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CHAPTER III.

WH

BOLTING DISCUSSED.

HILE the repeal bill was under discussion in the Senate, I visited Nebraska as a delegate to the Democratic State Convention which met at Lincoln on the 4th of October, 1893. Outside of my own District (nearly every county of which sent silver delegates) no organized fight was made by the silver Democrats to control the Convention and when I reached Lincoln I found a large majority of the Convention favorable to the President's financial policy. Not only was there a strong majority in favor of the President's policy, but nearly, if not quite, half of the delegates to the Convention were willing to assist the President in carrying out his policy to the extent of filling Nebraska's quota of the Federal offices. I was selected by the delegates from my own District as their member of the Committee on Resolutions, but the chairman of the Convention, Hon. T. J. Mahoney of Omaha, then a candidate for United States District Attorney, in deference to the wishes of the Administration Democrats, refused to appoint me. One silver Democrat, Mr. Robert Clegg, was made a member of the Committee, however, and presented the following minority plank on the silver question:

We are opposed to the unconditional repeal of the Sherman law and demand that the repealing act shall carry out the remainder of the plank in the National Democratic platform of 1892 and provide for the "coinage of both gold and silver without discrimination against either metal or charge for mintage." By courtesy of Mr. Clegg I obtained the floor and spoke against the majority platform.

The silver plank was defeated by a large majority and the gold Democrats were so delighted with their victory that Messrs. Euclid Martin, W. D. McHugh and three others joined in a telegram to Secretary Morton notifying him of the resolutions passed and sending greeting to the President. Mr. Cleveland has since appointed Mr. Martin postmaster at Omaha and Mr. McHugh United States Judge for the District of Nebraska.

Since the gold standard Democrats have referred to my convention speech as an abandonment of the Democratic party, I reproduce the criticised portion of it from the columns of the Lincoln Weekly Herald of that date:

Convention Speech on Bolting, 1893.

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention: We are confronted tonight by as important a question as ever came before the Democracy of the State of Nebraska. It is not a personal question, it is a question which rises above individuals. So far as I am personally concerned, it matters nothing whether you vote this amendment up or down; it matters not to me whether you pass resolutions censuring my course or endorsing it. If I am wrong in the position I have taken on this great financial question, I shall fall, though you heap your praises upon me; if I am right, and in my heart, so help me God, I believe I am, I shall triumph yet, although you condemn me in your convention a hundred times. Gentlemen, you are playing in the basement of politics -there is a higher plane. You cannot settle the great political questions in this way. You think you can pass resolutions censuring a man and that you can humiliate him. I want to tell you that I shall still "more true joy in exile feel" than those delegates who are afraid to vote their own sentiments or represent the wishes of the people, lest they may not get a federal office. Gentlemen, I know not what others may do, but duty to country is above duty to party, and if you represent your constituents in what you have done and will do-for I do not entertain the fond hope that you who have voted as you have today will change upon this vote-if you as delegates properly reflect the sentiment of the Democratic party which sent you here; if the resolutions which have been proposed and which you will adopt, express the sentiments of the party in this State; if the party declares in favor of a gold standard, as you will if you pass this resolution; if you declare in favor of the impoverishment of the people of Nebraska; if you intend to make more galling than the slavery of the blacks, the slavery of the debtors of this country; if the Democratic party, after you go home, endorses your action and makes your position its permanent policy, I promise you that I will go out and serve my country and my God under some other name, even if I must go alone.

But, gentlemen, I desire to express it as my humble opinion that the Democratic party of Nebraska will never ratify what you have done here in this convention. In this city, when we had our primaries, there were bankers who called sons of their debtors in and told them how they must vote, but there are too many men in Nebraska who cannot be driven or compelled to vote as somebody else dictates.

The Democratic party was founded by Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Jefferson dared to defy the wealth and power of his day and plead the cause of the common people, and if the Democratic party is to live it must still plead the cause of the man who wears a colored shirt as well as the man who wears a linen collar. You must choose today what kind of democracy you want. For twenty years the party has denounced the demonetization of silver; for twenty years it has proclaimed it the "crime of the age;" it has heaped upon the Republican party all the opprobrium that language could express because of its connection with demonetization; if you are ready to go down on your knees and apologize for what you have said, you will go without me. On the 14th day of July, 1892, Senator Sherman, of Ohio, introduced in the Senate of the United States a bill substantially like the Wilson bill as it passed the House Mr. Sherman is the premier of the Republican party, their leader upon financial questions, and you come into this convention and attempt to thrust his

bill down the throats of Democrats as a Democratic measure. There sits in Columbus, in the State of Ohio, one long known as "the noblest Roman of them all." He has won and held the affection of the American people as few citizens have done; in the evening of life, crowned with a nation's gratitude, he awaits the summons that will call him home-where I know there is a reward for men who sacrifice for their country's good-and from the solitude of his retreat Allen G. Thurman says that he is opposed to unconditional repeal, and when I must choose between Senator Sherman, of Ohio, and Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio, I shall take my democracy from the latter.

Do you say that this is Democracy? Was it in the national platform? Read the platform. Can you find authority for unconditional repeal there? You find a demand for a repeal, but you find a matter far more important than a "cowardly make-shift," you find a demand that we shall coin both "gold and silver without discrimination against either metal or charge for mintage." Are you going to snatch away a fragment of the platform and call that Demccratic, while you turn your backs upon the declarations which have been in our platforms for the last twenty years? The Democratic party in Congress has on many occasions expressed itself and until this year there was never a time but that a majority of the Democrats in both House and Senate voted for the free coinage of silver at 16 to 1 by this country alone, and in this Congress, when the question came up in the House, a majority of the Democrats voted to substitute the Bland law for the Sherman law, showing that they were not in favor of unconditional repeal. If they had favored unconditional repeal, would they have voted to continue the purchase of silver, as provided by the Bland act?

In that speech I took the position which I have announced since on several occasions, namely, that I would not support for the Presidency an advocate of the gold standard. On the 26th of February, 1896, the Omaha World-Herald published an editorial written by me which covers this subject and I reproduce it for the purpose of setting forth my views, and for the further purpose of pointing out that the subsequent action of the gold standard Democrats was expected and counted upon. I have omitted the name of the paper referred to in the editorial because its side of the controversy is not given.

The Philosophy of Bolting.

The is very much agitated at the thought that some Democrats may refuse to vote for the Chicago nominee, and it alternately castigates Secretary Carlisle for refusing to aid Senator Blackburn and silver Democrats, whom it accuses of an unwillingness to support a goldbug for President. It gives more space to criticisms and warnings than it does to an intelligent effort to remove the cause of danger. We have reached a time when calm discussion will avail more than crimination and recrimination, and the World-Herald invites its esteemed contemporary to discuss this question: "Is bolting ever justifiable, and if so, when?" The World-Herald holds that the individual member of a party at all times reserves the right to vote against a nominee of a party and to abandon his party entirely,

whenever, in his judgment, his duty to his country requires it. He may abandon the party temporarily, as for instance, when an unfit candidate is nominated-this is recognized by the fact that newspapers and speakers discuss the character of candidates and point out their fitness or unfitness.

The voter may abandon his party permanently either when he himself changes his opinion upon a paramount public question or when his party changes its position. The strength of party organization is found in the fact that men do not like to repudiate a nominee or leave their party for light and trivial causes; in fact, the tendency to vote a straight ticket is so great that men require the strongest of reasons to justify desertions, and yet the right to bolt or abandon is essential unless man is to become a mere machine and unless the party machine is to become omnipotent. The desire to draw voters to the party makes the party careful to indorse the wisest policies, and the fear that men may bolt is the most effective protection against bad nominations. Webster defines a party as: "A number of persons united in opinion, as opposed to the rest of the community or association, and aiming to influence or control the general action." Agreement in opinion is the essential thing; who would define a party as "a number of persons differing in opinion, but united in an effort to secure the offices?" The reason why abandonment of party is not frequent is found in the fact that party principles are generally permanent in character, and therefore the members of the party, agreeing in opinion, work together harmoniously to carry out those opinions in legislation. The fact that a new national platform is adopted every four years is evidence that the right of the party to change its position on public questions is universally recognized, and the fact that a campaign is carried on through the press and upon the stump is proof that the right of the voter to change his party affiliations is also recognized. The party is a means, not an end; it has no reason for existence except as it enables the citizens to secure good government. When is a man justified in abandoning his party? Obviously, when he satisfies himself that some other party is a better means through which to serve his country.

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If the members of a party agree upon the important issues, difference of opirion on minor matters is of little consequence, but difference of opinion upon the questions that are for the time being paramount, always has destroyed, always will destroy, and always ought to destroy party harmony. It may be sad to contemplate the disturbance of harmony or the disintegration of a party, but until human nature is changed and our form of government abandoned such things must be contemplated. When the tariff was the main issue Democrats stood together, regardless of differences of opinion upon the money question; but now the money question is paramount, and we see such a Democratic tariff reformer as John G. Carlisle refusing to aid a Democratic tariff reformer like Senator Blackburn in his fight against a Republican protectionist, and we see a tariff reformer like Grover Cleveland carrying out the financial policy of a protectionist like John Sherman.Can a national convention harmonize the discordant elements of the Democratic party? Impossible. Suppose the advocates of bimetallism control the national convention and nominate a free silver Democrat upon a free coinage platform, will Cleveland, Carlisle, Olney, Morton, et al. support the ticket? Of course not. They say the free

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mealism and bimetaliism; there is

There & to trap ter to made gom cerve the see a paper money by the government and the same of al per money to the tamas There may have been a time when compromise was presente mastia is now before the people and it must le settled one way or the other the question was an unimportant one it might be settled in the party and the decision acquiesced in; but it is a question that touches every man woman and child in the nation, a question of right or wrong, a question of justice or injustice, a question of freedom or slavery Will the advise its readers to silence their conscience, close their ears to cries of stress and their eyes to a misery greater than "war, pestilence, and famine" have wrought, and vote the ticket straight if the goldbugs control the convention?

It does not dare to give that advice if it has any interest in the welfare of its readers. The Democratic party cannot serve God and Mammon; it cannot serve plutocracy and at the same time defend the rights of the masses. If it yields to the plutocracy it ought to lose, and it will lose the support of the masses; if it espouses the cause of the people it cannot expect either contributions or votes from the capitalistic classes and from the great corporations. If the gold standard Democrats control the national convention they will determine the policy of the Democratic party on all questions. Will they give the people relief from corporate aggression and from the oppression of trusts? Will they make this a government "of the people, by the people and for the people?" The knows that the gold standard Democrats, instead of affording the people needed relief, would simply carry on the Government according to Republican ideas. When the Democratic party has gone down fighting for the right it has felt certain of resurrection, but what assurance has it of rising again if it goes down fighting against the interest of the masses? When the spirit of Jefferson leaves the Democratic party it will be a corpse.

If abandonment of party is ever justifiable the voter must determine for himself when the time for abandonment arrives. When should he decide? The proper time, if not the only time, is after the party has adopted its platform and named its candidate. Until that time he does not know whether he can rely upon it to secure the government which he regards as good and the legislation which he considers necessary. Does participation in a primary or convention bind the voter to support a policy which he considers ruinous? If he tries, through his party organization to save his country and fails, must he then take a hand in its destruction? If a great question arises, must he assume that

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