the result of trust influence, it must follow that high taxes help the trusts. And nothing is more certain than that such is the case. Nobody ever heard of a trust sending its representatives to Washington to work for lower duties. How do the Republicans propose to deal with the tariff taxes which enable the trusts and combines to plunder tbe people? Do they say: “These duties were increased by the Senate solely because the trusts wanted more protection? We are opposed to trust exactions and will therefore reduce or abolish all taxes which in any way favor trusts.” Not at all. Their remedy is more duties; higher taxes ou foreign goods which compete with trust products; more favors for monopolies. They are pledged to restore the McKinley law, which gave the trusts far

more protection than is afforded by the present tariff. This will of course mean that the people will be robbed still more by the trusts than they are now. The ilcKlnleyites’ way of figuring is something like this: “The Wilson tariff imposes some taxes on imports. Taxes on imports help trusts. We are opposed to trusts because they are unpopular. Therefore we propose to increase the taxes on imports and thus strengthen the trusts!”

Republicans and the Income Tax. The McKinleyite organs and politicians are doing their best to dodge the income-tax issue in the present campaign. They know that the law providing for a 2 per cent, tax on incomes, which was enacted by the Democrats in 1894, was one of the most popular measures which ever passed through Congress. They know that the people are tired of a tax system which collects public revenue from the goods used by the masses, and that the injustice of tariff taxes are now everywhere understood. And they know very well that in the public mind the tariff stands for restrictions on beneficial trade; for heavier taxes on the poor than on the rich; the creation of protected monopo’ies and trusts. At the same time it is evident to even the dull brains of McKinley shouters that a tax levied on the superfluous Incomes of the owners of great wealth is one which a large majority of the voters want. Of course it would never do for true believers in the theory that taxes on imports are good because they make things dear, to favor a system which made the necessities of life cheap by relieving them of taxation. The Republican party depends for its very existence on the funds contributed by the trusts and manufacturing monopolies. Those, in turn, depend for their enormous profits on the favors given them by protection. Without the tariff the corrupt alliance of plutocrats and politicians would go to pieces.

There will be registered this year about 15,000,000 voters. If every man who will be benefited by the adoption of an income tax, or some other form of direct taxation instead of the unjust and oppressive protective tariff, will vote according to his interests the Democratic candidates would be elected by more than 14,000,000 majority. Why Not? We use more silver than gold in our every day business. Why shouldn’t silver be a standard money as well as gold? A silver dollar has sixteen times as many grains of silver as a gold dollar has grains of gold. Why shouldn’t the ratio in value be made standard as well as the ratio in weight? We have different standards of dry measure, of linear measure, etc., and the value of a bushel is in a ratio to the value of a quart of any product. Why cannot we have a double standard of values? Why can we not make the value of so many grains of silver a fixed ratio to so many grains of gold, call each a dollar, and compel the coinage of the two precious metals to adhere to this standard or ratio. The preeiousness of gold to silver is about as one to sixteen, estimating from the respective quantities of each mined. Revolutionary? Yea. Why Not? Of course this movement is revolutionary. All movements are revolutionary that attempt to make a struggle against the status quo, against “the going scheme.” Of course it contains some error. All such movements do. But the new departure of the Democratic party assumes to be the voice of the downtrodden and oppressed many against the aristocratic assumptions of the few, against the special privileges enacted into law, by which during the past few decades the wealth of this great country has largely drifted into the hands of a few, who corner it and make financial panics or bond speculations at will.—Cleveland (Ohio) Recorder.

The artists find a remarkable resemblance of Bryan to Washington in the prominent lines of the face. v

IF THE DRESS AND THE HAIR WERE SIMILAR.