REASONS FOR DEMOCRATIC SUCCESS.

THE Democratic party hopes for success in the election of 1900. This hope is based upon two premises: (1) the justice of its cause, and (2) the intelligent patriotism of the American electorate.

And first, of the cause. What is it? Briefly, it is the cause of the people. Since the party was born, a century and more ago, it has never in its principles and aims so completely as now realized the idea that suggested its name. Its purpose is to restore the "rule of the people" in a republic wherein the welfare of the people is the avowed object of the government, and wherein responsibility to the popular judgment is the origin of authority and the safeguard of liberty, but where confederated special interests have gradually obtained preponderant power, manipulating political machinery, directing legislation, and threatening a subtle but fundamental and dangerous change in the very structure of our institutions. The pending contest is only another phase of the world-old familiar struggle between the many and the few which has made the history of free governments in every age. The institutions of the United States were the first to be founded upon the proposition of the political equality of men and upon the substitution of consent for force as the basis and sanction of authority. The epochal contests of our political history have been waged for the preservation or the restoration of these great characteristic principles in the practical conduct of government. Such was the memorable campaign of 1800 wherein Jefferson represented the original democratic idea against the semi-monarchic tendencies of Hamilton and his school. Such was the movement that led to the organization and success of the Republican party nearly half a century ago. The founders of that party perfectly understood the nature of the crisis, and proclaimed their object to be the return of the country to the ideas and practices of its founders. In the preamble of the platform adopted by the first Republican national convention, which met at Philadelphia in June, 1856, an appeal was made "to the people of the United States, without regard to past political differences or divisions, who are

in favor

of restoring the action of the federal government to the principles of Washington and Jefferson."

To a mere partisan of to-day there will appear to be great difficulty in reconciling this invocation of the principles of the first Democrat by the first Republicans. Yet there is no inconsistency whatever in that fact. The Republican movement was essentially a democratical reaction. The very name of the party, indeed, suggested it; for "Republican" was the word originally employed by Jefferson to designate the organization that formed about him. The Democratic party, under the influence of power and the growth of the institution of slavery, had completely reversed its position. Its leaders formed an irresponsible oligarchy. Though the professed followers of the author of the Declaration of Independence, they expressly repudiated the fundamental doctrine of that instrument, and Douglas employed in his celebrated debates with Lincoln the very class of arguments now used by many Republicans in attempting to construe universal liberty out of that great document.

Judge Douglas declared that our Fathers, in the Declaration, "were speaking of British subjects on this continent being equal to British subjects born and residing in Great Britain "; that it "was adopted for the purpose of justifying the colonies in the eyes of the civilized world in withdrawing their connection with the mother country." Precisely in the same spirit the "New York Sun," one of the strongest champions of President McKinley's imperialistic policy, not long ago said:

"The Declaration of Independence was made to suit a particular existing condition of things. The Declaration meant simply that the colonies had become tired of the British domination, deeming it oppressive, and intended to set up a government of their own by the right of revolution."

To like effect is a recent editorial statement of the "New York Tribune":

"The Declaration of Independence was a formal notice that the inhabitants of the colonies consented no longer to British rule."

The words of Lincoln in answer to Douglas are equally applicable to these modern newspaper assertions. They seem, indeed, to have been written in anticipation of the very condition that now exists in the United States. Said he, in a speech at Springfield, Ill., June 26, 1857;

"The assertion that all men are created equal' was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to beas, thank God, it is now proving itself-a stumbling-block to all those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant, when such should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation, they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack."

It was remarkable, then, that the Democratic party, whose founder wrote the Declaration of Independence, should have been concerned in an attempt to discredit and destroy it. It is even more remarkable to-day that the Republican party, whose founder was then the defender of that ancient Democratic faith, should be now engaged in an effort to negative its authority and to repudiate its principles.

Nevertheless, it is altogether natural that such alternations in party purposes should occur. When a new political party appears, or when an old one is revived with a new impulse, its success will almost always represent the highest and noblest aspirations of the people. It is apt to be single in aim and pure in motive. But immediately the selfish forces in society, bent on dominating the Government in their own interest, begin scheming to gain ascendancy in the party as a necessary preliminary to the control of affairs. It was in this way that the old Democratic party was gradually made over into a strong proslavery organization; and this is the method whereby the old Republican party has by degrees become the instrument of those very forces which it originally opposed, though their form of manifestation has changed. This danger also was recognized by the marvellous insight of Lincoln. In November, 1864, he is reported to have said:

"As a result of the war corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed."

Party loyalty, whose tendency is to become a blind, unreasoning submission to the commands of those who succeed in getting control of the party machinery, thus investing their own schemes with the magic pass-muster of the party label, is the most potent ally of these selfish interests. The average partisan, having assisted once in a patriotic and successful movement for the salvation of the country, will thereafter continue to vote the ticket of the party that directed the movement, first insensibly ascribing to the party in the abstract all the virtues of the cause, then attributing to the individuals of its

self-perpetuating leadership the idealized qualities of the party, and finally, as an inevitable consequence, accepting every deliverance of the party convention as an absolute standard of faith and rule of conduct. It is also a distinguishing mark of this last stage of political dependence that every party except one's own must be held to be deliberately aiming at the dishonor of the Government, every member of such other party to be either a traitor or the tool of traitors, and every policy proposed by the opposition to be a veritable inspiration of the devil. Upon no other theory can be explained, for example, the success of the leaders of the Republican party in committing that organization to such complete reversals of party profession as those witnessed in the change from bimetallism to the gold standard, and from the championship of the Declaration of Independence to its repudiation.

The foregoing reference to party spirit and the ordinary method of its action will be recognized by careful observers as substantially true. Fortunately, its application, while general, is not universal. There is ever a small minority that continues to distinguish between principle and party and to give to the former a superior allegiance. The hope of the Democratic party in this campaign is largely in this minority, in the men who are Americans before they are Republicans. Let us examine some of the considerations that will be chiefly influential with this class of voters.

First, there is the money question. It is beyond doubt that, until recently at any rate, the Republican party has been a bimetallic party. Its national platforms in 1888 and 1892 were unequivocal in their support of bimetallism; and in the campaign text-book published by the Republican National Committee in that year it was said, "Nine-tenths of the American people are bimetallists." My own opinion is that this statement was true and applied to the masses of the Republican party. The merits of the question of the standards were not generally discussed before the people during the following four years, and it is absurd to suppose that the convictions of the Republican party as a whole had undergone any sweeping change on that subject.

That this fact was well known to the men who were carefully engaged in the plan to make the Republican party the agent and instrument of the gold standard is apparent from their treatment of the question in the St. Louis platform and in the 1896 campaign. That platform pronounced in favor of the international free coinage of

silver by pledging the party to "promote" it, but declared for the maintenance of the gold standard until an international agreement for free coinage could be secured.

This plank was manifestly designed to hold the votes of sincere bimetallists, while also assuring the gold men that the party was being pushed resolutely toward the single standard. To be sure, the transparency of the trick should have been evident to anybody, as indeed it was to a large number of Republicans who immediately denounced it and, because of it, left the organization. But, as the shrewd men who were responsible for it knew, it is usually necessary to furnish the voter only a very slight excuse for making peace with an uneasy political conscience. A definite declaration for the gold standard in that platform would have given the presidency to Mr. Bryan by an overwhelming popular vote and consequently by a large majority in the electoral college.

The uncandid language of the platform was paralleled by the insincerity of the campaign. The convenient ambiguity of "sound money" and "honest money" was adopted as an epitome of the financial plank; and Republican orators and newspapers in the East interpreted it as meaning the gold standard, in the Mississippi valley as "safe" bimetallism, and in the mountain States as free coinage.

In the face of this well-remembered situation of 1896 how refreshingly guileless is the following statement in the platform adopted by the Republican National Convention at Philadelphia in June: "We renew our allegiance to the principle of the gold standard.” Now the "principle" of the gold standard was distinctly repudiated by the last preceding national platform of the party. The declaration in 1896 was for the free coinage of silver by international agreement, and only as a last resort was the gold standard accepted, and even then it was to last only until the agreement could "be secured.'

Is it reasonable to believe that all of the millions of Republicans that in 1896 were bimetallists and only voted their ticket because of the promise to secure bimetallism by international agreement will vote for McKinley now upon an out-and-out gold standard platform? Doubtless the great majority of them will do so; four years of partisan compliance having subdued them to the complexion of what they work in, "like the dyer's hand." But, in my opinion, many will not do so. Mr. Bryan will receive several thousand votes in the middle and western States from men who in 1896 were kept