Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1900 — HEWITT. [ARTICLE]

HEWITT.

EX-MAYOR SQUARELY FOR REPUBLICANS. Supreme Court Would Nullify Any Imperialistic Ideas. Every True Democrat Can Take No Other Course Except to Vote the Republican Ticket (By Abram S. Hewitt of New York, fog merly Mayor and Member of Congress.) The political situation at this time iaof a very different character from that which presented itself four years ago. A*that time it seemed possible to maintain a distinct Democratic organization, baaetl upon the fundamental principles enunciated by Jefferson, and which had continued to govern the party in all previous presidential elections. The recent convention held at Kansas City has, however, rendered all such expectations hopeless. The party which calls itself Democratic is in reality Populistic, and based upon doctrines which, if carried into effect, would produce political anarchy. You ask whether I believe in the coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1. You might as well ask me whether I believed that an ounce should be made to pass for a pound in the ordinary transactions of commerce. The ratio is a false ratio. The value of silver measnred by gold is, as every one knows, not 16 to 1, but 32 to 1. The proposition of the platform therefore is to declare that fifty cents shall by law be made equal to one dollar. You ask me whether the present administration is likely to establish an imperialistic. form of government over this conntry or in its new possessions. I answer that the Constitution of the United States is too strongly intrenched in the affections of the people to permit its possible violation by the administration. and that if such an attempt were made, the Supreme Court of the United States will surely interpret the Constitution in the spirit of its founders and for the preservation of the constitutional government, to which we owe our stability and our prosperity. You ask whether a Democrat, by voting for McKinley and Roosevelt, could lie considered false to the interests of Democracy. 1’ answer that I do not see" how a Democrat who is true to the interests , of Democracy can in the present exigency j take any other eonrse than to vote tory the Republican ticket. 1 propose myself so to vote, and I do this because I am a Democrat who feels that Bryanism and all that it stands for itrdiametrically opposed to the principles of the Democratic party, as they were enunciated by Jefferson and as they have been construed by all the great men who have led the Democratic party up to the time of the holding of the unhappy convention of 1*96, when the old organization was broken up. It. is certainly a lesser evil to eonrinne the government in the hands of the Republican party for the next four years than to encounter the perils which would confront us in case Bryan and his followers should have the opportunity patting in practice the insane policy t® which they are committed.

ABRAM S. HEWITT.