PAGE 14
OCTOBER 20, 1904
75he Nebraska. Independent
ry son's Farewell
What he should have
By T. S. Brown.
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the
Convention: ' I knew before I came
here that the majority was against me
on the financial plank. I did not come
because I delighted to be in a minority,
but because I owed a duty to the six
million men who voted for me in two
campaigns, and considered it my duty
to secure as much tor them as 1 eoald.
1 was placed on the committee cn p;at
iorin. We were in session sixteen con
secutive hours; extenuing turouyu the
night and till noon touay. I iought
every inch of the ground for what 1
conceived to be the interest of Amer
ica's commoners. I was with the mi
nority, and was vanquished, save in
some miner points. That platform v,a3
brought in here and read. Not fiity
men neard it. The convention was a
bedlam. A motion was made to adopt,
and it went through with a whcop,
without the slightest pretense of de
liberation. Some of you have called me a dicta
tor. It was false. You knew it was
false. I have contended for certain
things. Have you net exercised the
same privilege? Why 3hs, the right ot
a man to have an opinion and express
it is more important, and sacred thaa
holding of m$. omce, howeve tighp
' I have alt4 .3 bCltcvCri5WTWW
nighty J sli'if believe, I hope a -man s
duty to hi dfauntry is higher than, his
duty to hi party. I hope it will al
ways be I h that men of all parties
will have I? moral courage to leave
their parti when they believe that to
stay with i?ir party will be to injuie
their, country.- The success of your
governxnei;- i depends,; upon, the inde
pendence lead the moral courage o
its eitizeifMp.
Mr. ChiCnnan, If we are going to
have soo other god than this war
gc&prestf id to us by Governor Black
s their in of "granite and iron,"
whit kitii pt a god is it to be? Mual
we chooils between a god of war and
a god, (jf gold ? We now hav e - toe
spectaeut J political farce of the repuL
lican paftyl running on a gold platform
and thel:mocratic party running cn a
gold;, tcf ynm.t If there is an thing
that coii ares in hatef ulness with mil
itarism it Vs s plutocracy, and I insist
that MK! V sniGcratic party ought not to
" fce coErbf jed to choose between mill
Urism r one side and plutocracy, on
the; ott i.:.;v.-"--. ' , .: , -
Erst f I am sorry to say; that th&
deraocr; ic party in lte..oJftcial. capacity
has chr n the latter. The democratic
party ' .as completely under the con
trol oall street as the republican
paftyj lhe triumph of the Wall street
elemejtj of the party denies to the
countjJany hope of relief on economic
quest tVfe,, so far as democracy as now
organic ; Mrredv-he lalor
plank, as prepared . by J ugSTert7ai.
friends on the sub-committee, was a
straddling, meaningless plank. The
nomination of Judge Parker virtually
nullifies the anti-trust plank. The
methpds pursued to advance the candi
dacy of Judge Parker were a plain and
deliberate attempt to deceive the par
ty. His nomination was secured by
crooked and indefensible methods.
However this convention itself is plu
tocratic. Labor has been snubbed from the
very start. The employers' associa
tions and the citizens' alliance secured
two tnousand seats in this convention
whhe labor and. the working classes
were not given so much as an empty
box for their comfort. And when Mr.
Hobson of Alabama, whose past record
shows him to be a man of more phy
sical foolhardiness than rational cour
age, made the boast that Mr. Cleveland,
a democratic president, was the only
president with the courage to send, un
solicited, United States soldiers against
striking union men you cheered him to
the echo.' The most of you are office
holders or office seekers. And you are
prostituting the democratic party to
plutocracy to get Its aid to help you
into power. We now have two organ
ized colossal appetites thirsting for
spoils. And verily the democraticpar
ty is "without fixed principles or set
tled policy, held together by the co
hesive attraction of public plunder."
The voters of the party now find
themselves in the clutches of a gang
in the harness of a system as heart
less as death. From their eyes no hu
man power could draw a tear,' and no
suffering wring a pang from their
bosoms. They are immune to every
leeling or sentiment known to man.
Wall street is a symbol of their power
" -where hearts and souls are ground
Into gold dust, whose gutters run full
to overflowing with strangled, man
gled, sandbagged wrecks of human
hopes, which, in a never-ending stream,
it pours into the, brimming waters of
the river at its foot for deposit at tne
poor houses, insane asylums, btate
prisons and suicmes graved, that tuc
grim nood wasncs m its daily ebb and
now.
All down the ages despotism in va
rious lorms has ruled tne world, it
icasted at the table of submission in
the past and gathers ricnts at tne toie
gate of toleration at the present. , it
claims the spoils of war and tne tribute
or peace, jwery time tne oppressor
and oppressad have clashed tney have
each risen again. Tyranny s legacy to
the world is degradation. Liberty's
legacy to man is progress. Justice and
liberty will never cease to tire tue
souls of men, nor greed the tyranny
to struggle for mastery. What is man
if he but feed and sleep, when his ncc
is beneath th; foot of the despot
decked and adorned with the spoils of
his victim's industry? Proud hearts
may weep over wrongs, but ignorance
and cowardice alone will worship op
pression in any form, and driveling
sycophants "bend, the pregnant hinges
of the knee that thrift may follow
fawning." - - , . ' .
I .Know not what course others may
take; but as for me, I'd rather be a
patriot, loyal to mankind, and
tiling defiance in the face of fate
Than worship knaves in Kails of state.
ild rather be like those ''rebellious
L 1-1 .?A'"W..-J ITT -
than to ce - like ?: those Hessian , Hirer
lings, the cohorts of royal, despotism,
who served the 'mother country.";-
I'd rather be like Robert Emmet who
died on the scaffold, the victim? of valor
and the vengeance ; of imperial pride,
than ruler of a realm that stamps its
sons of liberty, as traitors, ifrthey dare
murmur at the mandates of tyranny. t
I'd rather be like the "Irish Avatar'
the matchless Henry Gratten, as he
thundered despotism and plead the
cause of his people at the- British
throne
" With the skill of an Orphens to soften
. the brutei - . . ' -With
the fise of Prometheus; to kin
die mankind,:
Even tyranny listening sate melted
or mute,
; And - corruption . shrunk scorched,
from the glance of his mind
than -to be like Lord Castlereagh,
courted, and petted by British ; royalty.
bargaining the. cause : of his ' country
for the flatteries of the crown. -. .
I'd rather be like Andrew Jackson,
hurling : his: : mountaineers against .the
British army .of invasion at New Or
leans, than like Lord Packinghani lead
ing his tory minions against a young
republic. '" ' '
I'd rather be like Thomas Francis
Meagher, an exile from his native land
because of . his protests against the
British yoke than to be like Lord Kit
chener, giving his life service to the
mHoaxr: mandates oi tne monarcny i;
that for cen t ui vls, MMm&&trgai
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cf his nativity groan beneath the bur
den of servitude and toil slaughtering
the Soudanese and lending his aid in
South Africa to make a solitude and
can it peace. '
I "honor Maud Gonne-MacBride of
Ireland but I do not, feel like singing
an oratorio to the meruory of the "fam
ine queen of England."
I'd rather be like San Martin and
Simon Boliver, the liberators of S'outh
America, than like, Cortez and Pizaro,
the plunderers of the Aztecs and the
Incas. - -'
I'd rather be .like Gomez and Gar
cia, struggling for the independence of
Cuba, than like Weyler and Blanco in
the service of the Castilian crown,
waging a war of desolation against the
just protestations of a people robbed
by heartless extortion and ruled with
the rod of iron. -
I'd rather be like Kosiusko and Pul
aski, who, when they were vanquished
at home in the struggle to maintain in
dependence, crossed the wide ocean to
where they heard liberty was gather
ing force to herself in the wilderness
and bidding defiance to the crowned
heads of the world; and there giving
the last full measure , of devotion
gratis, to the cause of freedom in a
foreign land, than to be like the czar
whose iron heel stamped Poland a
Russian province.
I'd rather be like Lafayette and Paul
Jones, fighting at home and abroad,
on land and sea, for the rights of man,
than to be like Napoleon and Alexan
der, conquering the world to satiate the
greed of ambition and vain glory.
Yes, my countrymen, like all men of
principle from the first of time to the
present day I'd rather stand by my
platform, stand by my convictions,
stand by my flag, wrap Its folds around
me, die and be buried, than to surren
der for the sake of an office. In this
contest I'd rather be on the side of
the rights of man and receive the
tgatfigr tol ,i?yyUJLXhehowl ing mob,
whose members Know not 1 wnarrne1
do, and the execrations of the knavish
beneficiaries of evil, than to be the
idolof a deluded constituency and the
fondled favorite of an effete aristoc
racy, and strut in the parade of pomp
and power. Verily, I'd rather receive
the sanction. amT approbation ot my
moral conscience than the plaudits and
platitudes of an .erring world.
And now friends we have come 10
the parting of the ways.
Those whom L have fought ana wno
have fought me ever since I. entered
the political arena are now in com
plete control of the democratic party.
I must surrender or withdraw. I
must sell my birthright for a mess of
pottage or bid farewell to organized
corruption. Which is the more honor
able? '
My political future may depend upon
my staying with you; but, in the lan
guage of William Lloyd Garrison: "I
will be as harsh as truth and as un
compromising as justice. I am in
earnest. I will not equivocate, I will
not excuse, I will not retreat a single
inch, and I will be heard."
O, Democracy! what millions have
paid the tribute of their trust to thee!
and now, transformed into a demon
by the magic touch of gold, you turn
to devour those you coaxed to do you
homage.
Ah, it is not to true democracy that
I bid farewell, but to that plutocracy
which has stolen a word from the vo
cabulary of freedom with which to
serve oppression.
To where, my friends, do I turn?
O, spirit o! true democracy! peace
ful strength from the Judean hills upon
whose gentle power the world will yet
repose, to thee again I go as in days
gone . by. Thou art ever round nest
ling close to the bosom of humanity,
and today I find thee standing with a
party which met In the city of Lin-
.-- - -.- 'v
coin's heme and placed as Us standard
ant son of Dixie who
tougnt siae bj oTdc
"First Battle" Thomas E. Watson.
To that party I go; the party which
I almost ruined by holding up what
proved to be a false light, a vain hope
reform in the democratic party. N
Parties may come and go, force and
fraud may rule for the day, but thou,
O democracy of Jefferson and Lincoln,
shall go on forever, and rise like the
eagle through the darkness . and the
storm, and live in the sunlight beyond
when the tempest is past and gone.
But as" Mr. Bryan did not say that
and . has, failed to come up to the "
standard, to rise to the dignity of the,
occasion, to meet the imperative call
of duty with the supply of manhood,
it remains for you to do so. We wel-"
come ycu home through the open gate
that swings on the hinge of love. Whv
not come out into the light of a clear
conscience and a free citizenship? Why
not come and bask In the shimmering
beams of truth's eternal glory? Out
where the fires of persecution of the
world's martyrs and heroes lend color
to the dawn of the millenium.
My Countrymen: -If we go down in
final defeat in this struggle that flag
which we honor with pride, will be
but a deified rag flaunting over a sub
jected race serving a money aristoc
racy. But if the people take hold of
the ship of state and guide with pru
dence their civic destinies, then sirs,
So long as that flag shall bear aloft
Its glittering stars bearing them amid
the din of battle, and waving them
triumphantly above the storms of the
ocean so long, I trust, shall the rights
of American citizens be preserved safe
and unimpaired, and transmitted as
a sacred legacy from one generation
to another.
1 Atwood, Tenn. "