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PAGE TWO
rible consequences to the people at
large.
Every thoughtful observer of events
is convinced that the present situa
tion is full of danger. Things can
not go on as they are. So unbeara
ble are becoming the burdens of tax
ation, direct and indirect; so intoler
able is becoming the effect of special
privilege on the great mass of the un
privileged, that our great cities are
already the hotbeds of sedition.
Last winter tens of thousands of
desperate people, men, women and
children, paraded the streets of north
ern cities, singing the Marseillaise,
openly calling for the overthrow of
our system of government. The dyna
mite bomb was heard, and the incen
diary orator at the street corner open
ly advocated the doctrine of class
war and murder. One of two things
is certain. The militarism of such
men as President Roosevelt will sub
liminate in military despotism, or
the revolt of the proletariat will con
vulse us with the greatest revolution
known to history. Now you and I
agree that everything possible must
be done to avert both military despot
ism and revolution. We don’t want
cither the one or the other. Let us,
then, earnestly study the present po
litical situation with a view to find
ing out which candidate for Presi
dent, and which party, offers reason
able, practicable, effective remedy for
the evils which afflict us and which
endanger the republic.
Let us consider Mr. Taft. What
plank in his platform offers relief
from the financial despotism of Wall
Street which has given us two deso
lating panics within the last fifteen
years'? What plank in his platform
proposes to lift the burdens of gov
ernment from the backs of the un
privileged and to place at least a por
tion of it on the accumulated wealth
of the country? What part of his
platform offers a single suggestion of
material relief from the exactions and
the tyranny of the public service cor
porations V What portion of his plat
form proposes to put back into the
hands of the people the right to rule
themselves? It is not to be found.
With Mr. Taft elected President, we
have the governmental system left
practically where it is, and where it
has been for these many years. Prac
tically, Mr. Taft’s platform is the
stand-pat platform. The Steel Trust
need not be afraid of it, and isn’t
afraid of it; the National Banking
fraternity need not be afraid of it,
and are not afraid of it; those who
are by freight and passenger traffic
compelling the business of this coun
try to pay revenue upon seven or
eight millions of dollars of fictitious
capitalization have nothing to fear
from Mr. Taft’s platform and do not
fear it.
How is it with Mr. Bryan? We
are not allowed to infer from speech
es, editorials or platforms heretofore
advanced by Mr. Bryan that anything
in the reform line can be expected of
him, because he takes pains to tell the
country that his platform is not less
binding in what it says than in what
it doesn’t say. He has not only
dropped every reform doctrine which
made him famous and made him
popular, but he is taking pains to
make it clear to the plutocratic
element of his party who are financ
ing his campaign that he has dropped
them. Therefore, we must judge Mr.
Bryan by that platform of his.
Tell me what plank of it proposes
to relieve the country from the evils
of unfair taxation. He once stood
for an income tax. He no longer does
so. We had understood that he was
in favor of an inheritance tax. We
must no longer harbor that idea. He
declared vociferously that he was in
favor of the government ownership
of public utilities. He has abandoned
that broad and sound and progres
sive doctrine. In former platforms
he used the language and the names
of Jefferson and Jackson in denounc
ing the national banking system. He
now favors it and proposes to per
petuate it with a governmental
guarantee which will punish the inno
cent bankers for the crimes of the
criminal banKers.
In the opening gun speech of his
campaign, he adopted as his campaign
motto, “Shall the People Rule?”
What magnificent impudence; what
splendid bluff! “Shall the people
rule ?’ ’ boldly asks Mr. Bryan, hoping
that the people would forget that he
had dropped out of his platform the
only proposition which offered the
people any hope of regaining their
right to rule —the Initiative and
Referendum.
Therefore, if Mr. Bryan should be
elected, his platform binds him to do
nothing to lemedy the evils from
which we suffer, and we have the
assurance of the association of New
York Democrats that even if Mr.
Bryan should try to do anything
injurious in the way of legislation,
the Republican Senate will prevent
him from succeeding.
Very respectfully, I beg leave to
submit to you that the platform upon
■which I am making this fight offers
the only reasonable, practicable and
conservative remedy for those evils
which are threatening us with mili
tary despotism or with revolution.
First. We propose that the
Federal Government shall be sup
ported by an income tax laid upon
the accumulated wealth of the
country; by tariff duties levied upon
the luxuries of life; by a franchise
tax on the public-service corpora
tions; by a tax lai! upon inheritances;
and we contend that the necessaries
of life should be free from Federal
taxation. To cure the trust evils we
propose the simple, practical remedy
of placing on the free list those
articles handled by the trusts so that
the foreign competition can come into
our market with goods and compel
the American manufacturer to deal
as kindly with us home folks as he
is now dealing with the foreigner in
the foreign markets. The burden of
taxation and tyranny of public
service corporations we would get
rid of by having the govern
ment fairly assess and honestly
pay for the property of these
corporations so that they would
be owned and operated for the benefit
of all the people—thus removing the
motive for discrimination and ex
ploitation. The money question we
would settle by abolishing National
Banks, just as Jackson and Jefferson
put them out of business, and by
restoring to the government its con-
be 3«ffersonlan
stitutional power to create money.
As the best guarantee of bank de
posits, we would establish postal
savings banks, which would not only
bring safety and convenience to de
positors, but would decentralize the
money supply, and deprive Wall
Street of its power to hoard the cash
of the country and cause panics. We
would put back into the hands of the
people the power of self-government
by adopting the Initiative and Ref
erendum, the Imperative Mandate,
and the Right of Recall. Thus, with
the recall, the people could remove at
once from office the representative
who was betraying his trust. With
the imperative mandate we could
compel our Legislators, Congressmen
or Senators, to vote our will instead
of the will of some grasping corpora
tion. With the initiative, we could
put upon its passage a law which we
ourselves desire! to have Legislatures
adopt, and with the referendum, we
would compel Legislative bodies,
high and low —city, state and nation
al —to refer back to us any pro
posed legislative measures. If all
officers, including Federal Judges,
were elected by direct vote of the
people, as we demand, and the
principles just stated were applied,
we would not have to wait six years
to get rid of a Senator like Foraker,
or Depew, or Platt; we would nqt
have to wait a life-time to get rid of
a Federal Judge like Jones, of Ala
bama, or Pritchard, of North Caro
lina; we would not have to wait an
indefinite period to remove Judge
Grosscup, ’ who falsified a judicial
record in order to find a method of
relieving the Standard Oil Company
of the $29,000,000 fine. In other
words, if the Populist Platform were
placed into operation, every citizen
would be in fact what he is in theory,
—a Sovereign in a land where the
people rule themselves. With our
economic demands put into the form
of laws, we would again have what we
had prior to the Civil War —the best
government the world ever saw —as
nearly perfect as the work of human
hands can hope to be.
In this campaign, I am the only
candidate who represents the school
of Jeffersonian thought. The plat
form of Taft is Hamiltonian through
and through. The platform of Bryan
is a clumsy effort to imitate the plat
form of Taft without using the same
words.
Mr. Bryan may amuse himself by
calling Mr. Taft’s platform a fiddle,
while he calls his own a violin, but
the instruments are identical, and the
music is the same. In his mad
desire to gratify his personal wish
to become President, he has abandon
ed every principle that Jefferson
would have owned; every principle
that you have voted for when you
voted for him in IS9G; every principle
that you said was sound when you
voted for him in 1900, and if you
will be consistent with yourselves,
still thinking that those principles are
sound, it is for me that you must vote
in this campaign.
Again, I am the only candidate in
this race who makes a stand for
Southern rights and white supremacy.
The South furnishes two-thirds of
the electoral votes which elect a
Democrat President, but what is the
South getting in return; in what
manner is she recognized? Who con
sults her about platforms, govern
mental policies, or Congressional
legislation? Nobody—least of all
Mr. Bryan. Although the convention
which nominated him grossly insulted
the South when the Haskell brass
band pranced around the Georgia dele
gation, playing “Marching Through
Georgia,” and although this same
Haskell-led gang of Bryanites hooted
and hissed the name of Robert E.
Lee—after having honored with a
whoop and a hurrah the name of
Abraham Lincoln —Mr. Bryan has
not so much as expressed his regrets.
Although the Parker crowd gave the
South the Vice-Presidency four years
ago, the Bryan crowd repudiated her
claims for that post this year. It had
to go as Tom Taggart said it was to
go—Tom, the gambling hell and
saloon proprietor of French Lick
Springs, Indiana. Taggart wanted
Kern, the fellow who is denouncing
the wicked Republicans who give and
take corporation favors, and who
himself is riding through the land on
a free pass —a railroad favor—just
as Mr. Bryan himself did four years
ago. The South could not get a
Committee Chairmanship; and the
South, if Mr. Bryan keeps his word,
will lose the two magnificent cabinet
positions which she now holds under
the Republican administration. Al
though Mr. Bryan makes sixty-five
speeches per day, the South cannot
get a single Bryan speech. If you
want to hear ten or fifteen minutes of
Bryan oratory, you must go to the ,
music store, buy a phonograph record,
carry it home, and grind it off on the
machine.
As a Southern man, full of the
memories of the greatness of the
South in the old days prior to the
Civil War, I am ashamed of the po
litical insignificance of my section.
What caused it? Blind servitude to
one party. The South is the slave of
the Democratic party, counted as a
fixed asset which cannot be lost,
counted as so certain that no matter
what insult is heaped upon her, no
matter what wrong, legislative or
otherwise, is done her, she cannot
escape her political shackles; she
must vote the Democratic ticket even
though there is a dead dog on it.
How is this political situation to
be remedied ? By becoming un
certain, becoming a prize to be con
tended for by two white parties. It
was that way previous to the Civil
War, and then the South was great.
It must be that way again, and again
the South will be great.
On every hand you will find all
sorts of Southern greatness excepting
political greatness. Magnificent
scholars? We have them. Illustrious
scientists? We have them. Preach
ers, lawyers, doctors, merchants, of
commanding ability? We’ve got
them. But where are your great
statesmen? Which one of them ap
proaches your ideal? Which one of
them embodies your principles, voices
your aspirations? Which one of
tliem takes up the line of march that
it to carry you back from the Egypt
of your political bondage to the
promised land of your fathers?
Which one of your statesmen
carries your cause in his heart, and