Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 107, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1899 — OHIO CAMPAIGN OPEN. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OHIO CAMPAIGN OPEN.

ROOSEVELT ANO NASH SPEAK TO THOUSANDS. New York’s Governor Denounces Free Silver and Discusses the Trust Problem— Jud Ke Nash Criticises the Democratic State i latform. Gov. Roosevelt of New York led a veritable San Juan charge against the hosts of Ohio Democracy at Akron. Fifty thousand of the Western Reserve’s best product in manhood enthusiastically participated. The occasion marked the opening of Ohio’s Republican campaign. Before reverberations from the big guns fired by Gov. Roosevelt and Judge Nash were dead every branch of the service was engaged in every corner of the State, keen to come to £lose quarters with the enemy. The day’s work put the stamp of nationalism upon the contest —put it there with eager emphasis. The challenge extended in the platform adopted at Zanesville three weeks ago was accepted without quibble. President McKinley’s friends gladly made approval of his administration, iu whole and in part, the gage of battlO in this, his home State. The Republican State campaign was opened at Akron, Ohio, with one of the largest crowds known in the history of politics in Ohio. It is thought there were at least 50,000 visitors in the city. The parade was an immense affair, containing thirty bands, and clubs from all parts of the State. Gov. Roosevelt was escorted by 200 Spanish-American war soldiers, principally from the Eighth Ohio regiment, known in the war as the “President’s Own.” Judge Nash had an escort of 400 civil war veterans. The speaking was in Grace Park, in which a score of eminent men, including McKinley a half dozen times, have made political addresses. Gov. Roosevelt was cheered tremendously as Judge N. D. Tibbals, president of the day, introduced him. Applause frequently interrupted him, especially in his references to subduing the Filipinos. Judge Nash was enthusiastically received. Senator Hanna was present, but did not deliver an address. Judge N. D. Tibbals of Akron, president of the day, spoke briefly in his introductory remarks; He said no better evidence of the stability of our Government can be found than the assembling of its citizens to consider the policy to be pursued by those called upon to administer the government. “The issues between the two leading political parties,” he said, “are well defined by their platforms and their records. Patrick Henry said he knew of no better way of judging the future than by the past, and by this rule who can doubt as to which party should be continued in power?” He denounced the Democratic party as

unable to cope with questions leading up to the rebellion, and during its brief bit of authority since then, under Cleveland, it showed itself utterly incapable of properly guarding the rights of the people. “To the party of Lincoln, which preserved the Union, to the party of Grant which reconstructed it, and to the party which has given a sound currency and unparalleled prosperity,” he said, “the people can look with safety.” In introducing Gov. Roosevelt and Judge Nash, Judge Tibbals referred to the service each had rendered his country, and they were received with cheers. Governor Koosevelt’s Address. Gov. Roosevelt’s long address was listened to intently, and he was frequently Interrupted, with enthusiastic applause. He said in* part: I come to speak to you because we recognize throughout the nation that the contest this year in Ohio cannot be anything but a national contest. It is the sincere belief of all right-minded men who have the welfare of the nation close at heart that the position taken by the Ohio Democracy, speaking in reality for the national Democracy in this campaign, is one destructive of national prosperity at home and of national honor abroad. More-' over, it is impossible to avoid the conyiction that their leaders know that this is true, but are willing to plunge the country into any disaster, provided only they can persuade a sufficient number of dupes to put them where they can gratify their greed for office, their thirst for power. I should not use such language in an ordinary political contest. I use it dow as I should have used it had I been alive during the years of the civil war. The men whom* we are now fighting champion a cause which in its essentials is the same as that championed by the copperhead thirty-seven years ago. They vote the war a failure now as they voted it a failure then. Trusts and Expansion. They wish to discuss the question of trusts, an economic question, and of expansion. which is really the question of upholding abroad the honor of the flag and the interests of the nation and of making us rise level to our duties as a world power. They hope to avoid much discussion of the diver question—much discussion of their advocacy of a dishonest dollar; trusting that thereby they shall be enabled to say to the believers

silver, and as long as they are for it it makes no difference whether they shout or whisper their allegiance. In either case they would have to turn their words into acts should they come into power, and in both cases, therefore, the menace to the prosperity of the country and the welfare of its citizens are equally great. The salvation of this country lies to no small extent in the fact that while the bulk of our people fully appreciate the importance of party, and the usefulness •of party government, yet that they put country above party. Tariff and Trusts. Our opponents denounce trusts. But they propose not one remedy that would not make the situation ten times worse than at its worst it now is. I have read through carefully the speeches of Mr. Bryan and of his fellows to find out what they propose to do. I have found plenty of vague denunciation. I have not found so much as an attempt to formulate a national policy of relief. In the Democratic platform in Ohio just two measures of relief are proposed: The first, that you should change the tariff because it favors trusts, and the second, that you should coin silver in the ratio of 16 to 1 without regard to the action of any other nation. They pretend that the tariff favors trusts. They know that the greatest trusts in this country, the Standard Oil and the sugar trusts, are utterly unaffected by the tariff. They know well that the trust with which there is the most widespread and deepest dissatisfaction, the beef trust, is utterly unaffected by the tariff, and in my own State, one of the largest trusts, the ice trust (which is said to have as its most prominent member and promoter that ardent anti-trust champion and advocate of Mr. Bryan, Richard Croker) is also wholly unaffected by the tariff. Six years ago you were under the kimT of tariff to which they now ask you to return. And you were suffering from the threat of free * coinage—the trust which they now revive. Are the people of this country so short-sighted that they forget the miseries of six years ago? Do they forget the bread riots, the poverty, the squalid want, even of those able and anxious to work? Surely tfie country has had enough of tariff tinkering by the opponents of a protective tariff. The second great remedy they propose for trusts is the free coinage of silver at 16 to I—the coinage of a 48-cent dollar. Tjiey actually propose to the people that if the trusts deprive certain men of part of their earnings, or throw a certain body of men out of employment, this shall be remedied by decreeing that the men who still have employment shall be paid 48 cents on the dollar for the work they do. Dishonor of American Arms. Our opponents through the nation, and in particular here in Ohio, propose as a method of attacking trusts to meddle with the tariff, which would mean .economic disaster to the masses, and to debase the coinage, which in addition to even more frightful economic disaster would mean national dishonor. When they come to the second plank in their platform, the question of expansion, they advocate the dishonor of the American arms, and the trailing of the American flag in the dust. They place themselves outside the rank of proper party opponents, and make themselves merely the enemies of the nation as a whole, as already by their action on the- currency they have shown themselves to be the'enemies of honesty within the nation. The other day Ohio sent to New York a prophet of Mr. Bryan’s new dispensation in the shape of exCongressman Lentz, who divided his time between fervent hopes for the success of Aguinaldo and, therefore, for the ruin of the American army in the Philippines, and the firmly expressed conviction that the mantle of Washington and of Lincoln had fallen upon the shoulders of exGov. Altgeld. Make no mistake. In the Philippines we are at open war with an enemy who must be put down. It is absolutely impossible to save our honor except through victory; and it is equally impossible to win peace, to restore order in the islands, or to prepare ttye way for self-govern-ment there, save through victory. People tell you that the Filipinos are fighting for independence. This was exactly what the copperheads of 1861 said of the Confederates. Here in Ohio the Vallandigham ran on the issue that the war was a failure, and that the independence of the Southern States should be acknowledged. The feeble Vallandighams of to-day take the same position, and if Ohio is true to the great memories of her past she will give the same answer now that she gave then. No man can hesitate in this struggle and ever afterward call himself a true American and true patriot. He must stand by the flag. He must uphold the honor and the interest of the nation, and the only way in which he can stand by the one and uphold the other is to overwhelm the party that assails both. Mast Put Down Armed Resistance. Two facts must be emphasized. First, that out of the present situation the only honorable and humane way is to put down armed resistance in the Philippines, and to establish a government of orderly justice; and. in the second place, that this situation inevitably arose out of the war, and could not have been avoided save by shameful conduct on our part. You will meet -hort-sighted people who say that Dewey, after sinking the Spanish fleet, should hare sailed away from Manila bay. Of course, such conduct was impossible. It is not too much to say that such conduct would have been iniambus.

Either the islands would have been left to their own fate, had such a course been followed, in which case a series of bloody massacres would have taken place, and the war between the Spaniards and the Filipinos would have dragged along its wretched length until some outside interference took place, or else, what is far more probable, as Dewey’s fleet sailed out the fleet of some European power would have sailed in, and we would have had the keen mortification of seeing the task which we shrank from begun by some nation which did not distrust its own powers, which had the courage to dare to be great. Dewey had to stay and we had to finish the job we had begun. A weak nation can be pardoned for giving up a work which it does badly; but a strong nation cannot be pardoned for flinching from a great work because, forsooth, there are attendant difficulties and hardships. The century which is just closing has seen what the century which is opening wifi surely also see—vast strides in civilization, the result of the conquest of the world’s waste places, the result of the expansion of the great masterful, ruling races of the world. 'Democratic Attitude Destructive. Gov. Roosevelt summed up as follows: Our opponents seek to make their points by denouncing trusts and expansion. In both cases they occupy a purely destructive attitude. They advocate nothing constructive.’ The Democratic party, with that fatal facility it has shown for many years in appearing at every recurring presidential election as the enemy of the business man, and, above all, of the workingman, now once more comes to the front as the champion of the forces that tell for economic destruction. They denounce the trusts, but the measures they propose against them are purely political, are not economic, not remedial. They strive to win by inflaming ignorant passion, and trust that the passion thus inflamed will overcome sound judgment. They propose either no remedy or else they propose remedies so absurd and so vicious that they would ten-fold aggravate all existing evils. Mr. Bryan has developed a visionary scheme of national supervision, a scheme of extreme centralization, which would be unworkable at present and which might cause great havoc to industry, if so much as the attempt was made to put it into effect. We propose to meet the problem in the only way in which it can be met, by cool and careful study, by finding out what the facts are, and then by exhausting every legitimate power, legislative, administrative and judicial, to regulate the industrial movement and to cut out all abuses. Corporations (for what we commonly call trusts are generally merely big corporations) render great services, and are indispensable instruments in industry in our modern life; but their growth has been accompanied by the growth of evils which we can but remedy by common sense and common honesty—not demagogic outcry. Our opponents say we have no plan. We have; and the plan is, as a first step, to try the effect of publicity, and then to supplement publicity by taxation, and then by licensing or whatever measure experience shows to be effective. Before hitting we must know exactly what we are hitting at, and whether the blow will hurt more than it helps. JuirKle of Words. So again, when they come to deal with expansion, they juggle words. They state insincerely what they know is not true, and strive to bring shame and dishonor on the country for their own political advantage. They say they are against imperialism. So are we. Not an American in the land favors imperialism, and they know this. They profess to fear the evils of a great standing army and a grand navy. They know that no one proposes for a moment to make the army and navy larger relatively to our needs of the moment than they have been to our needs of the past. We are not imperialists; we are expansionists, and that we have got to be whether we wish to or not. The work of expansion is going on all about us before our eyes. Every miner who stakes but a claim on the Yukon, every new settler who takes up unoccupied land among the foothills of the Rocky Mountains is a unit in the great work of expansion. Every man before me to-day is here because his forefathers were expansionists when they crossed the Alleghanies and came this side of the Ohio. Expansion means growth, neither more nor less. Imperialism is simply a catchword of those who wish to retard our growth, to stunt us, to hinder the development of our might, of all our power. What do they mean by imperialism? Do they consider us imperialists because Colorado, California, Oregon and Washington have become part of the Union? As well use the names of those States as of what- is dow going on in the closing years of the century, as the nation advances with the strides of a giant to take the front place among the peoples of the world. All great nations must expand just as long as they grow and flourish. Do our opponents mean that democracy is the only form of government under which the greatness that comes by expansion is barred? Do they mean that our mighty republic is too weak to do a work which, as a matter of fact, will call for but a fraction of its giant strength? ADDRKSS OF GKft, K. NASH. - Gubernatorial Candidate »n Prosperity and Protection. ” George K. Nash said in part: In 1896 the people of the United States. 8 F>P ote.

the Republican party, with its St. platform, back to the control of the na-u| tional Government. Two and one-half, years have passed since that call became effective, and I now congratulate you andfg we can felicitate each other upon the fact'll that every pledge made to the people la>3 St. Louis has been redeemed. a Much of the great gain to dur country :3 is attributable to the restoration of a® tariff law so fashioned as to be beneficial to American interests alone. But muck '1 more credit is due to the determination of the American people to maintain inviolate and forever a sound and honest financial policy in this land. By the elec- 9 tions of 1896 confidence was restored in f the financial integrity of the people of the United States. Hence those who controlled capital were willing again to let ft § seek investment in railroads, manufac- > tures and commerce. The unemployed ar*j no longer idle. Those who worked only S one-half time and for half pay are now reaping a full harvest. . But the Democracy continues to de- | mand “the free, unlimited coinage of afle* ver and gold as equal in primary money-S - at the rate of 16 to 1.” Again the Dem- | ocracy of Ohio has declared in favor of 3 this financial heresy. This is done in the j State of President McKinley. If Ohio,’ in November, should take a step back- jl ward on this question, who can foresee i j the harm that will be done? It will open ; i up the question again as a national issue. J : Again we will be in financial doubt and 2 uncertainty. The sun of prosperity will again be hidden by the clouds of adver- | J sity. But this will not happen. The peo- ! | pie of Ohio are an intelligent people. Her ; | farmers, her laboring men, her merchant* 3 j and her manufacturers will not go back j to the “slough of despond” through which.J j we struggled for four unhappy years, a I There is another very important mat-, t ter with which the Republican party and J its policies have had much to do within | the last two and one-half years. Our for- j eign markets have been enlarged and our | | foreign commerce has been | We believe this to be absolutely necessary "J 1 for the present and future prosperity of j | the country. The policy of the Republi- 3 j can party is to strengthen and make larg- | er the foreign market for our l t :.g j is very much in earnest in this matter, j | We are just as zealous in this cause as] j we ever were in saving our home mar- - 1 ket for Americans. This we propose to * j do, even if it requires that governmental || | assistance shall be given to our shipping, | | so that our wares may sail the world over | I under our own flag. This we will do, 3 1 even if it involves the construction j the Nicaraguan canal by our own Gov- | j ernment. This we will do, even if it de-j J mauds that our flag shall never be hauled | 1 down in islands lawfully acquired by th*-3 J valor of our soldiers and sailors. I Philippines and Trust*. The Democrat bravely shouted at MS Zanesville, “We are radically and unal* terably opposed to imperialism in the-j|| United States.” Who in the world is in j favor of it? Imperialism is the power,ll authority or character of an emperor.il I know of no imperialist in this broadi||| land. I know of no man in it who de- IS sires to change the spirit or character ot gffl •this great republic, as it was handegll down to us by our fathers. Even thoseu|| who believe that it is a wise policy to':?||| retain possession of the islands have come to us as a part of the victory-^« which we won over Spain do not wish i»j||<|| establish an empire in them, or anything®- r ' akin to an empire. All they desire is toH® carry to their inhabitants the same enlightenment and the same civilization® which we enjoy. When they are p repar-, j£3 ed for it it is proposed, when shall act, to give them a governments free in character, and guaranteeing to®H them the sacred rights which we cherisftjl Within the last few yeara many of tbe ,j|B business men of this country have solidated their great interests into potations and combinations, which are®|| popularly known as “trusts.” The men >vho conduct our manufactures, trade and3M commerce are generally intelligent, II seeing citizens, with the patriotism equal to that of any other class of am loath to believe that these men would knowingly do anything that woijf|'. be I ’• detrimental to the country or to their fellow citizens. It is true, however,lhat ♦>’.;! there are things connected with these organizations which require regulation? law, in order to prevent evils which arise. These evils have been 1 by both the Republican and Democratic parties in Ohio in State far the two parties stand upon an eqaa® ity. In another respect the Ropiihlirnq party has an advantage in the fact that |l|| the seventy-third general assembly passett'f a stringent law well calculated to mvwgMKl evils, and that an attorney general elected by the Republican party has been gent in his efforts to enforce the Undoubtedly new and careful and wifiql legislation will be required both upon tiMf p’ ’j part es Congress and State legislatures ta : regulate and prevent evils whick 'AUn emanate from large corporations. legislation we oan safely intrust to-a* I|||| men of the Republican party. The O publican party has a clear and honorablS -■ record of duty faithfully performedMM work well done, of promises both national ana mate affairs. It with no extravagant pretensions and delusive trickery with which to ’ people of Ohio and by the nation. It $9 proved worthy or the connaeaee

GEO. K. NASH.