The advocate. [volume], June 17, 1896, Page 7, Image 7

About The advocate. [volume] (Topeka, Kan.) 1894-1897

Image provided by: Kansas State Historical Society; Topeka, KS

                
1896.
THE! jDVOOjftJTE.
7
WHAT SHOULD THE NA
TIONAL CONVENTION DO?
BY G. C. CLEMENS, "EXTREMIST."
Are these thy great men, these who cringe and
creep,
And writhe through slimy ways to place and
power? Lowell.
Now, at last, even the blind can see
what the true and tried long ago fore
saw and foretold. Two years ago I
warned the People's party that its
managers were pursuing a dangerous
course in giving undue prominence in
their campaigns to free coinage; that
should either of the old parties take up
free silver, voters would say to us:
"Free silver is the one important thing,
and as my own party has declared for
that, pray why should I become a Pop
ulist?" But I was not heeded. I was
"an extremist." I was not "a prac
tical politician." Unlike our esteemed
National Chairman, I had not been
"rubbing up against" anything. Last
January the Bimetallic Union kindly
sent its proxies to St. Louis to hold a
meeting of onr National committee for
us and call a National convention; and,
in our name, to invite the Bimetallic
Union to hold a free silver convention
at the same time and place, with the
ultimate design of having both con:
ventions meet as one. In our name,
that meeting passed resolutions declar
ing in substance that free coin
age was to be our domi
nant issue this year, to which, for
the sake of "union," we would cheer
fully subordinate everything else, con
science included; and those resolutions
were widely published. State conven
tions have been visited and induced to
adopt similar resolutions those
adopted by the Kansas convention, and
which made every true Populist blush
for his party, being, perhaps, the most
cowardly of all. Of all the magnificent
reform press of two years ago, only a
comparatively few papers have re
mained true to our principles; the rest
have, for months, preached nothing
but free silver and "unification of all
refprm forces at St. Louis." Speakers
have been sent out to proclaim free
silver as all of Populism. Papers and
speakers have called believers in the
Omaha platform "extremists" who
should be "relegated to the rear;" one
free silver 'organ has gone so far as to
call them "traitors to the people's
cause." Ever since January, I have
been urging, whenever I could get a
hearing, that, should the Democrats
nominate free silver candidates on a
free silver platform, our resolutions
and papers would enable them to con
demn us out of our own mouths for
even keeping up our party organiza
tion instead of joining them. For
have we not been loudly proclaiming
the paramount and pressing impor
tance of a union of all in favor of free
coinage? And by merely keeping up
our party organization, would we not
be dividing the free silver vote? I
have not been heeded. I am an "ex
tremist;" a believer In foolish "isms."
The genuine Populist papers have
ceaselessly warned our alleged leaders
that no free silver party existed; that
the St. Louis silver convention, If held
at all, would represent only a myth;
that old party free silver men were still
in the old parties, and that most of
them would likely stay there; that our
leaders were leading us directly to
where an old party ambush had been
carefully provided for us. In vain.
These papers were edited by "extrem
ists" who were not worth heeding by
our shrewd "practical politicians."
But how is it now? The non
existence of the free silver party is now
established beyond any man's ability
to doubt. A recently published letter
shows the awfulest misgiving on the
part of even the infallible Taubeneck
that there may be no free silver conven
tion at St. Louis at all ! It is now as
good as certain that the Chicago con
vention will nominate free silver can
didates on a free silver platform, and
that the Democrats fully expect us to
join them because the conduct and ut
terances jof our leaders and our press
have given reason for euch an expecta
tion. What shall we do? Our alleged
leaders are in an awkward predica
ment. Have they got the party into
a predicament, too ? Not at all. There
is an easy and honorable way out. Let
"an extremist" propose a plan for
dealing with the situation which "ex
tremists" predicted and which has at
last arrived.
From beginning to end, there has
not been one gl jam of common eense
apparent anywhere in the agitation for
a "union" at St. Louis. No union was
practicable there; none was necessary.
If there is to be a union, the time for
it will be after the election, not before.
The National convention can only de
clare the party creed and name candi
dates to be voted for by Electors when
they shall have been chosen by their
States. Should it appear after the
election that the gold standard candi
dates have not a majority of the Elec
tors and that no candidates have a
majority, then the Electors opposed to
the gold standard must either unite
their votes in the Electoral colleges or
throw the election of a President into
the House. The latter course might be
dangerous; it would at least be uncer
tain; and it would be better for the
Electors to settle the matter themselves
while the exclusive power to do so re
mained with them. Under such cir
cumstances, we could extort a pledge
that should any of our measures pajs
Congress, they should not be vetoed
and that the constitution should be
obeyed as to the employment of the
federal army; and these pledges would
give us all we could get by electing our
own candidates. We might even get
the Vice President for ourselves. "Ex
tremist" as I am, I would favor such
a "union" then. We "visionaries" are
the very men who most desire prac
tical results; only we do not call giving
ourselves oftices practical results for
the people, I therefore propose that
the National convention shall adopt a
resolution in substance as follows:
If, after the electlon.lt Bhall appear that
the candidates nominated by this convention
have not secured a majority of the Presiden
tial Electors, and that no other candidates
have secured such majority, then, on the
day of Novembar, all the People's party Elec
tors chosen at said election, together with all
the Chairmen of State committees, shall meet
In the city of at o'clock m., to con
fer concerning the situation as it may then
exist; and said conference shall have full
power to agree upon candidates for President
and Vice President who shall be agreeable to
the Electors of any other party opposed to the
gold standard, but under no circumstances
thdiandidate of the Republican party ; and in
all Electoral colleges, It shall be the duty of
every People's party Elector to vote for the
candidates so agreed upon by said conference
to the end that the entire Electoral vote op
posed to the gold standard shall be united In
the Electoral colleges in favor of a single set
of candidates.
Thus will the National convention ,
have discharged its whole duty with
reference to bringing about "a union
of all reform forces," and it can pro-i
ceed to nominate candidates who have (
been Populists more than twenty-four
hours and who are to be Populists j
longer1 than for "this day and train j
only;" and to adopt a progressive Pop
ulist platform with manly courage In
Its principles and manly vigor in its
language, without the necessity of
keeping one eye on some other party to
observe the effect. Of course, we can
not hope to have the enthusiasm of
1802 in the St. Louis convention. Too
many oflice-crazy "practical politi
cians" have been chosen delegates.
Their very presence must be a wet
blanket upon delegates whose hearts
throb with genuine sympathy for the
suffering people.' But we can have the
old enthusiasm in our campaign, for
our speakers can scarce be limited to
the discussion of free silver, seeing
that another party is to have that as its
entire stock in trade.
The National convention will thus
give to the party's electors when chosen
the full authority of the party, if its
own candidates should be defeated at
the polls, to bring about the "union
so much talked of at a time when it
could not, in the nature of things, be
accomplished and when the talk could
do us nothing but harm. Knowing in
advance of our inclinations and the
long-proved loyalty of our party to free
silver, it ought not to be dlfiicult for
all free silver men, of whatever party,
to agree with us on single Electoral
tfcketn in the States; while, on the
other hand, as the Electors, whatever
their own opinions, would be pledged
to vote for the candidates of the party
whose Electors they were if those can
didates could be elected, we need not
be unreasonable in agreeing with others
upon Electoral tickets. Should this
plan be adopted, which in fact is the
plan of the constitution restored in
part, the position of Elector must no
longer be regarded as merely orna
mental, but the very ablest and most
trustworthy men should be chosen, for
they may have to deal with conditions
which no one now foresees and which
will require the wisest and most con
summate statesmanship to deal with
properly in the Interest of the common
people. That the Electors should be
the very ablest and best men to be had,
is so extremely important In view of
the rapidity with which events move in
these days, so that utterly untbought
of things may happen within the short
period between the conventions and
the elections, the reader must pardon
me for repeating the suggestion. I
have thought much of this matter; I
have long observed events and omens
of events with the eye of a reformer;
and I foresee that grave conditions
may confront us this fall and demand
to be grappled with, although I do not
now know what those conditions may
be. Perhaps mere party differences
may become quite trivial by compari
son before another President takes
President Cleveland's place in the
White House or attempts to take it.
I think I will be understood without
further elaboration of this topic. Every
dispassionate observer of the times
must, for Bimilar reasons, see the de
sirability of remitting to the Electors
the entire question of union under a
convention resolution as I have pro
posed; and I greatly misjudge if my
fellow "extremists" in the convention
are net the first to- urge this matter, for
they are the very ones not the trim
merswhose reform education best
enables them to understand how im
portant, under possible circumstances
by no means uncertain to arise, this
power vested in Electors might be
come. The Democratic convention
would show statesmanship were it to
adopt a similar resolution and, of
course, adopt it first. But let us adopt
It, whatever others may do.
Apia, the States tra tha natural in
8trumenta of reform. Without rebel
lion and successful revolution by force
of arms, we can do nothing through
the National government, eave to settle
the money question. Every reader of
the correspondence of Washington,
Madison and others even the reader
of the introduction to Story's work on
the constitution knows that the prin
cipal, if not the only object of those
who Insisted upon the adoption of the
federal constitution was to prevent the
possibility of just such reforms as the
People's party now seeks to accom
plish; that their aim was to take away
the power of the people acting through
their States, because that power had
become dangerous to the wealthy class
and threatened its supremacy. The
constitution, therefore, closed the door
against amendments. As Patrick
Henry so solemnly warned the Virginia
convention "The way to amendments
Is shut!" Aside from the money ques
tion, we can get no national reforms
without amendments; and in order to
carry a single amendment, we must
not only have a two-thirds majority in
each house of Congress, but control of
both houses of the Legislature in
thirty-four States! Is this a hopeful
outlook? But the repeal of certain
acts of Congress, possible at any ses
sion, would deprive the Federal courts
of all power to reverse State courts
save in international treaty cases which
might involve the government in war;
would deprive Federal Judges of the
power to strike down State legislation
by enjoining a sovereign State's ofil
cers from putting it in force. With
the Federal coifrts no longer supreme
over the people, then, through State
legislation and the ready amendment
of State constitutions we could accom
pliah any reform the people might da
sire. With unimportant exceptions
the federal constitution has leer
amended but twice. The first tec
amendments, without which the pec
pie would have had no rights left then
at all, were adopted under the
influence of the fesr of an
armed uprising before the govern
ment had yet got upon its feet; and
the other amendments were added as
the result of five years of bloody con
filet, and were forced upon several
Legislatures, even then, by the recon
struction acts. No, brethren; the na
tional government is not our reforming
machine. , We need free States as our
instruments. To be answered that
this means "the exploded doctrine of
State sovereignty," is to be given a
fool's answer. The State sovereignty
contended for and settled by the Civil
war was nothing but the right of a
State to secede; the internal sover
eignty of the States was not involved,
but was distinctly recognized after the
war by the very reconstruction acts
themselves.
You ask how we could have govern
ment ownership of railroads and tele
graphs by State action? Easily, and
with more safety from the danger of
immense patronage. If each State
owned its own railroad and telegraph
mileage, could not the Governors of
States, or officers specially appointed
by the States, act a a federal board of
managers ? Then leave the patronage
within each State to that State; and aa
some States would be controlled by
one party, some by other parties, the
vast railroad and telegraph patronage
could not be wielded for political pur
poses by one party nor one man, while
civil service regulations could be
adopted by the States, is well as they
could be by the federal government,
(Continued o pagt 0.)