Commoner.
9
Weekly Press Forum.
Greensburg (Pa.) Democrat: An excellent
time and place for the workingmen to striko
against trusts would bo on election day at the
ballot box.
Florence (Colo.) Ex Parte: Whenever the
democratic party goes over to the republican lea
dership of Grover Cleveland t al., that same year
it will retire from business. But it can't happen.
Lancaster (0.) Democrat: If wo had spent
more time and effort to rid our home country of
anarchists and less effort, money and lives in try
ing to subjugate foreign people we would not be
mourning the assassination of the president
Brandon (Ore.) Recorder: A government Into
which enactments have been introduced, favoring a
few of its citizens at the expense and to the detri
ment of the great majority of its people, has set
the mills to work which will grind the patriotism
out of its subjects.
Bridgeport (Conn.) Star: The gold bug idea
oE ' rejuvenating the democratic party" is to rein
state the old moss-backs who've been stealing a
ride on the republican band wagon, and give 'em
the reins again.. Nit!
Bmmettsburg (la.) Democrat: The democrats
of Iowa do not caro What the St. Paul Globe, tho
Chicago Chronicle, the Des Moines Leader, or tho
Sioux City Tribune thinks about them. Those pa
pers are really as anti-democratic as Charles A.
Towno and James B. Weaver are anti-republican.
Monticello (la.) Times: When a party leader
demands that the national platform be abandoned
and state issues discussed, he is doing so largely
with a hope of securing an office for himself and
believe he would have a better chance to secure it
by not advocating the cause of the toiling masses.
i
Lewiston (111.) Press: It tho men who seek to
reorganize" the . democratic party are opposed to
.bimetallism, t what do they propose to give, the"
people ,in itk place Do they propose to give them
the single gold standard? If so, why not say so
"Intelligently, courageously and entirely free from
demagogy and mere trickery of words."
Denver Democrat: The conspiracy to wreck
he democratic party becomes more evident as the
days go by. Will the democrats who place principle
over all things else allow the splendid organization
in this county to be ruined that a few schemers
and political harlots may wax fat on the proceeds
of their TObberies.
Greencastlo (Ind.) Star-Press: The democratic
platform of 1904 will be antagonistic to trusts, just
ae it was in 1900 will the people who now fully
realizo the trust burdens they bear cut Ipose from
partisan bias and vote the democratic ticket 'tis
their sole hope of emancipation from the rule of
these industrial dukes, lords and earls.
Tiffin (0.) Advertiser: The republican finan
cial idea, of taking money from the public beyond
its needs, thus creating a surplus that locks up
the money that should be in circulation, is now at
work, through the failure to reduce the internal
revenue taxes $50,000,000 more than it did. That
amount left in the pockets of the people, would
now be in circulation.
Beardstown (111.) Enterprise; If reorganiza
tion is such a good thing for the democratic party
it is peculiar that the republican papers urge it so
strongly. If it is a good thing for the democratic
party It is certainly not a good thing for the re
publican party. As it is urged chiefly by republi
cans, republican papers and the allies of the re
publican party, it must be a bad thing for the
democracy.
Albion (Ind.) Democrat: Grover Cleveland is
out with a book entitled "The Plight of the Dem
ocracy and the Remedy." That a man who has
been honored as this man, Grover Cleveland, has
been, and who has sold his country for pelf and be
trayed the party that honored him, should have tho
effrontery to offer that party advice, passes all un
derstanding. He must have an unlimited supply
of gall.
West Plains (Mo.) Gazotte: The Gazette bo
lloves it voices tho sentiment of the democracy of
Missouri' in expressing the opinion that no man
will bo elected to tho United States senate from
Missouri, or bo honored with any important elec
tive office, who did not support the democratic na
tional and state tickets in 1896 and 1900. Tho
bolters aro welcome to return, but not to run tho
party they so recently deserted.
Clinton (Mo.) Democrat: Tho governor of
New Jersey promises that his state will take radi
cal steps to root out tho colony of anarchists that
has made Paterson, that state, its headquarters,
planning, assassinations all over tho world. Good!
And when New Jersey does this let her next root
out the thousands of trusts she harbors legally,
which are plotting against tho commercial freedom
and Independence of tho people of this country.
Osage City (Kas.) Public Opinion: Both par
ties will soon send out orders in the next campaign
to swat the trusts but the republicans will con
fine their efforts to swatting them with verbiage.
Walnut Springs (Tex.) Favorite: If a laborer
strikes for living wages and asks his neighbors'
assistance, he is thrust into jail, but the combine
may meet and consult for days on their plans for
assisting each other, and never a word said about
it. Is money worth more than men?
Benton (Mo.) Record: The sturdy Iowa farm
ers indorsed tile Kansas City platform. They are
not in sympathy with an administration which
practically ignores the farmer In the interest of
the tariff protected manufacturer, the trusts and
the monopolists. They have no use for the plu
tocracy and can't be either scared or cajoled into
any latitudinarian, milk-and-water compromise on
tho platforms of two hard-fought, if unsuccessful
campaigns.
Thayer (Mo.) Tribune: Until the national
convention meets again tho Kansas City platform
is the party creed. It Is highly probable that now
questipns will come up for attention by that tlmo.
It is also highly probable that the Kansas City
platform, embodying as it does the principles of
Jefferson democracy, will be reaffirmed. In any
event the error of reading men out of tho party
who were loyal during the trying times of '96 and
1900, ought to be avoided.
West Bend (la.) Advance: Expediency is the
poojrest of reasons for political action, but even
from the standpoint of expediency, abandonment
or compromise of principles would have been dis
astrous. To have said, even by silence, "We are
not the same kind of democrats we were last
"year," would have disgusted the true reformers
and turned the party control over to the spoils
mongers, who to the credit of Iowa democrats are
a very hopeless minority.
Landing (Mich.) Journal: There may be some
modification of the Dlngley tariff schedule made
at the coming session of congress, but they will
not be mado with a view to curtailing the power
of the trusts to control the prices of their prod
ucts. No person with ordinary intelligence and
powers of observation needs to be told that the
trusts are still the power behind the throne, and
that what they may ask in tho way of tariffs they
will continue to receive at the hands of congress.
Villisca (la.) Letter: One Is almost Inclined
to believe from reading republican editorials that
had Iowa democrats failed to Indorse tho Kansas
City platform fully half of the republican papers
in Iowa would today be supporting the democratic
ticket But we know them better than to think
they would; for they would be accusing the party
of going back on its principles, and urging those
who did not believe in that doctrine not to stand
It at all. It is a hard Job for a democratic con
vention to please the republicans.
Rap's Broadside: Tho republican "literary
bureau," which sends "editorial matter" in "boiler
plate'' to tho republican organs about the country,
takes particular delight in quoting from papers
whlcharo not democratic and palming tho stuff off
into their readers as' democratic utterances. It
may fool a few republicans who aro not expected
to know any better, but it is not going to fool
democrats who are democrats from princlplo sake
and who know why thoy aro democrats. Neither
is it going to fool those who havo left the republi
can party because it has "about faced" on all im
portant questions; who have left tho par.ty be
cause tho party of Mark Hanna is not the party
of Abraham Lincoln.
Mount Holly (N. Y.) Democrat: Many demo
crats believe that an important Issue in the cam
paigns of 1902 and 1904 will be the tariff. It is ap
parent that tho people are awake to tho truth, that
high protective tariff profits a favored few at the
expense of tho many. Out of this has grown the
trust evil. It has made powerful a syndicate in
fluence which is In control of the government dic
tating tho government's policies. Tho republican
leaders feel uneasy regarding "the tariff issue, as
the people begin to understand tho workings of tho
tariff. It is the duty of the democratic party to
carry on its warfare against high protective tariff,
and its children, the trusts, because tho prosperity
of the people demand it as against the privileged
class of syndicate monopoly.
Waukesha (Wis.) Dispatch: The Chicago
Chronicle, which aspires to leadership among the
western democratic press, has made tho tardy
discovery that "trusts are in tho main a good
thing" and that "the 'democratic position on im
perialism is radically wrong." The Chronicle will
experience considerable tough sledding in the en
deavor to build up a following among democrats
on either proposition, though this is not a. matter
of too great concern to our Chicago contemporary
providing it has made a judicious connection with
the Steel and Standard Oil trusts and other similar
philanthropic corporations. There may be some
questions on which there is uncertainty among
democrats, but favoritism of trusts and Imperial
ism are not included in the category
Van Wert (O.) Democrat: Never in the his
tory of the nation has there been a more urgent
need for the democratic party than there is to
day. The republican party has become the party
of organized wealth, of imperialism, of a tariff
that protects and enriches the few at the expense
of the many, of an industrial system which piles
up wealth at the feet of the millionaires while
the toiling masses struggle fpr tho barest com
forts of life. The unjust distribution of wealth
is the greatest menace to the republic. At this
time, as always in the history of the United
States, the democratic party is the champion of
the masses, of tho common people, and to that
party the country must look to prevent this na
tion from departing from the wise principles laid
down by the fathers who wrote the constitution.
Columbia (Mo.) Herald: Tho Herald is in
receipt of an invitation to attend, and also a
pamphlet containing'facts about the Jefferson Club
pilgrimage to Montfcello, Va., October 10 to 14.
Tho trip will cost, including the entire expenses,
twenty-five dollars and all democrats are invited.
The invitation says: "The trip has no purpose of
reorganization or disorganization. 'It has no pur
pose of promoting any one's candidacy for office.
It has no purpose of introducing or promoting any
,new political principles. It Is merely a pilgrim
age of Missouri democrats (the best kind on earth)
to tho graf of Thomas Jefferson, tho Fathsr of
Democracy, that our faith may be strengthened,
our hearts enthused and our courage inspired, to
renew and bravely fight and win the great battle
of human liberty and equal rights in 1904."
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