[492]
All questions relating to the tariff have become insignificant for the time being, in view of the possibility, however slight, that the abhorrent principles of the Chicago platform may prevail.
The duty and the necessity to compass the final overthrow of that platform by assisting in the defeat of William J. Bryan are most imperative and solemn.
This may most certainly be accomplished by voting for the electors pledged to the support of William McKinley; but I have no quarrel with any Democrat who adopts any other course which seems to him equally well adapted or better adapted to the same end.
These views, having been fully foreshadowed in the
Sun, were now widely accepted by conservative Democrats, who either came out squarely with
Dana in support of
McKinley, on a platform pledged to gold as the national standard of value, or in support of an independent ticket composed of Democrats, about whose position and the platform on which they stood there could be no doubt whatever.
While these men differed as to the practical measures to be adopted, they stood together in the belief that the time had come when
... the Democracy must purge and recreate itself.
It must make itself again known and accepted as the party of equal rights, of party government, of republican ideas, and of political stability, or all that Jefferson labored for, and all that his successors have achieved in the Democratic name, will be lost, or credited to other parties.
And by just so long as the need of this regeneration fails to be recognized, the beginning of Democratic restoration will be delayed. ...
These words, written before the election, were prophetic.
They show no change in
Dana's principles.
They indicate no abasement of his ideals, no faltering in his purposes, but, taken in connection with the opinions already given, they show that he intended to waste neither time nor
