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About Crawfordville advocate. (Crawfordville, Ga.) 189?-1??? | View Entire Issue (May 15, 1896)
EXISTING EVILS. ! I i OGLESBY DISCUSSES THEIR CAUSE AND REMEDY. The Remetlj for Any KvII Is to Remove It, And the Only Way to Good Government Is to Render .Justice to All People. Everybody ought to understand the great problem that is being solved by our government, and every other gov¬ ernment in the world at this momen¬ tous period. I say, being solved. Yes, the books are up for settlement, and settlement must be made, and made right, and made soon, whether the unit of society or the million understand these questions. The problem that agitates society in every fiber in the civilized world is as simple as the weaver's shuttle, It is simply and only “the irrepressible conflict” between good and evil, right and wrong, justice and Injustice. That is all, no more, no less. If the principle embodied in these terms, good, right, justice, were applied to civil governments or civil laws, all this turmoil, all this wrangling, all this social war, nearly all poverty, crime, vice and degradation in society would gently disappear as snow under a sum mer sun. But evil, wrong and injustice, constitute the web and woof of civil law. Take the laws of finance of the gov¬ ernments of tjie world. They are so arranged and so manipulated as to en¬ slave the wealth producers of * he world. The ingenuity of men and devils combined could not Invent any¬ thing more effectual In enslaving labor than a system of money based on in¬ trinsic value, a property money, a money that breeds debt and usury. Yet strange to see, our so-called great statesmen, not only of our nation, but of all .don’t seefli to understand the sit¬ uation at all. They all want peace, quietude and prosperity in the nations, and are worrying and wrangling try¬ ing to calm the troubled waters, blind to the fact that the system of money so dear to them, like tho worm at the root of Jonah’s gourd, is eating tho Ufo and vitality out of the tree of liberty. It would be as reasonable to expect that in mining acids and alkalies no agita¬ tion would be produced, as to expect quietude In society under the operation of tho present system of finance in t lie world. The remedy for doing wrong is to do right. The remedy for injustice is to do justly. The remedy for any evil Is to remove it. How Is it that some men can revel in luxury, having more ryoney than they never labor ill a IT? ,t some met/ 1 »<•< to millions ot acres of land, and never plowed a furrow or raised a hill of beans? How do some men own and control railroads that never did half as much labor as the section hand who gets a dollar a day? It is the result of a vicious system of money that allows men to secure the fruits of other men’s labor without giv¬ ing any equivalent. Now look at it. There are men in our country who have Incomes of mil lions of dollars, With out doing a day’s work, at the end of the year they are richer by millions from interest and rents, A large mill standing among the red wood of Oregon, receives $7,00(1 to stand idle so that other mills can sell lumber twice as high. An iron foundry or distillery receives hundreds of thousands to stand idle. Tho coal barons wait until winter comes, and then increase the price of coal. Trusts, syndicates, monopolies and combines rob the toilers of the world until society bolls like the tem¬ pest-tossed sea. Can society be made to quiet down and not complain under this pressure? Our bogus statesmen seem to think so. One class of them thinks that a tariff for protection is the remedy.* Another das thinks that a tariff for revenue is the remedy. What nonsense. Can a tariff relieve the pres¬ sure on the poor tenants from which Aslor draws $5,000,000 of rent yearly. Can a tax pay a debt for the man who pays the tax? This wrangle about a tariff as a remedy for our woes is puer¬ ile. When I hear the Shermans, Mc¬ Kinleys, Culloms’ Reeds, Quays, etc., arguing that the tariff is the remedy it makes me think of the man in the in¬ sane asylum. Some one was reading about a great storm at sea. and great destruction of vessels. I liat was the day 1 whistled so loud, he said. He thought his whistling caused the storm. As tor the remedies offered by the old parties, they might as well organize congress into a whistling society. he evils that vex and agitate society now, could be removed as soon by whistling, as by the methods our so-called suites men advocate No evil can be removed without removing he cause of the evil. The burden of debts, drawing more in terest every year than all the money in the United States, every dollar coming out of labor; how can the tariff lift this load from the backs of the toilers? The remedy for all our woes is jus tice. A system of finance that makes it possible for every man to gather in the fruits of other men’s labor without giv¬ ing an equivalent, is robbery. By. and through, this vicious system some men secure the fruits of the labor of thou sands. By this vicious system some men gather millions of dollars to them selves that belong to other men; ar.d run in ahead of others and buy mil lions, of acres of land, thus robbing others of homes, No curse could be greater on any nation than to allow its citizens to be homeless. Our wicked laws on finance and land mak ing our people a homeless people, and Instead of changing these pernicious Jaws removing the cause, so as to se cure peace and prosperity, our nobJe statesmen spend the r time tinkering with the tariff, and making buncomb , speeches about the evils and sufferings . of Cuba, Venezuela or Armenia. We want, and must just have, system a just of land sys- j j tem of money, a laws, and a just system of commerce, We want money that won’t draw in- I terest. We want use and occupation to be the only title to land. We want co-operation to take the place of com petition. We want socialism transferred from trusts, combines, syndicates or monop¬ olies to the government. We want one great monopoly, composed of all the peeople organized into a government, We want true socialism, and not per verted socialism as now. And there can be no settled permanent peace until these wants are secured unto all na tions and all peoples. REV. D. OGLESBY. RAILROAD ROBBERIES. How the Huron* anil Wrecker* Have Squeezed the People. The growth and development of the United States since the war have been the wonder of the world. One of the most remarkable things in connection with that development has been the ex¬ pansion in railroad building. Who owns these roads, and in whose interests are they run? Built, as many of them were originally, by the aggre¬ gation of capital in small amounts from genuine stockholders, they have been absorbed in a manner almost phenom¬ enal, until today it. is safe to say that three-fourth of the railroad mileage of the country is owned and controlled by a few score of men, most of whom have their offices on Wall street. How could such things happen.' will be asked. They simply stole them, that Is all. The railroads of the land are now represented by a capital stock of $5,150, 000,000, a funded or bond debt of $5,700, 000,000 and a floating debt of nearly $400,000,000. The gross earnings per year are now about $ 1 , 100 , 000 , 000 , leav lug, after paying operating expenses, net earnings of about $325,000,000. This is divided into interest on bonds of about $235,000,000 per year, and divi¬ dends on stock of about $85,000,000. The pasengers carried reach nearly 600,000,000 per year, and the freight traffic is nearly 700,000,000 tons a year. Evry cent of the enormous Income from this leading industry of the coun¬ try comes directly from the people. An examination would show that the money honestly expended in the pro duction of all railroads and their equip¬ ments is but a tithe of the capital nomi¬ nally invested in them, The rest is water pure and simple, but it figures as “tmested capital,” as “vested inter ’ n*o*K*i.. ? ntr* •#!#>*** • a lists cla i m protection oi 11V CUUIl.8 al whole government machinery, and ways get it. No belter illustration of the power exercised by the monopolists is needed than In the history of the West Shore enterprise of New York State. Tho Vanderbilts and their cohorts up to the time the West Shore road was started held the merchants and the agricultur¬ ists In their Iron grasp, dictating rates and conditions for the handling of traf¬ fic with absolute despotism, The pros peet of a competitive line reaching from New York City to the lakes put the New York Central people on their mettle, arid from the very inception of the former measures were taken to crush it out. After the new line had been com pleted every obstacle possible was thrown in its way, and the road finally went into bankruptcy, a condition which had been regarded as inevitable by every one who at the time was ac¬ quainted with the tactics of the Van derbilts. When the West Shore be came hopelessly involved, the Vander hilts, through Mr. J. P. Morgan, gobbled it up at their own price. Those who had put money into it were crowded out. all competition was crushed, and the business interests ol the state placed under the Vanderbilt control as completely as ever. The Vanderbilts and their friends were the only ones who profited by the deal which is only one of a hundred carried through successfully, despite public sentiment and without interference from the courts and judges whose duty it was to interfere.—Senator Tillman in New York Herald. What Next? The p opuUst6i w ho are all wild free s jj ver jj eSj sa y they would not vote foi ) le continued to call himself a Pomoerat And vet Bland worked fot ' free gUver earlie r , harder and longei than ftny man in tUe Populist ranks jj . g , ll)Ier and honester than any mar llolding a prom inent place in the Popu . lf plvsen t party lines wen ^ tho Jivision , vcre on silv e, UIand could poU ten votes tc • whk , h would g0 to any mai - mentioned Uh . , , in * ver in eonnecuo w opull! ’ t UUUilaac '' “ “ b ' 1 Democrat. oh - m >’ ! 0h - m >' ! Ho J e ls the lea ‘ ins . Republican paper of the , west al riled up and tearing its hair ir dramatic frenzy because the Fopulis party won’t endorse Bland. Republi cans know that such a course would b< death to the Populist party, and that i: what they want. These pestiferous Pops must be ab sorbed back into one or the other o the old parties, or else it will wipe then both off the earth, If neither one o them can toll the Pops back they wi! probably take Senator Hill's advice and make common cause against the# meddlesome clodhoppers. Mr. Bland is all right on silver, bu he is in the wrong party to catch Popu ; list votes. WHICH WAY? Nf IS v \ \ l wf@£ / tm •y \. m 1* J! m\ 2 V \ w \'% i i M ■*, * m rj \ y ■ , c V i \ to im ..'m ' g 4^ -jf ¥ ' Y CLj Xp ....... I w • . . #■ ¥ / iga m W) r w 1 «/ fJi m 4 w V pf ■ 2 >TR ADDLfc. fW y i THE BANK SYSTEM. IT NEEDS A GREAT DEAL OF RECONSTRUCTION. The “integrity of the Banker” May Ho flood But When It Don’t J ay Debts Tho I'ubllc Has No Use for it. The Sentinel: In the hurrah and x citement of properly making the “money question” an issue in the present campaign, “reformers” are apt to overlook some features of the ques¬ tion which are, to say the least, quite as important as the free coinage of<«fil ver. Our banking H ’ ,xn, for instance, is rotten to the core; is a series of privi¬ leges accorded banking corporatiom; in return for which the great majority of tig: people derive not one whit of bdue fit. Last Saturday the Supreme court of the State of Illinois handed down r de¬ cision in the celebrated dealing Meadow^boft justly case, which, while to a certain acknowledgments degree, makes relative admission#'j-nd to the T ik¬ ing system showing its entire la. of o-o afforded by law In other lines ot busi¬ ness, and fully justifying all the herd things this and a few other reform papers have said against the banking business in general as at present con¬ ducted. It will be remembered that the Meadowcroft brothers ran a bank in Chicago two years ago and received deposits up to the hour of failure, knowing their business to be insolv¬ ent. For this they were prosecuted and got off with a light sentence—one year in the penitentiary. Being ex-bankers they had funds and friends enough to keep the matter in tlxo courts for nearly two years, and will probably now appeal their case to the Supreme Court of the United States with a chance of getting clear alto¬ gether, as the banker combine that nins the government will hardly per¬ mit so dangerous a precedent to be established as that a banker must not take all the money offered him, no mat¬ ter what the circumstances. The Illinois Supreme court in render¬ ing this decision, declare that: “The banking business is of a semi public nature; that the hanker occupies the position of trustee for the people; the depositing of money possesses no element of a trade; the transaction is made purely on the integrity of the banker.” Reader, do you know of any other business in which a man planks over money by the hundred thousand dol¬ lars, sometimes, with no security ex¬ cept that which rests “purely on the integrity of the banker?” If anybody else but a banker receives the money of the public he is male to give bonds in three times the amount he is likely to receive. Who would consent to putting a county treasurer into office without re¬ quiring him to give bonds? Or what banker would take his own medicine and make loans without s much as taking the borrower’s note, depending solely "on the integrity of the individual?” If you want to “unite all the reform forces on the money question” chuck in a plank requiring the banker to y\ bonds' sufficient to cover all deposit# they are likely to receive. T . pa; :y that does that can "sweep the country " sure enough. The decision of the court in the Meadowcroft case further states: "When Receiver Crandall investi¬ gated the books of the firm he found less than 1 per cent of the $420,000 liabilities. "Nothing remains for a defrauded de¬ positor after a bank fails save the honesty of the banker.” Bankers have never shown them selves to be any more hone- than other people, statistics show ti . ib . one-fifth of the banks chartered in the United States, including a banks, sooner or later so to h v\ statistics also prove that bank# that :a il seldom pay to exceed 10 - ti. . ou their liabilities. If a poor man receives money on trust and fails to account for it at proper time, the law calls its embezzle¬ ment and railroads him to the peniten¬ tiary forthwith. If a banker receives money on trust and fails to account for it, it is called “bank suspension,” and this is the first instance oh record where it has been regarded as a criminal offense, and then only because the bank received a fair-sized deposit just before closing its doors. Of what use is it to coin all the gold and silver in the world if it is to be turned over to bankers without an equivalent? That government which fails to pro¬ vide a safe place of deposit for the peo¬ ple’s money other than those depend¬ ent “purely on the integrity of the banker” is in itself a failure. The monetary “reformers may howl all they please about all other phases of the money question, but their howling will amount to little until they pull off their kid gloves and go to work in earnest to take the kinks out of the banking business. Make the bankers give bonds to cov¬ er deposits or shut up shop. The people running their own bank¬ ing business, through country and t?:'.'. 1 :' 1 ^ 1 1T h ° t ■ goo a way, , too, to afford the relief demanded, By all means, gentlemen reformers, if you don’t do another thing toward settling the money question, revise the banking business, and at least make it as honest and as fair dealing with its creditors as other kinds of business. NOTES AND COMMENT. What the People Are Saying Thinking and Doing:. Silver Dick Bland seems to have put down a stake at the “parting of the ways” and hung out the red lantern of danger. In other word3 Missouri has gone free silverwards by a ratio of about 100 to 1. The delegation may possibly allow ex-Governor Dave Fran¬ cis and Riley Hall to sit in the delega¬ tion at Chicago for txvo reasons. First, it would tend to keep them out of mis¬ chief, and second, they could be ex¬ hibited as relics of the expiring gold standard element in that State. * Arkansas will also send a solid free silver delegation to Chicago, The canvas between the candidates for Governor in that State is developing the sentiment there to be almost unanimous for free silver. In one county (Y’ell), in the Democratic prim¬ aries, 2,208 votes were cast, and 2,201 were cast for free silver; only seven be¬ ing cast against it. Not only is Arkan¬ sas Democracy espousing the cause of free silver, hut its representatives op¬ pose banks of issue, favor govern¬ ment issue of money, and strict rail¬ road control; the candidates for Gov¬ ernor taking this open stand. This being the case, and the trend of many leading Populists being in the direction of adopting substantially the same kind of a platform, the Arkansas Democrats don’t understand why the Populists can’t join the Democratic party. In a recent interview with Hon. Dan W. Jones, one of the candidates for Governor, and the leading one, he said the Democrats would nominate a man at Chicago whom the Populists could support, and he thought that they would do so. E. Gerry Brown, a prominent East¬ ern reformer, takes up the gauntlet and says; "The Belmont interview has a mean ing which is too plain. It is a hint of either nullification or secession. It is a threat to appeal from the decision at the ballot box or with traitorous gold to prevent an honest expression of the will of the people at the ballot box. Bel rnont voices the money power. Take warning, men of the South and West. “Is the question of the divorce of the government from the banks to in volve the question of the disunion of the States themselves as prophesied by the natron's statesmen in the Senate chamber more than fifty years ago? Will the five thousand millions of so-called “vested rights” in the East follow the example of the ■ four hundred millions of "veste^ rishts” in the south in 1S6Q2 Ts history to repeat itself even to that much-to-be-deplored extreme? And do so-called owners of nearly half of these alleged vested rights realize that they merely hold titles to that which was originally stolen and under the moral law are guilty in the sight of God of all the robbery and oppression that follow in the trail of the crime? Will they rebel against the result of an election that means “no further extension” of the money power, and thereby invite the emancipation of the people from the bondage into which they have been stolen?” * * * internation Declarations in favor of al bimetallism are all very well as the expression of a wish that is generally entertained; but practically speaking, they mean nothing because interna¬ tional bimetallism under present con¬ ditions is simply an iridescent dream —Globe-Democrat. O-f c-o-u-r-s-e, and the soft-heads who can’t see it, and the demagogues who are lying about it ought to be belted over the head with a dead cat. ■'* * * Says a recent dispatch from Wash¬ ington; “Congressman Hall is practi¬ cally out of the race for Congress. Yes¬ terday he received a telegram from the Chaims* " the District Committee in ’"'effect ak folliT“* “ ‘Will you accept re-nomination to Congress with instructions to vote for a bill for the unlimited coinage of sil¬ ver at 16 to 1? You can state that, al¬ though these are not your views, you must yield to the wishes of your con¬ stituents.’ “To which Mr. Hall, In substance, replied: “ ‘Will not accept re-nomination on conditions you name. Free silver is raising hell and damnation with the Democratic party. Will accept re¬ nomination only on a sound money plat¬ form.’ ” * * * If anybody is raising more hell than this same identical Riley Hall it must be behind the screen doors of some of the dives or saloons in Washington. The other day he got into an alterca¬ tion with Congressman Money, of Mis¬ sissippi, who, by the way, is another Democrat of the flexible type, and struck him on the head with a glass sponge top, cutting a deep and painful gash in his scalp. We suppose he was testing Money to see if he was “sound.” Then both men went to throwing ink wells at each other until parted by their friends. * * * This row happened in the room of the Navy Committee in the capitol building. Both men were members of the Navy Committee and the row was the direct result of some differences of opinion regarding a question before the committee, although it is thought there is something back of that. Mr, Money was led bleeding out of the room and a porter was called in to pick up the broken pieces of glass and tvipe up the blood and ink stains. It threatened to be a pretty serious affair; but neither of the men seemed to be good marks¬ men and the result w r as there was more ink spilled than blood. * * * Banker Belmont, mouthpiece of Eastern capitalism, has spoken. “New 7 Y’ork,” says Belmont, authoritatively, “will not consent that there shall be a condition of things in which a new Congress and President may be chosen on the theory that Congress can make full legal tender dollars out of anything it chooses to use.” There is a good deal of the defiance of the old slave power in ihese words, and we are led to believe that Con gressman Howard was correct when he said, “the more imminent the danger the more arrogant do the capitalists become, ’ and cites as proof the over bearing attitude of the British aristoc r ac >' before the revolution of ’76, the insulting behavior of the French nobil ity previous to Robespierre’s rule, and the haughtiness of the slave power be fore the u pheaval of 1861. Arrested for T*»cbins Bucks and Whites. Nine teachers in a normal school at Orange Park, Fla., have been arrested for teaching white and black pupils in the same school, against the provisions of the Sheafs law, passed about a year ago. “AN OBJECT LESSON.” REPUBLICAN PAPER MAKES A FEW SUGGESTIONS. N’ot Surprised That Coxey Bills Find Favor When Corporations Secure Loam From the Government—The X Raj ou Some Corrupt Deals. Dispatches from Washington an¬ nounce that “the Pacific railroads’ com¬ mittee of the two houses of congress will in a few days report bills grant¬ ing an extension of fifty years to the Central and Union Pacific roads; the payments for the first ten years to be $365,000 per year; for the second ten years, $500,000 per year, and there¬ after, $750,000 per year, until the debt is paid. The principal and interest is to be refunded at 2 per cent interest to be paid by the roads to the government. The roads are to have credit for the amounts in the sinking fund and the bond and interest account in ascer¬ taining the amount due the govern¬ ment.” An’ faith here is an “object lesson.” The Central and Union Pacific rail¬ roads owe this government large sums of money and their debt is due, secured by bonds or mortgages on these rail¬ road properties. This government, the people through their representatives, deliberately pro¬ pose to renew this great debt, or vir¬ tually make a loan to these railway corporations for the amount of the principal and interest due, for a term of fifty years at 2 per cent interest per annum, requiring payments each year as stated above. Now, we do not particularly object to the rate of interest charged or terms of payment agreed to bat simply sug¬ gest that this transaction might be taken as an object lesson by the people. There are those who might ask why others besides great railway corpora¬ tions cannot secure loans from the gov¬ ernment upon similar terms. It is quite probable that when the people look at this transaction they may be led to think that it is no won¬ der that Mr. Coxey and others are ad¬ vocating very similar financial schemas in the interest of the general public instead of solely for the benefit of rail¬ way corporations. In the case mentioned above the gov¬ ernment takes the bonds of the railway corporations and extends the payment of debts due for a term of fifty years at 2 per cent interest, payable in install¬ ments as noted. Mr. Coxey proposes that county, mu¬ nicipal and other public corporations issue bonds and that the government issue, or loan, to said corporations money at a cost, or interest of 1 per cent, and that those corporations pay a certain amount of their obligations to the government each year, cancelling the entire debt in twenty-five years. ‘rfie"ITATuAtK fifty years’ time to pay what they bor¬ row, paying certain fixed amounts each year for the first ten years, other fixed amounts for the second, and for the third and other ten year periods. While there is some little difference between the two plans, yet they have certain features in common and just as long as the people, through their rep¬ resentatives, continue to make such contracts with certain private corpora¬ tions no one need wonder that the peo¬ ple listen to and indorse such proposi¬ tions as Mr. Coxey advocates. The debt due the government from the roads named was created by a di¬ rect loan of the government’s credit to the private corporations the same as Coxey asks for a loan of the govern¬ ment’s credit for public corporations. These private corporations defaulted in their payments and instead of being brought into court and forced to pay, or their securities sold to the highest bidder, as in the case with individuals and the debts they chance to owe, re¬ newals are given as noted above.— Evening Press, Carthage, Mo. (Rep.) ABOUT SILVER. Tom. Watson Rises to Make a Few Pertinent Remarks. In 1873 the standard silver dollar wag dropped from our coinage laws. The legal tender power of the silver dollars which had already been coined was not affected by the Act of 1873. It was not until 1874 that Congress took away the full legal tender power of silver and limited it to payments of five dollars. Silver remained in this outlawed con¬ dition until 1878, when the Bland-Alli son Act fully restored its legal tender quality, and limited the coinage to $48, 000,000 per year. Between ,1878 and 1892 the dear old Democratic party never let up on the wicked Republicans who would not allow unlimited coinage of silver, in¬ stead of the limited coinage of the Bland Act and the Sherman Act of 1890. Kept on worrying over the matter, the Democrats did, until the people finally j ; gave them a chance to re-open the, m j n t s to the unlimited coinage of sil ver. Whereupon said Democrats con eluded that the best preparatory step 1 (; unlimited coinage was the stoppage 0 0 f tlte limited coinage we already had. j n other words, they thought it best, before pulling the door wide open, to 3 but it hard and fast. Having found sa j d door more than half open, they entirely closed it, as a preliminary to p U ning it wide open. They got it shut ea sy enough; and shut it stays. If it is neV er opened until one of the old par t j es ope ns it, free silver and Gabriel horn-music will be contemporaneous events.—People’s Party Paper, The gold lunacy, like hay fever, ap* pears to be a rich mans disease. There can be half a loaf, but t here Is ,: o such thing as haF
