A LETTER

TO

Patriotic Democrats

BY

Andrew Dickson White.

JULY 14th, 1896.

Hz c-

To the Hon. J. Sterling Morton, of Nebraska ; Presi
dent Julius D. Dreher, of Virginia ; Hon. Wm.
L. Wilson, of West Virginia ; Col. William Pres
ton Johnston, of Louisiana; Hon. Josiah Patter
son, of Tennessee ; Hon. Edwin F. Uhl, of Mich
igan ; Hon. Wm. E. Quimby, of Michigan ; Hon.
George V. N. Lothrop, of Michigan ; Hon. Wayne
MacVeagh, of Pennsylvania ; Hon. Simeon E.
Baldwin, of Connecticut ; Hon. Henry A. Rich-
mond, of Buffalo, N. Y. ; Hon. Theodore Bacon, of
Rochester, N. Y. ; Hon. Samuel D. Halliday, of
Ithaca, N. Y. ; Hon. St. Clair McKelway, of
Brooklyn, N. Y. ; Hon. Frederic B. Coudert, of
New York City ; Hon. Charles S. Fairchild, of
New York City ; Hon. Eoswell P. Flower, of New
York City ; Hon. Joseph C. Hendrix, of New York
City ; Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, of New York City ;
Hon. Oswald Ottendorfer, of New York City;
Hon. Carl Schurz, of New York City ; Hon. Oscar
S. Straus, of New York City ; Hon. Henry Vil-
lard, of New York City; Hon. John De' Witt
Warner, of New York City ; Hon. Everett P.
Wheeler, of New York City :

Gentlemen :
As one who feels honored by a personal acquaintance
with you, and who respects you for your character,
abilities and public services, permit me to address you
regarding the present political crisis. I believe that
many of you know, that though a lifelong Republican,
1 have always attempted to do justice to the motives,
theories and acts of all honest men in your party, some
times even risking in consequence the good-will of my
own. What I shall now say will not be at all the utterance
of a Republican as such to Democrats, but of a citizen
to his fellow-citizens, whom he knows to be experienced,
thoughtful and patriotic. I recognize the fact that
from the days of Jefferson and Hamilton two parties,
representing two great natural classes of political
thought, have been a necessity ; that they are a neces
sity now, and will long remain so, and that the de
struction, debasement or perversion of either is an
injury to the other and to the whole country.
The majority, masquerading under the garb of
Democracy, at Chicago, has done its worst. Tt has
made a platform which is diametrically opposed to
Democracy, as developed by Jefferson, Jackson, Benton,
Seymour, Tilden and all the great leaders of the party.
More than this, it is a platform leading logically and
historically, as I shall presently show, to a despotism
which is the very opposite of all Democracy, and in
which all Democracy and Republicanism worthy of
the name would be extinguished.
On the details of this platform I need hardly dwell.
You know, as well as I, that it is the negation of modern
civilization, to say nothing of justice, honesty and
honor. Yon know how contemptuously all efforts to

mitigate its most deadly features were repelled. But,
bad as this is, it is not the worst.
For you must know, too, that it is but the first in
stalment of anarchist doctrine. If not resisted and
overwhelmed now it is absolutely certain to be followed
by other parts of the programme, especially the ab
sorption of the bonds and stocks of railroads, tele
graphs and various productive enterprises of the
country, with payment for them, if at all, in a paper
currency of nominal value, and their management by
the central government, under the cry that all such
things have been built up for the people, belong to the
people and should be managed by the people. Nor
will confiscation stop even there. Other extreme meas
ures are already vaguely foreshadowed and will be
pushed, and some which even the boldest have hardly
dared hint at will yet be put in platforms to attract
new votes of cranks and dupes, and in the hope that
perhaps some new folly may obviate, modify or obscure
the consequences of the old.
The platform indicates this by its denunciation of any
adjustment, no matter how equitable, of the Pacific
Railroad question, by its proposed treatment of the
Supreme Court of the United States and by its de
mand, practically, for free riots in every State.
The candidate himself gives no uncertain warning of
this more highly developed policy of spoliation. You
will have noticed that he declares that " the right to
coin money and issue money is a function of the Govern
ment." Taking this in connection with his associates
and antecedents we must look for a further step in this
development of spoliation under his guidance ; that is,
the unlimited issue of irredeemable paper, not only to
cover existing obligations of the Government, but to
pay for all private property which Anarchists and
Socialists may think it best for the central Government
to absorb and administer.

The arguments for the present Chicago platform lead
with remorseless logic to this extension of Govern
mental powers, involving wide-spread confiscation and
a centralizing despotism. The same demagogues who
have pushed their doctrines thus far will, in the name
of the farmers of the West, declare that having secured
transportation of their products at a far lower rate than
is known in any other country in the world — the lowest
rate consistent with any return to those who have
placed their capital in transportation enterprises — this
is not yet sufficient, that the people must have the
services of railways, telegraphs and the like at a rate
still lower, or for nothing ; and that this can only be
done when the people shall " resume the ownership " and
assume the management of these enterprises through
the Government — the managers at the centre of power
to be, of course, the sort of men who took control of
your recent convention.
The coal and other mines can, by arguments equally
logical, be absorbed, payment being made at first in
debased coin, and finally in unlimited paper. Con
fiscation having thus taken place under the forms of
law, the confiscated property must be managed for the
people, and this can only be done by a concentration of
powers in the central Government, and consequently by
a central despotism, not excelled, if indeed it is equalled,
in Russia. You think this picture overdrawn. It is
but the logical outcome of the present situation. Let
me ask you candidly, is this 'future platform any more
improbable to you now than the present Chicago plat
form and candidate would have been to you four years
ago ? Suppose that any one had prophesied to
you then that at the next Convention of your
party the controlliug spirits would be Altgeld
and Tillman openly, and Peffer, Simpson and
Stewart secretly. Suppose, too, that any one
had prophesied that the President you were then

nominating, and whom you were destined to elect — the
only President you have elected in thirty-five years —
would be treated with every insult, both of omission
and commission, and the real bone and sinew of the
party, to whom alone it owed a new lease of its exist
ence, kept out, or virtually driven out, of the conven
tion — brutally, contemptuously, indecently. Would
not such a prophecy have then been thought infinitely
more absurd than anything I prophesy now ? Remem
ber that revolutions never go backward ; that, like
other conflagrations, they grow by what they feed
upon. Meet them at the beginning with right reason
and courage, and you can turn them ; temporize, and
they will devour you.
On this platform, aiming at present and prospective
anarchy and socialism, the convention and its galleries
placed "The Boy Orator of the Platte." Having
amused the assembled mob at Chicago, he was repaid
immediately by the nomination to the Presidency. It
was in obedience to a similar impulse that a European
despot in the last century turned over his Government
to the actor who had delighted him at the theatre, and
that a Roman Emperor gave the Chief Magistracy of
the Republic to the horse which had pleased him in
the circus.
For the first time in the history of the United States
we have an anarchist and socialist platform, and for the
first time, also, a candidate who has never given the
slightest evidence of statesmanship. There have, in
deed, been placed in nomination in days gone bv, sun
dry great generals, but these, by commanding armies in
the field, by carrying on great operations and by con
ducting important negotiations of various sorts, had
shown at least some kind of fitness to deal with 'large
questions. But only the qualification of this candidate
— " The Boy Orator "—is, that during his brief career
in Congress he made one or two speeches which amused

9
the House and pleased its galleries, and that during the
recent convention he took the fancy of the mob by a
single exhibition of flaring rhetoric. The most telling
phrase of this rhetoric — the phrase which threw the
galleries into ecstasy, was as inane as it was repulsive,
and nothing beyond his speeches is' needed to show
that both in temper and intellect he is utterly unfit to
deal with the great questions which now confront the
country, or, indeed, with any large questions whatever.
The scenes at the convention itself indicate a state of
things against which all thoughtful men of both parties
throughout the country, and you especially, as conserva
tive leaders, should solidly and vigorously array your
selves. We have circumstantial reports of speeches and
scenes, which, allowing for all journalistic exaggeration
and " enterprise," would have brought ridicule upon
the Jacobin Club at Paris, in the palmy days of the
reign of terror. Well has one of your own Democratic
organs remarked, that " lunacy having dictated the plat
form, it was fitting that hysteria should evolve the
candidate." I confess that the Republican party has had much
folly to answer for in providing enormous galleries at
its later nominating conventions, and in allowing an ir
responsible crowd to meddle with, and almost dictate
to and run away with, the convention ; and as a mem
ber of such a convention I have more than once, pro
tested openly against this dangerous practice. But
this last Chicago convention has left its predecessors
far behind. Nothing has hitherto been depicted to us
like its " lady representatives from Utah," or like its
gushing men and hysterical women, " waltzing toward
the platform, waving flags," and shrieking for the can
didate they happened to fancy. It was a substitution
of pandemonium for calm, weighty discussion.
In this seething mass of folly the honored representa
tives of the old Democracy were, as you too well know,

10
utterly lost. Instead of the Democrats heretofore
known and honored in the country, the control was
assumed, either directly or indirectly, from without or
within, by the Altgelds, the Tillmans, the Blands, the
Peffers, the Stewarts, the Simpsons, and their like ;
men who had outlived their usefulness, if they ever had
any, both in the Democratic and Republican parties ;
and as if to show the hollowness of its pretensions and
the hypocrisy of its claims, its permanent presiding
officer was a Senator who owed his seat in the Senate,
and therefore in the convention, to the railway corpora
tions of which he was the paid attorney ; and one of
the controlling spirits stirring the mass from beneath
was another Senator who owed his presence in the
Senate, and therefore in the convention, to the fact that
he is a millionaire mining monopolist.
Democracy has heretofore stood as a conservative
force in the country, but at this convention we see in
control a heterogeneous mass of anarchists, socialists,
populists, speculators and section alists — the strength
of neither of the great parties, and the pest of both.
From the Southern States we heard no voices of the
men who have so nobly devoted themselves to opposing
unreason, and to building up the " New South ; " from
the Western States we heard no voices of those who
have developed the industries, the systems of commu
nication, the great educational enterprises, the real
civilization of those great regions. All such voices were
stifled. But we heard from the South the phrase
makers, the formula peddlers, the sensation mongers,
the demagogues of the old sort, who have always cost
the South so dear — the sort who formerly hurrahed for
secession and who are now screaming as lustily for
confiscation. From the West we saw a representation
of all sorts of architects of ruin, and especially the wild
schemers and dreamers and "fog horns" — the men
who, as a rule, having failed to conduct successfully

11
any business of their own, think that they are entitled
to take charge of the business of the nation ; men of
whom such amazing types were exhibited in the con
vention itself, and in the fringe of political folly hang
ing about it.
What other outcome from such a source could there
be than a policy of confiscation, ruin, distress and dis
honor ?
What is the duty of sound Democrats, among whom
your fellow-citizens class you— of men faithful to the
traditions of their party, who love it, who know the
value of it, who wish to save it ?
I will answer this question as one who recognizes the
necessity of two great parties, and the fact that each is
necessary to the other.
To me partisanship at this moment is nothing. Were
the crisis reversed, or the Republican candidate stand
ing even on half as wild a platform as that recently
adopted at Chicago, and the Democratic candidate
standing on anything approaching a sound currency
platform, I would most certainly vote and work to the
utmost for the latter.
I can see but one way eventually to preserve the
Democratic party, as well as to prevent a national
catastrophe, and this I trust that you will allow me to
suggest. This one way is for you and the sound
Democracy, frankly, boldly, unqualifiedly, to break
loose from this wild mob masquerading in the Demo
cratic garb, and, like the great "War Democrats"
during our civil struggle, to cast in your lot fully, for
the time, at least, with the party which you have here
tofore opposed. I fully believe that this is not only
the patriotic course as regards the country, but the ex
pedient course as regards your party and yourselves.
Cass, Dix, Dickinson, Butler, Alvord, Sickles, and the
host of other strong " War Democrats," who stood
shoulder to shoulder with the Republicans in the

12
former great crisis, furnish your example and your en
couragement in this. Their course was regarded by the
great body of the American people, and has passed
into history, as most honorable. They were welcomed,
in the new party thus formed, to leading places in its
councils, and, after the crisis had passed, those who
thought it their duty to return to the Democratic
party were welcomed all the more cordially and
heartily because they represented the bold, patriotic,
determined element which placed the country above
all party ties, and by so doing did much to save the
Democratic name from disgrace and the party from
dissolution. Of course, I know well that in doing this you have
to conquer your dislike for certain minor doctrines.
Your first difficulty — probably your main difficulty —
is the tariff question. You are, perhaps, for free trade
still, in spite of the blows that a free-trade policy has
received within the last three years from its alleged
supporters. But let me ask you candidly, after the ex
perience of these three years, do you see anything bet
ter to hope for in the combined efforts of the Populists
and their " Democratic " allies ? Do you not feel that
even a Republican administration, supported at this
crisis by patriotic Democrats, is likely to do far less
violence to your convictions, even on this question, than
this wild combination of Jack Cade elements, no mat
ter how loudly it proclaims its Democracy ?
Even if you utterly reject the Republican ideas
regarding the development of the national industries,
on another thing — and that infinitely the more impor
tant — we are agreed. You know that the financial
policy laid down at Chicago means individual and
national bankruptcy, distress and dishonor. You know
that its premises are false, its promises delusive, its
consequences ruinous. You know that it means the
wreck of life and fire insurance companies, trust com-

13
panies, savings banks, banks of deposit, building and
loan associations and monetary institutions to an enor
mous extent throughout the country. You know that
it means vast loss to the very men it is intended to
lure, and to them above all others — the farmers and
workingmen. For, as regards the farmers, to say
nothing of diminished demand for their products, any
probability of anarchist success in the approaching
campaign will cause the foreclosure of thousands upon
thousands of past due mortgages ; and, as regards the
workingmen, I need hardly remind you that wages
never rise so fast or so far as inflation prices. The
disastrous results to merchants and manufactures are
too evident to be dwelt upon.
You know that these anarchist doctrines contradict
not only all human experience, but the doctrines of the
entire Democratic party from the beginning. What are
the things which you, as Democrats, and which sound
Democrats generally, have most strongly opposed?
They are paternalism and despotism ; but what other
paternalism was ever to be compared with this infliction
of repudiation upon the country under the pretense of
caring for the people ; and what trick of despotism has
inflicted greater misery, or been more steadily opposed
by sound Democracy, than the plundering of the peo
ple by the debasement of the currency ?
I might add another thing. If you, as Democrats,
glory in one thing above all others, in the history of
your party, it is in its opposition to sectionalism ; but
just at the moment when industrial expositions in the
North and South, and various other causes, had mingled
the people of all regions into one, you have a new sec
tionalism arising in this convention, worse than the old,
asserted again and again bjr men like Tillman in the
South and " The Boy Orator " and his compeers in the
extreme West ; their main grievance being the thrift
and prosperity of the great Central and Eastern States

14
in our nation, and the fact that these States have furn
ished so much of the capital which has built up the
West and South.
Therefore it is that I call on you, and men like you,
to come out of that mob of unreason, and to stand
shoulder to shoulder with the Republican party for the
country. I again remind you of the " War Democrats "
during the Civil War. Holding in abeyance doctrines
fchey had most cherished, they boldly supported Abra
ham Lincoln to save the country. I appeal to J'ou, and
through you to all thinking Democrats, now to support
William McKinley for the same reason. Dislike any
minor doctrines he represents as you may, he showed
his patriotism as a common soldier ; he has had a long
and valuable experience in public life ; he is an honest
man ; he owes his nomination to no " deals " or huck
stering, and, least of all, to rhetorical antics before an
excited mob. Some of you certainly must be drawn to
him by the fact that, unlike the Chicago nominee, he
has long adhered, not merely theoretically, but practi
cally, to the doctrine of a public service in which
appointments shall be made for merit and not for
favoritism — the only truly Democratic idea of a public
service— and, above all, because he is firmly planted
on the right side of the one issue in this campaign.
I appeal to you to exercise that decisive courage of
the " War Democrats " and you will be honored for it
by the whole country now, and by all that has any
right to call itself the Democratic party later ; and if
the day ever comes when the Democratic party shall
have recovered from this foul blow just dealt it, you
can resume sway in your own party with flying colors,
with the authority of men who were not carried away
in the wildest burst of political madness ever seen in
our country. If such a time never comes you can aid
in developing a great national party, bearing, indeed,
the old and honored name— the name which the party

15
you have served so long hitherto first bore — " The
Democratic-Republican Party." Such a new party,
having saved the country, can maintain it.
Bear in mind that your responsibilities are vast in
deed. We are at the parting of the ways : this is no
ordinary crisis ; it is a possible revolution ; its apostles
announce it as such ; the Chicago platform, it not re
sisted now, is the first step in a long and rapid develop
ment of confiscation, plunder and violence, and there
fore it is that, as an American citizen to American
citizens, and as a friend to friends, I ask you to realize
the crisis in which we all stand, to act promptly and
courageously, to stand with us for the general welfare
in this emergency, with the certainty that in this way
alone can you do justice to yourselves, your party and
your country.
I remain, most respectfully yours,
Andrew D. White.
Ithaca, N. Y., July 14th, 1896.

08561 1961