J
VOL. VI.
SO MOVES THE WORLD.
We limp and wake and sleep, but all tbingi
more;
Tbe Ran flies forward to his brother Ban :
The dark Earth follows, wheeled In br ellipse;
And human thinire, returning on themselves,
.Move onward, leading op the golden year."
Ex-President Harrison is seriously ill.
Prof. John Stuart Blackie of Scotland
is dead.
Twenty thousand coal miners in the
Pittsburgh district are out on a strike.
Indiana legislators indulged in a fist
fight on the floor of the legislature, Mar.
7th.
Mrs. Lena Johnson of Minneapolis was
arrested and thrown into jail for stealing
to keep her four children from starring
to death.
Fifty tramps captured a freight train
near Baltimore and rode to Wilmington,
March 9th, where eleven were arrested,
after a fight.
Harry Haywood, the Minneapolis mur
derer, declared guilty by the jury. He
seems to be a specimen of a man without
a conscience.
The price of oil has been for some time
advancing (for over two months) under
tbe manipulation of the Rockefeller gang
of plunderers.
Enormous damage was done in Florida
to the orange industry by the frost, and
all industries there are crippled in conse
quence. Farmers will appeal for relief
from taxation.
The Standard Oil Trust has secured
control of the Chicago Gas Trust. The
cost of manufacturing gas is 30 cts. per
thousand feet, and the Trust gets f 1.25.
A bill has been introduced into the
New York legislature to authorize cities
of a certain specified size to provide for
municipal ownership of the street rail
roads. The sugar bounty bill, appropriating
over five inillions'from other industries
to pay sugar producers, got through
congress after a hard fight. The three
Populists in the senate voted for it
The city of Toronto, Ontario, has a bill
before the legislature to enable it to go
into the insurance business. And why
not? It is sensible, economic, safe. Cities
should insure at cost, as well as with its
fire department put out fires.
Charles Davis, 20 years old, sober and
willing to work, living with a mother
and four brothers and sisters - in a New
York tenement, bad been unable to get
employment for six months, and Feb.
26th, shot himself to end the agony of
poverty.
"The Rothchilds, the Financial Rulers
of Europe" is the title of a book which
claims that they have emissaries in every
nation's every cabinet. But whycallthem
dimply the rulers of Europe, when the
United States, and the whole world, for
that matter, is in their hand?
Sir William Harcourt.Chancellorof the
Exchequer, in the Parliament debateover
the proposed Money Conference said he
believed England should adhere to its
historic policy of the gold standard, and
he had little hope of an International
Conference accomplishing anything.
Mrs. Annie Pensal of 111 West loth,
street New York killed her six months
old baby Feb. 9, and was about to kill
her four other children when prevented
by the police. She was crazed from
hunger und cold. Her husband had
teen out of work for some time and had
not been si'en for several days.
Nikola Tesla expects to perfect inven
tions that will- produce electric lights
without the device being electrically con
nected with anything, and other means
of transmitting messages through the
earth, from ships at any distance on the
ocean to cities they may wish to commu
nicate with. He is said to be actually solv
ing the problem of economizing one
third of the 99 per cent of electric energy
which is now lost.
According to both Sauerbeck and the
London "Economist," general prices fell
seven and a half per cent last year. The
result is that the profits of the entire
.year for tens of thousands of merchants
in England and on the Continent were
wiped out by the fall in value of their
stock. A great many were forced into
bankruptcy. But this fall of prices adds
about $000,000,000 to the value of the
debts owed England by the rest of the
world.
A plasterer named Taylor, living at
Lower Tooting, near London, III., cut
the throats of his wife and six children
and then took his own life, March 7. All
eight are dead except one child, which is
at th point of death. Taylor was a
sober steady workman, but had been
thrown out of work by stagnation in
building operations. "It is evident that
he determined to kill them and then him
self in order to save them from slowly
starving to death," says the associated
press dispatch.
Delewnre is in the clutch of the gas
millionaire, Addicks. He is said to have
epent $70,000 to secure the election of
six members of the legislature. It takes
but sixteen votes to elect a U. S. senator;
and Addicks controls 13. But the other
three he cannot get, and neither can they
agree on any one else. There are nine
teen Republicans and eleven Democrats
in the legislature. Addicks says if he is
not elected he will allow nooneelse to be.
The two old parties there have an intense
fcatred of each other.
THE ECONOMIC SITUATION
Of tbe Farmer in tbe Existing Indus
trial Organization
Address of Prof. William A. Jones of Hasting
before the annual meetingof the Nebraska Farm
era Alliance at Kearney, January, 1895.
(CONCLUDED TUOU LAST WEXX.)
International free trade means not the
abolition of taxes on imports, but so
laying them as to preserve the regulation
principle of competition.
Now let the American importer buy a
yard of English cloth at a cost of $1 at
the port of entry. Our government tinea
the importer twenty-five cents on each
yard. The cost to the importer is then
$1.25. He puts it on the market, leav
ing off his profits, at $1.27. The Ameri-
can manufacturer can put his competing
yard of cloth on the same market for $1
Here is a yard of cloth at $1, versus a
yard of imported cloth at $1.25.
What happens? Why, our government
levies no excise tax on the American man
ufacturer as did tbe English government
in the other case. But our government
tells the American manufacturer he may
levy, the tax on the purchaser and collect
it in that way for himself.
The U. S. government gets only twenty-
five cents on the imported yard, in case
it comes in and nothing from the home
manufacturer.
This scheme checks, or annuls, foreign
competition, so-called, and allows the
d imestic manufacturer to exercise the
sovereign power of the state to levy and
collect 680 millions to over a billion
dollars a year from our people. That
was under the McKinley bill. The people
paid this sum above what they would
have paid under a tariff so laid as to
preserve competition, the inherent law of
the system founded on private property
and personal liberty. The real object, as
proved by the effects of this destruction
of effective competition both domestic
and foreign, in the industries protected,
is to secure and assure rent, interest and
profit surplus value. This surplus value
amounting to hundreds of millions ayear
is taken indirectly, by force of law, to
enrich those who are engaged in the in
dustries protected, and at the expense of
the masses in general, but more particu
larly the farmers who produce staple
farm products, as will appear. Still the
majority of the class farmers have been
steadily voting to establish this system
and to uphold it, for the last thirty
years. In many farmers' families it has
become hereditary to vote for "protec
tion." We are now in a position to follow the
fortunes of the farmer in the game o'
production and distribution of wealth.
The farmer too desires rent, interest
and profit. Assuming the case in which
a farmer owns his land, stock, imple
ments and buildings, which are capital,
free of debt, and he owns his own labor
power. Consider the family as the pro
ducing unit they are the factor labor.
Thus the farmer in the case supposed
owns and represents the three factors of
production. Such an one is an indepen
dent laborer a yeoman. I say he desires
rent, interest and profit, and has the
same right to them as the classes des
cribed. But he has not been as intelli
gent in economic and political matters
as the manufacturer. But he's a gettinga
move" on him. He is beginning to
understand that every important ques
tion of political issue is first an economic
or social question; and that the solution
of a political question can only be fonnd
in sound economic and ethical principles.
He is beginning todo his own thinking.
A few propositions will make clear the
relati veecouomic situation of the farmer.
First. Every farmer in the United
States who produces staple farm pro
ductsas wheat, cotton, etc. to a com
petitor with every other farmer who
produces like products.
Second. Staple farm products are pro
duced in the United States in excess of
domestic competition. One-fourth to
one-third of the national output must be
and is disposed of abroad; or it would
remain at home to rot, or depress prices
below cost of production under home
competition.
Third. England is the chief purchaser
of our surplus staple farm products.
The price she pays in the Liverpool
market, open to world wide competition,
is not higher than the lowest price for
which the Liverpool merchant can buy
the same products from any other country
of the world.
Therefore the lowest price for which
any country will sell staple farm pro
ducts, becomes the highest price for
which the American surplus can be sold.
Fourth. The price of the surplus sold
abroad fixes the price of two-thirds or
three-fourths of the staple crops consum
ed at home.
It fixes the price of the part left at
home at every farm and plantation in
the United States though it may be con
sumed within twenty rods of the ground
on which it was raised.
The price at the farm is the Liverpool
(Continued on 8rd page)
LINCOLN, NEB., THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 1895.
NITED
STAND
The N- R. P. A. Oommittte Confers With
Our Offloial Leaden and Beporta-
NO ABANDONMENT OF PRINCIPLES
The Omaha Platform, Opposing All Mo
nopolies, Our Chart and Compass.
Come Honest Differences, but
Room For AD
AH Will March In Solid Phalanx.
To the National Reform Press Associa
tion, Brethren:
Your committee appointed at our re
cent meeting at Kansas City to visit
Washington for the purpose of conferring
with our party congressmen, officials and
friends upon the political situation and
outlook, has performed the mission as
signed us, and it is gratifying to state
that in the conference we held with our
members in both houses of congress we
were met in a spirit of the utmost cordi
ality, and as anticipated were given un"
mistakable assurances on every hand
that the associated press had for a pur.
pose misrepresented the position of our
leaders.
Evidence of the most convincing char
acter is daily exhibited of the general dis
integration of both the old parties, and
of a re-alignment of political forces. Tbe
Democratic party is demoralized and dis
rupted, and their allies, the Republicans,
are at sea, unable to determine what this
wonderful upheaval of public sentiment;
will bring forth. Amid all theuneertain
ty which beclouds the political horizon
of the old parties, the Populist party,
harmonious in rank and file, free from
ealousies and schisms among its leaders,
united in its aims and purposes, invoking
the aid of the God of our fathers, undaunt
edly confronts the enemies of the people
and is marching in solid phalanx, boldly
and resolutely, to meet the impending
conflict. Manifestly the purpose of our
adversaries in publishing throughout the
country the statemeut, that the Populist
leaders at the national capitol were con
templating an abandonment of the de
mands made in the second Declaration of
Independence promulgated at Omaha,
July 4th, 1892, is one of their old thread
bare schemes to sow seeds of discord.
Though these publications of the great
Democratic and Republican journals un
der flaming headlines, were prima facie
evidence of their falsity, yet in wise con
servation, the National Reform Press As
sociation deemed it advisable that repre
sentatives of that body should meet face
to face our friends at the Capitol, counsel
with them, and, as far as possible, cor
rect the false impressions made by venal
partisans, and give our readers a true
statement of existing conditions.
Your committee being in full sympathy
and accord with the constituents of our
National Reform Press, that has ever
kept in touch with the masses, aud after
having rubbed up against the practical
issues of the day, are extremely gratified
to be able to report that Populists in
congress. Populists of the Reform Press,
and the vast army of Populists through
out the country, have the common aims
and purposes the relief of the people
from the despotism of plutocracy, which
we agree can be secured by using the
same chart and compass, viz: "The Oma
ha Platform." Attesting this statement
your committee submit the following
papers:
We the undersigned members of Con
gress desire to say to the Committee of
the Reform Press, that we do not regard
the address of February 14th, 1H95,
issued by us as in any way antagonistic
to the Omaha platform, which must gov
ern the party, until it is changed or
amended by the only proper authority
the party in delegate convention assem
bled. Hence there can be no conflict in our
views.
(Signed.) Wm. Baker,
W. A. Harkis,
J ohn Davis,
Wm. V. Allen,
W. A. McKeighan,
Jerry Simpson,
T. J. Hudson,
II. E. IiOKN,
Jab. H. Kyle,
Lafe Pence,
O. M. Kem.
We have always held, and still hold.
that the National Committee, nor anv
other body outside of a national conven
tion, has any right to, or can, revise the
Omaha platform; but circumstances have
developed conditions that make it indis
pensible for the good of the party, that
the money question be made the para
mount issue. '
February 28th, 1895.
(Signed.) H. E. Taubkneck,
J. H. Turner.
Before concluding this report it is due
the gallant band of Populist representa
tives in congress, to say that no right
eous cause ever drew to its support more
unselfish adherents, no people struggling
under oppression ever boasted of more
earnest advocates and no period in na
tional history ever inspired a loftier patriotism.
Regarding the chairman and secretary
of the national committee we desire to
say that they enjoy the confidence of our
congressional delegation, who have had
the best opportunities to judge the mo
tives and conduct of these gentlemen, in
the highest degree, and the enconiums
passed upon their work by several mem
bers are recognized by your committee as
eminently just and deserving.
Respectfully submitted,
J. Hugh McDowell,
Frank Burkitt,
Harry Tracy.
CIRCULAR NUMBER ONE
Industrial Legion or People's Party
Organization at Work
Omaha, Neb., 1895.
The National Industrial Legion at its
annual meeting, held with Reform Press
Association, at Kansas City, Mo., Feb.
22, 1895, elected the following officers
lor two years:
Paul YanDervoort, Commander, Oma
ha, Neb.
Frank Burkett, Vice Commander, Oko-
lona, Miss.
J. A. Edgerton, Adjutant General, Lin
coln, Neb. , .
Milton Park, Quartermaster General,
Dallas, Tex.
W. S. Morgan, Sentinel, Hardy, Ark.
EXECUTIVE COUNCIL.
Geo. F. Washburn, Boston, Mass.
Thomas V. Cator, San Francisco, Cal,
John W. Moakler, Denver, Col.
Rev. J. D. Botkin, Eldorado, Kan.
Arthur Roselle, Tarkio, Mo.
Headquarters will continue at Omaha
for the present at 1110 South Thirty
second street, and all mail and applica
tions for charters should be addressed to
Paul Van Dervoort.
The resolution adopted by the National
Committee at St. Louis, Dec. 29, pro
vided that all political organizations
should report to the Legion headquart
ers. That these organizations could be
called Industrial Legions, People's Le
gions, or People's Party Clubs or Leagues,
as seemed to be the best adapted to the
locality.
That charter fees should be reduced to
50 cents and each member urged to pay
10 cents per annum to National Head
quarters. That Clubs, Leagues, Alliances, and all
farm and labor orders that wish a, charter
should send names of officers and mem
bers at 20 cents for postage and receive
charter without change of officers or
their titles.
The following resolutions were adopted
by the Reform Press Association of Kan
sas City, Mo., Feb. 22, 1895:
"Whereas, TheNational ReformPress
Association recognizes in General Paul
VanDervoort one of the most earnest,
efficient and enthusiastic organizers of
the Reform forces in the country, and we
believe that thecomrades associated with
him in the work are zealous Populists
whose hearts are in this great work;
therefore,
"Resolved, That the National Reform
Press Association endorse the Industrial
Legion, and pledges its hearty co-operation
in the movement."
With this endorsement and the fact
that the National Committee made the
Legion and its Executive Committee has
endorsed it three times and the full com
mittee twice, there should be a union of
Reform forces all along the line into this
compact political organization, and all
other plans should be abandoned and
discouraged by our press and people.
We have a constituency of five millions
to draw from if all in sympathy with our
party would come in, as we admit all
over 14, of both sexes.
We want one thousand woman s Le
gions, and I earnestly call on the noble
women ol our party to write me for in
structions. They can raise enough
money lor isuo, ana win thousands of
voters to our cause.
We invite all the State. County. City.
and Town Committees to recommend live
Recruiting officers at once.
We will commission no one who will
not work. The National Committee has
called on these committees five times "to
organize the Legion in every voting pre-
D01N
ci m rrni? inniTm
in
A Costly 8ession Which la Accomplish
ing Comparatively Little
THREE RELIEF BILLS PASSED
Wilson and Abbott Confirmed Irriga
tio Bills Giva the Moneyed Men
Monopoly Beet Sugar
Bounty
Penitentiary Warden Investigation
This Republican legislature has proba
bly done less, in the same length of time,
than any of its predecessors. The house
has put in forty-nine days altogether and
the senate nearly as many. Only eleven
constitutional days yet remain; and yet
only a very few bills have been passed,
and they with one or two exceptions,
have been of a very unimportant char
acter. Tbe last week has been like most of
the weeks that have preceded a great
deal talk, a very little business. The
appropriation for the drouth sufferers
was practically given a black eye, while
the bounty for the beet sugar barons
went through with flying colors. The
governor's nominations were promptly
confirmed. Governor signed the oleo bill,
suggesting an amendment; it was decided
to investigate the penitentiary; the stock
yards bill was recommended for passage,
etc. Remainder of the work was largely
of a routine character.
Following is the report in detail:
MONDAY.
Senate Banking bill recommended to
pass, taking insolvent banks out of the
bands of the supreme court ana puling
them into tbe bands or the dutrictcourt
Dr. L. J. Abbott unanimously confirmed
for superintendent of the Lincoln asylum.
House Insurance bills killed. Bill
recommended for passuge giving to all
children free high school education. The
$200,000 relief bill put on final passage.
Too many republicans opposed the bill
to pass it with the emergency clause.
Recommitted to committee of the whole.
TUESDAY.
The governor signed the anti-oleo bill,
but seut a message recommending an
amendment allowing the manufacture
of the article for export toother states.
Senate Governor's message consid
ered and bill introduced to comply with
it. Irrigation bills passed. Bill favora
bly considered to have all hangings at
the state penitentiary.
House Three relief bills passed, the
200,000 bill without the emergency
clause. The other two bills allow the use
of surplus county and precinct funds for
relief purposes. Bill for change of venue
in Barrett Scott case passed by a strict
party vote. Beet sugar bounty bill passed
in the same way. Republicans unani
mously favored both bills; populists and
democrats opposed them. Anti-cigarette
bill passed.
WEDNESDAY.
Senate Governor renominated Judge
J. W. Wilson to be commandant of the
Soldiers Home at Grand Island. Prompt
ly confirmed by the senate. Bill extend
ing life of supreme court commission sent
to the governor. Communication re
ceived from South Dakota legislature
concerning boundary line between the
two states.
House A ruling of the spaker ex
punged from the records. Landlord's
lien bill recommitted. Arbitration bill
knocked out. Several minor hillspassed.
THURSDAY.
Senate Amended oleo bill considered.
Placed on general file. Routine business.
House Bills tochangeexemption laws
knocked out. Routine business all day.
FRIDAY.
Senate Decided to investigate peni
tentiary rumors. Decided also to inves
tigate World's Fair Commissioner Gar
neau. Sifting committee knocked out.
Sentiment favorable to the abolition of
capital punishment is developed, liills
to chauge appointing power of oil in
spector and labor commissioner placed
on general file.
House Bill to regulate charges at
South Uinaha stock yards considered all
day in committee of the whole and final
ly recoin mended to pass by an over
whelming majority. Another stock
yards bill recommended for passage on
close vote.
Both houses adjourned over till Mon
day.
notes.
The action of the Governor in suggest
ing an amendment to the anti-oleo bill is
everywhere commended. As it was, the
bill simply wiped out a .Nebraska indus
try. As the governor proposes to amend
it, the industry can go on for export and
sale in other states.
The senate has come down off its high
horse. Notice how promptly it now con
firms the governor's appointments.
I he liberality with which this republi
can legislature deals with beet sugar
barons and the niggardliness it shows
toward the drouth sufferers is every
where remarked. Beet sugar barons can
put up. Drouth sufferers cannot. See?
Ml luulnfllUJ
NO. 40
publican house treated the old soldiers
continues to hauntand bother that body.
It has caused trouble all this week.
There is another penitentiary scandal.
Two ex-convicts tell of shocking cruelty
and inhumanity practiced by the present
prison officials. Committees have been
appointed in both houses to investigate
the charges.
The president of the state irrigation
society is indignant over the irrigation
bills that are being passed by this legis
lature. He says they give a monopoly
of the whole irrigation business to a few
moneyed men in the eastern part of the
state. J. A. Edqeiiton.
Tbe Condition In Boyd County.
Mr. Erskineof Boyd county while at
Lincoln soliciting aid for that county,
received the following letter from Rev.
N. II. Blackmer, which graphically de
scribes tbe destitute condition of the
people and the inadequacy of tbe relief.
Mr, Blackmer says:
"The condition of the people is de
plorable. They are looking starvation
in the face because the state relief is not
half enough. Nearly all families have
enough clothing, but they are out of
money, and there is no credit at stores.
Forty-two Backs of flour of fifty pounds
each came into this precinct to supply
150 families. And the settlers in the cen
ter third of tbe precinct were allowed
one-half sack per family for those who
applied. Of course all did not apply.
No one knows where or when the next
will come from or how much there will
be. A week ago some Germans took
their children and went about ten mi,es
to a distribution of Am; S. S. Union
clothing. They asked for flour, but there
were only two or three fifty pound sacks
on hand, and they had been distributed.
The women saw a man eating a bunch of
crackers and begged for some for the
children, who, when they received them,
ate them like famished dogs. The sight
was so pitiful that two Americans gave
up their flour to the women.
"In January a Russian German went
to Lynch for flour and could not get
trusted and could not get any donated.
He returned to the store and carried off
a sack oi flour. The constable was sum
moned to arrest the man, but when he
found the German's children eating the
flour through holes they had broken in
tbe sack, bis heart revolted and hepulled
out a dollar and gave it to the man,
with which to settle for the flour. A
crowd went to Lynch the other day and
forced the M. E. minister to deal out
church flour, alter he had refused to open
up. He was rather pale over it, but
more accommodating than usual. The
determined men will take the flour as long
as there is any, but no one knows how
long there will be any; and the timid will
suffer and die if relief is not poured in
here."
We Most Destroy Interest.
The central idea to be kept in sight in
a study of the money question is that
the ultimate to be attained is the entire
abolition of commercial, or discount in
terest, called "usury" in the Bible. It is
not the issue, or material of money, but
its distribution which is the vital ques.
tion.
What matters it who issues the money,
or how much is issued, if, after having
made one round of exchange, it is con
gested as deposits, in the hands of pri
vate bankers who may charge what they
please for its use. The better prices
caused by an increased volume of money
would simply act as a narcotic and put
the masses to sleep, while the absorp
tions of interest continued to be about
three times as great as the net earnings
of productive enterprises. And why
should two millions of voters, most of
whom are educated to an understanding
of the idiocy of a "metallic standard of
value," seriously propose to adopt as
campaign slogans the senseless yawps,
standard money" and money of ulti
mate redemption?" If we wish to make
an honest effort to preserve our distinct
ive party tenets, let us rather declare for
gold, silver, aud paper money; the paper
to be absolute and inconvertible; and
the elimination of the factor, interest,
from our economic and commercial sys
tems. Interest can be destroyed only by
the people, as a community, loaning
their communal credit (money) to them
selves, as individuals, at the cost of car
rying on the system. Eyes front, boys,
and forward, march!
George U. Ward.
All parties who may wish to take ad
vantage of our clubbing rates or receive
our premiums must pay back subscrip
tion to date if in arrears.
The last session of congress just closed
was another billion dollar affair, the
third of its kind in that respect. Yet the
Democrats raised a howl over the first
(Republican) congress whose appropria
tions reach the enormous sum of a
thousand millions of dollars.
Thn nnH-lnttorv hill hnrelv snneezed
throuirh concress. beinir foutrht hard
and by all possible tricks of delay. Gor
man and Brice, tbe Democratic leaders,
were the men who got in sharp work
e.crainst it. The bill makes it a felon v to
transport lottery matter from state to
state, thus striking at the express companies.
j
(Continued on trd page.)
lne contemptible way in which the re
V