People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1895 — THE STATE’S WITNESS. [ARTICLE]

THE STATE’S WITNESS.

THE MEMPHIS APPEAL TURNS STATE’S EVIDENCE. A Democratic Paper Describes the Great Change That Uns Come Over the Party—A Confession of Sorrow and » Tribute to the G. O. P. The Memphis Appeal, a free-silver democratic paper (if there can be any such a thing as that), enters a protest against the gold-bug charge of being Populistic in sentiment in the following very vigorous language: At the time Mr. Cleveland chose his cabinet nearly all the members of it were out for 16 to 1 free silver coinage, and thus fairly subject to the epithets of “Populist,” socialist,” "anarchist,” "dishonest repudiator,” etc., which they now so freely bestow on all who refuse to accept republican legislation as a test of democratic faith. But there are, or until lately were, two members of that cabinet that fairly outranked all others in their devotion to Populism. The head of Mr. Cleveland's cabinet was Hon. Walter Q. Gresham, of Illinois. Mr. Gresham, in the early part of the presidential campaign, was a man after Peffer’s own heart, and Bloody Bridles Waite loved him as his own soul. He came very near being nominated for president by the Populist party. While after some hesitation he declined this distinction, he took occasion to express his fear that nothing less than a bloody revolution would force this oligarchy of wealth to surrender —an expression afterward amplified somewhat by the gory horseman of Colorado. The Hon. Hocus P. Smith was also a bloodthirsty foe to the aforesaid oligarchy of wealth, and he was always melancholy when he let a day go by without bringing home the head and pelt of a plutocrat. Not satisfied with the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 1G to 1 he openly championed the Populist subtreasury bill, with a few "modifications,” such as substituting rye-straw for mullein stalks as a basis of currency. We do not know that Secretary Gresham ever changed his views on the revolution business and the oligarchy of wealth, but he ceased to offend by discussing such questions. Hocus, however, has simply made John Sherman ashamed of himself in his red-hot championship of the single gold standard. It is wonderful how far men can get away from their own life-long convictions in a very short time; and the curious thing is that a new test of derfiocracy has been set up which obliges a man. in order to preserve his standing as a democrat, to heap odium and ridicule upon the record of his own party and acknowledge the superior wisdom, patriotism ami statesmanship of its great adversary. If the present contentions of Mr. Carlisle and others of his kind were formulated according to their plain meaning and adopted as a p rty platform, It would retd something like tills: 1. We, the democratic party, in convention assembled, point with shamo to the democratic record of persistent hostility to the beneficent gold standard established and maintained by the genius, wisdom and patriotism of the republican party. 2. We are particularly mrhamed of the intemperate denunciations of the demonetization act of 1873 »h * greatest crime of this or any other age.” This act was in accord with the “enlightened judgment of mankind” and was dictated by the sound business sense of business men, though the democratic party didn’t have sense enough to understand it or was too dishonest to tell the truth about it.

3. We view with alarm the tendency among it large number of democrats (so-called) to bring reproach upon our party by continuing to denounce this act of republican legislation, as we used to do, and we pronounce all such to be pestiferous demagogues and wanton slanderers of the great republican party and its noble leader, John Sherman —just as we used to be. 4. We deplore the anarchistic' ranting about the "oligarchy of wealth,” “idle holders of idle capital,” the “the communism of pelf,” and the “conspiracies of greed and avarice” to plunder and oppress the poor to increase the fortunes of the rich. We assert, on the other hand, that the period of our greatest and most general prosperity was while the republican party was in power, and while republican legislation controlled the policy of the government. 5. All people who assert that republican legislation has injured the prosperity of the people are to be classed as anarchists, Populists and calamity howlers who have no business in the democratic party. 6. Having been fully enlightened as to the unparalleled prosperity, under republican rule, we are prepared to follow closely in the footsteps of our illustrious rival, and we therefore appeal to all who believe in the beneficence of republican doctrine to vote the democratic ticket. Of course, the democratic advocates of gold monometallism would not state their defense of the republican party so boldly as this, yet such a platform would only express the full significance of their present contention. In their eagerness to defend the gold standard, they have not scrupled to pay the republican party the high tribute of declaring that all classes and conditions, of people have prospered under republican rule as they never did before, and they have placed the democratic party in the position of having for years ignorantly or wickedly opposed the very progress oi civilization and the success of its great champion, the ’•epublican party. The longo range prophets are predict! n" - fourth nomination for Cleve--1F”