for war when a people are loaded with burdens greater than they can bear, and all the remedies afforded by peace have been tried and failed. The inquiry has arisen whether or not the nations of Europe would be benefited by a general European war if it resulted in saving them the immense burden and expense of keeping up constantly preparation for immediate war. All Europe is today, and for some time past has been, covered with military encampments. Each nation is augmenting constantly its immense standing armies, and adding to its accumulation of war-ships and war materials. The young men, the bone and sinew of a country, are soldiers, non-producers and consumers, while the enfeebled industries of the nation, denuded of their most vigorous workmen and laborers, pay the cost. There can be no end to this state of things until the nations of Europe test their respective improvements in the art of war and ascertain their relative strength. That test can only be made by the actual trial of war, which will surely come when the burdens of present conditions have grown beyond the endurance of the people. It is useless to combat the laws which govern the universe, and all that are within it, or to deny the existence of fixed conditions that are inseparable from the lot of humanity. The world and mankind will always move on in accordance with the original plan of creation. No man can change his being; he must always remain a human being, subject to all the laws and conditions of humanity. War, when it is a condition inseparable from the lot of humanity, is right, and must be acquiesced in. War, that comes when nations are ripe for it, is as necessary for the purification and regeneration of human affairs as storms and tempests are for the restoration of salubrity to an unwholesome atmosphere.

CONSISTENT ADHERENCE TO DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES.

TWO ADDRESSES BY MR. BINGHAM-THE FIRST AS PRESIDENT OF THE DEMOCRATIC STATE CONVENTION AT CONCORD, MAY 20, 1896. THE SECOND AS PRESIDENT OF THE "NATIONAL” DEMOCRATIC RATIFICATION MEETING, AT MANCHESTER, OCTOBER 6, 1896.

THE CONCORD ADDRESS.

Gentlemen of the Convention:

It is with the greatest pleasure that today I meet the assembled representatives of the Democracy of New Hampshire. The grand old historical party, the Democratic party, has been resting for a season. Sentinels have slept on their posts, and leaders, perhaps for want of proper watching, have not always been true to their trusts. Dissensions have crept in. The enemy has improved its opportunities, and now, intoxicated with a little temporary success, is filling the land with its vain boastings. It is time for the united Democracy to wake up, uplift its invincible arm, and go forth once more to conquer.

The war is over, and the last lingering efforts of faction to keep alive its animosities have ceased. The negro, having been elevated to citizenship and endowed with civil rights, upon equality with the white race, furnishes no longer food for mischievous and dangerous political agitation. Peace reigns. Constitutional limitations, heedlessly trampled upon in the reckless fury of armed conflict, have been vindicated, and their vitality restored. Tendencies towards the centralization of power in the federal government, by encroaching upon the reserved rights of the states have been arrested. The people are no longer threatened with force bills, and legislation kindred thereto has been repealed. All this has been accomplished by the Democracy of the nation. Through its united action the perils consequent upon our desperate Civil War have been passed, and

the country restored to its normal conditions. The political questions that naturally engage the public attention in times of peace are now before us. Those questions are economic and financial questions. It is indispensable in order to secure the prosperity of the country as a whole, and the welfare and happiness of the people individually, that there should be no unjust taxation, and that there should be a safe and reliable currency for the transaction of business. The expenses of the government economically administered, and the satisfaction of the national indebtedness, are the only legitimate grounds for federal taxation. The business man, the salaried man, the wage-earner, and everybody who has occasion to purchase and sell, must have a reliable dollar of steadfast value. Otherwise they are subjected in their daily transactions to financial loss. Tariff taxation is legitimate only for the purpose of raising sufficient revenue to meet the necessary expenses and obligations of the government, and whenever this power is perverted and used so as to extort money from the masses and put it in the pockets of the few, robbery is committed, the general prosperity of the country is paralyzed, the few are made millionaires, but the masses are pinched and impoverished; great interests, the maintenance of which is of vital importance to the national welfare, languish and die out. Our prohibitory tariffs and kindred navigation laws have practically destroyed American shipping, and our flag that once floated on the breezes of every sea, and could be seen in all the ports of the world, is now a rare curiosity in foreign waters. We have ceased to educate our young men to a sailor's life, and the gallant American tars that in former days thronged our ports and manned our ships are gone, and have left no successors behind them. Our government is experiencing infinite difficulty in obtaining seamen sufficient to handle the few war vessels that have been built as a beginning of a navy, which at last all have come to realize is essential to the national safety.

A just system of taxation and a sound currency must be maintained. With those things made secure there will be national prosperity. All legitimate industries will thrive, the laborer be content, the people happy, agriculture, manufactures,

and commerce will progress with equal steps and the country take on a steady growth of everything that goes to build up and make a mighty nation. On the other hand let the currency be debased and fluctuating or let the hard earnings of the people be wrung from them by unjust taxation, in either case misery, discontent, and pinching poverty are sure to come on the masses, while their life-blood is being sucked up by the few who riot amid their country's ruins.

The next National Democratic Convention will have a most solemn and trying duty to perform. Amid the wild vagaries upon economical and financial subjects that today are floating loose in the popular mind, a national Democratic platform must be erected, based upon Democratic principles, broad enough so that every true Democrat can stand upon it; plainly expressed, so that but one construction can be given it. Candidates for president and vice-president must be placed on that platform whose political lives and record are an embodiment of the principles therein set forth. There has been and is considerable agitation as to what should be put in that platform on the subjects of the currency and tariff taxation. We find that today the selfish few are seeking, as in the past they have always sought, special advantages for themselves at the expense of the great body of the people. The monopolist, manufacturing an article of public necessity and seeking to extort from the consumers thereof more than it is worth, applies to the government for a prohibitory tax on all importations of that article, and, having obtained it, he compels all consumers to pay for the thing he manufactures just what he pleases to demand, and this kind of legislation is styled by the advocates of monopoly "Protection to American industry." The producers and owners of silver bullion ask the government to enact a law authorizing the free coinage of gold and silver at the ratio of sixteen ounces of silver to one ounce of gold. Such a law if enacted would give the owners of silver bullion for every sixteen dollars' worth of bullion thirty-one dollars in money with the government stamp upon it as such, with which to cheat and defraud the public. The monopolists, whose power to plunder the masses was much curtailed by the passage of the Wilson bill, and who are seeking

the restoration of McKinleyism and prohibitory tariff taxation, constitute the head and front of the hosts that are clamoring for the nomination of William McKinkley as the Republican candidate for president and furnish the war material for the aggressive campaign now carried on in his behalf.

The owners of silver mines and those who will be directly profited by disposing of silver for more than it is worth are the leading, pushing advocates for the free coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one. The McKinleyite and the Free Silverite have a common purpose; both are asking the government to aid them in robbing the people; both abound in specious arguments for seducing the unwary, in unscrupulous promises and corrupt devices to enlist with them those who in that way may be thus enlisted. There is necessity for the watchman on the towers of Democracy to be on the alert now, as much as ever. We must remember that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Our arch enemies, now in this guise and now in that, are always seeking to undermine the strongholds of Democracy, encroach upon the rights of the people, and to break up the very foundation of the country's prosperity for the sake of promoting the interests of the few. We may safetly calculate that the McKinleyite and the Free Silverite having a common purpose will be found, when the final struggle comes, standing together and with their united strength mutually aiding each other to accomplish their respective ends. Already overtures contemplating a combination of their powers have passed between them. There is but one course for the Democracy to pursue and that course is to stand unflinchingly upon their principles; upon their principles as taught by their great teachers, by Jefferson, Madison, and Jackson, and as hitherto acted upon. Circumstances and conditions are always changing, but principles never change. In applying unchanging principles to changing conditions care must be taken that a correct application is made. It is indispensably necessary for a nation's welfare that legislation should so adapt itself to changed conditions that just taxation and a safe and reliable currency are always made secure.

The Democracy of New Hampshire has a history of which we may well be proud. It has always presented a fearless front,