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WEAVER’S CHALLENGE.
ARRAIGNMENT OF THE LEGALIZED
ROBBERS.
Exposure of that Murderous System
which Permits the Rich to
Conquer the People.
There are three fundamental ques
tions pressing for solution in America.
Indeed, they to-day challenge the at
tention of the whole civilized world.
They are distinct and yet cognate,
segregated though inseparable, and
seem destined to advance pari passu,
and to conquer together. United
they form a triple issue of organized
labor, which for magnitude and im
portance has never been equaled
eince man became the subject of civil
.government. They are the wheat
which has been winnowed from the
chaff of the threshing floor of the
century.
The patient, long-suffering people
are at last aroused, and there is hur
rying to and fro. They seem to
have received marching orders from
some mysterious source, and are
moving out against the strongholds
of opposition of three distinct lines
of attack, but within supporting dis
tance of each other. It is evident
that a general engagement is but a
short march ahead.
One army corps proposes to give
battle for our firesides ; for a foot
hold and for standing room upon the
earth. It has inscribed upon its ban
ner, “The planet is the common in
heritance of all the people! All
men have a natural right to a por
tion of the soil! Down with monop
oly and speculation in land !”
The second is marching to deliver
those who sit in darkness—the needy
who cry, the poor also, and him that
hath no helper. They seek to open ’
wide the door of opportunity and to
throw back the iron gates 'which shut
out from the bounties of nature the
miserably dad, wretchedly housed,
shivering, haggard, careworn victims
of adversity and slaves of debt.
Upon its guidon is the tracing of a
whip of cords, upraised by the hand
of justice above the heads of the
money changers. The legend under
neath reads: “Money is the creature
of human law! ATe will issue it for
ourselves I Down with usury! Lib
erty for the captives!”
The third u leading an attack to
get possession of the highways and
lines of communication which have
been wrenched from the people, and
which connect cities and distant com
niunities and States with their base
of supplies. This corps has inscribed
upon its flag the battle-cry: “Res
toration of the public highways!
They belong to the people, and shall
*not be controlled by private specu
* lators!”
When Barak, after he and his peo
ple had suffered twenty years of op
pression, overthrew Jabin and the
captain of his host, Deborah declared
that the battle was from heaven;
that “the stars in their courses fought
against Sisera.” And may we not
reverently believe that the struggle
of the oppressed people of our day,
to re-invest themselves of their lands,
their money and their highways, is
from heaven also*?
The Constitution provides that the
“United States shall guarantee to
every State in this Union a republi
-can form of government.” This
language implies a permanent con
tract —a joint pledge on the part of
the Federal and State governments
united, to maintain democratic insti
tutions throughout all the States,
the general government pledging its
great power that the people shall not
be deprived of this form, and the
States undertaking, as to all the mat
ters within their jurisdiction, to make
their local institutions republican in
spirit, substance and administration.
In other words, we have here a
solemn declaration of purpose; a
guaranty to all the people that gov
ernment, both State and national,
shall be held strictly to its original
and lofty position—that of securing
to the citizen “certain inalienable
rights,” whicli he received at the
generous hand of his Creator, and
which no government has the right
to impair or permit to be impaired or
taken away. The pledge is that this
obligation shall never be departed
from, not even in form.
These “ inalienable rights ” are
first, such as grow out of the relation
-of man to his Creator, and second,
•those which spring from his relation
to organized society or government.
The land question comes under the
first subdivision.
Can it be denied that all men have
a natural right to a portion of the
soil ? Is not the use of the soil in
dispensable to life ? If so, is not the
right of all men to the soil as sacred
as their right to life itself ? These
propositions are so manifestly true
as to be beyond the domain of con
troversy. To deny them is to call in
-question the right of man to inhabit
the earth.
Tested by these axioms, the start
ling wickedness of cur whole land
system —which operates to deprive
the weakest members, and even a vast
majority of the community, of the
power to secure homes for them
selves and families, rendering them
fugitives and outcasts, and forcing
them to pay tribute to others for the
right to live; that murderous system
which permits the rich and powerful
to reach out and wrench from the un
fortunate their resting place upon the
planet, and to acquire title to un
limited areas of the earth—is at once
revealed in all its hideous and mon
strous outlines. It also discloses to
us the unwelcome truth that our
Government, which was instituted
to secure to man the unmolested en
joyment of his inalienable rights, has
been transformed into an organized
force for the destruction of those
rights. Ordained to protect life, it
proclaims death; undertaking to in
sure liberty to the citizen, it decrees
bondage ; and having encouraged its
confiding subjects to start in pursuit
of happiness, it passes to their fam
ished lips the bitter cup of disap
pointment.
Society may, in some respects, be
compared to a great forest. AVe can
no more Construct a secure and flour
ishing commonwealth amidst a com
munity of tenants than a thrifty
forest disconnected from the soil.
One tree cannot gather food for an
other. Each takes from the earth its
own nourishment. AA r hen it ceases
to do so it must perish. And the
moment you sever man from the soil
and deprive him of the power to re
turn and till the earth in his own
i ight, the love of home perishes with
in him. He comes as a freeman, and
is transformed into a predial slave.
And hence, concerning the absorbing
question of land reform, we contend
that the child who is born while we
are penning these thoughts comes
into the world clothed with all the
natural rights which Adam possessed
when he was the sole inhabitant of
the earth. Liberty to occupy the
soil in his own right, to till it unmo
lested as soon as he has the strength
to do so, and to live upon the fruits
of his toil without paying tribute to
any other creature, are among the
most sacred and essential of these
rights. Any state of society which
deprives him of these natural and in
alienable safeguards is an organized
rebellion against the providence of
God, a conspiracy against human life
and a menace to the peace of com
munity. AVhen a complete readjust
ment shall come, as come it must
quickly, it will proceed in accordance
with this fundamental truth. The
stone which the builders rejected
will then become the head of the
corner.
The money and the transportation
problems relate to the second class of
inalienable rights above mentioned.
But in our day they are so directly
related to those conferred by the
Creator as to be practically insepara
ble from them. They are the instru
mentalities through which the nat
ural rights of man are rendered avail
able in organized society. Such, it
is clear, was the conclusion of the
fathers when they incorporated into
the constitution the following ;among
other far-reaching and sweeping pro
visions :
“ Congress shall have the power to
regulate commerce with foreign na
tions and among the several States,
and with the Indian tribes.”
AVhatever may be the meaning of
this provision, it is certain that the
framers ©f the constitution regarded
the power to be exercised as too im
portant to be confided to the discre
tion of individuals or left t© the con
trol of the States. It is taken away
from both and grouped with those
matters which are of national con
cern—things whicli require the
united wisdom of the country to
solve and the constant exercise of its
combined power to sustain and en
force.
AVhen this clause was incorporated
into the constitution the union was
composed of only thirteen States,
grouped together along the Atlantic
seaboard; and at that time our in
ternal commerce was but trifling.
Te-day forty-four fixed stars and four
minor planets shine out from our
galaxy. Interstate commerce has
become annually so vast as t© baffle
computation. Then we had but
3,000,000 souls. AVe now number
more than 63,000,000. AVe have
crowded the nineteenth century full
of marvelous achievements; but dur
ing the last quarter of that time
there seems to have been a studied
effort in certain powerful circles to
discredit our Declaration of Inde
pendence and to circumvent all that
was accomplished for individual
rights by our war for self-govern
ment and our later struggle for eman
cipation. AA r e have been vigilant
concerning everything except human
rights and constitutional safeguards,
and have suffered injuries to be in
flicted upon the great body of the
people which a century of the wisest
legislation possibly cannot fully eff ace.
AVe will first consider this provision
of the Constitution negatively, and
point out some things which the Con
gress may not do under this grant of
power.
i First. The Congress cannot dis
avow the obligation which this pro
vision imposes, retrocede it to the
State, or surrender it to the various
traffic associations. It cannot grant
to individuals or corporations such
control over the instruments of
commerce as will place the great
body of the people at the mercy of
those individuals or corporations. It
cannot so regulate commerce among
the States as to compel the farmers
of the north-west to ship their pro
duce to Chicago and New Fork, when
they wish to transport it to St. Louis
or New Orleans. The Congress
could not prescribe such discrimina
tions in freight rates as would com
pel AVestern merchants and jobbers
to purchase their supplies in Chicago
or Philadelphia, when they desire to
buy at Des Moines or Omaha. The
Congress may not prescribe rules for
the control of the commerce among
the States, which are designed to
bankrupt the merchants and manu
facturers of one locality and to en
rich those of another. The Congress
cannot rightfully grant to individ
viduals and syndicates such control
over the public highways and facili
ties for interstate traffic as will en
able them to concentrate the entire
cattle of the continent into a single
city, or a number of cities, domi
nated by a combination of harpies
and commercial bandits. It cannot
conspire with individuals to grant to
them such rates of transportation as
would build up a gigantic oil mo
nopoly, and enable them to crush
out all competing producers and re
finers. It cannot enter into a con
spiracy with the great anthracite
coal companies to afford them ample
facilities to transport their product,
and refuse like favors to competing
companies.
If the Congress should openly at
tempt to commit such outrages as
lhese, an indignant people would
sweep them from place and power
like a torrent. If persisted in de
spite public sentiment, it would be
regarded as a declaration that gov
ernment had been dissolved, and
the people would fly to arms as the
only refuge from an atrocity.
The fathers evidently foresaw that
evils of this character would arise, if
the power to regulate commerce
were left to individuals or to the
States, and hence took it away and
vested it exclusively in the Congress.
Apprehending that at some time lo
calities might still attempt to levy
tribute upon others, and that the
Congress itself might not always be
disposed to act with fairness, the
framers of the Constitution were
careful to expressly declare that “No
preference by any regulation of com
merce or revenue to the ports of one
State over those of another.”
AVe will now consider the powers
and corresponding duties which this
provision confers and enjoins upon
the Congress.
Commerce among the States con
sists in the interchange of merchan
dise or other movable property on
an equitable basis between the peo
ple of the different States. It finds
its chief expression in the instru
ments used in the change and trans
shipment of the same. These are
three in number:
First—Money;
Second—Facilities for transporta
tion ;
Third—Facilities for the transmis
sion of intelligence.
It will be readily seen that these
instrumentalities are the indispen
sable factors in modern civilization,
and relate directly to the acquisition
and distribution of wealth, and hence
to the tranquility of society and the
mainteinance of personal rights.
Faithfully wielded by the general
government, they constitute a triple
armor, capable, if held steadily
toward the foe, of turning aside the
heaviest projectiles of tyranny, and
broad enough to shield at all times
the whole body of the people. AVith
this view of the subject before our
minds, the wisdom of the provision
which vests this power exclusively in
the Congress, and which excludes the
insatiable passion of avarice from
any share in its exercise, becomes
apparent to all.
How has the Congress discharged
this important trust, and with what
effect upon Democratic institutions?
It will be readily seen that within
the limits of this paper we can only
treat the subject suggestively. But
the mere interrogation foreshadows
the startling outlines of our national
dilemma; and the prodigious growth
of corporate power at once rises like
an impassible mountain barrier before
the mind. The whole trinity of com
mercial instruments has been seized
by corporations, wrenched from fed
eral control, and are being used to
crush out the inalienable rights of
the people. They are interlocked by
mutual interests, and advance to
gether in their work of plunder and
subjugation. They constantly do all
those things which this Congress
could not do without exciting insur
rection. They make war upon or
ganized labor, and annually lay
tribute upon a subjugated people
greater than was ever exacted by
any conqueror or military chieftain
since man has engaged in the bru
talities of war. They corrupt our
elections, contaminate our Legisla
tures, and pollute our courts of jus
tice. They have grown to be
stronger than our government; and
the army of Pinkertons, which is
ever at their bidding, is greater by
several thousand than the standing
army of the United States. Instead
of the government controlling the
corporations, the latter dominate
every department of State. We may
no longer look to the Congress, as at
present dominated, for the regula
tion of these facilities. That body
is bent on farming out its sovereign
power to individuals and corpora
tions, to be used for personal gain.
Our national banking system is the
result of a compact between the Con
gress and certain speculative syndi
cates, the Congress agreeing to exer.
cise the power to create the money,
to bestow it as a gift, and to enforce
its circulation; while the syndicates
are to determine the quantity, and
say when it shall be issued and re
tired. No currency whatever can
be issued under this law unless it is
first called for by associated usurers,
and then they may retire it again at
pleasure. If they decline to call for
its issue, the affliction must be borne.
If issued, and speculators desire to
destroy it, the disastrous sacrifice
must be endured. The power of the
government to issue lies dormant
until evoked by a private syndicate.
Then the money flows into their
hands, not to be expended in busi
ness or paid out for labor, but to be
loaned for usury on private account.
It cannot be reached by any other
citizen of the republic, except as it
may be borrowed of those favorites,
who arbitrarily dispense it solely for
personal gain. To obtain it, the bor
rower must pay these dispensers of
sovereign favor from six to twenty
times as much (according to locality)
as was paid by the first recipient. It
is a fine exhibition of democratic gov
ernment to see our treasury depart
ment create currency, bestow it as a
gift upon money lenders, and then
stand by with cruel indifference and
witness the misfortunes, the sharp
competition and afflictions of life drive
the rest of its devoted subjects to the
teeth of these purse-proud barons as
suppliants and beggars for extortion
ate, second-hand favors. This sys
tem was borrowed from the mother
country, where it was planted to fos
ter established nobility, distinctions
of caste, and imperial dynastic pre
tensions ; and those who planned it
have always been satisfied with its
operation. This, then, is our situa
tion :
For a home upon earth, the poor
must sue at the feet of the land spec
ulator.
For our currency, we are remanded
to the mercies of a gigantic money
trust.
For terms upon which we may use
the highways, we must consult the
kings of the rail and their private
traffic associations.
For rapid transit of information
we bow obligingly to a telegraph
monopoly dominated by a single
mind.
Our money, our facilities for rapid
interstate traffic, the telegraph—the
three subtle messengers of our inten
sified and advanced civilization—all
appropriated and dominated by pri
vate greed ; wage labor superseded
by the invention of machinery and
cast-off labor forbidden to return to
the earth and cultivate it in his own
right; population rapidly increasing;
highways lined with tramps; cities
overcrowded and congested; rural
districts mortgaged to the utmost
limit, and largely cultivated by ten
ants ; crime extending its rankerous
roots into the very vitals of society;
colossal fortunes rising like Alpine
ranges along side of an ever widen
ing and deepening abyss of poverty ;
usury respectable, and God’s law
contemned ; corporations formed by
thousands to crowd out individuals
in the sharp competition for money,
and the trust to drive weak corpora
tions to the wall.
Such are some of the evils which
have given rise to the discontent now
so universal throughout the Union.
From the investigations which this
unrest has awakened has been evolved
the “Treefold Contention of Indus
try,” covering the great question of
land, money and transportation.
Should it be the subject of criticism
or a matter of astonishment that our
industrial people feel compelled to
organize for mutual and peaceful de
fense ? That they are actuated by the
purest motives and the highest be
hests of judgment and conscience in
making their demands cannot for one
moment be called in question. 1 hey
are conscious, also, that their conten
tion is based upon the impregnable
rock of the Constitution and in
trenched in the decisions of our court
of last resort. They do not seek to
interfere with the rights of others,
but to protect their own ; to rebuild
constitutional safe-guards which have
been thrown down; to restore to the
people lawful control over the essen
tial instruments of commerce, and to
give vitality to those portions of our
great charter which were framed for
the common good of the whole peo
ple.
Let it be understood that organ
ized labor demands at the bar of
public opinion a respectful hearing.
It will ask for nothing which it does
not believe to be right, and with less
than justice it will not be content.
Conscious that it hath its quarrel
just, in the struggle to obtain its de
mands it will employ and it invites
the use of only such weapons as are
proper in the highest type of manly
intellectual combat.
James B. Weaver.
Gen. James Baird Weaver, People’s
party candidate for president, was
born at Dayton, 0., June 12, 1833.
His early life was spent on his father’s
farm. After a varied career as a
young man he entered a law office,
but suspended his study and made
the journey across the continent in
an ox cart to the Pacific coast. Upon
his return in 1854, he entered the
Cincinnati law school and upon grad
uating began the practice of his pro
fession. At the outbreak of the civil
war, he enlisted in the 2d lowa Infan
try. He rose to be colonel in 1862
and was brevetted brigadier-general
for gallant conduct in 1865. At the
close of the war he returned to the
practice of the law, was elected dis
trict attorney of the 2d lowa district
and was subsequently made assessor
of internal revenue, serving in that
capacity for six years. Gen. Weaver
voted for Fremont, and when peace
was declared, continued to support
the republican banner. The demon
etization of silver m 1873 caused him
to revolt against the position of his
party on finance. He entered Con
gress in 18T9, having been elected
as a greenback candidate from a
strong republican district. His can
vass had been a very dramatic and
exciting one, and he had satisfaction
of sweeping away a 4000 republican
majority. In 1880, Gen. Weaver
was nominated for the presidency by
the national greenback-labor party
and polled 307,740 votes. He was
returned to Congress m 1885, having
been defeated in 1882, and was re
elected in 1886. It is to be noted in
Gen. Weaver’s career that while he
made his name as an able debater on
the currency, he has always been
quick to perceive the growth of other
monopolies in this country beside
that of Wall street. His nomination
for the presidency by the Omaha
convention forms the latest chapter
in a notable public career.
James G. Field.
Gen. James G. Field, the people’s
party candidate for vice-president,
was born in Culpeper county, Va.,
Feb. 24 1826, and was educated as
a lawer. In 1859 he was appointed
the commonwealth’s attorney for
Culpeper county, and in 1877 was
appointed to fill the unexpired term
as state attorney-general. He enter
ed the Confederate army as a private
soldier in 1861. He rose to be major,
was made a member of A. P. Hill’s
staff, and served in the field until the
close of the war. lie lost a leg at
Cedar Creek. Gen. Field owns and
operates a Virginian plantation and
also has a large legal practice. He
has for the past seven years been
advocating the starting of a new
party in order to solve questions
which neither of the old parties is
able to take up.
CUT THISOUT.
National Watchman.
Money is bought with the products
of labor, instead of prodcucts being
bought with money, as the common
acceptation of the term now implies.
When this idea is carefully considered
and understood, the full significance
of what is intended by the term
cheap dollar, or dear dollar, will be
known in its true sense. For example,
m 1870 pork soldin Michigan for $lO
per hundred pounds. In 1889 it
sold for $4 per hundred pounds. It
required just ag much labor to raise
a bushel of corn in 1889 as it did in
1870. It took as much corn in 1889
to make a pound of pork as it did in
1870. During this time the dollar
has remained the same—2s 8 grains
gold or 412|- grains of standard silr
ver make the coined dollar of 1889 s
as in 1870. There has been no in
crease in its weight or size. The
question therefore is, why should it
require twenty five pounds of pork
in 1889 to buy the same dollar that
ten pounds of pork purchased in 1870?
Can this be explained on any other
hypothesis than an increase in the val
,e of the dollar ? Is it not a fact that
fifteen pounds of pork has been add
ed to the value of the dollar during
the past twenty years ? If this ü be
true of pork, is it not also true of
wheat, cotton, corn, tobacco, and
nearly every other product of
While 100 pounds of pork would have
paid 10 per cent interest on SIOO ip
1870, it will take 175 pounds to pay
7 per cent in 1890. Who can truly
say in the face of this that a cheaper
dollar is not necessary for the pros
perity of labor in production ?
The Macon County Citizen says
all the leaders of our party are rene
gade Republicans. The editor has
no regard for the truth.
Free of Silver.
to aninternational conlereuce and
agreement. But « have no fatth
in the sneeess of such a conference,
therefore we are not willing to have
it used as an instrument to head oft
free coinage. The rehabilitation of
silver would be of inestimable ad
vantage to the country, and that
very fact would be an insuperable
obstacle in the way of an interna
tional agreement. • r>
In the conference or 18/8, l>r.
Broch. of Sweden, admitted broad
ly that the United States would be
Greatly benefited by the restora
tion of silver Note his language, as
reported in the proceedings of that
conference on page 28:
Mr. Broch recognized that the Unit
ed States had a great in erest in hav
ing other countries make equal use or
the two metals for their monetary cir
culation and give equally to both the
character. The United
States fear that if the States still sub
jected to the regime of paper money
resume specie payments with the
single eold standard this will immedi
ately produce the double consequence
of augmenting in a high degree the
value of gold and of depreciating that
of products of every kind; a result
which, from their point of view, as a
great producing country and a great
debtor state would, in fact, present
disadvantages. The United (states
have a heavy debt, and it must be ad
mitted that a rise of gold would, with
one blow, aggregate the weight of the
debt.
Mr. Broch was one of the strong
est opponents of silver in that con
ference.
It is difficult to imagine an argu
ment that should carry more weight
with an American in favor of free
coinage than this statement of
Mr. Broch against it. The de
monetizafion of silver increased
the burden of our debt and diminish
ed the value of our products out of
which the debt mnst be paid. In
this matter the interest of England
are particularly antagonistic to ours.
She is the great creditor nation of
the world, and of course she wants
the value of money raised to the
highest possible point.
One of the principal objections
urged against bimetallism before the
royal commission was that the resto
ration of silver would deprive Eng
land of the advantages she now en
joys through the appreciation of
gold. A considerable proportion
of her people live upon fixed in
comes, and they, of course, are
benefited by low prices. This class,
combined with the money-lenders,
absolutely control the fiscal policy
of that country, and they will never
forego the advantages they now
possess to join us in an international
agreement.
England asked no co-operation
when she established the gold stan
dard. Germany acted independent
ly of all nations when she abandon
ed gold m 1857, and again when she
discarded silver in 1873. France
sought no international conference or
agreement when she threw her mints
open to both metals in 1803, and the
American Republic can afford to be
equally independent in 1892.
If we want international co-opera
tion, the way to get it is to act—not
stand shivering and trembling like a
boy about to plunge into an ice-cold
bath.
The Galled Jade Winces.
Dakota Ruralist.
Torn Watson has stirred up the
American congress as no man ever
did. Because he dares call things
by their right names, he is called to
account. When men are drunk, he
says they are drunk. He has a qual
ity of manhood very much needed,
a kind that will be applauded by all
classes, no matter what their political
faiths. His book has shown up the
rottenness of thirty years of legisla
tion ; has laid bare to the gaze of
the world the false pretensions of the
old parties. In doing this he has
done a noble work, a work that will
be of incalculable good to the nation.
Tom Watson’s honesty and courage
will make him friends, and give to
the People’s party a boom that will
be felt along.the whole line. No
wonder the drunkards of Congress
(Cobb is not the only one) winces,
when they are called drunk.
The Banks County Gazette says:
Tom Watson said in his speech at
Thomson that the democrats of the east
threatened the democrats of the south
and west with the force bill if the
house passed the silver bill, and The
Atlanta Herald seems to think the
house wise in being scared out. Would
The Herald be kind enough to tell us
the fate of cowards who suffer them
selves scared into wrong doing? What
would have been the history of the
three Hebrew children had they fell
down and worshiped the king’s golden
calf? The man who is too cowardly to
discharge his duty is not the man to
fill an office of any character, and the
little democratic party squeeler that
can’t get up a better argument than
the force bill, especially when it is
democrats who proposed to pass the
bill, has about exhausted his vocabulary
and our advice to him would be to sell
himself for a dog and kill the dog.
The labor unions of the Pacific
co ast are joining the People’s party
very generally. The federated trades
of Sin Francisco have voted to work
for Weaver and Field.