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THE PEOPLE’S PARTY PAPER.
October 15, 1891.
ATLANTA. GEORGIA.
OUR PUBLISHING COMPANY.
THOS. K. WATSON, - - - President.
MACKIE STURGIS, - - Secty-Treasurer.
AUSTIN HOLCOMB, - Advertising Mgr.
Office 84 1-2 South Forsyth Street.
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I THE BEST I
| SILVER PAPER |
And general reform advocate, is (•)
® THE AMERICAN, of PhiladeL ©
tphia. whose editor, Hon. Wharton (•)
Barker, is one of the ablest reform (5)
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The Democratic editors having' dis
membered the Populist party to Iheir
satisfaction, the Democratic politicians
are now proceeding to cement the dis
jointed fragments of their own party.
Mr. Bryan has been recently credited
sK with saying that the ratio at which sil
ver is admitted to the mint is not a
matter of vital importance.
Gov. Boies, who was a prominent
candidate for nomination on tlieChicago
Y-platforrn, says: “The people having
declared against free silver another
BBpSampaign should not be made on that
• TEsue. ,
Senator Gorman, the most astute
politician of them all, and who never
allows a matter of principle to stand in
the way of success, in writing the
Maryland platform declares that Dem
ocracy has always stood for sound
k money, gold and silver, and leaves
every fellow to suit himself in the mat
jgtr of ratio. All this goes to show that
in 1398 we may expect as many differ
ent financial declarations in the state
platforms as there are different exigen
cies to be met in the various states. It
also goes to show that in 1900 instead
of the explicit declaration of the
Chicago platform we may expect an
artful jumble of words that every man
is at liberty to interpret to suit his own
taste and on which the Democracy can
unite in a harmonious effort to gull the
people and capture the offices and more
tijae.
After Jerry Now.
It is the hit dog that howls, and judg
ing from the howls now going up from
the democrats all over the country the
Nashville conference was a blow in the
“solar plexus” of the free silver pie
eating aggregation. liven Jerry Simp
son, the Sunflower congressman of
hosiery notoriety, gives a two-column
interview at the middle of the readers
through that journalistic bastard sheet,
the Atlanta Constitution, in which he
says “the substantial men of the south
who were driven from the Democratic
folds will return to the Democratic
party, the real party of the people, and
battle tor the people’s rights.” If
Jerry could have peeped in on the
Nashville conference composed of more
than 1000 veterans of the Populist ar
my, not one of whom held a proxy nor
permit from the pie-eating pimps of
plutocracy, we think he would modify
his statement If such men as Ignati
us Donnelly, W. S. Morgan, Jesse
Harper, Harry Tracy, J. J. Streeter
and a host of others of equal promi
nence are not representative Populists,
we would like to know who are. The
Nashville conference was an emphatic
countermand of the Populist funeral
ceremonies and a slough off of fungus
that fusion had produced.—Milton Park
in Southern Mercury.
Where Will He Stop?
Even this early in the struggle for
the supremacy of the people in these
United States, William J. Bryan open
ly declares for the Populist principles
set forth by the middle of the readers
at Nashville —the initiative and refer
endum, Not satisfied with purloining
from our platform the principle of free
and unlimited coinage of silver at the
ratio of 16 to 1 and other undemocratic
(?) doctrine, he has thrown his lariat
around our capstone—the initiative
and referendum —and proposes to brand
it as a cardinal principle of Democracy,
in a recent speech he used these words:
“The principle of the initiative and
referendum is Democratic. It will not
be opposed by any Democrat who en
dorses the declaration of Jefferson that
the people are capable of self govern
ment, nor will it be opposed by any re
. publicans who hold to Lincoln’s idea
should be a government of
by the people and for the
BKjRSaFa pity that there is not a prom
inocrat in all this country !liat
to stay on the platform
Syoy his party.-- Southern Mercury.
The recent epidem-
LYNCH ic of lynchings has
brought up the sub-
LAW. jeet of lynch law for
discussion and among
the editorials and communications ex
treme positions have been taken on
either side. As Bill Arp w’isely re
marks, the country people among
whom the crimes occur which provoke
the lynchings are the ones most di
rectly and deeply interested. So long
as the wives and daughters of the far
mers are the victims of outrage, the
farmers will continue to decide the
fate of the outragers without regard to
the opinions of the city preachers and
city editors whose own families are se
cure from the constant danger and
constant dread that haunts the women
and girls on the farm. The tongue
that brands the men who visit swift
punishment upon the outrager, as
cowardly murderers, brands its owner
as a slanderer. No braver, no more
upright, no more patriotic people exist
upon the earth than the farmers of
the South and in every socalled “mob
of lynchers” may be found a grizzled
veterans whose scars attest their cour
age and who respond to the despairing
cry of outraged womanhood, from as
honest motives and with the same
alacrity that they responded to the
bugle call of an invaded country in
their youth. While we say all this in
behalf of Southern lynchers no one
would more gladly welcome the end of
lynching,
We arc neither a lawyer nor the son
of a lawyer, yet it seems to us that the
greatest objection to the legal prosecu
tion of the brutes who commit assaults
upon women is the fact that the law
compels the woman to appear in court
and testify to the terrible outrage and
humiliation to which she has been
subjected. The day will notcome.and it
ought not to come, when the men of
the South will stand by and see their
own daughters and sisters or the daugh
ters and sisters of their neighbors sub
jected to such a cruel ordeal. We be
lieve in obedience to law, provided al
ways that the law is such that brave
men and true women can obey without
sacrifice to manhood and humiliation
to womanhood.
Let the next legislature so change
the law that the outraged woman’s
male relations or friends can appear in
court and testify in her behalf and one
great incentive to summary and illegal
execution will have been removed.
The writer has seen one poor girl
placed upon the witness stand, and he
does not think the men who were
present on that occasion would care to
see another girl subjected to a like
painful experience so long as plow
lines are handy.
Among the late lynchings two cases
were out of the ordinary. If Oscar
Williams had been lynched by the
people of Henry county where he had
committed the horrible assault upon
the little Campbell girl it would have
been looked upon as a matter of course,
but the fact that he was taken from
the train by the citizens of Griffin, who
were strangers to the child’s parents
and hence are presumed to have acted
without undue excitement or passion
is an evidence that the popular mind
has settled down to the deliberate con
viction that short shrift and sudden
death is the proper punishment for such
a crime.
In the case of Dr. Ryder, the lynch
ing seems to have been due largely to
the law’s delay. No effort was made
to lynch him at the time Miss Owens
was shot, nor when he was tried for
lunacy, nor even where he was tried
for murder and was granted a new
trial. It was now more than a year
since the killing and passion had had
ample time to subside and reason to
resume its full sway. Although one of
Dr. Ryders’s counsel was sick, he had
three reputable lawyers present to de
fend him. When a continuance was
asked for because this one lawyer was
absent and when it was discovered that
only three out of the fifty-one witnesses
for the defense were present, while
forty-eight of the fifty witnesses for
the prosecution were present, the peo
ple came to the conclusion that it was
the purpose of the defense to delay.
They had seen three years elapse be
tween the murder of the whole Wool
folk family and the final execution of
the murderer at the cost of $30,000 or
$40,000 to the tax payers of Bibb coun
ty, they had seen the Twiggs county
treasury bankrupted in the prosecution
of Mrs. Nobles for the murder of her
husband, while the old woman was
still alive, with apparently a better
chance to die a natural death than by
the hands of the executioner. The
Ryder case had already cost the county
$7,000 and more than a year had elapsed
since Miss Owens had died by his hand,
and the further continuance of the case
exhausted the patience of a portion of
the people.
As we see it, the killing of Dr. Ryder
was not so much a disregard for law
and right as a protest against the in
definite postponement of justice and
the entailment of burdensome costs
upon the people. In times like these
when honest men and women are daily
going to the grave by their own hands
because they cannot raise the money
to buy a loaf of bread, people will not
cheerfully submit to be taxed out of
thousands to prolong the days of men
whom they honestly believe have justly
forfeited their lives to the law. More
men on the bench like Judge Candler
will prove the remedy for such lynch
ings as that of Dr. Ryder.
The Governor is doubtless right in
taking active steps to bring to punish
ment the men who did Dr. Ryder to
death without authority of law, but it
looks to us that there is something
radically defective in a government
that permits and encourages the expen
diture of thousands in the protection of
the life and rights of a criminal while
it makes so little effort in behalf of the
unfortunates who are daily driven to
choose between want, suicide and
crime and whose right to life is of lit
tle worth in the absence of opportunity
THE PEOPLE’S PARTY PAPE R ATLANTA, GEORGIA: FRIDAY, AUGUST 6 1897.
to earn by honest effort a decent living.
It will be hard to convince the mas
ses that the right of a criminal to re
peated trials is of greater sanctity than
the right to life of men and women
whose only crime is to be poor and out
of employment. D, N. S.
An Augusta wo-
RESPECTFULLYman, in a column and
a half article in the
DECLINE. Augusta Herald, ex
presses the fear that
the appointment to office of negroes by
the republican administration will in
crease the insolence of the law and
brutal element of the race, and that
the danger of assaults, from which
Southern women now live in daily
dread, will be increased and appeals to
all true Southern men to repudiate
republicanism and support the demo
cratic party as the white man’s party
in the South.
No man has less in common with
republicanism and no man has deeper
sympathy with our sister in her fears
of violence and would more freely lay
down his life in her defense than our
self, yet she must pardon us for re
minding her that according tothe sworn
records, fully one-third of the Dem
ocratic party of Augusta is composed
of 21 and 22 year old negroes.
She will further pardon us for re
minding her that it was a democratic
campa : gn committee that sent out to
the negroes of Georgia appealing to
them for their political support for the
reason that the democratic candidate
for Governor had pardoned a negro
‘who had been twice convicted by juries
of Georgia white men for assault upon
a white woman.’
In view of these facts we do not see
how we could increase the protection
we would desire to throw around wo
manhood by giving our vote to the
democratic party. D. N. S.
Fusion Means Fie.
“Give me Populism to fight for and I
am yours to count on until death do us
part.”—Thomas E. Watson.
Such is the late utterance of the
greatest t exponent of Populism that
ever lived, and such is the feeling and
statement of every real Populist in
America.
Mr Watson puts the world on notice
that Mr. Marion Butler is not repre
senting his idea of Populism, and that
he doesn’t intend to work under
Marion’s bell.
Tom Watson makes it clear that
fusion does not mean Populism, but
that fusion means pie.
Marion Butler may be honest in the
contention that fusion means Populism,
just as Paul was honest in his convic
tion that he was serving God by killing
Chris Jans, but we take the privilege
of believing that Marion is just as much
mistaken as Paul was.
The Pilot is fully persuaded that But
ler’s course in the last campaign was
dictated by the desire to feather his
own nest regardless of what became of
the Populist party in the future.
In other words we believe him to be
a hybrid bastard of the two old parties
and carrying the name of Populist, in
order to legitimise him for the purpose
of holding office.
The Pilot is not disposed to give up
the contention for the greater princi
ples of our party in order that the sil
ver monopoly may be foisted upen the
people again, this time with Rothschild
owning a controling interest in the sil
ver mines.
We had a great deal rather see gold
and silver demonetized and a sensible
patriotic system of finance for Amer
icans, issued by the people’s represen
tatives for the people and based upon
the taxing and producing power of the
nation, than to see a lot of place hun
ters go to office under the banner of
free silver, over the grave of American
intelligence and patriotism.
If free silver is all there is in Popu
lism, as Senators Stewart, Allen, Simp
son and Butler seem to think, then we
admit that we are not much of a Pop
ulist.
And we, like our standard bearer,
T. E. Watson, do not intend to be led
into the camp of the enemy by such
traitors as the above named Senators.
We have been in the fight for the ben
efit of the masses too long to be fooled
by the tricks of such would be bosses.
We therefore put Mr. Butler on no
tice that we repudiate him not alone as
a leader but as a Populist.
We had rather have one Watson to
lead us in the fight for reform than all
the Butlers ever born. —Upson Pilot.
Pingree on the Tariff.
Governor Pingree of Michigan wired
President McKinley and others a few
days ago as follows;
“I regard the duty on lumber, hides
and sugar as unrepublican, unpatriotic
and unfair.
“The lumber now used goes largely
into small homes and farm houses and
to a class already greatly overtaxed.
The laborer wears twice as many shoes
as the millionaire and must contribute
twice as much for the tax on hides.
“He must use as much sugar and pay
as much toward the duty on sugar.
“It is grossly unfair to make the
poor pay as much per capita as the
rich tov.ard the support of the Govern
ment. Property and not human stom
ach should be reached. Property is
protected by our laws and should pay
for its protection.”
Plow Boy Hot Shot.
It is a foregone conclusion that the
People’s party cannot be sold again.
Hereafter we will either have a voice
in all matters pertaining to the choice
of candidates or we will know the
reason why. But when you see a pop,
lauded by pop-ocratic press as a “great
leader,” you can put it down that he
was expected to be of “great” value to
them. And no one need be surprised
to see Jim (Benedict) Barrett nominat
ed to some office in that party. If they
do, and elect him, maybe the boys can
get pay for the tickets they printed
for him in 1892, when he was a candi
date for Commissioner of Agriculture
on the Populist ticket. See ?—Alliance
Plow Boy.
Call Jlas Iscariot a friend to our
Savior, Annanias a truthful man, Ben
edict Arnold a patriot, but don’t for the
sake of your intelligence, call Jones
and Stewart of Nevada Populists.
President McKinley has pardoned
Horace G. Allis formerly president of
the First National Bank of Little
Rock, Ark.
THE MONEY QUESTION.
What Some Noted Statesmen Have Said on
the Subject.
Whoever controls the volume of mon
ey of any country is absolute master of
all industries and commerce. Janies
A. Garfield.
If the Americans adopt our banking
and funding system, their liberties are
gone.—Sir William Pitt.
The bank is the union of the gov
ernment and the money power—a
union far more dangerous than church
and State. —John C. Calhoun.
Avarice says: “I will oppress the
weak and devour the fruits of his la
bors, and I will say that it is fate that
has so ordained.” —Volney.
Bank paper must be suppressed and
the circulating medium must be re
stored to the nation, to whom it be
longs.—Jefferson.
Anything upon which the govern
ment places its stamp and declares it a
full legal tender in payment of all
debts and taxes in money; no matter
what the material may be.- Henry
Clay.
I believe the struggle now going on
in this country and other countries, for
a single gold standard, will, if success
ful, produce widespread disaster, in the
end, throughout the country. —J. G.
Blaine.
My friends, unless our children have
more patience and courage than saved
this country from slavery, Republican
institutions will go down before mon
eyed corporations. Rich men die, but
corporations are immortal. They are
never affiieted with disease. In the
long run they are bound to win with
legislatures.—Wendall Phillips.
If a government contracted a debt
with a certain amount of money in cir
culation, and then contracted the mon
ey volume before the debt was paid, it
is the most heinous crime that govern
ment could commit against the people
—Abraham Lincoln.
I see in the near future a crisis aris
ing which unnerves me, and causes me
to tremble for the safety of my coun
try. As a result of the war, corpora
tions have been enthroned, and an era
of corruption in high places will follow’,
and the money power of the country
will endeavor to prolong its reign by
working upon the prejudice of the peo
ple until all wealth is aggregated in a
few hands and the republic is de
stroyed. I feel at this time more anx
iety for the safety of my country than
ever before, even in times of war. God
grant that my suspicion may prove
groundless.—Abraham Lincoln.
We clip the above from the Griffin
News to show that the Georgia Demo
crat is not altogether a hopeless case.
The vetern Populist will at once recog
nize the work of Dunning in every
item of the clipping, as they went the
rounds of the Populist press in ’92. The
News is now just five years behind the
procession, but as men in the rear can
travel faster than the pioneers who
have to clear the way as they advance,
it is quite possible that the News may
come in sight of the Populist band
wagon by the year 1900. At any rate
we congratulate the News on having at
last struck the right trail.
In 1850 Judge Andrews of Wilkes was
the “Know Nothing” or American par
ty candidate for Governor. He began
his campaign with a speech at Craw
fordville, and in the audience was Ben
Akin, an illiterate but noted citizen of
Talliaferro county. The judge began
by reading the party platform and
when he reached the declaration, “the
office should seek the man, and not the
man the office,” he added that the office
of Governor bad been running after
him for ten or fifteen years. Old Ben
immediately called out in his peculiar
shrill voice: “You needn’t mend your
gait Judge, you are a long way ahead
of it yet.” The unlooked for sally de
stroyed the judge’s speech and the
office never did catch up with him.
Populism is a long way ahead of the
News yet, but we are not without hope
that it may yet catch up.
D. N. S.
Mcssback Delusion.
The Democrats look to Senator But
ler to save them from destruction.
The Tribune predicted that the Demo
cratic press would begin to say all man
ner of pleasant things about him, as
they do of Gen. Weaver since he has
entered the Democratic fold. Our pre
diction is being verified.
The Nashville Sun, under the cap
tion, “First Blood for Butler,” talks in
approved mossback style, exposing its
ignorance while it taffies the man who
is looked to save the dear old party. It
says:
We have been waiting ever since
that so-called conference of the Mid
dlers in Nashville to see what the Pop
ulists throughout the country were
going to do about it. We confess that
we were very much interested. Tom
Watson’s pyrotechnic way of going
about things challenged our attention
After reading a few columns of Watso
nian fire and brimstone we began to
wonder how Marion Butler had the
temerity to remain on the earth, and
concluded that his continued serene
existence was only brought about by a
special dispensation from Tom Watson,
What is our amazement, however,
to notice that the first State Populite
Convention to be held since that Nash
ville conference biffs Watson squarely
in the eye and walks off with Butler
without so much as saying “Good
Evening.” That was the Virginia
Populist Convention held yesterday.
We shall continue to watch for further
developments, but our chunk of faith
in Watson has melted down considera
ble. In fact, there are moments when
we are almost led to the conclusion
that all the Tom Watson men in the
universe were present at the Nashville
conference except Tom Watson him
self.”
This is refreshing. How it would
delight a hungry cow to happen upon
such a spot of green as she meandered
around in search of something fresh
and juicy, The Virginia Populists
biffed Watson between the eyes and
walked off with Butler —that is rich.
Last year the Butler program was
carried to such an extent in Virginia
that the Populist party was completely
swallowed by the Democrats. They
entered into Butler’s fusion trap, and
having been caught, were treated with
contempt and insultingly refused any
recognition on the electoral ticket.
To all intents and purposes the Popu-
list party in Virginia was dead last
fall. Its only paper was foreed to sus
pend publication. Its executive com
mittee issued an address advising Pop
ulists to vote the Democratic ticket, as
there was no Populist ticket to vote for
in Virginia. Butlerism was on top.
But at the state convention this
week the Populists pulled themselves
together and shook off this deadly fu
sion blight. Fusion was given a black
eye, a middle of the road platform
adopted, and a straight Populist ticket
put in the field.
The Virginia Populists have enough
of fusion. Neither Watson nor Butler
was mentioned, as it was a fight for
principle and not men. But he must
be dull indeed who does not know that
when fusion is given a black eye in a
a Populist convention, Butlerism sees a
a brilliant stellar display.—Daily Tri
bune.
AS IT IS IN KANSAS.
A Brief Review of the Situation by a Title
Hine Populist.
ABE STEINBERGER.
Has the reader ever stopped to think
that this is the first time in the history
of political organizations that the peo
ple at the plows, in the shops, the fac
tories, and the toilers on the highways,
have ever risen up to defy their chosen
leaders ? It is befitting that such a
magnanimous revolt should mark the
closing days of the nineteenth century.
The people had begun to distrust all
political leaders; had almost come to
the conclusion that they could not
trust themselves, so often have they
been deceived. But, when the deter
mined representatives of the People’s
Party assembled in Nashville, and sent
out a ringing, patriotic address, and
created a national committee in whose
hands every true Populist will not
shudder’ to entrust the work of re
organizing the party on true Populist
lines, all realized that a new light had
dawned. The rank and file of the
People’s Party were not satisfied with
the management of the last presiden
tial campaign, as planned and enforced
by the men who had worked them
selves to the head of the organization
at the St. Louis convention last July.
They were insulted when they learned
that in the ante roomsof the great hall
in which the People’s Party held its
nasional convention in St. Louis, were
quartered Senator Jones, of Arkansas,
chairman of the Democratic national
committee, Governor Stone, of Missou
ri, and their lieutenants, where Allen,
Weaver, Tauberneck, Rozelle, Butler,
and other leaders of the People’s Party
at that time, would turn out the lights
and lea ye the great convention in dark
ness and confusion, and slide into
those private rooms and consult with
the Democratic bosses, as to the best
course to pursue, in order to make the
delivery of the People’s Party to the
Democracy, complete. Such conduct
on the part of the men who had been
honored by the Populist voters of the
nation, brought the party face to face
with one of two prepositions: Either
to dissolve the party absolutely or to
break away from the men who had
betrayed the cause and organize on
true Populist lines, placing the party
Ln an attitude which would assure all
its votaries and men who desired to
study its creed, that in all future move
ments no such tactics would be tolera
ted or even countenanced.
* * *
But this is all ancient history. It is
not necessary to grieve over the spilled
milk of the past The men who have
betrayed the People’s Party will never
be in position in future to deceive the
same following. The Nashville Con
ference, whose delegates came direct
from th- people, put its feet down up
on fusion for all future work, and
without r usion, the tricksters will be
helpless io deceive the trusting mem
bership of the party. The days of But
lerism, A.lenism, Weaverism, are rele
gated to the rear for all time. The
plan of re-organization adopted by the
Conference, has safeguards thrown
around it whioh insure the highest and
most effective action. As the people
assemble in straight Populist conven
tions, in county and state, they will be
enabled to select their own national
committeemen, and the road to travel
for the disposal of all the leaders not
in accord with the people, is a short,
straight, p'ain one. More than one
third of the members of the old Na
tional Committee, of which Mr. Butler
is the chairman, and a Bryan Demo
crat from Nebraska, named Edgerton,
is secretary, would vote today for a
reorganization of the Committee, and
as the.various states,not in accord with
the conduct of the last campaign, meet
in convention, they will soon swell
that numb r to a majority. No one
can question the legality of such a
procedure. It is under the rules made
for the government of the National
Committee, by the last National Con
vention, hence must ba binding. In
the mean time, the National Educa
tional Committee elected at Nashville
by a unanimous vote of the great Con
ference, will push forward the work of
education, lining up the true Populists
in everv’ »tate in the nation, and fusion
trs'',. . ill find themselves helpless to
»ne work
» * *
'j. l < ork of oraanization along
straigh Populist lines will be pushed
for we.', by the new committee as
the’.”’!; here had never been any
fusion > the party, for this is the only
hope o.f ‘.lie people of this nation being
able to oombat the heresy of standard
money in the campaign of 1900.
Almost without exception the new Na
tional Committee is composed of men
who have been battling for Populist
principles without hope of fee or re
ward ; men who have not been candi
dates for office and are not at all likely
to become such; but who have the
bravery to stand for the right, though
the heavens fall. This committee com
prises three members from each state
and territory, the same as does the one
known as the Butler-Allen Committee,
and as the people will stand by the
right, it can only be a question of but
a short time before all will be working
under the true banner of Populism, for
those who think the Democracy is good
enough to fuse with will conclude it is
good enough to join, and they will be
cheerfully missed by true Populists
everywhere.
Robert Trowwell, of Indiana, has
been appointed by McKinley as Comp
troller of the Treasury.
Two cousins suicided in New York.
They were Catholics and the church
forbidding their marriage, they pre
ferred death.
RIDDLED THE TARIFF.
Representative Hunter of Illi
nois Fired a Broadside.
SENATE AND HOUSE DONE NOTHING.
Secret Conclave of Eight Men Tax Fourteen
Million Tax Payers to Help Six Hun
dred Trusts—Preparing a New
Campaign Fund.
Representative Hunter, of Illinois,
in his speech on the Conference Com •
mittee’s report on the Dingley Tariff
act last week in the House of Repre
sentatives, said:
“Mr. Speaker : As this extraordina
ry session has now reached its closing
hours, I regard it the duty of every
Democrat upon this floor to emphasize
the ultraism of the legislation now al
most consummated. For more than
four months we have been in session,
ostensibly to conserve the best inter
ests of all the people and create such
laws as would secure to them in the
future immunity from the remorseless
grasp of monopoly and trust robbery.
But, instead of making laws for the
people, the majority in this Congress,
with the whole power of the Adminis
tration, has been consumed and exert
ed to destroy every interest of the
laboring man and the farmer and
build up a colossal money power.
The herald of fraud and deception
announced to the counlry six months
ago that the new President would
come with healing in his wings and
that prosperity would gladden every
home. What has the President done to
redeem any of these pledges ? Noth
ing.
What have the Senate and House
done to relieve the people of their bur
den ? Nothing.
No legislation has ever been proposed
by them to relieve the necessities and
wants of the people.
The Presidential office has been sub
stantially abdicated, and we now have
a general business manager who arran
ges all matters of legislation and di
plomacy.
Secret meetings are being held by
the trusts, corporations, and other
bosses daily and nightly to influence
legislation in their interests.
I believe that the legislation on this
tariff bill is controlled absolutely out
side and independent of the Senate and
House by less than thirty interested
gentlemen. The people and their rep
resentatives are not allowed to know
what is going on and what this Admin
istration is doing or going to do. There
is a studied effort, seemingly, upon the
part of the managing party of this
Congress to conceal every movement in
the creation and construction of this
bill. Hide-and-go-seek has been adopt
ed as the new method of governing the
people of this country.
The Republican portion of the Com
mittee of Ways and Means go to their
room and close the door, bolt every
Democratic member out, there in se
cret patch up what they call a revenue
bill; then come into this House, adopt
an arbitrary rule denying to the peo
ple’s representatives the right to exam
ine and discuss the product of their de
liberations. Under this gag process
they pass the bill, send it to the Senate;
then to conference; close the doors
again against every Democratic mem
ber of the conference committee; and
in this ex parte way force upon the
people of the United States partisan
laws fraught with all the schemes of
human selfishness.
Behind these bolted and barred doors
the American people are not allowed to
go within this charmed circle, and no
ordinary Republican is allowed within
these sacred precincts unless he has
been examined and accepted by the
the inspectors of the trusts, corpora
tions, and syndicates. They have to be
men who are willing to tax the mil
lions for the benefit of the few.
A SECRET CONCLAVE.
Here is a secret conclave of eight
men, presuming to fix the amount of
gratuities, under the name of taxation,
that 14,000,000 taxpayers have to pay to
600 trusts, corporations and individuals.
Mr. Speaker, this bill is not intended
to raise revenue to pay the expenses of
the Government, to help the farmer,
aid the laboring man, and stimulate
legitimate trade and business of the
whole country.
It is not the intention of its authors
to bring prosperity to the homes of the
toiling millions, those that produce
the material wealth of the country. It
is limited and specific in its application
and effect.
It is for the protection of classes, that
they may collect millions of bounties
from the consumers of their goods.
If it had been innocently created as
a revenue measure, its logical and na
tural efiect would be the same —to fos
ter trusts and combinations that rob
the people under its provisions.
As absolute proof of this conclusion,
let us examine a brief list of the corpo
rations, and gentlemen that enjoy the
lion’s share under this bill the protec
tion given to the men who subscribed
to the Republican campaign fund last
fall.
This Congress was called together
for the sole purpose of passing a law
that would compel the toiling millions
to pay back to these gentlemen the
money they had advanced to secure a
Republican victory last fall.
This law will not reimburse these
gentlemen the money they had advan
ced to secure a Republican victory last
fall.
This law will not only reimburse
these gentlemen the sixteen millions
expended, but it will enable them to
collect from their customers in exces
sive prices more than $250,000,000 annu
ally and prepare them with a fund that
they may use to perpetuate their pow
er through the machinery of Republi
can legislation.
These protected gentlemen can now
well afford to give to the national Re
publican committee a receipt in full
for all their adv ancements.
WORSE TUAN CUBA.
Mr. Speaker, this Administration
stands for nothing but greed, extrava
gance, and the protection of the weal
thy and powerful Cuba, to-day, is in
the grasp of a cruel despotism; her
cries for liberty and free government
are disregarded by a Republican Ad
ministration, because this Government
does not dare to displease the Spanish
bondholders and impair the value of
their securities.
Belmont, Morgan & Co., and tbj
Rothschilds must have their gain’ if
hundreds of thousands of patriots upon
that beautiful island shall perish in the
cause of liberty.
We are told that this bill must be
enacted into law not for the reasons
heretofore assigned by our Republican
friends, that we must prohibit imports
and increase our export trade, for that
day has come under the Wilson bill.
We are now having the greatest export
trade in our history.
The fiscal year of the United States
Treasury Department closes with the
30th day of June, and the official state
ment of the exports and imports for the
year just ended breaks the record in
several important particulars.
The total exports of merchandise for
the year were $1,051,987,091, the larg
est in our history. The nearest ap
proach made to this was in 1892, when
the total volume of exports of all kinds
was 81,010,278,148, The volume of ex
ports of domestic merchandise in that
year was $1,015,732,011, while last year
these exports amounted to $2,032,996,-
880.
The excess of exports over imports
last year was also the greatest on re
cord, amounting 'to $287 613,186, the
largest previous balances having been
$264,661,666 in 1879 and 8259,712,718 in
1878. In 1892, the record year in ex
ports, the balance of trade in our favor
was only $202,875,686.
If these figures prove anything, they
prove that in its relation to trade the
Wilson tariff is not a “failure.” They
show also that the people of the United
States are laying the foundation for an
improved condition of affairs in the
near future if Congress shall not inter
fere to prevent it
REPUBLICANS ARE WRECKED.
All the prophecies and pretenses of
our Republican friends have gone to
wreck and ruin under the test of time
and experience. They will have to in
vent new methods of deception in the
future.
This congress is now closing on a
measure wh’ch assumes that the Amer
ican people and American genius can
not compete with the people of Europe
in the production of the necessary ar
ticles of the highest civilization. This
I deny. We are today shipping the
product of American handiwork, the
products of agriculture, in greater
quantities than at any previous time
in our history, under the inspiration
of the advantages given to the people
by a comparatively low tariff.
This Dingley bill will, by increasing
the value of coal, iron and lumber to
our own people, cut off a large share
of our export trade that we now enjoy.
Let us for a little while turn to the
laboring men who have lost faith in
the theory that high taxation makes
high wages. Just now, while the Re
publican party are forcing through
Congress a tariff higher than ever be
fore, under the false plea that it is
solely for the benefit of the laboring
man hundreds and thousands of honest
men have gone out on a strike to force
employment at wages that will arrest
the demon of hunger that is now at
their doors.
If the protective doctrine were half
true, all that these laboring men would
have to do to secure high prices and
plenty of work would be to wait two
or three days.
At last it is being borne in upon the
popular mind, through hardship, that
neither a protective tariff, a revenue
tariff, nor absolute free trade can
bring prosperity to the masses while
the natural resources of the country
are monopolized, while production and
prices are controlled by trusts, and the
railroads of the Union, the combina
tion with those trusts, are empowered
to dictate who shall and who shall not
do business.
The grip of greed is cn the country—
a greed that is only intelligent enough
to see where immediate profit lies and
remains blind to the necessity for the
general well-being on which the well
being of capital itself in the long run
depends.
LABOR IS SUFFERING.
It is labor that is suffering most now.
But nobody except the millionaires of
the trusts and their hangers-on is sat
isfied with things as they are.
The new tariff will be tried and it
will fail. Then the revolt against the
paralyzing trusts, in whose interest
alone tariff has been devised, will be
come general, There can be no gen
uine prosperity for either workingmen
or business men while the trusts own
the country and rule and rob it and
destroy one-half of the primary money
of the people.
A measure conceived, as the Dingley
bill has been, in the counting rooms of
the protected monopolists could not
fail to deceive the working classes and
the farmers and be condemned by the
Democratic party and all those who de
sire the welfare of the whole people.
The sole purpose of this legislation is
to secure the highest tribute to the
trusts and protected interests. Ade
quate revenue is totally disregarded
and equality of burdens ignored.
The mask is thrown off now. We no
longer hear the leaders of the Republi
can party claiming that protection is
for the benefit of infant industries or
that the foreigner pays the tariff duty.
Protection pure and simple, without
reference to revenue, is the full scope
of this bill when it becomes a law.
Mr. Speaker, prosperity will come
speedily to those protected by this bill,
and distress and misery to those who
have to do the protecting,
As the stocks and bonds of the pro
tected trusts and mills begin to rise
you will hear the subsidized press cry
ing out that prosperity has come. But
when labor and the farmer’s products
stand still, as they will, nothing will
be said by them.
A SURRENDER TO TRUSTS.
The adoption of this bill will consu
mate the complete surrender of the
Republican party to the trusts.
Mr. Speaker, by this act Congress
abdicates its constitutional duty to leg
islate for the welfare and happiness of
the American people. It brings re
proach upon American character, and
strikes a criminal blow at popular gov
ernment.
It will arouse bitter hostility by all
other nations doing business with us,
and cause the war cloud to hang heav
ily upon our horizon.
It was a sad day when the people of
this country permitted the Republican
party to gain control of this Govern
ment. They have repudiated the con
stitutional limitations of the taxing
power, set that fundamental law aside
and have erected in its stead the hid
eous and plutocratic doctrine of pro
tection.
The exercise of assumed power to
compel one part of the American peo-
ple to protect another part, under the
sham pretense of raising revenue, is a
crime, and under this bill stands out
before the world as a speculative out
law.
There was no excuse or reason for
this extra session of Congress and the
enactment of this Dingley bill but to
tax the people that the trusts, who
gave their millions to elect Mr. Mc-
Kinley president, should have their
money returned to them as soon as
possible.
Mr. Speaker, no effi rt, no word of
mine, can now avert the calamity that
hangs over the energies, enterprise and
industry of the people of this vast Re
public. The die is cast; the feast of the
modern Belshazzar is now being spread;
the banquet is announced; and the rev
elry of 400 trusts and corporations is
now in the midst of its celebration.
The stock broker, the gold gambler,
and the trusts now feel perfectly safe
and secure within their intrenchmeuts,
while the Republican party stands
upon the outlines of their battlements
with its sordid gold to purchase immu
nity from the wrath of an outraged
people.
RECKONING WILL COME.
But, Mr. Speaker, the day of deliv
erance is near at hand; the time has
fully come to go before the great mas
ses of the country and open the book
of tyranny and oppression in which the
Republican party has written the law
of slavery. All the people want to
know is by whose hands these statutes
were written. I say to them: “Go to
New England, Pennsylvania, Wall
street, and Lombard street, and there
you will see the index engraven upon
every page of avarice and greed, There
you will see the political boss and the
machine by which your sweat and toil
is coined into their millions, and there
you will learn how you do the protect
ing and who the beneficiaries of pro
tection are.”
Mr. Speaker, there is no remedy for
these endless outrages upon the peo
ple’s rights under the policy and leg
islation of the Republican party. They
must turn to the great principles laid
down by Thomas Jefferson and his as
sociates, if they desire relief.
Therefore let us go back to the peo
ple, where the sovereign remedy may
be had, and make our appeal. The
people are always right, and make no
mistakes when free to exercise their
will
Mr. Speaker, I have no fears that
when the people speak in 1898 and
1900 upon the issues that this bill now
creates, a condemnation will be regis
tered against the encroachments upon
their rights, and this insidious method
of robbing the toiling millions under
the pretense of raising revenue will be
repudiated by them in no uncertain
way. Then we can say to the world
that popular government is safe in the
hands of the people, and robbery can
not longer be perpetuated by the tricks
of legislation.”
WRONG IN HEAD OR HEART.
The Augusta Tribune Deals Some Straight
Blows at Butler.
Senator Marion Butler’s paper this
week is filled with cuts and flings at
those Populists who did not oppose the
Nashville conference., In this he has
shown himself'an apt pupil’of his tutor,
Chairman Jones, who embracee every
opportunity to estrange those whose
support he needed for the success of
his candidate.
When Chairman Butler thus studi
ously and persistently abuses and in
sults those whose official head he
claims to be, it shows that either his
head or his heart is wrong. Either his
judgment is deficient and he has more
bile in his stomach than gray matter in
his head, or his heart is wrong and he
is a traitor who deliberately proposes
to wreck the party which honored him.
The Tribune has been a friend to
Mr. Butler. We refused to join with
those who denounced him before the
Nashville convention. We have tried
to justify his course, because we pre
ferred to look upon him as a true man
and a coming leader of the hosts of re
form. But the evidence accumulates,
furnished by Mr. Butler himself, that
our estimate of him has been wrong,
and that he cannot be trusted because
either bis head or his heart is wrong.
The contemptible fling he makes
about Georgia Populists who voted for
McKinley, and the insult implied in his
professed hope that “next time they
will vote as they talk,” is entirely gra
tuitous. The Tribune supported Bryan
and Watson, as long as Bryan and
Watson electors were in the field.
When that electoral ticket was with
drawn, the only choice left us was be
tween the Democratic and Republican
ticket, unless we chose to adopt the
cowardly policy of sitting on the fence
between them for fear of offending one
by supporting the other. We said,
when we left the Democratic party,
that we left it for good, and that, if
ever the time should come when we
were forced to choose between it and
the Republican party we should choose
the latter. We say the same thing
now.
We regard the Republican party as a
wolf, and the Democratic party as a
wolf in sheep’s clothing and will sup
port neither so long as we can fight
both. But if we must choose between
them, we prefer the open enemy of the
people to the treacherous foe and nine
tenths of the Populists stand with us
on that.
Senator Butler knows these things,
and hence his babbling betrays his
prompting. If the Democrats under
stood this as well as Senator Butler
Butlei- they would not be so desirous to
have the Populist party out of the way.
—The Daily Tribune.
MERCURY MUSINGS.
Latest Thoughts of Chairman Milton Park
of Texas.
Get up school house industrial clubs,
invite every farmer to attend and take
a hand in redeeming Texas.
The free silver Democrats are mas
querading in populist uniform ; not to
put into practice, but to deceive and
decoy.
The Nashville conference cleared all
the brush away. Every Populist can
now see the way to final victory, hence
should at once go to work and push
organization.
When Democrats quote Jones and
Stewart of Nevada as Populists, de
nounce the statement on the spot:
They are not now and never have been
Populists. They are bastard Demo
crats and have no lot nor part with
Populists.