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gold standard because England has, we will restore bimetallism, and then let England have bimetallism because the United States has it. If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them to the uttermost. Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucity mankind upon a cross of gold.

CHAPTER XII.

CONTINUATION OF THE STRUGGLE.

The majority of the Democratic National Committee had, as the event proved, represented the ideas of but a minority of the delegates elected to the convention. Their preliminary dictum had been overruled and Senator Daniels took the chair.

The Committee on Credentials, necessarily extremely Free Silverite, had considered the case of the contesting delegates of Nebraska and Michigan and had decided in their favor. The convention confirmed the action of the committee. In Nebraska the issue had been somewhat doubtful and was settled easily and readily, From Michigan had come a properly certified delegation and here the case promised to be more difficult. In Michigan the Silverites thought they had a majority in the Democratic State Convention. The convention went the other way and the claim was advanced that delegates had been tampered with and that the balance was on the other side, and that federal patronage had defeated the real will of the people.

The Silver men asked the National Convention to reverse the instructions of the State Convention on the ground that they were in violation of public sentiment and accept what it ought to have done instead of what it did. The Credentials Committee responded by throwing

out enough of those opposed to them in the Michigan delegation to insure a majority, after which the delegation enforced the unite rule, thus making it solid for Free Silver. The Nebraska delegation of minor importance had shared the same fate at an earlier hour. The result of this was to give to the Free Silverites a possible two-thirds majority without resorting to the device of abolishing the time honored custom of the Democracy.

The next struggle between the two factions must necessarily be over the platform, which was to enunciate the principles of which every wing of the party should prove dominant. It was of course apparent that this dominated force would be the Silver wing, but there was still maintained a resolute but desperate struggle by those who had been denominated the Sound Money men. Each wing had prominent representatives in the Committee on Platform, and the struggle there was resolute and long continued. It resulted in an absolute difference of opinion, the Silverites having a majority, and the eventual bringing before the convention of a majority and minority report, affording scope for another debate and for a more clearly defined expression of the difference of opinion between the contending wings of the party. The Silverite report, that of the majority, was as follows:

"We, the Democrats of the United States, in national convention assembeled, do reaffirm our allegiance to those great essential principles of justice and liberty upon which our institutions are founded and which the Democratic party has advocated from Jefferson's time to our own-freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of conscience, the preservation of personal rights, the equality of all citizens before the law, and the faithful observance of constitutional limitations.

"During all these years the Democratic party has resisted the tendency of selfish interests to the centralization of governmental power and steadfastly maintained the integrity of the dual scheme of government established by the founders of this republic of re

publics. Under its guidance and teachings the great principle of local self-government has found its best expression in the maintenance of the rights of the States and in its assertion of the necessity of confiding the general government to the exercise of the powers granted by the Constitution of the United States.

"Recognizing that the money system is paramount to all others at this time, we invite attention to the fact that the Federal Constitution names silver and gold together as the money metals of the United States, and that the first coinage law passed by Congress under the Constitution made the silver dollar the monetary unit and admitted gold to free coinage at a ratio based upon the silver dollar unit.

"We declare that the act of 1873, demonetizing silver without the knowledge or approval of the American people, has resulted in the appreciation of gold and a corresponding fall in the prices of commodities produced by the people; a heavy increase in the burden of taxation and of all debts, public and private; the enrichment of the money lending class at home and abroad; prostration of industry and impoverishment of the people.

"We are unalterably opposed to monometallism, which has locked fast the prosperity of an industrial people in the paralysis of hard times. Gold monometallism is a British policy, and its adoption has brought other nations into financial servitude to London. It is not only un-American, but anti-American, and it can be fastened on the United States only by the stifling of that spirit and love of liberty which proclaimed our political independence in 1776 and won it in the war of the revolution.

"We demand the free and unlimited coinage of both gold and silver at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1 without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation. We demand that the standard silver dollar shall be full legal tender, equally with gold, for all debts, public and private, and we favor such legislation as will prevent for the future the demonetization of any kind of legal tender money by private contract.

"We are opposed to the policy and practice of surrendering to the holders of the obligations of the United States the option reserved by the law to the government of redeeming such obligations in either silver coin or gold coin.

"We are opposed to the issuing of interest-bearing bonds of the United States in times of peace, and condemn the trafficking with banking syndicates which, in exchange for bonds and at an enormous profit to themselves, supply the Federal Treasury with gold to maintain the policy of gold monometallism.

"Congress alone has the power to coin and issue money, and President Jackson declared that this power could not be delegated to corporations or individuals. We, therefore, demand that the power to issue notes to circulate as money be taken from the national banks and that all paper money shall be issued directly by the Treasury Department, and be redeemable in coin and receivable for all debts, public and private.

"We hold that tariff duties should be levied for purposes of

revenue, such duties to be so adjusted as to operate equally throughout the country and not discriminate between class or section, and that taxation should be limited by the needs of the government honestly and economically administer. We denounce as disturbing to business the Republican threat to restore the McKinley law, which has been twice condemned by the people in national elections, and which, enacted under the false plea of protection to home industry, proved a prolific breeder of trusts and monopolies, enriched the few at the expense of the many, restricted trade and deprived the producers of the great American staples of access to their natural markets.

"Until the money question is settled we are opposed to any agitation for further changes in our tariff laws, except such as are necessary to make good the deficit in revenue caused by the adverse decision of the Supreme Court on the income tax. But for this decision by the Supreme Court there would be no deficit in the revenue under the law passed by a Democratic Congress in strict pursuance of the uniform decisions of that court for nearly 100 years that court having under that decision sustained constitutional objections to its enactment, which had been overruled by the ablest Judges who have ever sat on that bench. We declare that it is the duty of Congress to use all the constitutional power which remains after that decision, or which may come from its reversal of the court as it may hereafter be constituted, so that the burdens of taxation may be equally and impartially laid to the end that wealth may bear its due proportion of the expenses of the government.

"We hold that the most efficient way of protecting American labor is to prevent the importation of foreign pauper labor to compete with it in the home market, and that the value of the home market to our American farmers and artisans is greatly reduced by a vicious monetary system which depresses the prices of their products below the cost of production and thus deprives them of the means of purchasing the products of our home manufactories.

"The absorption of wealth by the few, the consolidation of our leading railway systems, and the formation of trusts and pools require a stricter control by the Federal Government of those arteries of commerce. We demand the enlargement of the powers of the Inter-State Commerce Commission, and such restrictions and guarantees in the control of railroads as will protect the people from robbery and oppression.

"We denounce the profligate waste of the money wrung from the people by oppressive taxation, and the lavish appropriations of recent Republican Congresses which have kept taxes high, while the labor that pays them is unemployed and the products of the people's toil are depressed till they no longer repay the cost of production. We demand a return to that simplicity and economy which befits a democratic government, and a reduction in the num ber of useless offices, the salaries of which drain the substance of the people.

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