[491] much property as he would have to use in order to pay them now. This proposition is dishonest. I do not say that all the advocates of the free coinage of silver are dishonest. Thousands of them, millions, if there be so many, are doubtless honest in intention. But I am unable to reconcile with any ideal of integrity a change in the law which will permit a man who has borrowed a hundred dollars to pay his debt with a hundred dollars each one of which is worth only half as much as each dollar he received from the lender. The Chicago platform sanctions the use of the appointing power of the President in such a way as to control the federal judiciary in deciding questions of constitutional law. It contemplates a change in the personnel of the Supreme Court of the United States to the end that the recent decision declaring the income tax unconstitutional may be reversed. Strange times, indeed, are these, when a man is told that in order to be a Democrat he must favor the imposition of an income tax and the destruction of the independence of the judiciary! Still more alarming is the clearly implied approval of lawless violence contained in the denunciation of what is denominated in the platform “government by injunction.” Veiled in the language of moderation, the wild light of anarchy shines through. In my opinion, without reviewing the Chicago platform further, the declarations in regard to the currency, the Supreme Court, and the income tax, and the repression of forcible lawlessness by the aid of injunctions, are enough to demand its rejection by all good citizens, and the defeat of the candidates who stand upon it. I regret exceedingly to find a disposition quite prevalent to array the West against the East in the discussion of these matters. I see no occasion for making our differences sectional. Here there is no political hostility towards the West, such as is expressed towards the East by some Western newspapers and public speakers. Good citizens can perhaps best aid the cause of honest money and law and order by devoting more time to rational argument and less to inefficient abuse.
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