The People's party paper. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1891-1898, November 25, 1892, Page 4, Image 4

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4 PEO LE’S jpT¥ PAPER. PUBLISHED,WEEKLY BY THE PEOPLE’S PAPER PUBUSING COMPANY. 117 1-2 Whitehall St. THOS. E. WATSON, - - President. D. N. SANDERS, - - Sec. & Treas. R. F. GRAY, - Business Manager. This Paper is now and will ever be a fearless advocate of the Jeffersonian Theory of Popu lar Government, and will oppose to the bitter end the Hamiltonian Doctrines of Class Rule Moneyed Aristocracy, National Banks, High Tariffs, Standing Armies and Formidable Na Ives: —all of which go together as a system of oppressing the People. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. TERMS—SI.OO per year. 50 “ SIX MONTHS. 25 “ three months. Send Money by Postal Note or Money Order. < DO NOT SWND STAMPS. CLUBS: In club»of 10 we will send the Paper at 75c. OUR OFFICE . up stairs in th* elegant new McDonald building 117 1-2 v* nitehall street, where our friends will alw *yß find the latch string on the outside. Get Up Clubs. We want e Industrial Classes; to feel that this Paper i THEIR FRIEND. It is conduct ed by men *ho are intensely interested in the Reform Movement, and have been battling for it many years. The price shows that the Paper is not being run for money. If the People support it lib erally it will pay expenses. It cannot do more. ~siong as I am President of the Company, the Paper will never be found on any other fine of policy than that which I sincerely be lieve is best for Georgia, best for the South, and best for the country at large. THOS. E. WATSON, President People’s Paper Publishing Co. TO ADVERTISERS. The circulation of the People’s Party Paper ie now 13,000 copies to actual sub scribers. No better medium could be found for reachihg the farmers of Geor gia and of the South, and advertisers are requested to consider its merits. The circulation is steadily increasings and most advantageous arrangements can be made for space. Write for ad. rate card. Watch the Yellow Label. Look at the date on your address label. It tells to what time your subscription is paid. If there is any error, write at once and the correction will be made. If your subscription has expired, why don’t you renew? And assist in making the People’s Party Paper the great medium of in formation for the party in the South. The P. P. P. family now numbers 13,500. Help swell the number to 25,000. don't put it off. If your time is nearly out send in your dollar and you will not miss a single number. It saves time and trouble and will pay you in the end. TO CLUB GETTERS. In clubs of ten. the People’s Party .a per will etill be sent for 75 cents per year. \v here it is possible have all sent to one address, and thus avoid delays. NEVER FORGET, In ordering a change of address, to give vour former address as well as the new one. SEND US A DOLL AR! YOU HEAR? Friends! For more than a year we have furnished you a good paper. Every fifty-cent subscriber got what cost us seventy-five. Every ten-cent subscriber got what cost us more than fifteen. We have borne the ex pense for the good of the cause. We now want your co-operation. Please send us your renewal and send one other subscriber along with it. Don’t renew for three months. Renew for a year. Don’t send us a quarter. Send us a dollar. This will save trouble, save book -keeping; will be a source of comfort to you and of benefit to us. don’t send stamps I If you love me, don’t send stamps. I have to give a man fifty dollars a month, mainly to keep up with this stamp business. He is always at it— or seems to be. He has to steam these stamps, nurse these stamps, carefully sort them, remucilage them, paste them together, sell them, barter them, curse them, tear his hair over them and do various other things in connection with them which are in juring his constitution and moral standing. He is gradually losing his mind. He is also losing many of the stamps. Look here boys! have mercy on this man. Buy a postoffice money order or a postal note. Don’t work off stamps on a man who is already in a shattered state of health. We must keep this paper going. We want to make it a welcome vis itor to every country fireside. Wont you help us ? The cause is yours as well as ours. You are spending your money for opposition papers. Why not spend it with your friends ? Spend your money with those who fight for you rather than -with those who fight against you. Send that dollar, boys I Send it right away I You hear? T. E. W. The effort of the Washington clique to run the National Alliance as a democratic side-show was a sig nal failvre. Henceforth the Alliance will be directed by Alliance men. FEvFLets FAKTY FAFER, ATLANTA, GEORGIA, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25. 1892 THE POLITICAL SITUATION. The able editors of the great daily newspapers are very much inclined to dismiss the subject of the late elections by publishing a picture of a rampant rooster and by giving a brief account of the various ratifica tion meetings. This will, possibly, satisfy the idle reader, who believes just as much as the able Democratic editor chooses to tell him. It will not satisfy that large number of readers who begin to see new agen cies at work in politics, and who wish to keep abreast of the real causes and effects of American progress. Two years ago, the Republicans held sway in every branch of the government. Drunk with power and position, they carried their domina tion to extremes. The protective system was pushed to high-water mark in the McKinley bill. At the door of every shop in America the purchaser was met by a heavier price laid upon every article he wished to purchase. For once in our history the facts were too clear to be contested. Every shopper be came a zealous advocate against the McKinley bill. Then, again, extravagance in pub lic expenditures was not only ad mitted, but was claimed as a merit. The tax-payers, who paid everything and could save nothing while the millionaires paid nothing and saved everything, was comforted by the assurance that a Billion Dollar Con gress was all right—“it was a Billion Dollar Country.” Then, again, the force bill was pushed to the front—threatening to centralize our election affairs. The evil aimed at was great and grow ing, but the remedy proposed vio lated the principle of home rule. To these causes for the reaction which set in against the Republicans may be added the autocratic manner in which Mr. Reed presided over the House of Representatives and the new rules he established and en forced. The reaction amounted to a revo lution. It reached from one end of the country to the other. As Mr. Disraeli once described a similar land-slide in English politics : “It was like a convulsion of nature rather than any ordinary transaction of human life. I can only liken it to one of tbo j e earth-quakes which take place in Calabria or Peru. There was a rumb ling murmur, a groan, a shriek, a sound of distant thunder. There was a rent, a fissure in the ground, and then a village disappeared; then a tall tower toppled down ; and the whole of the ministerial benches became one great dissolving view of anarchy.” From California to Massachusetts Democrats had victories where they never had them before. The Repub licans were annihilated. They had barely a sufficiency of members in the House to make a decent protest. Then the intoxication of power passed from the Republicans to the Democrats. They seemed to think that the country elected them merely to abuse the Republicans. This they did, and nothing else. Their campaign pledges were scorn fully repudiated. No taxes were lowered; expenditures were not reduced; the McKinley bill was not touched. Some free trade bills were passed the House as a pretense, but were never pressed in the Senate. The Democratic leaders never in tended that they should become laws. Free silver was shamefully defeated in the midst of its pre tended friends. The sugar bounty was left in the full vigor of its in justice. Corporate privilege and power was left unchanged, and no attempt whatever made to lay any of the burden of taxation upon those most able to bear it. This was the situation when Con gress adjourned, but the great organs of the Democratic party took good care not to let the people know it. Such lies as these papers con stantly keep before their readers were almost superhuman. They actually made the people believe that the Democratic bosses were continually and copiously perspiring in the effort to give us the reforms we needed. Harrison had in the meanwhile split his party into fragments. He had quarreled with Quay, Dudley Blaine; he had estranged Reed, Henderson and scores of others. Learning no lesson from the tre mendous popular uprising which had driven his party from the House of Representatives in 1890, he pursued his individual views, his likes and dislikes, as if he had but to stamp upon the ground and the army of Pompey ■would rise. Mr. Cleveland, on the contrary, carefully knit together every strand of the Democratic hank—or rather whisky did. He went to see Nir. Hill. He made friends with Gor- man. He patched up a truce with old Dana, of the Sun, who had been abusing him for years. The World was mollified; and even Burke Cockran was induced to carry his fat figure and somewhat clumsy elo quence on the stump. The platform Mr. Cleveland ran on was all thiiigs to all men. To Tom Johnson and Henry George it meant free trade. To Gorman, Whitney, Brice and the other Democratic protectionists it meant “high duties carefully re adjusted.” (Oh, ain’t that sweet 1) To the Democratic manufacturers it meant free raw materials with sub stantially the same protection on the manufactured article. Nowhere m Cleveland’s letter of acceptance does he make any pledge in favor of tariff reduction. Remem ber this. His letter of acceptance is a distinct back down from his tariff reform message of 1888. Nowhere does he pledge himself to any reform of any sort. More especially does he fail to say a word against the special privileges now enjoyed by certain classes under our financial law?. Now, what resulted? The busi ness world saw that there was no difference between Cleveland and Harrison. On all questions touching commercial, agricultural and finan cial issues the attitude of the two can-, didates was the same. Behind Cleve land was Whitney, representing un limited campaign boodle to help out a united party which was flushed with the victory of 1890. Behind Harri son was a broken machine, disrupted party and the defeat of 1890. Between the two was the protest of the industrial classes represented by Weaver and + he People’s party — with no money, no machinery and with all the odds against them. They had a platform of principles —which the old parties did not have. The great revolt against the Re publican party, assisted by want of cohesion within the party, • was still sufficient to elect Cleveland over Harrison. But at the same time the Democrats lost heavily in the con gressional elections. Somewhere be tween forty and sixty Democratic congressmen lose the seats they won in 1890. This circumstance alone is sufficient to show how precarious is the Democratic hold npon public confidence. When Congress met one year ago there was no sucl# thing as a real, organized People’s party. An effort to organize at Cincinnati had seemed to be premature. Eleven congress men, elected by Alliance votes, agreed to stand outside the caucus of the old parties. They did so, and thus was formed the first distinctive political body known as the People’s party. Their influence grew. They commanded the confidence of re formers everywhere by deserving it. They hewed squarely to the line on all questions, independent of old party affiliations. So favorably was the new movement received that we got a popular vote at the recent elec tion which, so far, the Democratic newspapers have been afraid to pub lish. We more than doubled our delegation in Congress. We elected nine Governors. We elected hun dreds of members of legislatures. We cut down the Democratic ma jority in Georgia to 30,000 by their own figures. All this we did in spite of every kind of fraud known to political rascality. What party ever carried so many States into the electoral college on the first trial ? At the first dash we have carried at least six States for our Presidential candidate, besides carrying a popular vote in the South and West and in the Middle States which is so large that to escape it the returns had to be suppressed by the wholesale! Ours is the only party which con ducted a national compaign. We were the same in all the sections* In the West the Democrats with drew their Cleveland ticket and sup ported Weaver. In the South the Republicans withdrew their Harrison ticket and supported Weaver. No where did we withdraw our ticket to support either Harrison or Cleveland. Where any surrendering was done, the old parties surrendered to us. In no instance did we surrender to them. Therefore we stand intact. We are the real victors. We have stamped out the Republican party. Why? Because all the favored classes, all the monopolists, all the protected industries, all the privi leged capitalists see that Cleveland means to protect them and has the power to do it; while Harrison has the willingness to do it, without hav ing the power. Therefore such men as Depew, Carnegie and Frick, hav- ing identically the same in erest as Whitney and' Brice and Gorman, will just as surely come together as the necessity for that union will come. In both the old parties are masses of honest voters who yet believe “relief” will come through those im possible channels. No amount of political trickery or newspaper lying can long blind these men to the fact that Cleveland stands pledged (if to anything) not to “disturb” the “busi ness world.” The robbers feasting on special privileges are not to have their banquet intruded upon. This is virtually the contract upon which Cleveland was elected. He will keep it. He is compelled to keep it. He is in the hands of men stronger than himself. Then when the masses of honest Democrats realize that offices may be changed, but that the laws are not to be touched, there will be sure enough popular wrath. The disaf fected will seek a Party of Principles. They will come to us simply because there is no difference in principle be tween the two old parties. The pop ular element of both will come to us. The aristocratic element of both will fuse into the one Democratic party. The Democratic party of to-day gives a national banker all he wants. Gives a manufacturer all he wants. Gives a monopolist all he wants. Gives the untaxed millionaire and bondholder all he wants. Therefore the Demo cratic party will gather in all the classes, and the Republican party, of fering nothing better to them, will cease to be useful or necessary. The Democratic party offers noth ing but insult to the farmer ; nothing but the privilege of being robbed to the laborer; nothing but the luxury of paying all the taxes to the poor; nothing to the unprivileged and un favored save the satisfaction of al ways feeling on their necks the heels of the privileged and the favored. Not only is this true, but the Dem cratio party has deliberately saddled itself with the body-of-death of sec tionalism. Never was the “bloody shirt ” waved as it was in this cam paign. Such me:i as Gordon, Black, and so on, were sent abroad to undo the healing process of twenty years and teach the lesson of hatred again where every dictate of prudence, of patriotism, of common sense and of Christianity pleaded for the recon ciliation which the South had so often said through the mouths of Ben Hill, L. Q. C. Lamar, John B. Gordon and Henry Grady she was ready for and prayed for. Every speech of Gor don in this campaign gave the lie to the speeches he made ten or fifteen years ago. Every speech of Black in its bitter partisanship and reckless abuse was a repudiation of Ben Hill and Henry Grady—not only that, of the plain, simple duties of ordinary citizenship and religion No party founded on the mere holding of plunder illegally obtained under class laws can long rule this land. That’s the Republicans. No party founded on the continued hatred of one section toward another can long live in this country. That’s the Democrats. Success, just as surely as God rules, is bound to come to that party pledged to equal and exact justice to all men, to the progress which is founded upon Right. That’s the People’s party. The highest duty of every Re former at this hcur is to be patient and keep right in the middle of the road. This is advice which I have some right to give, for in the eyes of the world I have more cause for dis couragement than any one. But I am to-day more certain we are right, and more certain of our success, than I have ever been. And I am sure to do just what I advise you to do. “ Be patient and keep in the mid dle of the road.” T. E. W. CONTEST EVERY OFFICE. It was apparent to all our party that we labored under a terrible dis advantage this year because of the fact that the offices were held by our opponents. They had the machine. They gave us honest elections in some places, but the general rule was the other way. Men -who would never defraud, lie or steal for them selves did so for the Democratic par ty. They refused to receive votes which were clearly legal. They threw out returns on flimsy technicalities. They allowed open intimidation, bribery and repeating. In some cases they altered the ballots. In other cases they stole People’s party ballots and supplied their places with Demo cratic tickets. To avoid this we must fill these places with honest men of our own party. Contest every vacancy from constable up. Let no stronghold be left in the hands of our enemies. This is the only way to build up a party. T. E. W. ALL AROUND. The Democrats now have “a chance.” What will they do "with it? Will they repeal the McKinley bill ? No. Will they lawer the taxes ? No. Will they pass a free silver bill ? No. Will they increase the currency and give the common people a chance to get some of it ? No. What will they do ? They will run over one another like a parcel of hogs rushing to the slop-trough in their greed to get the offices, and principles and pledges will be forgot ten as usual. In Georgia alone there are already enough applicants to fill every place at Cleveland’s disposal. # * * The Democrats are having a high old time in the Georgia Legislature They want to cut down widows pensions and the same time make donations to the Chicago fair. They want to save a dollar at the expense of the helpless women, and yet throw away ten by saddling the tax-payers with that Atlanta job known as the Soldiers’ Home. Go it, Democrats! Take from the widows of our dead heroes and give to the specu lators of Chicago and Atlanta! That’s what your party is in the habit of doing. * * * Some time ago the State bankers of Georgia organized into a close association, offensive and defensive. The people will do well to keep their eyes upon this money trust. Al ready Mr. Calvin (who theoretically represents the country people of Richmond county), has introduced a State bank bill which, for all-around loveliness, is hard to beat. Accord ing to the synopsis published in the papers the title of Mr. Calvin’s bill should be “An Easier and Quicker Way for City Corporations to Get Rich Off Country Producers.” The main idea of the scheme is that the State shall allow the bankers to issue their notes to the full amount of town and city bonds put up as collateral, and that the poor country devils who are obliged to have something in the shape of money shall pay the city capitalists 8 per cent interest for the use of these duebills of the bankers. Under this lovely scheme every town in Geor gia which could issue bonds to the amount of $50,000 would at once begin to fleece all the country pro ducers in the neighborhood. * * * Why should a duebill based on a town bond be called money ? Why should I be allowed by law to tax the community eight dollars upon every hundred dollars of my debts ? When I can make the neighbor hood in which I live pay me eight dollars on the hundred for the privi lege of holding my duebills, have I not got an advantage over my neighbors which will bring all their labor as a tribute to my laziness ? I can sit in the shade and get rich. They work in the fields and get poor. Why ? What they owe they pay interest on. What I owe I get in terest on. Ain’t that a fat thing ? I sit by the fire, my idle feet resting on a Brussels carpet, and I feel good. Why ? Because the more I owe the community on my bank due bills, the bigger my income is. I get rich on the interest on what I owe, Out yonder is a farmer who owns good land, good stock, and has more sense than I’ve got. Why can’t he sit up and play the gentleman ? Be csuse he has to pay interest on the debt he owes, and also on the debts I owe. We skin him “ a’comin’ and a’gwine.” Why does he submit to it? Be cause the Democratic papers tell him it’s all right. * * * General W. A. Harris, a Confed erate veteran, a Southern man, was elected congressman-at-large from Kansas by the People’s party. He received an overwhelming vote. How grand is this patriotism of the Kansas farmers! How completely it proves their willingness to forget sectionalism and to found the hopes of our new party upon the grand principles of union, fraternity and equality. In the light of such an honor paid to a hero of the lost cause by Western men who were once Re publicans, how contemptible appears the conduct of John B. Gordon, J. ' lii 141111 ill in or<fl deser fight I juiced ail over the ar- the people going to We have to-day at least one-nSH the legal voters of the State. lIoaT long will we allow the other half ta rob the ballot box of our votes ? # * * By the way, let anybody count up the votes as actually cast (by Demo cratic count) in the Tenth district, including the seven rejected precincts in Washington and the three in Wilk inson, and he will see that Mr. Watson really got more votes than Crisp, Moses, Tate, Lester or any other congressman in Georgia. Yet he gets no certificate. Why ? Because a city with less than 6,500 legal voters stuff its ballot boxes till they contain 11,000 ballots. * * * The Democratic bosses have a hard time’trymg to settle the question, “Who won the chief honor of the campaign ?” I’ts easy. The men who stole the ballots and repeated votes. Ask us something hard. * * * The Democratic heroes of the late campaign are numerous. There is Hoke Smith—the man who thanks God every morning that his name is not John. It would have been very hard on Hoke if his name had been John, or Peter, or ’Rastus. No wonder he is thankful. It was a narrow escape. Then there is Joe James, who was really surprised to find out how sud denly he had become a great man, His surprise gradually diffused itself throughout the State and was shared by pretty much all the people. Joe never could exactly understand it. Neither could the people. Joe finally gave it up. So did the peo ple. Then there was that queer jackass, W. J. Northen. His qualification for the work was a happy and well rounded ignorance of everything es sential to the work—spiced with a meanness and spitefulness which were the best proofs of his 'littleness. Starting out in the campaign with a personal denunciation of a lady, he followed it up with labored efforts to prove Colonel Post’s eccentricities on the vital issue of cabbage culture. At this point his managers pulled him in and shut his mouth for a month or two. Then he broke loose on the tariff, and perhaps made the most laughable speech which was ever made on that subject. Then he was pulled in again. The boys just couldn’t stand it. They saw that the Governor’s feet struck a bee-line for his mouth every time he opened it. They made him shut it up for good They put him in the wood-shed and covered him up till election day* Then they sent him down to Powel ton to “carry that precinct.” He “ carried it ” —to the People’s party. At the home precinct of this absurd creature he got some 16 votes. Peek got 149. His neighbors know him I T. E. W, OUR WASHINGTON LETTERS. Congress will soon reconvene, and Mr. Watson will again furnish thia paper with a letter every week, giv ing the inside workings of the politi cal world. If you want to keep up, subscribe at once. These letters alone will be worth a year’s subscription. Send in your names. A Fayette county man boasts that on November Bth he was over in Barbour county, Ala., and cast dur ing the day six Cleveland ballots, receiving one dollar for each vote. In Augusta wagons were loaded with hired Democrats who spent the day driving from one polling place to another, thereby helping wonderfully in piling up a majority for Cleveland and the peerless, Christian gentle man, J. C. C. Black. Great is Demo cracy. • Robert Pyne, editor of the Hart ford Examiner, at the request of earnest workers in the People’s cause in Connecticut, has called a conference for next Saturday, to act on the proposition for a permanent organization and the immediate prosecution of the campaign of edu cation. This means that in New England the reformers are deter mined to fight on, just as they are in Georgia.