Indiana State Sentinel, Indianapolis, Marion County, 26 September 1894 — Page 9

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EGON D PART, ESTABLISHED 1822. INDIANAPOLIS, WEDNESDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 2(5, 1891-TWELYE PAGES. ONE DOLLAR A YEAR.

AM DEMOCRAT.

The Genuine "Grand Old Parti'" on the Worpath. A Political Cyclone Sweeps Ihe Commonwealth. DINNAYE HEAR THE SLOGAN Senator Voorhees Opens the Fight at Terra Haute. A Great Speech by a Brilliant Orator. Governor MattbeTVs Great Meeting at Wraw-Scrflrjr Mjr-ru Ilak.es the Enemy at Hartford City IJynuiu. Brookablre, Ilrown, Cooper nnit Oilier Prominent Democrat Addre Thnnnanda mt Vnrlon Point A Great Day for the Democracy of Indiana. TF.RRE HAUTE, Sept. 22.Special. Senator Daniel V. Voorhees addre?6ed a great meeting at the armory tonight, opening the democratic campaign In this county. The large building, which was erected for the use of Company B of the Indiana legion, was packed with his fellow townsmen, who desired to hear the eloquent senator on the issues of the campaign. The night was not very propitious for a Btivet parade and th? senator's escort from the Terre Haute house to the armory was composed of the Jackson club, the permanens young men's democratic club of this city. Eeside-3 a number of prominent democrats there were many enthusiastic old soldiers who have a kindly feeling for the senator, owing to his interest in their behalf. The Ringold band headed the street parade and there were loud cheers from the crowds as the carriage containing the senator made its way to the place, of speaking. When the commanding form of the "tall sycamore of the Wabash" appeared on the platform there was a storm of applause from the great crowd. It was several minute3 before order could be restored. Sheriff Stout, chairman of the county committee, called the meeting to order and introduced State Senator William E. McLean, as chairman of tha meeting. Co'.. McLean. In his brief speech, welcomed the senator home after his ardous labors in the senate and declared that the democrats of Vigo county had buckled on their armor and were gaining fresh confidence every day. A storm of cheers greeted this statement. - - . Senator Voorhees when he arose to address the multitude seemed in better health than when he was last here and his voice, which was !n splendid condition, could be heard in all parts of the hall. His address was punctuated by enthusiastic applause. M. Voorhees said: Mr. Clialrman The theory of this government is that the people govern themselves through their representatives chosen at short Intervals, and at free, untrammeled elections. In framing and adopting the constitution under which we now live our great forefathers planted it firmly and squarely on the broad doctrine of self-government. They proclaimed to the ends of the earth heir faith in the virtue, the intelligence, and the sovereignty, not only of their own patriotic generation, but of all the generations which were to follow In this mighty republic. In this doctrine is contained the full and pure essence of American liberty. There is no power above that which has been glvea to you by the constitution. A stream can never rise higher than Its fountain. From the beginning of the present century, when Jefferson was inaugurated president, down to the present hour, the democratic party, through good and through evil report, throug-h nunshine and through storm, in peace and in war, In lt3 timed of victory, and In its times of defeat, has never failed to thus assert the power of the people, and thus Interpret the constitution. The democratic party has never recognized any control of the people except their own, nor any master except themselves. There is not an ofUclal personage in all this broad land, from your township trustee to your president at Washington, who can add to or take away one jot or tittle of your supremacy. You are the only people on the face of the globe to whom are quaranteed the Inalienable rights of man in a written constitution. You are dependent on the bounty, grace, and favor of no man, or set of men, however powerful, for your freedom of speech, your freedom of the press, your freedom of religious worship, without let or hindrance from secret and treasonable, oath-bound societies, the habeas corpus, your trial by jury, your civil supremacy over all military power, and your right to equal and exact justice before the law, whatever may be your täte or persuasion, religious or political. In thus pointing out the plentituäe of your power, and your unassailable sovereignty In the administration of your government, I have, on this occaa.'on, a , distlnot object in view. I am one of your public servants, now many years in your employment, and I fully recognize, as I have always done, the duty I owe In rendering an account, on alt proper occasions, of tha stewardship with which you have entrusted me. I also star..! today, as I have stood for more than the third of a century, for the honor, the Integrity, the Justice, the patriotism, and the triumph of the democratic party. If there are those who think this a dark hour for the great, old party of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Seymour. Hendricks, McDonald. Thurman and Cleveland. I do not agree with them on that point. I have seen dark hours in the political sky in my day and generation; I know what they look like. I have seen the clouds of comin,g disasters gathering in inky blackness low down over our head.", but it was only when the government Itself, and all Its guarantees of liberty and union, were threatened with the same overthrow and destruction which ueemed impending over the democratic party. As long as the constitution survives, the party whose charge It has aways been to maintain mat Instrument in all Its purity and strength, will survive also. When the republic it If shall fall, like- a bright ex'halatlon from the heavens to rise no mora, then and only then, will the democratic party fall. its avocation gone, and the world shrouded in gloom and despair. Eut the present is not an hour for dlamal forebodings; It U an hour rather for

rUüud dttfousslon, and for a well-1

grounded faith In the prosperity and glory of the future, arising from the sure and steady ascendency of democratic

principles. The victorious legions of the Indiana democracy, veterans of moro glorious campaigns that the legions of Caesar or Napoleon ever knew, are again in line! firm as in days of old, and ready to move forward on the enemies' works of usurpation, spoliation and oppression. The Ilesponaihility of Parties. And now, citizens of Indiana, let us take a survey of the political situation, and by the solemn light of recorded and undisputed facts, fix the responsibility of parties, and vindicate the truth. What a vision rises to our view as we look backward for the causes which have led up to the present condition of the country! A solid mas3 of republican legislation from ISol to 1893 confronts ;s. In all that space of American history, embracing the average period of a lifetime, every enactment of whatever kind or description, every law, whether by bill or joint resolution, 13 of unquestioned republican origin, pedigree, and adoption. From the first inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, on the 4th of March, 1SC1, to the last Inauguration of Grover Cleveland, on the 4th of March, 1333, the democratic party his never, for a single day or hour, had the power to put a law on the statute book3 of the nation. During all that long period the democratic party never at any one and the same time, had possession of loth houses of congress and the presidency, and was. therefore, incapable of perfecting any proposed measure of legislation. If evil influences have been abroad in the land arising from pernicious legislation, the responsibility and the odium can alono rest wh?re the power to legislate has rested. There Is a brutal and senseless spirit of accusation in certain quarter? at this time against the democratic; party, because It has not, in thn nr eihten months of Its legislative ascendancy, been able to uproot, tear down and demolish the entire system of vicious legislation whereby the republican party for more than a generation, has practically revolutionized this government, mide it a plutocracy Instead of a p-vvernmcnt of the plain people, established privilege and casta in all our public affairs: made the rich richer, and the poor poorer, aggrandized the power of capital, and ground and oppressed every organization of labor, and every branch of industry under, the American flip. I defy the Ingenuity of man to sh w wh-re, and in what Instance, the lead?r3 of the republican party ever devised, framed or enacted a financial measure of any kind Into a law which was not originated and dictated by organized capital and against labor, whether organized or unorganized. Every cr.npw.-ii m ever made by statute to the greerj and lawless avarice of thmoney power, since the spring of isni. is the werk of the party so lang in control of legislation. During the past twelve months hard times and financial distress amongst th? pe;pl? have been everywhere felt, and the responsibility for such a condition of the country has been the theme of constant, and. at times, of violent and acrimonious discussion. I challenge history on this subject. The republican pirty, by virtue of its general iinanclal policy, and the great body of its one-sided and unfair financial legislation, has been the author of every period of hard times, scarcity of money In circulation, bankruptcy, business prostration, and unemployed labor since the first ascendancy of that party to the control of the government. In th? nature of things, and tried by the Inevitable logic of events, this fact could not ba otherwise. Tha first step taken for tha creation of our national debt in 1S52 wa3 the Inception and tha establishment of the most gigantic system of fraud and oppression on taxpaylng labor, on the one hand, and of stupendous largesse, dishonest speculation and mountainous riches for thosd -who were already rich, on the other hand, ever known since governments were organized among men. Criminal injustice and chronic hard times for the laboring masses for whole generations to com? are to be found distinctly written Into the provisions of every law authorizing the existence of the public debt of the United States. From the year 1862 to 1S6S. Inclusive, the republican party caused to be Issued government bonds for more than two thousand millions of dollars, nearly all bearing 6 per cent. Interest, and managed to put them on the market at an average of about fifty cents on the dollar, and in sums to suit, and tempt the cowardly, unpatriotic, hoarded capital of the country. American labor and American resources have paid these bonds, and are sUll paying them at their full face value, dollar for dollar, together with Interest, not merely on what the government realized on them, but upm the whole sum nominated. In order to accomplish this vast, far-reaching scheme f spallation and robbery, the currency of the country, the only kind of money which stood the test and carried the government in triumph through the war, was dishonored, discredited, d.sgraced by being made nonreceivable for customs dues and Interest on bonds, while it was made receivable in Its depreciated condition in the purChase of bonds themselves. In this mode of financial juggling the leaders of the republican party, at the very beginning of their career, more than doubled the public d?bt rightfully owed by the American people; compelled the men, women and children of the United States to bo taxed on all their wants and nwesslties of life In order to raise revenue with which to pay enormous sums of money, never received by the government in the hour of its deadly peril. And yet the leaders of this same party are now engaged in charging upon others their own manifest iniquities, the oppression of labor on farm lands, and in workshops, the devastating panic and the vicious inequalities In the burdens and the blessings of the govern ment, which have inevitably attended such a fraudulent beginning, and which, from thno to time, have broken out like pestilence In the air and cursed the homes of the laboring people throughout the whole land. Estimated on an honest basis of money actually received for our bonds, our national debt has been paid by the people nearly three times over, and still payment continues. I do not need to be reminded in this connection that I am bringing up some of the old anl leading points of former political contests, nor need you be reminded that it is absolutely necessary to do so. In order to display. In a brief and campact form, the hldeous financial policy of the republican party from the opening of Its career to the present hour. Uoundless money, wealth untold, unlimited possessions, beside whose dazzling splendors the riches of Solomon become Insignificant and beggarly, have been poured by all the powers, tricks and chicanery knowu to corrupt legislation Into the millionaire laps of the privileged few. while for the tolling, producing classes a contracted currency, a stinted, meager circulating medium, a constant scarcity of money, less per capita in actual use by the people and in the channels of trade than In any other civilized country, have always been, and are now. the only fruits of the financial policy of the republican party ever tasted by the sunburnt millions who toll. Scarcity of money in circulation in the hands of the people mean scarcity of employment, cheap labor, low wages, low prices for the produce of labor, property at forced sales, and at half price with which to pay debts. Who has the hardihood to deny that these results and all their accompanying evils are the direct offspring of the financial policy which has cursed thi country for the last thirty-two years, and which has Its fangs still fastened In the resources and the labor of this republic-. Hard times hard times for the millions who cultivate farms, for those who are engaged in honest trad? and traffic as business men in the towns, villages and cities of tha Mississippi valley and everywhere

else under the American flag for the wage-earning hosts anxious for employment hard times for all these industrious multitudes Is now a living, burning issue darkening their homes with haggard care, and often with tears of anguish. The hard times of the last eighteen months, so ruthless and unsparing on labor and the frult3 of labor, were of a piece with all the other and similar periods of distress in the past, and were produced by the same causes, and the same policy and machinery which have so often heretofore wrought calamity to the toiling millions and to the best interests of this country, under the malignant auspices of the republican party. The fact that the amount of money in actual existence i3 less than the active business interests of the country demand is a most oppressive evil, but the power of money centers and of money organizations to contract the currency without limit or restraint, to virtually strip the country of the money It so much needs, and to hoard It away for purposes of usury and speculation, is perhaps the blackest and most pernicious crime provided for in the whole body of republican financial legislation. This vicious machination of republican law-makers, surrendering every Interest of the people to the control of financial corporations, authorizing them to contract the currency and to deprive the country of its circulating medium whenever the hardened villainy of avarice desires to make huge profits, may be properly styled the giant national curse of the age in which we live. No deep, dark, rotten, miasmatic fen or swamp was ever more certain to propagate death-dealing malaria than is the power of money contraction. lodged In the hands of private greed, to blight and destroy the general welfare of the country. The Idea here presented is an appalling one. No other government within the boundaries of civilization, as far as I can learn, has ever committed to private parties the power to make money plenty or to make money scarce; times easy or times hard; create business prosperity or business bankruptcy; the power, in fact, to circulate the government's own currency, or to withhold it from circulation, at such times and under such circumstances, and in such amounts, as will inure to the benefit of private speculation and personal giin rather than to the public interest. Yet such is exactly the terrible power wherewith the republican party has endowed the great money corporations of the country, and such is the fatal power they have so often called Into disastrous action. A short time ago a claim was put forth by certain worthy gentlemen that they could cruise the cloud to gather in the sky and the ruin to fall at their own will and pleasure. They were self-styled rain-makers, but their claim ha been discredited by the civilized world, and we still look to Ulm who causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust, and according to times and seasons set by divine wisdom. No such doubt or discredit, however, will ever be cast upon the open claim made by organized capital, in the control of banks and o;her corporations, that within the space of thirty days it can paralyze the business of the country, drive labor out of employment, and in the midst of prosperity create a destructive panic. Nor will any one fama'.iar with the record ever call in question the well-earned title of the republican party as the only great and prolific panic-breeder of the latter half of the nineteenth century. The leaders of that plutocratic party are now vehement In charging the responsibility of the panic of the last year and a half to their political adversaries. The panic of 1873. created by the destruction of silver and the enormous contraction of the currency in circulation, and which during the five years It lasted destroyed mora of the accumulated values ef property and more of the values of productive labor than all the cyclones, earthquakes and volcanoes of the earth put together in the same length of time, might as well be charged to the democratic party as the panic of 1S93. The truth is. as Impartial history will record, that for the last thirty years every species of financial oppression, every Instance of business trouble, every period of pecuniary distress, every active Influence for evil and unnatural disturbances In the channels of trade, every discrimination against honest Industry, and in favor of Idle, hoarded, interest-eating- capital, every huge. Implacable trust, whether In sugar, whisky, coal, lumber or salt, every grinding monopoly of whatever kind or description, every corrupt, gigantic corporation, combination, syndicate or pool known to consolidated wealth and educated villainy, every cruel, dishonest reduction of wages, every malignant denial of justice to organized labor, every strike thrust upon laboring men and women to be put down by force in the interest of corporation wealth, every life lost In such conflicts, and every tear and sob and groan in the humble homes of enslaved toil, throughout all the states of the American union, are as directly chargeable and traceable to the bad laws fastened on the American people by the republican party as the bitter waters of a polluted spring are to the poisonous fountains from which they flow. No other answer can "b? jrlverr. Those to whom all power has been granted must stand responsible for all that has happened. If at this po-int some faithful republican, still believing in his party from prejudice, not from reason, should point to the progress and apparent prosperity of the country under the auspices of the republican party, my answer to him is ready, and is twofold In character. In the first place, whatever of progress, development and power has been displayed In the past generation by the American people has been in spite of the hindrance of bad laws and not because of the assistance of good ones. We have sprung forward like a giant In the great race of nations, not by reason of wise policies, r Just and upright legislation, but rather from the fact that we belong to the strongest and most dominating branch of the human family, that the Anglo-Saxon blood in our veins never stays In the rear, but always goes to the front, however adverse the circumstances may bo. In the second place, however, I explicitly deny that a true condition of healthy, natural, general prosperity exists at ail In this country at the present time, or that it Is possible for such a condition ever to exist under a financial policy which bridles and saddles the masses, the laboring multitudes, in order that they may be ridden with spur and whip by the privileged few. There are, indeed, enormous accumulations of wealth now ire this country, vast consolidations of capital, mountain ranges of riches, quickly piled up as it were by some unnatural magfe, or some incantation of ths black art, but boundless wealth, however great, when contracted Into a few narrow circles, and reduced to the possession of a few very limited, exclusive and favored classes, while the great body of the people are shut out from any part in Its ownerShip or enjoyment and doomed to remain in comparative poverty, does not constitute the prosperity of a nation; on the contrary, it is an overwhelming, glantic curse which has never failed, in all the annals of history, to prove fatal to free government. Such Is the dangerous condition which now blights the prosperity and threatens the liberties of the American people. We behold In a few great money centers, and In the hands of protected millionaires, the dazzling splendors of more than Babylonish riches, luxury, corruption and scarlet iniquity, and then turning to the mighty regions of corn, wheat, cattle, hogs and all there is of agricultural production from seaboard to seaboard, throughout all our teeming valleys, and up and down nil our marvelous Tiver bottoms, we behold them in a state of business stagnation, their Inhabitants struggling wim debt, in financial embarrassment and distress every day,

with less th'an one dollar in circulation in their midst, where five dollars ara ( imparatively needed. Neither wealth j nor any species of zcVA prosperity -can , attend the laboring classes when thus j deprived of th? means of .transacting J

business and cursed by low prices ror all the productions of thMr daily toil. Four years ago I heard Henry M. Teller of Colorado, one of the ttbiest and most reliable men I ever met in -public life, declare on the floor of the senate, that one-half the entire wealth "of this, the richest country on the globe," as he styled it, was owned by not more than one hundred thousand people. Estimating our entire population at C5.000,000 this email and favored squad of millionaires and mulü-milllorraires bear the proportion of one person to every six hundred and fifty men, women and children in the United States. It may also be safely asserted that those who actually own one-half the wealth of this country will, through the power of trusts, monopolies and far-reaching corporations, to a very groat extent, manag? and control the other half. This enormous and frightful Inequality in the distribution rf wealth amongst the different classe3 of our people Is the darkest omen In our sky; it portends social and political revolution, at no great diätanc? in the future, wherein a moneyed aristocracy will be recognized, a titled nobility have birth, lords, barrons, dukes, earls and princes be created in honor of the colossal estates they already possess, while the busyhanded, tolling millions who eat bread in the sweat of their faces will have their rank as hewerä of wood and drawers of water only a little more distinctly defined than at present, and be left to bear the brunt of every discrimination against themselves, their wives and their children as they do now. To those who assume that the people of the United Stute have been nurtured Into prosperity by the policies of the republican party, I would also commend a careful study of a recent census bulletin on the subject of mortgage. There are, accord inj to this official publication. 12, 000,152 families in the United States, and that less than one-half of them own their hemes, whether living In towns or 4n the country. While the majority of them are ten'ants and pay rent to landlords. The number of famili?3 living in the country is put down at 4,076,179. and the statement is made that thirty-three of every one hundred of these farmers do not own their homes, and of those who do have titles to them, 2S per cent., twenty-eight in every one hundred, have b?en compelled tr encumber their homes with mortgages in ordr to raise money on which to live and to transact business. It is shown that. Jan. 1, 1890, there were 4,777,i;.S'J mortgages in force in the United ritate3 to secure the payment of private debts amounting to the appalling sum of $J,017,67'J,585, and this, without including a single railroad mortgage, or any other corporation indebtedness. Tlie annual interest paym?nt on these mor:gags debts is stated as $397,412.72, an amount fur more than euiTUient to meet all the expenses of the federal government, with the exception of pens-'n-ns to our soldiers and their widows. It is, indeed, a striking and en awful fact that the private debt3 of the American people secured by mortgages on their h.omes and onother real estate constituted a sum in 1:0 three times as great as the entire public debt of the country. It is ofilcially shown that all the public debts in the United States put together at that tim. Including national, state, county, F.hool and municipal obligations amounted to 52.027.170,545 as against over six thou:and millions, which, as I have shown, the people owe on private account and for which they have executed mortgages bearing an averag? rate of more than 6 per cent, interest. Nor will any intelligent man pretend that the condition-of the people has been bettered by legislation in the last four years; on the contrary, their burdens have grown heavier, their debts have increased, prices for their produce and wag?s for their work have gone down instead of going up, until today there t- anxiety, care, hard times and deep depression1 in every home of labor, whe-t'her on farms or in workshops, in all this broad and fruitful land. The Condition of the Country "When Con arena Met. My fellow-citizens, I have thus far, and at some length, dwelt on the evil results which have followed bad laws; first, for the purpose- of placing party responsibility where It belongs, and second, in order to portray the trte condition of the country as it was when the democratic party succeeded to power and entered upon Its proclaimed mission of reform. When the Fifty-third congress was called together in August, 1893, the McKinley tariff law for the protection and enrichment of a limited number of American citizens by the plain and distinct robbery of all others, was by no means the only monster evil that confronted us and demanded prompt and herolo treatment. The treasury was practically bankrupt to begin with. This faot was not then generally known, which was most fortunate. The best protection the public credit had at the close of Harrison's administration was net in its financial resources or skillful management, but in the want of knowledge, on the part of the public, as to the real financial condition in which his party left the government. It has been definitely learned since and publicly stated on the. floor of the senate, and not denied, that in the last few weeks prior to the 4th of March, 1&93. all necessary preparation, including plates for engraving, were made by the expiring administration for the Issuance of bonds, with the proceeds of which to eke out the expenses of the government: that Harrison himself at last faltered and allowed the treasury to be turned over to the incoming administration practically empty. lie had received it from his democratic predecessor four years before, full, with a surplus, but under a system of tariff taxation which was for the protection of private gain and not for the public revenue, it now contained but a beggarly balance, if any balance at all, to the credit of the government. Never before in the history of this or any other government under constitutional restraints, has there been known In time of peace such a rapid disappearance of public money and such a failure of public revenue. Nor will It ever be forgotten that it was during the period of Harrison's term as president, when the Fifty-first congress, republican to the core In both branches, broke all previous records of profligacy in American history by appropriating: a thousand million of dollars for public expenditures. The very spirit of riotous extravagance had seLzed upon the party then in power and dominated all its councils, its methods and its public conduct. The Sherman Act. The stability of the public credit was also menaced by vicious legislation onthe subject of silver, as well aa by the plunder of the treasury and the destruction of revenue by the doctrine of protection. More than twenty years ag'o the great, and unforg-iven, and unforgiveable crime of fiiver demonetization took place at the hands of the republican party and, although afterward partially restored, yet from that time to the present hour, silver money, Instead of being treated in the money world as it is in the constitution, as the constitutional coequal of gold as a standard of currency, has been kept in a maimed and crippled condition, spurned, clubbed and stoned at every opportunity by those interested in the contractfon of currency to the narrow basis of gold alone. It has heen seized upon by Its enemies and made to appear as a disturbing: 'element cn all

possible occasions, in order to bring it into general disrepute. When, In 1S30, a bill was pending btfore congress and had passed the senate by sixteen majority, for the cr aaga of silver on equal terms and conditions with gold, a Juggling compromise was brought forward by Senator Sherman, the ablest arch enemy to silver money in the United States, avowedly to defeat the bill for its coinage, and in an evil moment the senators and representative of states having silver bullion to sell, accepted the termsoffered by the senator from Ohio. The result of this ill-omened agreement between the crafty enemies and the overcredulous friends of silver, was the Sherman act, eo 'tersely denounced by the democratic national convention at Chicago in June, 1S92 "as a cowardly makeshift, fraught with possibilities of danger in the future, which should make all its supporters, as well as its author, anxious for its speedy repeal." This measure was spurious and insincere In its inception and in the object at which it ostensibly aimed. It had no other purpose than the defeat of the coinage of silver, and that being done, the senator from Ohio did not hesitate to declare that he stood ready every hour after the compromise wa3 effected to vote for its repeal. This compromise, as it is sometimes called, the Sherman act as it is better known, denied to the producers of silver the right to its coinage at the mints, but provided in lieu thereof for th? purchase of 4,500.000 ounces cf Fllver bullion per month. It is a pleasure to find from the record that no democratic vote was cast for this piece of fraudulent legislation. I call it fraudulent for many reasons, and palpably so, because its author and all his fololwers were willing and anxious from start to finish to break the compact, as soon as it had answered their purpose; they were eager to repeal the consideration on which the compromise wa. made, and to leave their victims of misplaced confidence from the Tacifle coast and the mountain states empty-handed, with neither the privilege to coin their silver nor to sell it even as a mercantile commodity. In making silver an article of traffic, on a level with corn, wheat, cotton, tobacco and other productions for sale, instead of stamping It with the Inviolable authority of the government, as one of its precious metals, of course, there could be but one result to its rank and power, as one of the heretofore honored and always conEtitullonal moneys of the American people. Silver money staggered and fell under such a blow, and when congress convened on the 7th day of August, 1833, the first, the sharpest and most imperative call to patriotic action came from an impoverished treasury, a deranged currency of unequal values and a paralyzed circulation. The Sherman act had become the means to an end with the money Jobbers of the world. It placed th; credit and the resources of the government at the mercy of the money hark- of Europe, as well as of the United States. The gold reserves held in the treasury be?an to melt away, while financial disorder and finally a most flagrant panic held hleh carnival In our midst. I drew the bill which repealed the Sherman act, but while removing that admitted obstruction to the general welfare, I was careful to substantially reassert the democratic national platform of 1SD2, wherein it is declared that "we hold to the use of both and silver as the standard money of the country, and to the coinage of both gold and silver without discriminating against either metal, or charge fo mintage, but the dollar mint of coinag3 for both metals must be of equal intrinsic or unchangeable value, or be adjusted through international agreement, or by such safeguards of legislation as shall insure the maintenance of the parity of the two metals, and the equal power of every dollar at all times in the markets and in the payment of debts; and we demand that all paper currency shall be kept at par with and redsemable In such coin." Speaking at the time in my place In the eenate I made the following statement, and from it I never expect to depart: "As a firm, unfaltering believer In bimetallism, and as an undeviating supporter of the coinage and use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country, wirhout di5crimlnatlng against either metal. I voted agalnat the passage of the Sherman act. and for the sama reason I shall vcta for Its repeal. The outcry In certain quartos at this time that these who vote for the repeal of this measure are enemies of silver as money and in favor of its demonetization Is not only fal.se. so far as I am concerned, but in the light of w'hat has happened in the past, it is absurd. "Beginning with the first speech I made in this body and down to the present hour I can recall r.o vote or word on the subject of the coinage and circulation of silver which I would now change or blot from the record If I could. And now In this, the darkest day ever known for silver amongst civilized people since Abraham, the Hebrew pr'.nce, paid 400 shekels, "current money with the merchant," for a resting place for the beloved Sarah, I avow my unshaken faith that It will remain forever one of the world's great and potential factors of finance, commerce, traffic and daily business transactions. "It will never be demonetized nor driven away from the habitations cf the laboring masses of mankind. It has come down to us from immemorial ages, and it will continue to exist as one of the precious metals, upholding the , credit of nations and bringing blefsing.s to the sons and daughters of toil when the scenes through which we are now passing have grown dim in the light and progress of distant centuries. I shall vote to re-peal the Sherman act as I would remove a dead fly from a box of sweet ointment: as I would abate a nuisance and wipe out an obstruction to rational, wholesome legislation. It taints and vitiates our entire financial system, and destroys confidence In all business transactions every hour it remains a part of our laws. Often the question has been asked whether a vote should be given for its unconditional repeal, or whether, before it goes, something in the way of a substitute must be agreed upon to take Its place. "I would at once eradicate this confessed evil, this universally condemned enactment from the body of our laws, with n-5 other condition than my right and free agency to support and to secure, in connection with its repeal or afterward by an Independent measure, as the success of its Immediate repeal, the primary duty of the hour may at the time dictate a eound financial system, embracing the coinage of Silver on an equality with gold. In making this statement I only repeat the declaration of the democratic party In national convention at Chicago in June, 1S92, and on whlcii the American people restored to the presidency one of the strongest, ablest, purest and most patrlo-tic characters ever known In American history." W hat the Democratic Party Has Done. After a severe and protracted struggle and much vexatious delay, occasioned by the mLseraibly defective rules of the senate, this republican nuisance and standing menace to the business of the country was removed, the purchasing clause of the Sherman act was repealed. For some months past you hare often heard the Encoring and somewhat idiotic inquiry as to what the democratic party has done since it came into power. I would say in all kindness to our republican friends, that we have been engaged thus far, day and night, and to the point of utter exhaustion, both physical and mental at times, in undoing and reforming the wretched and dangerous work you left when the people rose in their majesty and turned you out. The aulhor of the Sherman act himself, and every leading republican, newspaper organ in the

United States, denounced it as fraug-nt with business ruin, and clamored to Mr. Cleveland's administration for its Instant repeal. The next great achievement of the democratic party, irt the crder of events as they occurred In the Fifty-third congress, was to wipe out a system of feleral election laws. fastened upon the country by the republican party more than a quarter of a cen-'.ury ago a system inimical to liberty, an impeachment of the people's capacity for self-government, an invasion of natural and inalienable rights more odious and indefensible than the British stamp act against which our fathers took up arms more rh.in a hundred years ago. I will not dwell at this time and place on the repeal of thi federal election law3 further Chan to rejoice with you that the gleam of tlie bayonet, nor the threat that it is coming, will ever again be eeen or heard in U.e sacred preeincts of the American ballotbox. We may also rejoice with an exceeding great joy that corrupt Judges on the federal bench, partisan marshals and their disreputable deputies, with incidental straw bail, will never any mora i:i Indiana, or In any other state, polute popular elections or overthrow the fundamental principles of free government. When soma one again asks what tha democratic party has done in the past year It can be answered that, amongst other great deeds, it has restored the freedom of the ballot-box and the purity of the elective franchise. In fact the whole body of the public servlca was so filled, crammed and choked up with partisan, corrupt and; unpatriotic legislation during the long ascendency of the republican party that the task of reform aypears on every hand and wherever we turn. When I look out on the vast and difficult work to be done, the extensive reformations required be for a the government can again yield harvests of prosperity and happiness o the people, I am sometimes reminded of an old farm which for many year3 has been in bad hands and has ceased to be productive of wholesome crop?. Its fields will be found breeding briars, brambles, poison vines, thistle, cockle burs, heggar lice, gympson weeds, dog fennel, smart gras, skunk cabbage and yellow-Jackets nesis. Old snags and ugly stumps also cumber such fields and hinder the work of the plow and destroy the patience of the plowman. When a farm la this condition has the good fortune to get a change of ownership and to pa.ss Into the hands of a skillful and honest farmer, you would hardly expect him to clean out all its noxious obstructions and put it in perfect order for corn, wheat, oats, hay and clover in a single season. You would grant him nt le.ist two or three years to overcome tha evils with which hi.s farm was afflicted before he took possession. The benefit of this illustration, and the 5 me indulgence you would extend to the farmer in hi- work of agricultural reform, are all I ask fr the democratic party in. its present attitude. We have begun our work nob'.y and well; much has been done and yet much more remains for us to do before all tha foul growth In, the political tieids for more than thirty years past can be entirely extirpated. The Tariff. At this point, however, I shall take up for consideration the last and most determined work of democratic reform. The repeal of the McKinley act, when all the circumstances and conditions art calmly considered, will be found to have been the most stupendous struggle against power and consolidated cipital ever made bffore in American history. Protected millions without limit rallied to the defense of that infamous act, as troopä rally at the call of the bugle when a fortress, or a cltidel is in darger. Never did the greatest gamblers in human events play, for a bigger stake in actual money and in the power of money for future domination than the robber barons of protection, and their henchmen, the leaders of the republican party, in their flrce, undying opposition to the repeal of that colossal engine of fraud prepared for them four years ago for their enrichment and power, at the expense of every honest principle known to free government. The accursed spirit of avarice was around and alarmed as never before in American history. The love of riches, as an exclusive pursuit, is the strongest, as well as the basest passion of the human soul, and dang-r of los3 has more of terror In it to sordid avarice than an assault on life itself. The whole doctrine of protection was at stake in the movement for the repeal of the McK'niey act. and I here proclaim that the backbone of the protective pytem is broken in this country forever, that it may drag itself along in a cripple! and lingering condition yet for a short time, but it Is doomed to a speedy and total extinction. The passage of the McKinley act In 1S90 was the culmination of that system by which taxes are levied on one class of people for the benefit cf another class, and It was so shameless, arrogant and insolent in all its features, 0 revolutionary, unjust and oppressive In its exactions on labor, and the fruits of labor, that it became at once a trumpet call to battle for Its repeal, and for the final overthrow of the ildoous principle of legislative piracy on which it was based. Popular resentment aroe like a spontaneous flam? against a measure so unrighteous, so subversive of the inherent rigats of man. Xo enactment in American history has ever been more odious to the American people than the McKinley law of tariff taxation. Not even the fugitive slave law of IS.'.O was held in greater abhorrence and detc.-ta-tlon throughout the North than this measure of wickedness and extortion throughout the whole country. The provocation given by the McKinley enactment broke the patlene of the American people, and In attacking and destroying the measure itself, they demand that the doctrine of Its construction shall be wiped out and come back to troublo them no more. The great and primary oliject of tariff reform is the abolition of tariff duties os. the wants and necessaries of life, as far as can be done with safety to the revenues for the support of the government. It follows, therefore, that legislation which from legitimate sources tupplies revenue and furnishes the treasury with funds for public use, without laying taxes on the wearing apparel of the plain people, or increasing the cost of the beJa they sleep on, or of the knives and forks with which they eat, must bo halld a wise statesmanship, genuine reform, and a. rich benefaction to the laboring classes. In view of this fact, universally conceded, I do not hesitate to declare that the bill which passed both houses of confess, and became a law on the 2Sth day of August, 1894, whatever its other merits or defects may be. will do mere in the aggregate toward the Inevitable reduction of duties, and consequently will make a longer stride In the direction of freedom In trade and commerce than any other measure ever enacted into law by the American congress. WWU repealing the McKinley act we provided that at least thirty millions a year should be collected hereafter from people who have good, net incomes, rather than from people who have nothing but their wants and their labor with which to meet them. What is this, but a transfer of taxation for the support of the government from the laboring poor to the Idle and comfortable rich? What is It but a relief from high, protection, and a direct and powerful blow to the whole protective system? On the floor of the renate I said: "The proposition contained In the pending bill to levy a tax of 2 per ciiit. on all net incomes of corporations and of Individuals In excess of $4,000 per annum is so Just and equitable toward the hardworking tax-payers of meager resources throughout the entire country that not a word in its defense or explanation would seem necessary here or anywhere else. But the narrow and corroding selfishness of riches has been aroused by tnu simple

measure of Justice into fierce resentment and contention. We hear on all hands the dictatorial voice of individual and corporation wealth demanding that it shall not be disturbed by the slightest touch of the tax-gatherer, whatever may be the demands of the government, or the oppression of the toiling masses. "On all the wants and necessaries of lifs the man of wealth, with a heavy income, pay? less rates of tariff tax under exifting laws than the laboring m,n or laboring woman wh-i-e wear'i:g apparel is of coarser material, and whose household livinff Is nippl.ed v ith chiap-r goods bearing higher rates of duty. Ills bonds, his accumulated ilches of all kind", and all In comea e rising frn.-n them, are exempt from t-ll government burdens, remaining not only diminished and unmolested amidst darkened homes and flagrant distress, tut growing fatter, stroi.Krr and more defiant as the days and the ye;;rs go by. He who has spent his life in making an amassment of wealth looks out upon the poor, tired, toiling world as if ir.-m a fortified castle. He feels himself sumptuously provisioned against all wants, and amply protected against all contact or concern with tho labor-stained milLons who struggle frora one ocean to the other for the means ot existence. "The commissioner of Internal revenus In a recent communication to the way and means ooiiimittee of th house estimates the present population of ths United States at not l?j than 6j,000.Ou0, and the wealth of the country at $C5,000.000,000, or an avt-rage of 11,000 per capita. If there was an equal distribution. His further estimate, however, Is that so great has been the condensation of capital into the ownership of a spoill and powerful clars tht the tax bers proposed cn net incomes of ever I4.0C9 will reach only about t5.000 ludlvtduahi and (orpcratiovis out of the more tha CifiiO.'i'io who now inhibit this land cf b-wipteJ llherty and equality. "These figures may well give the country pause. They recall the worst days cf Rfm. and of other governments, both; ancient end m:d-rn. v, he liberties wer lost by the a ecu mu kit ion and power of wealth in the hands of patriclxn arts toeracies. How i-mull In number Is thm income class In the United States, yet how p tent! llnv few in comparison with the great l..dy of the ppople, but little mure than one in a thousand, yet how nggres.-Ivo and strr.gl How- pretentions, h-:w j i esa:i.r ticus in dictation to the government in regard lo all p Ildes, yet ii"'.v unpatriotic in the hour of peril, how mean in the face of danger to the country! The Income lass, based upon the principal ownership of the entire wealth of the .cunlry, is nuiinly tne illegitimate oiT.-prinr: of government paU-rn.ilship anl government support. yet neither gratitude n r 1 -ve of country h;i3 ever ir. vc l it to respond in aid of the gMVcnmv n: in an hour of emergency and need. l"r.-:n no other class could th payment of the whole pension roll be reel u I red so j'iMly. "I am loth to say these things, but so destructive to human happiness, so unjust, rrlcnil.se, unsparing, insolent and brutal has been the money pwer in these later clays, and indeed for years past, that rath-r than leave them unsaid I would cheerfully leave my seat on this floor to be occupied by someone else." If all other classes of men and women in the United States can fubmlt to the laws of their country on the subject of taxation there Is no reason to my mind why the owner of a net Income of over $4,o00 a year should fall to obey. A man with a larg? fortune has more need of protection by law than his impoverished neighbor; hence, he owes more to the support and enforcement of the law. It is pure and si mple equity that he should pay a tax on his realized wealth in return- for the government care and protection against lawlessness, which he incessantly claims and which is incessantly b?stowed. Why should such a system be stigmatized as un-American, undemocratic? What Is there In our system of government, or in the democratic principles on which i: is founded, that exempts the rich from contributing to its support according to their means? Those in poverty have done this; why not those who have a net rurplus of wealth, at the end cf the year? Is Justice unAmerican? Is equality before the law and in enjoyment of natural rights undemocratic? T"he firt income tax known to hitory was of a higher origin "than aught assigned to earth," nor was it a feather-weifht enactment such as w now propose. For the support of hi own government among the children of men in the beginning the Supreme Ruler of the universe tithed his whole people taxed them one-tenth of their entire possessions; nor did sta'Jesmeii and law-givers of the school of Moses, Aaron and Joshua and of Abraliam Isaac and Jacob denounce its xrinclples, or threaten It with criminal violation. From that high and ancient day to the present time a tax cn incomes has been no novelty or mer? experiment in tho history of government. Such a tax hoi always been regarded as a measure of relief to the laboring classes, while at the same time inflicting no Injustice on thope best able to pay it. and having the greatest interest in th fftability of government and the supremacy of law. IJut in the effort we made to breai down tariff duties by supplying the government with revenue from other sources we did not stop with the income tax. The increased taxation of whisky from 00 cents to a -doJlar and ten cents per gallon was a favorit measure with all except protectionists, the whisky trust and other holders of whisky who wanted to be let alone. Protectionists have never failed, T9 matter to which party they belong, to antagonize the collection of money for government support by means of our internal revenue system. They do not want taxes paid on incomes, on whisky, on beer, on tobacco, on playing cards and the like. Their system is to raise all tho revenue the government needs and to protect manufacturing monopolies In plundering the people of illimitable millions besides, by "blockading our ports against the trad? of the world by shutting out competition from abroad which would cheapen everything to the purchaser toere by turning over our home markets to private, exclusive greed and by compelling- consumers to pay, as the statistics show, for ail articles necessary to life amongst laboring people, from 23 to 20 per cent, more than they are worth, and more than thry could be bought for if trade was free. Hence, the doctrine of protection for the rich and oppression for the poor the republican doctrine of protection which has been so justly denounced as a robbery and a fraud always shows its ravenous teeth at th mention of free trade and fights to the death every step in that dlrt-et'.on. "When It was discovered that the bill, which has recently beccme a law, ths senat? bill if you choose to call it so, made provision for a reduction of over seventy millions a year duties on Imports by placing -a tax on incomes and an Increased tax on distilled Fpiriis, which together will more than e-oual that flnui'nt, every clear-lighted protectionist from Maine to California knew its fatal meaninr to hU policy of rapine and Injustice. The present abl and very efllcient commissioner of lnw ternal revenue authorizes me to mt tifat he will col'.et ev ry d i"ar coming to- the government under the increased whisky tax of SI. 10 a gallon as certainly nnd as readily a he has heretofore collected the tax of cunts a gallon, and that it is a safe estimate, after the fir-t year, that over one hundred end tea millions will oe poured anpually Into the treasury from this tax alone, which touches not one of the nccs-dtles r natural wants of human existence. This Is a stupendous fact, impoisible to be ovcrc-tlnutcd. The in