Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1901 — POLITICS OF THE DAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POLITICS OF THE DAY

Republicans and the Negro. When the Democrats of Maryland made the race question an issue in the pending campaign the Republican press of the North protested with vigor and gave the impression that the Republican convention would accept the challenge. The party which has never neglected an opportunity to proclaim its disinterested love of the negro might jn truth have been expected to rally to his defense when the Democrats of Maryland made him an issue. Not so, however. In the course of a long and tiresome platform lauding all things Republican and denouncing all things Democratic, these so-called Republican friends of the negro did not find space for a syllable of protest. Oh, shade of the fallen, oh, genius sublime. Great friend of the negro from Africa’s clime; Alas, how low he lies! While the Republican papers of the North were dancing the old Republican Jig upon the grave of secession and waving the bloody shirt with accustomed vigor, their party oh the scene of conflict, with characteristic cowardice, refused to burden itself with the defense of negro suffrage. But for the purpose of Justifying the ludicrous hypocrisy of Northern Republicans in the North the chairman of the convention, in his speech, dropped generalities for a moment to give one weak, limping paragraph to the negro question. By merely stating that the negro population of Maryland is not sufficiently large to endanger white domination he justified white people of other States, in which the conditions were reversed, In their discrimination against the blacks. This Republican of Maryland, then, takes issue with the Republicans of the North, who denounce disfranchisement under all circumstances. It is really too bad that the Southern Republicans cannot rise to the level of their Northern brethren. The Maryland Republicans then admit their Impotency in this matter. The Louisville Courier-Journal, always trustworthy concerning local political conditions in the South, declares editorially: ‘The Republicans in Maryland have evidently been content to assume mere opportunist positions. They have net the courage of their convictions. They have made bad use of the power which they obtained by Democratic divisions, and their object is to obscure the real issues in the hope of retaining some Democratic votes. In this respect the resemblance between the plan of campaign in Maryland and in Kentucky will not escape attention. In both States it is to the interest of the people to intrust the management of their affairs to the party which, everything considered, represents the better elements of the population. If the truth and the whole truth were only known it would show that the race problem is sectional and not political. The Republican party has never dared to go to the defense of the negro in the Southern States. Why? Because Jt would lose votes. Thus we have Republican cowardice exposed.—lndianapolis Sentinel.

Dancer Ahead. “Sound finance,” In the opinion of Wall street and its, organs, has resolved Itself into the theory that the people have to be supplied with money not by the mints, but by the paper mills on a bank-bills-based-on-bonda plan. In the past sixteen months GO6 national banks have been organized, 437 w(th a capital less than $50,000. These institutions are issuing notes galore upon which they are drawing interest, as well as interest upon the bonds which they have put up for secqrlty. These notes are not Ip tended to be “redeemed,” and as a matter of fact are never “redeemed” unless a bank goes into liquidation. The system that puts flie making of the money of the people Into the bands of private corporations is undemocratic and dangerous. It is a system against which the Democratic party has always set Its face, and which has been denounced and protested against from the days of Jefferson until the present day. It is a system which requires a public debt as a basis, a debt that the Democratic party has always held Is a calamity and a curse, a perpetual blight upon honest industry and productive labor. Those who to-day are back of this system and scheming for Its supremacy are men holding the same views held by the men Thomas Jefferson warned the people against, who he declared were seeking to establish “a single (and centralized) splendid founded on banking institutions an«r moneyed incorporations, riding and ruling over the plundered plowman and beggared yeomanry.” If the people shall submit to the establishment of this system of “sound finance,” as the supreme money-<mak> fhg power, they will rue the day. It is the appropriate agent of the stockjobbing Interests, Increasing the unjust advantages which these already possess. It Is a system to that which has caused the degradation of labor In Europe, and Is the foundation of a great moneyed monopoly in absolute supremacy over the business,lnterests of the country that adopts It. We can endurs the system as It now exists, perhaps, although It naturally assumes political character and Influ-

ence that are dangerous; but if th® scheme Is made complete, and sliver coin and treasury notes are abandoned as money, and the entire business of the money supply turned over to these corporations, we may look for manifold evils thtot will destroy a government of the peQble, for the people and by the people, and substitute one of the banks, for the banks and by the banks. They will become the regulators of business and of prices, will make the laws, and will found “a splendid government” in which the moneyed corporations will rule and ride rough shod over the common people. Against such a consummation the Democratic party has always labored and should continue to labor. Far better a flood of “free silver” than a flood of bank bills based on bonds.—lllinois Register.

Politic* and the Trusts. Every day it becomes more imperative that some step should be taken to check the trust movement which threatens the Industrial freedom of the people. Since the last election these combinations have multiplied with alarming rapidity and conducted themselves with an audacity unparalleled in American history. Four months ago the press considered the organization of a trust as worthy of Sensational headlines, but their formation has become so commonplace of late that no especial notice is taken. The prospects aro that within a short time a majority of the railroads will be consolidated under one management. When the trust element has secured control of the transportation facilities—and such is its intention—the business man and farmer will be completely subservient to its will. The people are confronted with one or two alternatives. Either they must find some method whereby the trust may be eradicated, or they must acquiesce in the destruction of their industrial liberty. Considering the intelligence of the American people, we are Justified in the inference that they prefer the eradication of the evil to its acceptance. The question then occurs: To what source shall they look for the means for its eradication? There is absolutely no hope from the Republican party. The trust principle, after all, is but the Republican principle applied to economics. It has developed during the period of Republican supremacy and largely as the result of Republican legislation. No serious effort has ever been made to retard its progress. On the contrary, every effort in that direction has been resented by the Republican machine. The socialists represent the very opposite extreme. Their solution would completely revolutionize society. There is reason to believe that the remedy would be as bad as the disease. The Socialist convention of last week clearly demonstrated the incapacity of the Socialists as a reform party. If any solution is to be offered, It must emanate from the Democratic party. By its very nature it is opposed to the trust principle—that of concentration. It has tbe conservatism of sauity and is as radical as justice. It has received no tribute from the trusts and has no debts to pay. It is free to act.

Thus the hope of the nation depends upon the possibility of Democratic success before these abnormal monopolies become too firmly imbedded In law and precedent. One of the most prominent planks of the next Democratic platform will promise salutary legislation along this line. There will be no reason to doubt the sincerity of the declaration. And if Intrusted with the government of the nation there will be every reason to hope for the eradication of all combinqjlona which have tor their purpose the destruction of competition.—lndianapolis Sentinel. What la the Duty For? The American i»eople were taxed a cent and a half a pound to establish a tin place industry for the benefit of American labor. Then the manufacturers brought over Welsh workmen to make the tin plate, on tbe ground that American workmen did not know how. Now the Welsh workmen are out on strike, the mills are closed, nnd the steel trust, which has absorbed tbe tin plate trust. Is Importing plates from Wales tn till Its orders. Is it uot about time/or that-duty to come off?—Chicago American.

Tims to Abolish the Tariff. The perpetuation of the high protective tariff threatens now to precipitate a trade war, waged against this country by a European trade alliance, which would be of Infinite costliness to American trade. The high protective tariff now only further enriches the American trusts. It taxes the American consumer for this sole purpose. It Is time to abolish the high protective tariff.—St. Louis Republic. Ths De man J for Tariff Reform. There will be an effort at the next ses. slon of Congress to change the tariff and It will be vigorously resisted. This movement is in the Republican party. While it does not proceed wholly on sectional lines! bhe demand for tariff changes and commercial treaties Is stHmaeat la the West, while in the East the resistance plants Itself on the existing law as the best thing that seems attainable just now.—Louisville Courier-Journal.