People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1896 — THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. [ARTICLE]

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS.

Positively the Laat Appearance in th* United State*. The “parting of the ways” seems to nave been reached by a good many public men. Senator Gorman says, “I have done all the dirty work for the Cleveland crowd that I propose to do and I won’t go to Chicago.” Senator Vest declares that if the administration forces capture the Chicago convention in the interests of the “gold bugs” he will bolt the convention. Congressman Cockrell, of Texas, writes his constituents that he will not accept renomination; he says he is “tired of parading under a democratic banner which has been so foully besmirched by men claiming to be democrats.” He declares he “will never vote for a gold standard man for president.” Senator Teller of Colorado ha? written a letter to be read at the republican convntion of his state, declining to go to the St. Louis convention, unless the Colorado convention agrees with his views on silver. He says: “I do not intend to support a candidate on a gold standard platform, or on a platform of doubtful construction.” He says he recognizes where this declaration places him, and he accepts the situation with all its logical results, but to do otherwise would be to stultify his record. There are many others who are doing likewise. The time has come when men of honor will no longer hold their principles in abeyance and stultify their convictions for the sake of belonging to a party. It is not the question w’hether these men hold convictions which other meti indorse, or do not indorse. It is enough that they believe they are right. All right-minded people must respect honest conviction and the man who dares sever lifelong party ties rather than play traitor to his soul. Too long have the masses of the republican and democratic parties subordinated their sense of right to party success, in the vain hope that the time would soon come, when their parties would abandon a time-serving policy and take their stand on the higher plane of honest conviction. We are happy to know that the true American has contributed its full share to the political regeneration of this country. We have no cause for discouragement; our labor? have borne fruits which art only the earnest of a more abundant harvest.