The People's party paper. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1891-1898, May 27, 1892, Image 3

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An Old Resident of Hancock County, Now in Arkansas, Writes a Word to the Folks at Home. Editor People’s Party Paper: When old reformers who have been in the work for the last four teen years read the thrilling and soul-cheering valedictories of such men as the Hon. T. E. Winn, of the old ninth district of Georgia, and Col. Sidney Harper, of the fourth district in Texas, it is a hard matter for them to find words sufficient to express their joy and gratitude for the acquisition ot such strong and influential men to help battle for the cause of the oppressed and down trodden. Now, if none can be found more preferable, let the good reform people of these respective districts in Georgia and Texas meet in con vention as early as practicable and nominate these men for congress, and in November next go to the polls every man to a man and elect them, and they will never re gret it, because they have declared war against the money-power and cut loose from both the old parties. Three cheers for the noble ten al ready in congress and the reinforce ments who will come in the next! I am truly proud, Mr. Editor, to see old Georgia taking the bold stand she is against the money-power; and especially am I proud of old Han cock county my birth-place and home until I came to years of matu rity. Tell the boys to remember Thomas Jefferson and General Jack son and the noble fight they made against national banks, and all will be well. Very truly, W. M. White. Stephens, Ark., May 23, 1892. Lon says—and oh, ye gods, it must be true if Lon says it—that Polk has gone to North Carolina to advise the alliancemen to stick to the Democratic party. In sober earnest I have got a sug gestion to make; that somebody, some curiosity-hunter—the world is full of them in this speculative age, procure one of those strings of but tons the children used to get togeth er and try and keep tally of Lon’s lies. I have seen some of these st< ings of buttons that would reach seven times around a ten acre field ; but if one should prove to be of in sufficient length it would be easy to hitch another one on, and still anoth er and another. After they were all used up and the present supply of buttons in all the stores had been ex hausted I for my own part w r ould be willing to give the button manufac turers some special privileges in the manufacture of billions of other but tons rather than Lon’s capacity as a liar should go uncounted. For lam a naturalist; I w’aut to know the extent of the man’s capacity in this line. lam a thinker ;if Lon can demonstrate immortality to me by his infinitude of lies, I shall be under obligations to him. Moreover, I am a believer in evo lution, and I would like to know what species of spider Long sprang from that he can pull such an endless web of lies out of himself and not use himself up faster. However, it must be admitted that he is using himself up, not from any shrinkage in his lying capacity, but because of the insufficiency of the Constitution’s reels to keep the web straight and in order. Unfortunate ly for the poor old man he is becom ing hopelessly entangled in his own web and is even now strangling to death in the superabundance of his own power to create. It is another case of over-production. Mary Jane. The Pinkerton investigation reso lution has passed the house at last. There was a hot fight, but enough democrats and republicans were either in sympathy w ith the measure or afraid to vote against it, together with the solid People’s Party vote, to pass it. Bvnum, the great Indiana demo crat whom the moss-backs of Geor gia brought down here a short time since to teach the people—Bynum fought the measure bitterly. What do the brethren think of that ? Don’t you think them a fine set of fellows to be giving advice to the voters of Georgia—these men who import such plutocrats as Bynum to teach them democracy? Enthusiastic on the Reform Movement. Paola, Kan, May 13, 1892. Editor People’s Party Paper: I wish t<> say a few words on the subject of reform. No doubt you will be pleased to know that the people in this locality are wide awake, and are already holding large and enthusiastic meet ings. Having just finished a series of lectures in this county, I can speak of the farmers. I found them hard at work, but notwithstanding the fact that th-ey work both late and early, they are not too tired to go to the school house in the evening to hear the gospel of labor discussed. They are waking up to the fact that for years they have toiled inces santly but have received no reward, and they are anxious to know the cause. It is both surprising and encour aging to sec whole audiences of men who have hitherto held on to the skirts of the old parties and turned a deaf ear to everything that did not agree with the smooth-tongued politicians, who for years have been keeping them blind-folded with the kerchief of prejudice while they rob them of their hard-worked-for earn ings, listening attentively to a three hours’ lecture in the interest of the masses instead of the classes, and at the close of the meeting declare that they have heard the truth and their eyes are opened so that they will investigase the question further and are willing to lend a helping hand to lift labor from its crushed and bleed ing condition. Yours in the work, Anna Collins. Who Gets the Increase J For our People’s Party friends to study: According to the census re ports the gain in population from 1880 to 1890 was 43.27 per cent, while the increase in wealth in the same period was 80.61 per cent. This doesn’t seem so bad after all, does it?—Quenemo Republican. If the pin-headed statesman who edits the Quenemo Republican will only go a little further and tell his readers how small wa’s the per cent age of the American people that gob bled ap this increase in wealth, then he will be giving some facts for the people of every party to study. Let us ask him how many of the farmers in his county increased their wealth 80 per cent in the ten years alluded to? How many tradesmen did it? Yes, how r many merchants did it? No People’s man wishes to deny that this nation is not increasing in wealth. This nation is increasing in wealth as no other nation ever in creased before. It has nearly doubled its wealth in ten years. But when we stop to see w’ho gets this increase we encounter a phenomenon that is simply frightful. The percentage of the American people that have ap pro} >riated the bulk of this increase can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Viewed in the aggregate it is grand; in the segregate it is hell. We are becoming a race of paupers and millionaires. The great middle class are surely passing away. While this nation in ten years has nearly doubled in wealth, the masses of its people have doubled in poverty- The broad stream of wealth is fed and increased by every farmer and toiler in this nation, but it flows on and on, and empties alone into the coffers of the money-lender and the railway magnate. For twenty-five years the repub lican party has been the servile tool of the banks and the railroads. By legislation it has bound the people hand and foot and delivered them helpless to these robber institutions. According to the government’s own showing, the railroads of this coun try collected $1,178,644,696 for the year 1890 alone. The government says to the money-lender, if the farmer don’t pay you, we will sell him out and you can bid in his property for a song. And when the money-lender asked the government to see to it that there did not money enough get into circulation for the farmer to pay his debts, the govern ment complied with the fiendish re quest. It would seem as though some fiendish desire possessed the repub lican party to place a mortgage on every farm and a tramp on every highway. It was once the bene factor of the oppressed. To-day it is the scourge and curse of the peo ple.—Attaway (Kansas) Journal. A Great Property. Within the past day or so the Tennessee Goal and Iron Company had a meeting of its stockholders at Tracy City. Eighty-five per cent of the stock was represented. Harmony pre vailed, and the trade by w’hich this company acquired the Deßardelben properties was confirmed without a dissenting vote. Thus two of the largest coal and iron industries of the South have been welded. The com bination now’ controls seventeen of the most improved blast furnaces, and twenty-three coal mines, w T ith a daily output of iron, 2,200 tons, and that of coal, 12,000. The new or ganization starts off with 366,000 acres of the best selected coal and iron lands in the South, with fur naces located so near the company's coal mines in Tennessee and the Bir mingham district of Alabama that by actual demonstration it is shown that material necessary to make pig iron is assembled here at very much less cost than any w’here in the known world. The new 7 combination starts off with a capital of $1,250,000 over and above all floating liabilities of every description. Notwithstanding the great depression in the iron trade, the report of the T. C. I. people show’s that the earnings of this com pany last year were greater than ever known in its history. Among the stockholders are to be found some of the strongest men of finance in the East, and it is believed the common stock of this company will be among the dividend-payers within the year. And so the work of combination and consolidation goes on. Will some G. O. P. statesman please rise and explain what will be the condition social and political of the great mass of free born Ameri can citizens after a few thousand soulless corporations have absorbed all the sources of wealth in the coun try. Will it not be a condition of social degradation and political vassalage ? If so, w’hat remedy does the leaders of either G. O. P. offer for such a monstrous evil? We pause for a reply. Crowding Them Out. Poor men are being crow’ded out of Illinois. The independent farmer is every year finding his pathway narrow’er, his hill more steep, his load more heavy. The renter and hired man are taking the place of a population. Thirty families last week left a single neighborhood in McLean county because since 1888 land values have decreased 40 per cent, all about them. Increased taxation follows this rise in. valua tion, and farming—which yields only a modest profit at best, will not keep pace w’ith the added burden. Those whose farms are unincumbered can do better with their capital in newer states. An inquiry developes that the buyers are investors, not far mers. Home after home has fallen into the hands of capitalists w r ho re quire a cash rental too hopelessly high to admit of a margin of profit to the husbandman, and on terms so severe that surrender means loss. Cass county, Livingston, Logan and McLean are affected. It is estima ted that 3,000 farmers will this year leave central Illinois for the cheaper lands of the west. They are men w’ho can ill be spared. Reports may make the state seem rich, but the man who stands on the land that he owns is worth more than a world of money. —Chicago Herald. They Must Go. The Pinkertons will go. This con gress will not pass a law 7 disbanding them, but w’e repeat, the Pinkertons will go. Those who think that the American people will forever allow the heaping up of great fortunes at the expense of honest toil, and then tolerate a band of hired cut-throats to shoot down the laboring man when he protests, doesn’t understand the real American spirit. The Pink ertons and their masters must go.— Cincinnati Herald. Down With The System. Missouri World. We heard an old gray haired man ask a lawyer the other day whether he would be safe in p utting in a crop on his farm tnis year. The old gentle man went on to state that he had a fine farm, but had a deed of trust on it amounting to about sls per acre, held by some syndicate, and that he was short or would be likely be unable to pay his June coupon and it seemed he had been told if the deed of trust W’as foreclosed it would take the crop as well as the laud, and so asked the lawyer’s opinion as to that point. The lawyer very kindly advised the old gentleman that under the laws ofMis souri a sale under the deed of trust w’ould carry with it the growing crop ; and even if the lands were sold while in the possession of a tenant, a pur chaser of the sale would take his crop although the tenant had paid cash rent to the prior owner. The old man hung his head and remarked he would try to pay the coupon, put in his crop, gather and dispose of it, and leave the farm where he and his wife and children have lived for many years, and let the syndicate have it. Twen ty days after default in the payment of the June coupon is all that is re quired to sell the old man out and transfer to the syndicate or other pur chaser both the farm and the crop. There is a statute cf redemption in Missouri but it is absolutely worthless and of no personal benefit—a fraud upon the statute book. But we can not say anything more now. What troubles us is to know what w’ill be come of that old gray haired father and his family. And his condition is not singular; thousands of men all over this country are in the same fix. Do you suppose the old man’s shift lessness reduced him to his present condition ? Down with a system that robs the old as well as the young. A View Os Georgia From Washington. A special from Washington to the Chicago Tribune says: Georgia is the backbone of the Farmers’Alliance in the south. With two or three exceptions, all its mem bers belong to the Alliance organiza tio J* Senator Gordan also joined the Alliance after his election. Tom Watson was the only one of the Geor gia delegation w’ho staid outside the Democratic caucus and declared him self in favor of a third party. His re-election is conceded now by all hands, while it is admitted that there is scarcely an Alliance Democrat who can be returned. Colonel Livingston, Everett and the other mongrel mem bers are powerless to stem the tide. It is now stated that the Alliance will have a straightout candidate in every district of the state who will run en tirely independent of the Democratic machinery. The third party leaders declare they will beat everybody, including Speaker Crisp, Blount and Turner. Crisp and Turner represent the great cotton growing district of the state. All the Democrats there have been educating their people to the belief that the low price of cotton is mainly due to the lack of unlimited silver coinage. They have taught that the two go together. Now it is impossible for them to explain why a Democratic house, with a majority of 235, has failed to give the south free coinage. The passage of a tariff bill putting cotton ties on the free list does not make amends in the view of cotton growers for the failure to give them fre.s coinage. They have reasoned it out and they won’t listen to argu ment or to promises of what some other congress will do. The modern democratic orators seem to be afflicted with an acute at tack of political jim- jams, a kind of political delirium tremens. When ever they hear the name of People’s Party the air becomes filled with blue devils, Union soldiers, twelfth planks and negro supremacy in a confused jungle, and in their frantic zeal they saw the air with tremen dous valor —Don Quixote and the Windmill, see.—People's Advocate, Greensboro, Ga. The plutocratic order of the day now is to abuse Post, Ellington and other leaders of the people. What does it prove to call people foul names?—The Allianceman. Rip Van Winkle. Rip Van Winkle is a very fair sample of the average farmer and laborer of the United States. After his sleep of twenty years he has arisen to his feet, brushed the dust and cob-webs from his eyes, and is rapidly learning the true conditions that surround him. Prejudice and hate, brewed by the rebellion, is the liquor which the geni of organized capital gave him to drink. The frosts and damp of monopoly have stiffened his limbs and financial mil dew has rotted his clothes, and his once trusty weapon, the ballot, has been rendered well-nigh worthless. But he is again on his feet, his eyes wide open, and although dumb founded, amazed, dazed by the changes that have taken place during his long sleep, he is donning new garments, repairing and modern izing his old fiint-lock and will drive the geni back into the defiles of the mountains and smother them in their holes.—Western Advocate, Kansas. Are you ?—The politicians say the tree coinage of silver is dangerous. Are you beginning to fear that possi bly it is ? God have mercy on your poor, deluded soul! Suppose some one had said that free coinage was dangerous prior to 1873. What a fool he would have been considered. Washington signed the first free coinage bill. Jefferson and Madison supported it. Jackson, Calhoun, Clay, Benton, Webster, Lincoln, and all the statesmen back of 1873 sus tained it. London bankers first found out it was “dangerous.” They told the Wall street gamblers, and the Wall street gamblers whispered it to Congress; and now you are begin ning to believe it ’ Don’t you know that you are being used as our Con gressmen are being used, as plastic clay in the hands of the money pow er ? There is just this difference be tween you and the Congressmen—the gold-bugs make millionaires of the Congressmen, but they make fools of you. That is all the difference.— Progressive Farmer. Listen to these words of wisdom from L. L. Polk, president of the National Farmers’ Alliance: .‘•/Die agricultural states of the south, the west and the northwest must come together and stand together. I know there are men in the south—some through the force of association, some through patriotic motives, and some through a lust for spoils—who would still crouch at the feet of Wall street. With me this is the alternative pre sented. Should the south continue to lie supinely in the octopus arms of great the autocratic money power, with, its tentacles fastened in her very vitals, until it sucks the last drop of her life blood; or should she accept the outstretched, fraternal hand of the great northwest, whose interests are her interests and making common cause, wrest the government from the hands of plutocratic power and place it in the hands of the peo ple?” We have a bashful young man over at our house who invariably lost the use of his tongue when he came into the presence of his “best girl.” Last week he discovered that he could talk through the telephone without blushing, and has since been getting along nicely until to-day. The old man did not leave for the store this morning at the usual hour, a fact of which the young man was not apprised. Having called up the proper number, he w’hispered into the receiver a few soft, sweet words and paused for a reply. The reply came, but instead of being in Miss Lula’s silvery notes, a deep bass inquired, “What’s that ?” Just then a strong electric current must have come in contact with the telephone wire, judging from the effect upon our young man’s nerves. He is now resting easy and we have strong hopes of his final recovery. We are not a prophet or a son of a prophet. In fact w*e are giving our undivided attention to other branches of industry. We have re cently traveled extensively in Kan sas and have discovered that the Al liance is neither dead nor disbanded, but is very much alive and ready to give the old parties a terrible shak ing up at the coming election.—To peka Illustrated Weekly (Rep.) Bribing the Church. T. V. Powderly makes the start ling statement that a Reading rail way emissary has been in the Lacka wanna valley for some time in the interest of the great coal combine, and that this man had seen every minister and priest of every denomi nation, to some of whom he had of fered passes and money if they would indorse and approve the com bine from their pulpits. In two in stances, Mr. Powderly says, the em issary proposed to assume the debts of churches and erect parochial schools.—Farmer’s Advance. The recent Wyoming massacre was more fiendish and diabolical than that of a hundred years ago. That was committed by Indians—savages —in the defense of their homes. This by English capitalists and their hirelings to drive American citizens from the homes they had made on the lands the capitalists coveted. The murderers in this case, had the support of both the State and gen .eral governments. God forbid that ■ that there should be a wretch in To peka foul enough to cast a vote in support of such a devilish adminis tration—Topeka Populist. It costs from S6OO to S7OO to send a car load of strawberries from Flor ida to New York; a freight car cost about SBOO. When we consider that the road is only out of the car about five days and gets nearly first cost for one load of freight, it looks like an argument in favor of government ;1 ownership. But never mind about that. The fool who raises strawber ries, corn, wheat, oats, cotton and such things ought to be fined for it, anyhow. We expect it will become a penitentiary offense after awhile. —Progressive Farmer. The 70-cent man, the fellow who says the silver dollar is not as good as any dollar on earth, is the laught ing stock of the West. He is a fool or an infernal scoundrel.—Topeka Tribune. We have the fellow here in the metropolis of Kansas. He edits a Republican paper, in which he says, “pie silver dollar is worth only 69,} cents in gold.—K. C. (Kan.) Sun. They are arranging for People’s Party camp-meetings in Missouri and Kansas, lasting from three days to a week, and have written Mr. C. C. Post, asking that he go there for a series of speeches, which he has declined to do at present, but says that later in the campaign we would •* try to arrange to exchange speakers— ’ a few of our speakers to go to Mis souri and Kansas for a couple of. weeks whille some of their ablest • men come to Georgia. Colorado Getting* Desperate. The party in Colorado that in dorses either Cleveland or Harrison will be defeated, and should be. For Colorado to cast its electoral vote for either would be like presenting a rob- . ber with a gold medal who had brok en into your house at midnight arid stolen from you all the savings of a* “ lifetime.—Denver News. ‘ r ‘ A subscriber from Texas wants to know what the Demo-Republicans paid for Livingston? We are not in his confidence, but as the Constitu tion, which is on intimate terms with , him, has classed him as a thirty-dol lar statesman we are willing to ae- CVpt the estimate as about right. There is a little Democratic paper * down South that compares Moses, of Georgia, the man who went back on his Alliance constituency for the Democracy, with Alexander IL* Stephens. The publisher of that pa per surely needs a guardian.—New Era. Just why it is heroism to enlist for a campaign with bayonets in defense of a just cause, but crankism to en list for a campaign with ballots in defense of a like cause, has never yet been explained by the would-be censors of a citizen s duty to his country. —lowa Farmer. A physician once said, “the child is dead and the mother is dead, but I will try and sive the old man.” The Democratic party has killed free coinage and tariff reform, but it is now making a last effort to save Cleveland.—Emporia Republican.