The Wealth makers of the world. (Lincoln, Nebraska) 1894-1896, October 25, 1894, Image 1
;, D i ".a v . . ' . " - ; " "' "V'-.- ' - : ' - VOL VI LINCOLN. NEB., THURSDAY. OCTOBER 25, 1894. , NO 20 HENRY D LLOYD SPEAKS la Greeted With Applause at Almost Every 8entenoa ALL PASTIES ABE REFORM PARTIES The Great Orator, Author and Leader, Populist Candidate for Congreai from Chicago Speaks to a Great Audience at Centra Muaic Hall Chicago Leading the Van Today Mr. Lloyd said: All our parties are re form parties. The Democracy has been lowering the tariff ever since the govern ment was. established. They have done so well that their rates are higher in 1894 than they were in 1842. The Republi cans have beeu "saving the union" for thirty yean, and the tramp, tramp, tramp, of a million men on the march etill sounds through the country the tramp of the tramp. The appearance at the polls of a new party which was not known in 1888, and in 1892 in its first presidential campaign cast over 1,000, O00 votes is a hint that anew conception of reform is shaping itself in the minds of our fellow citizens. They want reform that will reform, and they want it now. Reform that is reform, and reform in our time, not in our great grandchildren's time; is what the people need and what they mean to have. Lafayette said in 1794 that it would take twenty years to bring freedom to France; in two years feudalism was dead. Our great Emerson said in 1859 within four years of tbeemancipation proclama tion "We shall not live to see Blavery abolished." Jefferson, the young dele gate in the house o burgesses of Virginia, in one year abolished entail, and prim ogeniture, and the whole fabric of aris tocracy in that colony. The patricians pleaded for delay, for compromise. "Let our oldest sons inherit by law at least a double portion.' "Not unless they can do twice as much work and eat twice as much as their younger brothers," was the reply of this first great social Demo crat, and he finished his reform at the same session at which he began it. No great idea is ever lost. Under ab solutisms the people mend their fortunes by insurrection. Under popular govern ment they start a new party. All over the world, wherever popular government exists with its provisions for peaceful rev olution instead of violent revolution, the people are forming new parties in Eng land, France, Germany, Australia, as well as this country. This is the great politi cal fact of our times. Some of these, like .the distinctively workingmen'a parties, are class movements. Tbey are the nat ural and inevitable reaction from class movements against the workingmen. These parties all have practically the same object to demonetize the million aire, and, as Jefferson did when he de monetized the provincial patricians of Virginia, to do it as nearly as possible at one sitting. "Far-seeing men," says James Russell Lowell, "count the increasing power of wealth and its combinations as one of the chief dangers with which the institu tions of the United States are threatened in the not distant future." This concen tration of wealth is but another name for the concentration of currency, and twin miseries of monopoly and pauper ism, the tyranny of corporations, the corruption of thegovernment, thedepop ulation of the couutry, the congestion of the cities, and the host of ills which now form the staple theme of our novelists and the speeches of the new party ora tors. Those faithful watchers who are sound ing these alarms are ridiculed as calamity howlers. When strong, shrewd, grasp ing, covetous men devote themselves to creating calamities, fortunate are the people who are awakened by faithful ca lamity howlers. Noah was a calamity howler, and the bones of the men who laughed at him have helped to make the phosphate beds out of which fertilizers .are now dug for the market. There are thirty-two paragraphs in the declaration of independence; twenty-nine of the thirty two are calamity howisaboutthe wrongs and miseries of America under British rule. The contraction of the currency is a terrible thing, but there is another as terrible the contraction of commodities and work by stoppage of prodnction, lockouts, the dismantling of compeittive works, the suppression of patents, and other games of business. The institu tions of America were founded to rest on the love of the people for their country; we have a new cement now to hold so ciety together injunctionsandcontempt of court. And we see materializing out of the shadows of our great counting-rooms a new system of government government by campaign contributions. The people maintain their national, state, city, and local governments at a cost of $1,000,- 000,000 a year, but the trusts, and armor-plate contractors, and the whisky ring, and the subsidized steamship com panies, and the street railways and rail roads buy the privilege of running these governments to enrich themselves to send troublesome leaders of the people to jail, to keep themselves out of jail. ' By campaign contributions of a few millions is thus bought away from the people $1, 000,000,000 a year. There are many marvels of cheapness in the market, but the greatest counter bargains in modern business are such as the sugar trust got when, by contributing a few hundred thousand dollars to both parties, it bought the right to tax the people untold millions a year. We talk about the coming revolution and hope it will be peaceful. The revolu tion has come. This use of government of all for the enrichment and aggrandize ment of a few is a revolution. Itisa rev olution which has created the railroad millionaires of this country. To main tain the highways is one of the sacredest functions of a government. Railroads are possible only by the exercise of the still more sacred governmental power of eminent domain, which when citizens will not sell the right of way takes their property through the forms of law by force nonetheless by force because the money value is paid. These sovereign powers of the highway and of eminent domain have been given by you and me, all of ns, to our government to be used only for the common and equal benefit of all. Given by all to be used tor all, it is a revolution to have made them the perquisite of a few. Only a revolution could have made possible in the speech ol a free people such a phrase as a railroad king. It is a revolution which has given the best parts of the streets that belong to all the people to street-railway sy nd icates, and gas companies, and telephone com panies, and power companies. It is a revolution which has created national bank millionaires and bond millionaires, and tariff millionaires, and land-grant millionaires out of the powers you and J delegated to the government of the United States for the equal good of every citizen. - The inter-state commerce act was passed to put into prison the rail road managers who used their highway power to rob the people, to ruin the mer chants and manufacturers whose business they wanted to give to favored shippers. The anti-trust law was passed to put into prison the men who make commerce a conspiracy, to compel the people every day to pay a ransom for their lives. It is a revolution which is using these inter state commerce and anti-trust laws to prosecute the employes of the railways for exercising their inalienable rights as free men to unite for defense against in tolerable wrong. It Is a revolution which lets the presidents, and managers, and owners of the railroads and trusts go free of all punish meut for the crimes they are committing; which sends out no pro cess against any of the corporations or corporation men in the American Railway association, while it uses all the powers of the attorney general of the United States to prosecute and, if possible, to send to prison the members of the Amer can Railway union. It is a revolution which is putting the attorneys of corpo rations into ermine on the bench to be attorneys still. It is a revolution by which great com binations, using competition to destroy competition, have monopolized entire markets, and as the sole sellers of goods make the people buy dear, and as the sole purchasers of labor make the eople sell themselves cheap. Last and deepest and greatest revolution of all is that by which the mines, machinery, factories, currency, land, entrusted to private hands as private property, only us a stewardship, to warm, feed, clothe, serve mankind, are used to make men cold, hungry, naked, and destitute. - Coal mines shut down to make coal scarce, mills shut down to make goods scarce, currency used to deprive people of the means of exchange, and the railways used to hinder transportation! The counter revolution of the people has come. With local variation it is world wide, aud against it the people are rising world wide in peaceful counter rev olutions, in people's parties. It begins now to be seen generally what afew have been pointing out from the beginning, that the .workingmen in organizing to defend themselves have been only pion eers. The power which denied them a fair share of their production was the same power which is now attacking the con sumer, the farmer, and even the fellow capitalist. In organizing against modern capitalism the workingmen set the ex ample which all the peoplearenowdriven by self preservation to follow. The trades union of the workingmen was the precursor of the Farmers' Alliance, the Grange, and the People's party. Chicago today leads the van iu this great forward movement. Here the workingmen, capitalists, Bingle-taxers, and socialists have come together to join forces with each other and with the fann ers, as has been done in no other city. Its meetings are attended here by thous ands, as you see tonight. It is the most wonderful outburst of popular hope and enthusiasm in the recent politics of this country. Chicago thus leads in numbers and in enthusiasm and promises of suc cess, because it has led in boldness and sincerity and thoroughness of reform doctrine. The workingmen of Chicago at the Springfield conference, which was the fountain head of this tidal wave, stood firm as a rock for the principle, without which the industrial liberties of the peo ple can never be established the principle that they have the right at their option to own and operate collectively any or all of the means of production, distribu tion, and exchange. They already own some; they have the right to own as many more as tbey want. This is the mother principle of the government we already have, and it covers the whole brood of government railroads, tele graphs, telephones, banks, lands, street railways, all the municipalizations and nationalizations in which every where the people are giving utterance to, their be lief that tbey are the only proper and the only competent administrators of the wealth which they create. The co-operative commonwealth is the legitimate offspring and lawful successor of the republic. Our liberties and our wealth are from the people and by the people and both must be for the people. Wealth, like government, is the product of the co-operation of all, and like gov ernment, must be the property of all its creators; not of a privileged few alone. The principles of liberty, equality, union which rales in the industries we call gov ernment, must rule in all industries. Government exists only -by the consent of the governed. Business, property, capital are also governments and must also rest on the consent of the governed. This assertion of the inherent and inal ienable right, and ability, of the people to own and operate, at tneir option, any or all of the wealth they create is the fundamental, irrepressible, and uncom- promisable keynote of theorists, and with this trumpet note you can lead the peo ple through any sacrifice to certain vic tory. It is not to the parties that have pro duced the pandemonium of intermittent panic which is called trade and industry that the people can look for relief. To vote for them is to vote for more panics, more pandemoniums. Both these parties have done good work, but their good work is done. The Republican party took the black men off the auction block of the slave power, but it has put the white man on the auction block of the money power to be sold to the lowest bidder under the iron hammer of monop oly. The democratic party forahundred years has been the pull back against the centralization in American noli tics. standing for the individual against the community, the town, against the state, and the state against the nation. But in one hour here last July it sacrificed the honorable devotion of a century to its great principle and surrendered both the rights of states and the rights of man to the centralized corporate despotism to which the presidency of the United States was then abdicated. , There ought to be two first-class polit ical funerals in this country in 1896. and if we do our duty the corpses will be ready on time. "Are yon going to the funeral of Benedict Arnold?" one of his neighbors asked another. "No, but I ap prove of it" We will not go to the Re publican and Democratic funerals, but we approve of them. There is a party that the people can trust because in the face of overwhelming odds, without dis tinguished leaders, money, office, or pres tige, it has raised the standard of a prin ciple to save the people. It is a fact of political history that no new party was ever false to the cause for which it was formed. If the People's party as organized in Cook county is supported by the country, and the peo ple get the control of their industries as of the government, the abolition of mo nopoly will as surely follow as the aboli tion of slavery followed the entrance of Abraham Lincoln into the white house in 1861. Then we will have the judges and the injunctions, the president and the house of representatives. There will be no senate; we will have the referendum and the senate will go out when the peo ple come in. The same constitution that could take the property of unwilling citi zens for the railroads for rights of way can take the railroads, willing, or un willing, to be the nation's property when the people come in. Then the national debt, instead of representing the waste of war, will represent the railroads and other productive works owned by the people and worth more, as in Australia, than the bonds issued for them. The same constitution that could demonetize silver can remonetize it, or demonetize gold for a better money than either. The honest dollar will come in when the people come in, for it will not be a dollar that can be made scarce, to produce pan ics, and throw millions of men out of work, and compel the borrower to pay two where he received only one. Women will vote, and some day we will have a woman president when the people come in. The postofnce will carry your telegrams and your parcels as well as your letters, and will be the people's bank for savings, and their life and acci dent insurance company, as it is else where already. Every dark place in our cities will be brilliant with electricity, made by the municipalities for them selves. Workingmen and women will ride for 3 cents and school children for 2 cents, as in Toronto, oft street car lines owned by the municipalities, and paying by their profits a large part of the cost of government not falling on the taxpayer. When the people come in, political corruption, boss rule, and boo dle will go out, because these spring mainly from the intrigues and briberies of syndicates to get hold of public func tions for their private profit. We will have a real civil service, the inevitable and logical result of the demands of the People's party, founded, as true civil ser vice reform must be, on a system of pub lic education which shall give every child of the public an opportunity to fit him self for the public service, the same con stitution which granted empires of public lands to create a Pacific railroad kings will find land for workingineu's homes and land for co-operative colonies of the unemployed. There will soon be no unemployed when the people come in. They will have, no shoemakers locked out or shoe factories shutdown while there is a foot unshod and all the mills and mines and factories the needs of the people require the people will keep going. Jfivery man who works will get a living and every man who gets a living shall work, when the people come in. These are some of the things the People's party of Cook county means. At the coming election let every man and woman vote for the women must vote through the men until they vote them selves let every man and woman vote for those, and only for those, who accept this grand principle of the liberation of the people by themselves. Let their plat form get a popular endorsement of the polls next November that will advertise it to the world that the people have at last risen in their might, not to rest until another great emancipation has been added to the glorious record of the liber ties achieved by mankind. . Holoomb and Victory Bostwick, Neb., Oct. 9, 1894. Voters of Nebraska: Hurrah for Governor Tillman of South Carolina He has carried 32 of the 85 counties in his state. This is grand news for the People's party, for he has had the corporations, the whisky trusts, the sa loon keepers and the fat old fraud, as he truthfully describes thechief of the demo's, arrayed against him. . . ,- (Voters, let us do likewise in Nebraska; let our battle cry be "Holcomb and Vic tory." Close up the ranks and vote ber straight, and we will send Tom Majors and his brass-collared gang to the rear. The people's eyes are open, they can see the kind of patriotism ex-Speaker Reed spoke of when he came to Cleveland's assistance in saddling a gold standard on. the American people, was the same kind that " Benedict Arnold displayed when he sold out to the British Clinton, And suppose the people were foolish enough to elect Majors and bis crew, what would the drouth sufferers get? In 1890-91 the Populist legislature voted them $200,000 and the Republicans voted against it; they would do it again if elected. . Voters, I was all through tht war and wore the blue and voted the Re publican ticket until four years ago, when f found it was not the party of Lincoln I was following, but a slick lot of fellows led on by Wall Street money sharks and London Jews. The hands indeed were Esau's hands but the oice was the voice of Jacob. t ; Yours for victory, Stabs and Strifes. Meeting at Arapahoe ABAPAhoic, Neb., Oct 11, 1894. Editor Wealth Makers: A large and enthusiastic audience gathered to hear Senator Allen and our beloved McKeighan, congressman of the Fifth district, Thursday, October 11. Long before the time set for the speaking the large commodious court room was filled to overflowing. Meanwhile we listened to the K. P. band of Arapahoe which all decided was just splendid, word was given that we should be obliged to adjourn to the open air, as 250 people remained beiow unable to enter the court house the crowd being so great. We cheerfully made our way down and out, Beats were arranged in an incredible short time, and still they came, seemingly only the advance guard had got there and the army was yet to come, when the adjourn ment was made. County Attorney W. B. Miller with a few appropriate words presented our candidate for senator from district 29, Lewis W. Young, and repre sentative D. L. McBride, who addressed a large and appreciative audience in the court room at night. Senator Allen was next presented an addressed us at length on the issues of the day. He is an able speaker and fully held the attention of the audience, surmounting the difficulty of speaking in open air. lie was repated ly applauded as he unfolded the old scheme for catching votes and opened up to the public gaze a few of the numerous frauds being perpetrated on the people by them. Next our own McKeighan was presented amid continued applause. If any Republican there had a glimmering hope that Professor Andrews would be sent from the Fifth district in place of W. A. McKeighan it died then and there. As Andrews only has one speech and Mao has heard it three times, it will not be necessary for the Professor to come to Elwood, for we got the outline of it and comments given on it in that earnest way of his that carries conviction with it. Ringing cheers were given at the close of his speech for the nominees pre sent and for Senator Allen, who made the famous fifteen hour speech in Wash ington before the senate. When the Independents held their con vention the court room was packed. When the Republicans held theirs you might have put them in the jury box and had room to spare. Those are straws that show that Oosper county will go solidly Independent. A County Treasurers' Association. Lincoln, Neb., Feb. 24, 1894. To the several county treasurers of the State of Nebraska. At a meeting of the county treasurers held in this city on February 5th, 1894, there was a committee of five, viz: H. B. Irey, of Douglas, M. M. Cobb, of Lan caster, I. J. Fronts, of Gage, J. W. Lynch of Platte, and Ed. O'Sliea, of Madison, appointed to be known as a judicial and financial committee, the duty of which was to solicit a membership fee of $10.00 from each county treasurer in the state, which amount was to be placed at the disposal of the committee to assist any treasurer who might have any legal ex pense or trouble regarding the depository law, which took effect in January, 1892, or in delense of any other proceedings that may arise, pertaining to the detri ment of said treasurers of the state, pro viding such treasurer was a member of our association. I trust that you will feel interested enough iu' this matter to become a mem ber of our association, by remitting the above amount to the undersigned. The depository law is to say the least, impracticable and shonld any treasurer become legally involved, I bavk no hesi tancy in saying that he could not make a better investment, thus insuring the assistance ot nearly every county treas urer in the state. Our next meeting will be held in the county treasurer's office in the city of Omaha, at 8. p. m., on June 12th, 1894. Your presence is requested. ; , Yours truly, M. M. Cobb, ; Secretary , and treasurer. The above startling circular shows that there is to be an organisation of county treasurers for the purpose of fighting the law providing that the people shall get the interest on county moneys. Notice their statement that the Horn law "is to say the least impracticable." Notice that their committee is appointed from the counties containing the cities of Oma ha, Lincoln, Beatrice, Columbus and Norfolk. Notice that in each of these counties the interest on county money would amount to a fortune during each term.' Notice that they begin by ing their members $10 each to pay ex penses of some possible litigation. Say for yourselves what litigation will be needful if treasurers obey the law and turn over the interest as it provides. Remember how the political gang in Anrora threatened to hound old man Farney to his grave if he redeemed his pledge to the people. Remember how they threatened to put him in the pene tentiary if he started the fashion ot al lowing us to have the interest on our money. Remember bow tbey fought Senator Horn's bill and with what poor grace they submitted to the will of the people. "The serpent is only scotched, not killed." Republican state officials only partially and tardily complied with the Horn law, and now the county treas urers are organizing to fight it. There are no Populists on that committee. Strike this conspiracy effectively and at the ballot box. (We have the original of the above circular letter and it may be seen by inquirers of any political faith.) "Hamilton County Register. Then Farewell. Judge Trumbull, in his maiden Populist speech, last Saturday night, stated that one-tenth of our population own nine tenths of the wealth ot thecountry. The Herald Democratic denies this with cyclonic vehemence. The Tribune Re publican admits its truth, but alleges as a cause certain conditions that have passed forever. The condition that fav ors such a monstrous injustice in the di vision of wealth is infernal greed and class legislation that enables it to feed upon the sweat and hearts of the millions. And that condition still exists in robust vigor. Judge Trumbull suggested sever al measures to prevent the accumulation of immense fortunes, among others laws that shall provide for the equitable dis tribution of the earnings of corporations among the stockholders and employes, limiting the amount which any man can give to his heirs, and the free coinage of silver. The plutocratic press pronounces all his suggestions impracticable, as it always pronounces every proposed reme dy for the present deplorable condition of things impracticable. It is admitted that the concentration of wealth, as it has beeu going on, means ruin, but ac cording to the millionaire press there is no remedy. Then farewell to our boast ed system and liberties. But the people mean to find a remedy. The sons of 1776, the descendants of the men and women who braved the terrors of Ply mouth Rock and its surroundings, and the men who have come from all the world to this "asylum of the oppressed," will not permit a gang of commercial cormorants to devour popular rights and popular liberties. Farmers Voice. Ask your neighbor to read some spec ial article in Thk Wealth Makers and then tell him that he can get the truth until election tor 10 cents. n HEADQUARTERS General Van Deroort Spe&ki te tht Indus trial Legion AT WORE II THIRTY-EI&3T STATU A Plan to Keep the Populist Column from Breaking Ranks and to Support tht Commissary Department Organise, Agitato, Got Together. Headquarters Industrial Lboiow, ) Omaha, Neb. Oct. to, 1894. J The campaign of 1894 is nearly over. The work has been hampered all the year ' by lack of organization and want of money. Owing to the severe illness and family affliction of our brother Geo. F. Washburn, we were unable to put the Legion rebate plan in operation. We will be ready with the advent of the new year and we hope the three hundred Legions who want to try it will renew their efforts at once. We can win the battle in 1890 if we cau raise the money tor a legitimate campoign. The old par ties would be trodden in the dust if it was not (or the untold sums contributed by the millionaires ou both sides of the wafer. We can raise all the money we need, but wasted effort must cease and the whole party mass in solid lines. One way would be for all to join the Legion and contribute ten cents a month to the campaign fund. Another and the surest way is the operation of the Washburn rebate plan. Combine your trade, buy only of the business men who will con tribute to our fund by buying "Legion credits" and giving them back to oar members as a rebate on their purchases. , You object, that it involves cash trade, thousands save greatly by only buying for cash, thousands are obliged to, and thousands only buy when they haveeash. All such can combine trade. If yon can mass the trade of twenty-five, fifty, one hundred, two hundred or five hundred on the firms only who deal with ns weeaa raise with the Legions already organized one million dollars for 1896. You object that yon cannot raise the money to pay cash for the Legion "credits." Cease to throw money away on movements that . retard rather than advance our work, and if you have breath of life enough to . live until spring comes you can hold en tertainments and raise the money. Send to George Howard Gibson, Lin coin, Nebraska, and get his grand song book aid hold a concert with the aid of the young people and women and raise the money. Hundreds of Legions hate provided all the money needs to carry on local campaign work. You can all do it. Show te the merchants that yon can combine a given trade and they will ad vance the money to pay for the credits. This is no new plan. Today an organi- cation, almost like the Legion, produces all the money needed to make the great People's campaign in Germany. There bate plan nets twenty per cent, to it members in one ot our cities. It fe? worked for several years under the direct observation of Mr. Washburn, who drew our plan on national lines. The Legion plan has been approved by our Executive Council, which is compos ed of the same men as the National Executive Committee of the People's party. We have sent out thousands of constitutions containing the idea in Article VII. It is simple and all it needs is intelligence, zeal and. integrity. No Le gion is obliged to use it; that is deter mined by your own action. No member can be compelled to take it, but the more you combine the more money for each member and the Natianalaud State com mittees of the People's party. The complaint was made at first that the Legion fees were too high. They were made the same as the Farmer's Alliance, but we reduced them to one dollar for charter of original Legions and twenty cents for changing Alliances, clubs, leag ues and all other farm or labor orders. Dues have not been exacted, but we must receive some means in this way, for the burden has become greater than we can bear. Myself and family have performed the labor without a cent of compensation and are out hundreds of dollars besides ' our time for two years. We have not complained, though we know that our members have paid thousands of dollars to join non-partisan orders that have performed their missions and have not a dollar for the authorized work of the party. Every committee has been bank rupt all the year, and if this is to con tinue during 1895 and 1896 we might as well fold our banners and let the enemy overwhelm us. The time for plain speaking has come, and all the organizing energy of this party must be combined in one partisan organization if we win. Wasted, mis directed effort must cease. The Farm and Labor orders are mainly on paper and I simply quote what their leaders have said to me. Tney have periormed a grand work and graduated their mem bers into partisan politics. It is a great mistake to suddoss the Lesion will dis band their Labor Unions. They work side by side in harmonious companion- Continued on 8th page.