The People's party paper. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1891-1898, August 12, 1892, Image 6

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THEx SENA'lhed weekly by 'OMSM. Senator V*" PUBUSING . I doubt very\^ HITEHAbL 8 any cor-I poration or any nIL» - -ht to hire janizaries or persons,* _ care how good their object may 31, “vith a view to fight, to carry arms in defense of any private quarrel or public controversy. In the State of Ohio we do not allow a constable to serve unless he is elected by the township in which he livts. The sheriff is elected by the community in which he lives, and all officers who are expected to enforce the laws are elected by the locality. It seems to be a neces sary safeguard to republican institutions . that we will not trust anybody to enforce the laws except a person kindred to and a part of the community in which he lives Senator Palmer, of Illinois: My knowledge of them commenced in 1869, when an attempt was made to create a corporation in the State of Illinois with certain police powers, but the ostensible purpose was to furnish private watchmen for private property and the recovery of stolen property. At that time the governor of the State o£ Illinois declined to approve the bill look ing to thxt end. He insisted that the people must depend upon officers created by their own laws and appointed under their own laws These agencies are not only semi-military, but they are semi political. They take part in the political controversies in the States, and are the efficient agents by which men obnoxious to them are pursued and hunted down ; and they are not only at the service of financial corporations, but I undertake to say they are at the service of political organizations when the interests of those organizations and the interests of these detective associations are in harmony. Senator Vest, of Missouri: The citizens of Missouri have had some experience with the Pinkerton detec tives of an appalling character, and I speak with some feeling in regard to this matter. Some years ago when Missouri was unfortunately afflicted with lawless people who committed as saulted upon railroad trains and banks, men who were the debris of a border warfare, which was deprecated by all good citizens in the State of Missouri and elsewhere, a large reward was of sered for the James brothers, and a train was chartered upon the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad to convey from Chicago to a depot in Clay county, Mo., some of Pinkerton’s men, and at mid night a private dwelling in that county was surrounded by this gang of marau ders. A battle occurred in the darkness between these people who mistook each other for the men they had come to capture. In the most cowardly and cruel way they threw hand grenades in to that home where there was a sleeping family of women and children. One of them exploded in the sleeping room of the mother of the James boys, killed a little child in the cradle and tore off that mother's arm, and she is now an old, decrepit, mutilated woman. These people were not punished for this crime. They escaped in the night, carrying off their wounded, for they had fired upon each other. I had occasion at the time as an attorney to examine into the facts. It was impossible to make the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad Company re sponsible because they disclaimed any knowledge of the purpose or to whom they had chartered this train of cars; it was impossible in the city or Chicago, with all the adverse interests and cir cumstances which prevailed there, to —that author iced that forage and raid into a peace able community, and it has gone with out redress. Time and again these men, Raid to have been Mr Pinkorton’e de tectives, have come into the State of Missouri without consultation with the State authorities, and ignoring the laws and authority of the State government, have undertaken for their own purposes to make arrests. The basis of defense made by Mr. Pinkerton is that his or ganization is used to protect private property. It is not true. In all this un fortunate affair at Homestead his de tective< were there without authority of law, and what• ver may be said about the conduct of the working people, there is no sort of defense for the Pinkertons when we consider the absolute truth of ttie statement that they went there not as deputy sheriffs, not clothed with any legal authority, but simply em ployed for acts of violence by a corpora tion. Senator Quay, of Pennsylvania : As to the Homestead difficulty, as the Senate know?, the armed forces of Pennsylvania are now in the occupancy of Homestead for the preservation of the peace and the support of the civil authority, and the solution of the ques tien at issue between labor and capital there Is now being arrived at under the laws of Pensylvaoia. The workingmen there will be very glad to have a com mittee visit them if that committee can influence the adjustment of the dispute as to the amount of their wages. If a committee of that sort cannot be sent, they are not anxious for any, as they believe it will do no good. The con dition as to Homestead is simply that the workingmen do not desire your com mittee, and that the proprietary interests do not desite your committee, and the people and authorities of Pennsylvania are not asking for it. Senator Call of Florida : It is plain—and there can be no es cape from the proposition—that the words “no State shall * * * keep troops or ships of war in time of peace” do not refer to the militia, because the militia is provided for in the Constitu tion. It also plain that in the power given to Congress to “raise and sup port armies” there is an exclusive pow er which does not belong to either in dividual or State. What is an army has been decided by the Supreme Court of the United States —a decision which unquestionably is not binding as law upon the conscience and judgment of the Senate, but is of high persuasive authority—in the case of Aaron Burr, that thirty men without arms levied and employed for the purposes of sub stituting force for the lawful and peaceful exercise of the authority of the United States is treason, is an army, and is levying war. How could it be otherwise if an individual should raise and maintain an armed force and discipline them? What are they but troops, and how will you distinguish between the militia and a troop in the sense of the law and in common sense and reason, otherwise than an organ ized body, maintained, armed, discip lined, and prepared for offensive and violent action for war! But all these things have received their judicial in terpretation in the case of Aaron Burr, and there is no question about that. Why do we not demand that the law shall be enforced against the individ ual who employed those troops? What ever offense citizens of the United States may have committed as an or ganized body of workmen associated for certain purposes, whether they were right or wrong, does not concern the question that no citizen or private individual or foreign subject or power of any kind in this country, under our form of government, has authority to levy, maintain, support, or use a trained and disciplined body of armed men. The Constitution itself defines the dif ference between a combination to re sist the execution of the law and a com bination or riot or assembly of disor derly persons, and the maintenance of a troop, an organized force, or a ship of war, because these are the instru ments of an assertion by force of a will and purpose of some other than the lawful authority. What plainer usur pation can there be than that a man employs an armed force, whether it be organized by an individual or by a State? The Constitution says “treason against the United States shall cnnsist in levying war against them, or in ad hering to their enemies, * * * proven by two witnesses to the same overt act.” An individual shall be the sub ject of the crime of treason if he shall usurp the authority and power of the United States to organize a troop, to provide a navy or ship of war —it need not be commissioned a ship of war for hostile purposes—that that is assum ing jurisdiction and power, and the exclusive function of the United States, Chief-Justice Marshall decided, leav ing us no excuse upon that subject, in an exhaustive examination, the reason ing of which can not be disputed. In the case of Aaron Burr he decided that thirty men, levied here and there and assembled upon Blennerhasset Island, within the jurisdiction of a State, as here, was treason, because it was pro posed by Aaron Burr to usurp the au thority and power of the United States and forcibly execute his own will and purpose in another and a different State. Where, then, is the difference? It can not be found by the most acute reason. The full protection of the p and order of society and of prop erty rests in the execution of this scheme of Government, that he who proposes, by a standing army, or a troop, or a ship of war to carry out his own purposes, be they right or wrong, shall be held amenable to the sovereign power of the Government. Senator Morgan of Alabama: The plan by which this new force has been brought into effective operation frequently in the United States is vio lative of all the theory of our Govern ment. It is that the private citizen has the right to enforce the law’ in his own way and by his own agents, employed where he pleases, and introduced into a State or into a community at his own expense and armed according to his own wishes. The theory of the Govern ment of the United States in all of its parts, in the District of Columbia, in the Territories, and in every State of the Union, is that the people govern themselves, and when the laws of the United States or of any State are brok en or are threatened to be violated, there is in the first instance a necessa ry and logical appeal to the people of the community for the maintenance of those laws. Whenever we commence by employing the police organization, the Pinkerton organization, and the militia forces, and wind up by employ ing the United States forces, to enforce cne laws of a State or of the United States, having omitted entirely an ap peal to the body of the people, we com mence upon wrong principles and at the wrong end, and disaster is certain to result. This is not only a Govern ment of laws, Mr. President, but is a Government whose laws rest for their execution ultimately and primarily upon the posse comitatus, the body of the people. Whatever the difficulties may have been at Homestead, what ever may have been the reasons which originated the very serious troubles at Homestead, there is one thing obvious, tffiat exacerbation of the trouble, its cl.mn, arose from the fact that foreign men, men from other States, who came, as was alleged, from the slums of the different large cities of the Union, toughs and vagabonds, were hired at $5 a day to go there, and supplied with ammunition, to take possession of works where the Homestead people contended that they had a right to be. Whether their contention-was right or wrong makes no difference; the trou ble came from the fact of the importa tion into that community of strangers and foreigners armed for the purpose of enforcing the law. If the people of Homestead under the laws of Pennsyl vania had been as completely and thoroughly organized as a posse comi tatus, as it would have been entirely possible and practicable to do, that dif ficulty at Homestead would never have occurred. It would have been pre vented by the weight and influence of law within the body of that communi ty. The men at Homestead are a good set of men. They are intelligent above the ordinary' people of the country compared with the number who are assembled there. They have been faithful and diligent in busi ness, economical and frugal. They have been maintaining all of the civil institutions of the country, including the churches, Sunday schools, libraries, and all manner of benevolent institutions. In fact it was rather a model community. But they conceived an idea that they had a right to fix with their employers, upon a cer tain basis, the wages for their further employment after the lapse of a cer tain scale of prices which they had hitherto agreed upon, and in the event their employers decided they should not come to their terms, or would re fuse an arbitration, or would refuse to recognize the Amalgamated Associa tion as the the mouthpiece of the Homestead operatives, they concluded that they would hold possession of the property as against all comers, all non union men, and stay there in posses sion of that property, taking care of it, preserving it, until they could force by this strike the owners of the prop erty to come to terms. That was the situation. Persecutioß. Rational Watchman. Democratic imbecility and vicious ness was never more pronounced than m the attempt that is now be ing made to persecute Hon. Thomas E. Watson, of Georgia. Having at the beginning of the ses sion squarely declared his inde pendence of old party rule, and since then established a reputation for fairness, integrity, and sincerity, Mr. Watson has become the special target for Democratic hatred. His personal record was searched and found consistent and honorable, and his course in the Houte as a member was like an open book, with the lines plain and legible. Mr. Watson has been a square fighter upon all ques tions, and never shirked or evaded a responsibility. In vain have the Democracy looked for a weak spot in his armor. In vain have they laid plans to entrap him. He has stood “four square to every wind that blew,” and escaped without an in jury. The aid adage, “Oh, that mine enemy might write a book,” came as an aid to their designs. Mr. Watson wrote a book, in which is found this paragraph: This Ccngress now sitting is one illus tration. Pledged to reform, they have not reformed. Pledged to legislate, they have not legislated. Extravagance has been the order of the day. Absenteeism was never so pronounced. Lack of pur pose was never so clear. Lack of com mon business prudence never more glar ing. Drunken members have reeled about the aisles, a disgrace to the Repub lic. Drunken speakers have debated grave issues, and in the midst of mauld lin ramblings have been heard to ask, “Mr. Speaker, where was lat ?” Useless employes crowd every corridor. Ue less expenditures pervade every depart ment. This book has been on sale for a month, and this particular passage must have been known from the first. It was to the “cowardly majority” what straws are said to be to drown ing men, and they prepared to make the most of it, without doubt. To call Mr. Watson before an in vestigating committee then might give time for a reaction before ad journment. The matter was post poned until it was thought the last day of the session was at hand, and then, under a thin disguise of a mis undertanding with Mr. Wheeler, a committee was appointed at 2 o’clock p. m., and Mr. Watson summoned for trial at 8, within six hours. There the matter stands, at the time of go ing to press. Let no one fear for Mr. Watson’s ability to defend him self. He stood before them all and courageously made the declaration that he wnuld stand by what he had written and prove its truthfulness. This he will do to the satisfaction of all fair-minded persons. This at tempt to persecute him is a collossal Democratic mistake, and will lose them thousands ple of this country like fair play, and will never consent to see gallant Tom Watson made a victim of Democratic hate. He is the “winter of their discontent,” the one above all others they would like to destroy. The main fight in Georgia will be over his re-election, and if money, fraud, lies, or misrepresentation can defeat him, it will surely be done. Nothing will be omitted by this relic of the past that malice can invent or fear conceive to kill politically this rude disturber of its rest and peace. Lift the Cartaink BY W. J. PIRKLE, CUMMING, GA. Lift the curtain just a little and take but a gAmce at the future Con dition of the wealth-producers of this country. If the present policy of this gov ernment is continued, a full gaze at the future condition would almost rend the strongest heart. The mills of the gods grind slowly, but surely. Consider a nation made up of mil lionaires and pasupers, where every laborer is reduced to serfdom and slavery, worse than any African slavery ever known in America, with a standing army so large that upon her statute books stands a law which puts every young man of the labor ing class into the army as soon as he is of age, and keeps him there some twelve to sixteen years—and, if he should survive so long a term of the hardships and exposures of camp life, he is then released from camps and returns, not to his home, for he has none, but to his servitude, to weary out the remainder of his life toiling for others. This is putting the treatment of your sons in the mildest form; and, perhaps, the treat ment of your daughters tenfold worse. It is a hard task for the father and mother to give up one son, but much harder to give up every one, not for three or four years, but until the prime of life is past—and for your daughters in servitude to heart less plutocrats draw your own picture. The laws which will bring about the above state of affairs are already on the statute books of this govern ment, and their repeal is not favored by either of the old parties. The men who are so favored by the financial legislation of this gov ernment as to be to-day receiving about all the profits of »1 the labor performed by the toiling millions of this country can now sit down and, from the statistics, make a calcula tion and tell when, at the present rate of legalized robbery, the labor ing class will be placed in the above lamentable condition. For it is an evident fact that the present con tracted condition of the-currency is having the effect for which it was intended, in making millionaires of one class and paupers of another. And when the poor farmer com plains of the scarcity of money, the retort comes from his Democratic friend that there is plenty of money if he had anything to buy it with. The farmer replies, “I have been raising cotton, corn and other pro duce, and it does not bring enough to pay for raising it, and leaves me without money.” He is then told that he must work harder and make more and let politics alone. In conclusion, let me say that I have ever been a Democrat after the plan of Washington, Jefferson and Jackson, and all others who ad vocate equal rights to all citizens of every class, and a pure republican form of government, by the people and for the people—and cannot, therefore, endorse nor support a par ty under the name ot Democracy which is under the control of Wall street and against the interest of a large majority of the people, in di rect opposition to the principles of Democracy. The Atlanta Constitution, in com menting upon the defeat of the silver bill, said Wall street has played her game too boldly this time. Men who claim to be Democrats are trimming their sails to suit the winds of Wall street. Under the disguise of the name “Democracy” the people may be in duced to the suicidal course of en slaving themselves, but not with my assistance. The Conflict. The Silver State, Winnemucca, Nevada. The Silver party convention held at Reno was the largest convention ever held in this State, and composed of representative men, chosen by and representing a constituency of seventy-five per cent, of the whole people of the State. It originated in the silver league movement, which had its origin in Colorado and was spontaneously developed in Nevada and several other States. The crime of 1873 in demonetizing silver, by a trick and | a fraud, in the interest of the money powers of Europe and America, and the consequent par alysis of all the industries of the country, had been rankling in the bosom of the people for years, and the persistent refusal of the two old parties to give relief impelled the independent and non-ofiice-seeking element of these parties to unite un der a solemn obligation to vote for no man for president or vice presi dent of the United States unless he shall be unqualifiedly in favor of free coinage and shall stand on a free coinage platform. The leagues re sowed that Nevada shall no longer stultify herself by advocating the unlimited mintage of the silver dol lar every day in the year, and at every presidential ejection go to the polls and vote for inveterate enemies of free coinage. , The silver leagues and the several newspapers, which stood for them and by them, invited all men in this State, who were willing to take the pledge, to join the membership, to participate in all their proceedings and to help to form a State organi zation and t*o shape its action and pofley. The whole movement was ridiculed and hooted at by the ma chines and office-seekers of the two old parties, and most of them took pride in declaring themselves in favor of Harrison or Cleveland, in defiance of the public sentiment and to the shame and disgrace of the State. Notwithstanding all this, the silver party bore the insult with Christian forbearance, and simply nominated an electoral ticket, and said to the two parties, through its presiding of ficer, in substance and effect: “The Silver party has but one great object to accomplish in this campaign ; that is, to carry the elec tion in this State against Harrison and Cleveland, the inveterate foes of silver money, and for a free ooinage candidate. The Silver party does not intend to interfere m the election of your candidates for Congress or Justice of the Supreme Court, we are not here for the office but for principle, each member of the Silver party will vote for these candidates within the old party lines, if he sees fit, and not lose his standing in the new party. We expect you in turn to keep hands off the Silver electoral ticket, so far as to any opposition ; if you don’t we have the power to punish you.” From that day to this the leading spirite of the two machines have combined to devise means to defeat the Silver party. It is now proposed by the Republicans, in order to ac complish this end, to either make a straight up Harrison and Reid elec- toral ticket upon the Helena plan of bringing either Harrison or Cleveland into violating his pledge to his party, to denounce its national platform and turn traitor to its principles. There is a time in human affairs when forbearance ceases to be a virtue. That time will arive in this case, in our opinion, when the Re publican party adopts either of the contemplated courses, or any course by which there shall be organized opposition to the Silver party’s elec toral ticket. In the event of such contingency arising, self-respect and the dignity and honor of the State, which the Silver party represents, may impel it not to confine its votes to the Silver electoral ticket, but to nominate a Congressman and sweep the State. If the Silver party has to enter into a fight to carry Nevada for free coinage on the electoral ticket, it had better take in the whole works and expose the duplicity of the professed friends of silver in the old brigades. There is no man or set of men in or out of the State so big in person or purse as to put Na vada in the gold-bug column for president. If the two old parties combined or singly see fit to precipi tate such a contest, the Silver State says let it come. We opine that the Silver party will cheerfully accept the gage of battles as a happy relief from the monotony, otherwise, of a campaign without practical opposition. This and the other silver papers of the State will be fully armed and equip ped for the conflict all along the line, “and damned be he who first cries hold, enough.” In this war for free coinage of silver, those who give aid and comfort to the enemy, from whatever source, will be re garded as mercenary traitors to the cause, and treated accordingly by every true friend of the white metal. SILVER COINAGE. The Demonetization of Silver in 1873 Was a Deal With Bismarck. Jacksonville, Fla., July 30, ’92. To Editor of the Tiaes-Union. As I am constantly taken to task by members of both the great political parties because I believe that silver should be coined into money on the demand of every American miner, and as the question can be best dis cussed in writing, and a lack of leis ure forbids oral discussion, I beg leave to submit a few ideas upon the proposition that silver ought to be restored to its normal and long es tablished place as money. It is entitled to its position as coin because it was removed by a trick unworthy of the name ot legis lation. Place it where it was from the foundation of the republic until 1873, and then, if further legislation is required, open the subject to full, fair and free discussion, and then if, upon a Call of the yeas and nays upon the passage of a bill congress should knowingly demonetize silver, and the president should approve, the people would be able to decide by their votes whether the legislation was acceptable to them. Fraud vi tiates everything it attempts to ac complish, and therefore the demone* tization of 1873 ought to be instantly and absolutely repealed. The action of other nations and of great corporations and capitalists prave conclusively that the demone tization of silver in 1873 was only one a-ct of a gigantic and destructive conspiracy. Bismarck was the arch conspirator. Germany had demand ed and was enforcing an indemnity from France of $1,U0Q,000,000 and to hi# amazement and discomfiture France was paying it. To render payment impossible except by the cession of more of the Rhenish pro vinces, Germany not only demone tized silver but dumped all of her surplus of silver upon the market. She openly boasted that she would have at least $500,000,000, but all her sales only reached $141,785,000. She broke her own back. Silver fell from pence to about 50 pence per ounce, and gold did not come to Ger many any faster than it went to France. If at that juncture, or at any time after the Franco-Germany war, and during this struggle for financial su premacy by increasing the debt of France, the United, States had been appealed to by Germany for help in the form of advancing the value of the legal tender in which this debt must be paid by demonetizing silver, we would in no uncertain tone have answered that the land of La Fayette deserves better treatment from us, and if we must help either we will help France. But our bonds were then held in large quantities by France, Germany and England. The holders of these bonds at home as well as abroad, were given to understand (and did and do understand) that, if they would make the payment of principal and interest in gold, and then advance the value of gold, their holdings would advance in value equally with g° ld - The ruling passion with Bismarck was to cripple and impovish France, and he obtained the assistance of the United States in doing it without our knowledge. In the light of subsequent events, the humiliation of the iron chancellor seems to be a just retribution. But in that same light the acquiesence of the American people in the payment of their enormous public debts, as well as private ones, in gold only, and consenting to the advance in the value of gold by the demonetization of silver, are acts of inexcusable stu pidity. To educate them to a knowl edge of their rights, and to effect the assertion and maintenance of those rights, is a sufficient incentive to speak, write and act. James R. Challen. Drunkenness in Congress. New York Voice. The present Congress may be ex cused for being unusually sensative about allusions to the drink habits of its members. First the Voice ex pose of the saloons in the basement of the capitol and the patronage given them by members of the two houses. Then came Senator Vest’s cutting allusion to the World’s Fair appropriation, which allusion we pub lished July 21. But Congressman Tom Watson, of Georgia, leader of the People’s Party in the House of Representatives, last week contrived to kick up the biggest muss yet with his plain, direct, unflinching charges hurled into the teeth of an angry, hissing House. The circus was started by Con gressman Wheeler, on Friday of last week, who, on a question of privi lege, sent to the clerk, to be read, a marked passage in “The People’s Party Campaign Book, 1892,” com piled by Mr. Watson. The passage was as follows: “The Congress now sitting is one illus tration. * * * Drunken members have reeled about the aisles —a disgrace to the Republic. Drunken speakers have debated grave issues on the floor, and in the midst of maudlin ramblings have been heard to ask, *Mr. Speaker, where was I at ?’ ” The reading created bedlam, but Watson was the coolest man in the House. When he secured a hearing he said: “I stand here to defend every line in the book, and will do it against all comers, whether from the North or South. [Hisses.] I say that every word in that book is literally true, and all men who have been here, keeping their * eyes open and wanting to admit the facts, will admit that these facts are fairly stated.” Later on, after a stormy discussion, he continued: “The only crime charged in that para graph which a Democrat takes offense at is that he got drunk at the barroom this Congress allows to be run in this basement; and the Record shows that members came up here on a previous day of the session and admitted that they were drinkers at it. You have planted the tree; why should you won der at its fruit ? You allow the con tagion ; why should you y».-- oiclcnGws?” The reference here is the scene in the House a few weeks ago when Funston, of Kansas, brought down the hisses of the House on himself by his attack on the Voice for its ex pose of the drinking at the capitol saloons. The result of Watson’s charges was an investigation last Saturday. In confirmation of Wat son’s Otis of Miss Dwyer, Halvorsen of Minne sota, Butler of lowa, Davis of Kan sas, and Kem of Nebraska, testified to various scenes of drunkenness among the members of Congress on the floor. When Watson wished to prove the existence of the capitol barroom, Boatner, chairman of the investigating committee, refused, say - ing that that was «a matter of public notoriety.” This is a fitting close to the' ses sion of our nation’s lawmakers. And, yet, many testified that this Congress was no wor.se than pre vious Congresses—rather better, in fact. But wjhat can be expected of any Congress that legislates on the principle that whisky is a good creature of God, and violates the laws in order to place a bar in each wing of the capitol? Our congnatulations to Tom Wat son and our assurances of admira tion for his exhibition of nerve. He ought to be a Prohibitionist. Newspaper for Sale. An established newspaper now in second volume is offered for sale cheap. Has good subscription list; an active worker can double it in a few weeks. Only paper advocating People’s Party cause in the Congres sional district. Good reasons for sell ing. A bargain. Address at once, “Ned,” Care People’s Party Paper, Atlanta, Ga. Hear From The North.—Down With Sectionalism ! The P ( ogress Farmer, National Organ of the F. M. B. A., the Farm Organiza tion next in strength to the F. A. & I. U., will be sent on trial three months for ten cents. Make up a club of five or ten and send for it it. It is a large 8 page weekly and tells all about the reform niovment and Peoples party in the North. Away with party hate, and down with section alism ? THE PROGRESSIVE BARMER, Cor. Main and Cateey Sts., Mt. Vernon, li|,