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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.