The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 11, No. 29, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 21, 1892 Page: 1 of 16
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'Organize, Educate, Co-Operate. Official Journal of the Farmers State Alliance of Texas. {_ "Liberty, Justice, Equality."
Vol. XI, No. 29.
DALLAS, TEXAS, THURSDAY, JULY 21, 1892.
Whole No. 534.
NUGENT ANSWERS REAGAN.
'#
t Fort Worth, Texas, July 6.
—Hon. John H. Keagan, Austin,
j Texas: Dear sir—I have known
y\>u so Ions: and favorably as
public man and heard you spoken
of so uniformly for years as a "trib
une of the people," that I had come
to regard you as incapable of
discussing a public question in any
other than a spirit of fairness.
You have now behind you a Ion
life of useful public service. Your
political record has been made up.
Presumably at your advanced age,
whatever may be your capacity for
future service, you do not contem-
plate a return to political life
Having resigned the most exalted
national office which a citizen of
Texas could reasonably hope to
obtain, to accept the place you
now hold, I had supposed that,
wearied with the labor and disqui-
etude of political "life, but still
. anxious to serve the people who
had so greatly honored you, you
would find in the discharge of
your new duties both congenial
employment and that opportunity
to serve the cause of justice and
humanity which I believed you
desired above all things. I did
not, indeed, presume that you
would cease to take interest in
passing political events — your
great intelligence and patriotism
could hardly have pegpaitted you
to f row indifferent to matters af-
fecting the welfare and happiness
of your fellow citiz3ns; but I must
confess, my dear sir, that I scarcely
expected your present service to be
signalized by such sharp returns
to the old fields as you have start-
led the country with within the
past twelve months. Yoir silver
speech in El Paso, apparently pre-
pared under the delusion that Mr.
Cleveland was elected on a free
silver platform, was a forcicle indi-
cation that your new functions had
not entirely displaced your taste
for political controversy. Then
your berating of the "third party"
at Hamilton still more strongly in-
dicated, that your interest in par-
tisan politics had not entirely van-
ished, while your recent letter to
Mr. Moore of Brown wood is a
conclusive reminder that in this
campaign the paople's party must
expect to encounter your active
opposition whenever your duties
as railway commissioner shall
leave you with leisure enough to
indulge your taste as a party fight-
er. But, judge, while I would
not deprive you of the pleasure
which you seem to derive from the
employment of your fighting qual-
ities in the interest of the old par-
ty, permit me to respectfully in-
sist that even the people's party is
entitled to an "open field and a fair
fight." Understand me, judge, I
do not question your motives.
These I am free to admit are above
criticism; but I am afraid that in
making your points you have drop
ped into a style of discussion
which you must upon reflection
perceive to be both unsound anc
unfair.
The people's party is before the
country on a platform which de-
clares in favor of free and unlimi-
ted coinage of silver. Does the
organized democracy of the coun-
try agree with them in this decla-
ration? You assuredly will not
contend that the silver plank in
the platform recently adopted at
Chicago even approximates this
declaration? You are certainly
aware that Mr. Cleveland's mana-
ger, ex-Secretary Whitney, has
declared that this plank does not
differ materially from the silver
plank in the republican platform;
that Mr. Cleveland and the busi-
ness men of New York are satis-
fled with it, and that the Texas re
presentative on the committee or
platform at Chicago voted against
a declaration in favor of the free
and unlimited coinage of silver?
In view of such facts is it not plain
that the Texas democracy is com-
mitted agninst free coinage—at
east for tour years more? And if
so, how can it be contended that
the democratic party and the peo
pie's party in Texas are agreed on
the subject of free coinage of sil
ver? And how can it be argued
with any show of reason that the
People's party cxn more certainly
secure free coinage by uniting
with the democracy under an anti-
free coinage platform than
by remaining in their organization
under a platform which distinctly
declares in favor of free coinage?
But again, does the national dem-
ocratic platform advocate "a larger
volume of circulating money, stable
and unflunctuating in value, to aid
the industries and to promote the
prosperity of the country?" Has
any national democratic, platform
since the war declared for any
such policy? Do you not know,
judge, that the platform of 1856,
upon which Tilden made his suc-
cessful race, denounoed the repub-
can party for not having paid oft'
and retired the greenback curren-
cy; that no subsequent national
democratic convention has ever re-
pudiated this policy, and that it is
distinctly favored by Cleve-
land Hill, Bayard and other
eastern leaders of the party?
Is it not a fact that in the
recent Chicago convention no dele-
gate from any section advocated
the policy of enlarging the
"volume of money?" And if
the national platform fixes the poli-
cy of the party on national issues
is it not incrediable to suppose that
the People's party can more speed-
ily obtain a "larger volume of
money" by uniting with a party
which has never declared in favor
of such a policy, but is distinc-
tively on record against it, than by
going to themselves under a plat-
form unequivocally demanding a
larger volume 'of money?" But,
judge, do you Seriously entertain
the hope that the election of Mr.
Cleveland on the Chicago platform
will eventuate in the increase of
our circulating medium? Demo-
crats—I mean the leaders—are
practically unitedin their opposition
to any increase of our paper circu-
lation, except possibly united in
their opposition to any increase of
our paper circulation, except pos-
sibly through the voluntary action
of banking corporations. They
promise indeed a removal of the
discriminating tax on the circula-
tion of private banks, and thus a
direct encouragement of a species
of inflation neither supported by
the credit of the government, nor
by any other adequate and reliable
basis. But is it not easy to see
that this system will turn us loose
upon an uncertain sea or bank
credits, to whose storm-tossed
wave no interest can be committed
without danger of complete wreck-
age? Besides this fateful method
of enlarging the volume of circula-
tion, no democrat of natioal promi-
nence propose anything except
free silver, quoted as authority for
the statement that no hope of free
silver can ever come from Mr.
Cleveland's administration of pub-
ic affairs. Here then, judge, are
at least two points of agreement
enumerated by you at which the
widest divergence is found to ex-
ist between the two parties. It is
true, you say that you refer to the
parties as they exist in this state,
and of course in determining their
status in Texas you must have had
in your mind their state platform
declarations. But you are too old
a politiean—too well versed in
party tactics to claim that a state
platform can have any standing as
an enuciation of party policy on na-
tional issues. If you uo seriously
believe otherwise then let me re-
mind you of some recent political
history. In 1890 twenty-nine
state • democratic conventions de-
clared in favor of free coinage of
silver in some form. Many of
them unequivocally for the "free
and unlimited coinage of silver."
Yet the representatives from many
of these state voted against free
coinage. The recent states con-
vention at Lampassas declared for
free coinage and then proceeded to
send a delegation to Chicago large-
ly composed of enemies of free
coinage , and finally the national
convention gave free silver an em-
phatic setback by nominating
Cleveland on a platform framed by
his friends and pronounced satis-
factory by the goldbugs of New
York. In perfect keeping also
with this line of action the silence
of the platform on the question of
increasing the currency affords
ominous and convincing evidence
of the little sympathy which the
organized national democracy has
for the inflation views of Texas
democrats. Thus tried by the
only real test, viz; standards of po-
litical faith promulgated by the
national bodies, the two parties on
these great and vital issues can
meet on no common ground.
But in enumerating points of
disagreement you give evidence of
the fact that like many other emi-
nent men, you have not fully in-
formed yourself in respect to the
politicaf faith of the people you *
criticise. There is no pension
plank, judge, in the People's party
platform. You ought to know
that this stale charge has been dis-
proved again and again. Perhaps
the odium which attaches to the
post-bellum records of the two old
parties on this pension question has
induced democrats in the south to
seiz3 upon a mere resolution passed
by the St.ijouis convention, which
embodied merely the sense of the
body itself and was intended to
bind no person ottside of that body
as a means of calling off public at-
tention from the pension legisla-
tion of recent years. Each of the
old parties has endeavored to head
the other off in exaggerated pledge s
to the soldier vote, and both of
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Park, Milton. The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 11, No. 29, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 21, 1892, newspaper, July 21, 1892; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth185474/m1/1/?q=%22~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .