Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 February 1908 — PARTY CONDITIONS [ARTICLE]

PARTY CONDITIONS

Notable Address Made by Editor Barnhart Before State Editorial Association. A VINDICATION OF PRINCIPLES Out of tho Smear of Republican Calumny the Democratic Party Haa Rlaen to a Poaitlon That Eliclta the Admiration of All Honeat Men and Compela the Reapect of Ita Eratwhile Traducera. At the banquet given by the Indiana State Democratic Editorial Association at the Grand hotel, Indianapolis, on Thursday evening, February 6, Editor Henry A. Barnhart of the Rochester Sentinel delivered the following address: Mr. Toastmaster, Fellow Editors, Ladles and Gentlemen— I greet you with fraternal regard and glory with you in the auspiciousness of this occasion. By reference to the program of the evening you will observe that I am delegated to address you on "Condition of the Party.” As our Republican friends insist there is only one party, and the program makers for this occasion did not specify, I hardly know from what standpoint to consider my theme. If I am expected to analyze the condition of the Republican party my effort will be d'“short horse soon curried.” The condition of the Republican party, and I refer to its leaders, and not its rank and file, would be laughable If it were not so distressing. Someone has aptly said: "The bottom has dropped out of its full dinner pail, its honest dollars absconded into hiding, its every-dollar-as-good-as-any-other-dollar has turned ‘wild cat,’ its principal factories running full time are its mints and currency slip printshops, its leaders have lumbago of the friction drive, and its windjammers have turned the exhaust into the intake and bursted the bellows of the blow-hard.” And so in a general way the very exclusive and very delusive prosperity party is very much on the discredited list and its machine very much on the junk pile. Such a demoralizing collapse of frenzied finance and the boasted fusion of Providence and prosperity by grace of the Republican party, in the language of Mrs. Partington, “surpasses our most sanguinary expectorations.” If there is another party considered as “The Party” by the program committee, I take it to mean the Democratic party, and of its condition it is a glorious privilege to Bpeak. There was a time, in other years, when ft was said it was almost worth a man’s life to say he was a Democrat and opposed to a Republican president’s policies. There was another time in Democratic party history, easily within the recollection of us all, when some Influential men said it was worth a man’s honor to say he was a Bryan Democrat. But such bitter disputes of the rights of Democrats to live and to claim for themselves honest purposes have come and gone, and •ut of the smear of Republican calumny we are rising in the estimation of our countrymen to a vindication of principles that elicits the admiration of honest men of all parties and compels the respect of our erstwhile traducers. Twelve years ago, when the Democratic party boldly declared itself in favor of reforms which it believed necessary to protect the common people from the avarice and greed of selfish interests, great was the howl of financial hyenas and their political tools that we were repudiating national honor, deserting constitutional precedents, and pandering to passions of disloyal elements. You well remember how we were called harsh names fbr having dared to ask for restrictions of practices which have since proven even more oppressive than the most apprehensive foresaw. When we said that the men should always stand above the dollar we were called disturbers of business interests, and when we aßked for a volume of money sufficient to keep property values up and active we were called dishonest money advocates by many who have since gone to the penitentiary and by many more who ought to be there if Justice were meted out to them. Not only did the designing capitalistic interests assail us, but their hirelings, from ward politioi&n to subsidized clergy, joined in the hue and cry of dangerous and dishonest Democracy. But what f change has come over public opinrbn! It is generally conceded, now, that the anarchy of Bryan is the patriotism of Roosevelt And what has brought this about? Have Democratic policies been tried? No. Have Republican honest money pretensions and national honor claptrap been found wanting? I leave that for you to answer. What sort of boast have we been hearing all these yean? How familiar Is the continuous Fairbanks declamation that every dollar is as good as any other dollar, and that all dinner pails are full; of John L. Griffith’s picture of the Republican flow of milk and honey in such profusion that the «onten should wear rainy-day skirts; and of Charley Landis’s grief that the Democrats made the price of wool sd low they had to shear their sheep wrong end first because they couldn’t look them in the faoe. I But despite all this special provl-

'tfence fir Republicans la office and their supernatural influence at prosperity making, suddenly we are seised with a panic—a scare midst peace and plenty, and big crops, and busy factories —that drops upon us with an explosion like unto the falling of a cask of lyddite from a clear sky. And banks quit paying money, and spurious currency is thrown Into circulation as if a reign of terror had driven .every dollar in the land into storm cellars, out of sight. All this is but preliminary to what I want to say. It is our duty to get ready to make a Bhowlng, this year, of the extravagance and shortcoming of Republicanism in national, state and local government I tell you, sirs, the Republicans are running away with extravagance, and that is what is mostly wrong with our finances now. New offices by the hundreds have recently been created in this state, salaries have been raised all along the line, assessment values have been whooped up, and our taxes must remain oppressively high regardless of the slump in prices of the products of labor and the incidental falling off in prosperity. If I were the next governor of the state of Indiana —and I’d like to be, with the splendid possibilities of making a great name by helping the people to what they want, with that salary of SB,OOO per year and SI,BOO house rent on the side—l would call a halt on a quarter of million dollars unnecessary officeholders’ expenses in such a message as would jar the legislature to a sense of responsibility the like of which It has not felt for years. If I were governor I would send home an army of deputy oil inspectors, deputy game and fish commissioners, deputy auditor of state fee hunters, and hundreds of other unnecessary officers of similar pie-counter ilk and let them earn their livings by the sweat of their brows instead of by the grace of the Republican party manipulators playing good fellows for continuation in office at public expense. Let me admonish you, sirs, that it is time we were up And -doing. It may be my mission to write, yours to teach and yours to organize, but whatever it is, if we will, we can win. Not so, though, by folding our arms and waiting for the after-election jollification parade to come along. We must earn our spurs if we would wear them, and the neglected and subdued interests of the public demand that we get busy. The Condition of Our Party?” We stand at the opening of a great campaign in the most favorable position our party has enjoyed for fifty years. The sham breastworks of the enemy are in plain view, and they know that we see their ramshackle entrenchments. Our leader is a man who knows no such word as fear and no such tactics as compromise. Our men ill the trenches are aflame with loyalty and enthusiasm, and if the subordinate leaders of our party work for victory rather than personal interests, we will have a mighty phalanx that will sweep all before us. 4m I optimistic to the point of overconfidence? No! Is there anything the matter with us as party men? Yes. What is it? Outspoken obstinacy and general fault-finding. We are too prone to overlook the good of our cause and spend our time trying to discover a mote in our brother’s eye. We see or hear a Democrat who doesn’t happen to agree with our possibly erratic Idea of what every Democrat should be, and we proceed to “shoot it into him,” and do it from the housetops. We don’t like the action or the personality of this Democrat or that, and commence to talk loud —to scream. We see something wrong with most all leading Democrats except those of our personal likes, and even they are liable to get out of the bee line of our estimation and require a blister from us to bring them to a realization that they are not what we would have them be. What a truism is that succinct saying that “There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it illy becomes any of us, to talk about the rest of us.” Can’t we see the importance of selfdenial of our arrogance in denouncing every Democrat who isn’t exactly like us? Isn’t it possible that we can quit criticising the inconsequential or imaginary faults of Democratic leaders and try glorifying Democratic principles as a means of achieving the victory the masses are hoping for? Surely we have patriotism enough to look to future sucoess as a means of public weal to prompt us to forget the frivdlous bickerings of the past and be Democrats worthy of the name? In the leadership of our great principles for twelve years has been a man the embodiment of logic, the advocate of righteousness, the soul of honor. No man has ever been required to waste a minute of his time in inquiring where the Democratic leader stood on public questions. No man has ever asked him to explain. No honest man ever questioned his sincerity, and his earnest Christian life has been the inspiration of the moral world. He has always stood in the broad sunlight of day, inviting searchlights of truth and patriotism upon him and meeting his critics with a gentleness and yet a powerfulness that has induced many of them to adopt his polioles and to acknowledge Democracy as the savior of national honor rather than its destroyer. All of these years this great and good man has been leading public conscience to a higher plain of civic virtue, and reforms which he has steadfastly advocated and which were once denounced as heresies, are almost universally reoognized as public safeguards today. This conclusively proves that the time for political sail-trimming and

subterfuge Is past and' we must be sincere and oourageous in bespeaking the need of the hour if we would win the sweeping public confidence our principles deserve. If I were delegated to write a Democratic platform this year, and I speak only as a layman, I would put a candor and a conciseness in its phraseology that no man could misconstrue or misunderstand. 1 would build it on a plan of public service economy, public official integrity, public safety morality, and home rule guarantee, that would elicit the admiration of every Bquare deal man in the country. I believe it would be a crowning triumph in the glory of state politics if we would write a Democratic platform which we would be proud to take into our homes, spread it out on the center table and, surrounded by our neighbors and by the Christian wife and pure-minded children that look to us as their guiding hand, proudly point to it as our doctrine of the kind of government we want to build up for their happiness and welfare. If we believe that the licensing of vice is detrimental to our well-being and dangerous to the loftiest possibilities of ourselves and of the generations to come, let us be honest and by our declaration of principles and our votes, say so. Public sentiment has experienced a marvelous awakening during the past few years. Rascality in office has been exposed by indignant public opinion; the Influence of the boodler in legislation is minimized more and more by the wrath of the outraged public; and the saloon must quit politics or quit business, and we must have courage to ask the legislature to let the people vote on this question and relieve them of remonstrance signing agitation and embarrassment or we will lose the confidence and vptes of thousands who care more for the right of the ballot on public questions and the peace and order of their communities than they do for the success of any political party. I would proclaim to labor and capital assurances of the dawn of a new era of justice and contentment for both of them. It would be a board of compulsory arbitration for industrial controversies, one member to be named by the state labor unions, another by the state manufacturers’ association, and these two to agree upon a third, who shall be free from alliance with either of the organizations named, and all three then commissioned to act by the governor and to report to him and then receive through him executive administration of their, decrees.

I would declare for a reduction of the number of members of state institution boards from four to three, and continue them non-partisan, politically, as they were before the recent increase in membership which makes them bi-partisan and subject to deadlocks. Then create as advisory to all of them and as a standing commission to act with the legislature and the governor, as intelligent and impartial referees as to the physical, financial and emergent needs of the institutions, a non-partisan board of three members, one of whom shall be a member of the Board of State Charities, of technical business ability, one a doctor, and one a lawyer. I would set forth in the platform a pledge that depositors in state and private banks shall be protected from disastrous failures by the same insurance from the state that Bryan purposes the government shall give to the national banks and their depositors, ▼is: The banks to create a general insurance fund and be given means of more rigid official inspection and thus more fully protect honest bankers from the discrediting imposition of rascals in their business who bring suspicion on banking as an enterprise and ruin on depositors; and to guarantee depositors that if their bank fails, the loss to them shall be fully made up by the stockholders if possible, and by the state bank insurance fund if necessary. I would write it plainly in the platform that we have no desire to interfere with established insurance business and methods that are legitimate and fair, but if men desire to protect the financial condition of themselves or their families from destruction of property or disaster or death by mutual insurance, they shall have the legal authority to carry such risks. I would declare for greater freedom in the scope of personal endeavor and less privilege to combine and monopolize, and to spend more money in schooling our boys and girls in the theory and practice of successful citizenship and not so much for an army of overseers for public officers to whom taxpayers have voluntarily delegated their trust and who are legally bound to be honest and faithful. I would give future legislators to understand that we need simplification and pruning out of' complex and burdensome laws that we already have rather than hundreds of experimental and expensive acts added to our statutes every two years. I would vouchsafe to every man the right to transact, his own business as he pleases as long as he does not impose up6n the rights and privileges of others or ventures in the guise of public welfare, based on impossible premises or sordid or selfish motives. And upon you, my fellow-editors, devolves an important duty. The call in this country today, is for men—honest, courageous, matterof-fact, dependable men. If we find an Influence attempting to swing our party organization into control of evil intentions, as has been done sometimes in the past, and as may be tried again in the future, it is our duty to warn people of the danger which threatens them, and do it In a spirit of frankness and

directness that will carry conviction, If the shrewd manipulations and (sunning devices of Eastern influences that know no party but the one that wifi promise favors in exchange for votes, attempts to again tell us of the Weal that we must sacrifice our principles and stand on their platform and with their candidate, or lose, let us be frank and cite them to the fall of Babylon and show them that such policies as theirs are lost already. We can never win by a compromise with the Btock gamblers, high-tariff beneficiaries and trust pharisees, and we do not deserve to win with them. The day of the political manipulator for selfish interests is past The people are no longer isolated novices who must be told by political managers what they must do. The very great majority of Indiana voters are in early morning touch with public affairs by means of their telephones and their daily papers, and the man or newspaper that attempts to work party schemes for questionable interests will find himself or Itself defeated at the polls and the party blindly following such leadership will go down in ignominy before the wrath of a citizenship that is demanding open manliness, equal privileges and impartial law enforcement as never before. Therefore, fellow Democrats, as we are once more In the vantage ground of public esteem, let us be clear and direct in our enunciation of principles and inviting and persuasive in our presentation of them. Let our platforms mean what they say and say what the public wants, and mean it so there can be no fear of equivocation. And let us, fellow editors, keep our feet on the ground, our fires banked, and our heads cool. Autocratic armies usually shoot over the enemies’ heads and vinegar never catches flies. A line of considerate editorial argument is worth more than a column of abuse, and if we would make the most of our advantageous situation we should persuade men to see the right rather than try to goad them to conviction by means of fire-brands. Finally, may I again beseech you to full personal and editorial activity in putting the best of us and for us to the fore in our party everywhere. For when we have done this we will know no faction but faithful Democracy, no unit rule but the voice of the people, and no campaign managers and candidates except those of the honesty of purpose type—a triune of Integrity, justice and man that has made Bryan the most beloved American; the foremost statesman of the world, and of whose purity in private and public life every home in this illustrious civilization may be justly proud. Hail to him, and to you, and to our glorious and beneficent rising star of Democracy!