People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 November 1895 — Views of Life Long Democrat. [ARTICLE]

Views of Life Long Democrat.

To the Editor of tlie People’s Pilot. For 35 years I have, as a common, uneducated farmer, interested myself enough in politics to take siAes with one of the great parties of the times. From 70 to ’92 I did, in state and national affairs, vote the democratic ticket In my youth 1 saw the democratic party stand by the slave power and when its opponents abolished slavery, beheld it wheel into line and indorse the act. I saw the democratic party, with all its power, oppose the 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution, and when their adoption was carried by the republican party, beheld it, in state and national platform, declare that “we accept the fruits of the war.” For 25 years my party howled for free local self-government, for non-intervention of federal troops in state affairs until called upon by the state authorities, but no sooner are federal forces under democratic command than they are sent unbidden and unwelcomed into a sovereign state. I was taught by the democratic party, and I still believe it, that every financial act of the republican party was passed in the interest of capital; my party in, and it pursued the same course. I was taught by my party that the act demonetizing silver in 1873 was a fraud that should and would be righted when “the party of the constitution” got complete control. The result was that “the party of one more chance” indorsed the fraud instead of righting it. I was taught that the party of my choice was the natural enemy of national banks; to-day it is owned by them, boby and soul. I believed that my party was an enemy of trusts, monopolies and combines; to-day it is their most obedient and active servant.

Some of the positions my party has taken I know now were wrong; some of its abandoned positions I still think are right. Though only a common man, one that cannot see afar off, yet I must be governed by th® light as it comes to me, must take things as my mind sees them, and seeing the democratic party as I now do I must say that it has indorsed every thing of importance that it has opposed for the last 35 years. If I had to make my choice to-day between the republican and democratic parties, (thank God I don’t,) I would surely vote the republican ticket. I am not the only dissatisfied voter that feels this way, as the recent elections fully show. For over 30 years I have been an humble democrat, a low private in my party’s ranks, never asking, expecting or receiving favors from it; I have seen it take position after position but to abandon them; have seen it, campaign after campaign, tenting on the enemy’s old camping ground. I followed, still thinking that our great wise leaders knew best. For 35 years I have expected my party to do something, have expected it to right some of the many Wrongs it has by lips and pen so strongly condemned. Blindly have I followed and vainly have I hoped. If the democratic party has ever fulfilled a single promise I really do not know wnat it was; if it has opposed a single thing of national importance, either for good or bad, that it did not eventually indorse the writer has unintentionally over looked it. If my dear old party would about face, reorganize, shake off its rich bosses, stand by the money of the constitution, oppose national banks, take a firm stand for government ownership of railroads, telegraph, etc., in fact if my party would be what it pretends to be, the friend of masses or against the classes; if it would be a live party, a party that would deal with the great new questions that are so urgently demanding attention now, I would still be with it, but for me to support a party that stands across the highway of progress, support a party that, when in power, enacts into law not a single demand it has made for 35 years, is something that I will never do again. An Ex-Democrat.

Keystone Corn Busker and Fodder Shredder. Sold by Robt. Randle.