People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1895 — “STAND BY THE PARTY.” [ARTICLE]

“STAND BY THE PARTY.”

What 1» Success —And What Is a Democrat? No matter how democrats may differ on the financial question, they should stand by their party organization. No matter which side wins in conventions, there should be no bolting. Party disintegration is to be more feared than defeat on any given question of party policy. Men and brethren, let us hold together at all hazards. As free coinage advocates we have a right to endeavor to control the party organization on that issue. As gold standard advocates, democrats so believing have the same rights. But let us recognize each other still as democrats —all of the great party to which the country looks for the best government, and let us subordinate our views on given questions to the will of the majority and perpetuity of the party. Don’t bolt. — Hot Springs News. The first question that naturally suggests itself is, What is a democrat? And then what does party success mean? Is democracy merely a name? Does it stand united for any principle, good or bad? Does success mean merely to win the offices?

Will any honest man consent to the domination of wrong, when by leaving the party he can stand up for the right? \ ' The fate of the greatest republic in the world is now in the hands of the people. Is party greater than country—and office for a few politicians more to he desired than American liberty and independence? Only men of the same general principles should be in the same party. The American .people are greater than any party. All our parties are included within the people. Why should not those who agree upon the momentous questions of the day vote together at the ballot-box? Majority rule applied to the entire country is all right—but no man should sacrifice his principles to the majority of a sect which is only a subordinate division. Neither should a man fail to stand up for the principles he believes to be right, though a majority of the people be against him. To save the democratic party is not to save the American people. The party is a mere form of organization for the propagation of certain principles, and when the man of principle finds that he is in the wrong party he should get out as quickly as he would climb out of a barn lot with a mad bull after him. When you get into the den of a bear and have nothing but bird-shot in your gun, don’t stop to argue, but join the fellows who are out hunting that kind of game, and together you may conquer him. Because you have always hunted with bird-shot is no reasoq why you should not accept the assistance of a repeating-rifle in an emergency. Another democratic paper boasts that “the democrats are getting together in good old democratic fashion. Local organizations are being perfected on the basis that ‘I am a democrat’ first, last and all the time, whatever individual opinions may be on this, that or the other question.” Now, honestly, isn’t that disgusting to a self-respecting democrat —or to anybody else of common sense? A party with no principles has no right to existence. The idea of organizing “regardless of opinion” into a party that knows no principle except that “daddy was a democrat.” You have as an American citizen a much higher responsibility to your country than that of a mere party whooper. The manhood of every professing democrat is grossly ipsulted by the papers that assume all democrats have no more principle than to “unite on the basis of I am a democrat.” It either means something to be a democrat, or else there are no democrats. It is no honor to be nothing—or to belong to a party that means nothing. The first balloon was made by a Jesuit, about 1620. The idea was Revived in France by M. Montgolfier, in 1783, and introduced in England the following year.