X
The Wealth Makers and Lincoln Independent Consolidated.
LINCOLN, NEBR., THURSDAY, APRIL i6, 1896.
VOL. VII.
NO. 45.
III
I
1
r
t.
TI
He Will Stay with the Democratic
Party.
THE REVOLT IN THE SOUTH.
It can Only be Successful When Or
ganized Democracy is Killed.
The Populist Party the Only Organization
That can do it.
Washington, D. C, April 4.
If there is any bolting at Chicago,
South Carolina will lead the secession
element. That is conceded by democrats
and they regard Tillman as the leader of
the movement. One break may stam
pede the convention, and, just at this
time, what Tillman will do at Chicago is
a matter of much concern to the demo
cratic leaders. The story sent out from
Washington that democratic senators
ignore him, is the variest rot. On the
contrary they court him, not because
they enjoy the sharp thrusts of his pitch
fork, but because they lear nis leader
shiD.
Tillman talked candidly and unreserv
edly to the Independent representative
today. In answer to the direct ques
tion. "Will you bolt the Chicago conven
tion?" he said: "If a straight-out silver
man is nominated on a 16 to 1 platform,
it would be idiotic in a democrat to bolt
the nomination. There would be no ex
cuse for it."
That is what all silver democrats are
con tending: for, and if such a nomination
is made, and it now seems probable, it
will be supported not only D.y democrats,
but by silver men of all parties, and, in
my judgment, the nominee will be elect
ed." But suppose a candidate like Campbell
or Harrison or Mathews, with "sound
money"' antecedents is nominated on a
16 to 1 platform, what will you do:
"Speaking for myself," he replied, I
would not vote the ticket, out 1 am ap
posed to think that it would receive the
suDDort of the ereat bulk of the demo
cratic party. At least that seems to be
the feeling now in south Carolina
where democrats are mighty independ
ent and erenerally do as they please, with
out regard to party dictation. The
reason is that they are reluctant to
abandon a political organization that
, stands pre-eminently for the "jdeafq?!,, of
all principles to the white people iu the
south local Belt-government, strong as
their convictions are on the silver ques
tion, thev will not repudiate the demo
cratic party if the Chicago convention
does the right thing by silver, or makes
any reasonable concession in that di
rection. If the candidate is a straaaier
and the platform is straight 16 to 1,
our people will support the ticket upon
the very plausible assumption that the
candidate will stand on the platform,
and if elected that his administration
will accord with its declaration. That
is not my individual view of the matter,
but the rank and file of the democratic
party are disposed that way very de
cidedly."
But suppose a gold man like Carlisle,
Whitney or Russell is nominated, then
what?
"If that is done the jig is up. There
will be a general revolt all along the line
resulting in the organization of a third
party at St. .Louis on the JJm otjuiy.
I canlt say what form it will take, but
a common agreement can be effected on
the money issue. The independent silver
movement has made no headway as a
distinct organization, but its aentimen
tal influence is useful as a conservative
factor in restraining the more radical el
ement in the populist party. If the Chi
cago candidate means a repetition of
Clevelandism, the democratic ticket in
my opinion, will not receive the electoral
vote of a single southern state. The
election will go by default, and the dan
ger is that it may lose us our local and
' state tickets.
"So from the democraticstandpoint all
depends on what is done at Chicago and
the way it is done. The situation is so
problematic that it is hardly worth the
time to speculate about it. Leadership
amounts to very little, and it now iooks
ominously certain that nothing short of
a complete change ot our financial sys
tem will stop the revolution that threat
ens the very stability of our institutions.
The people are in dead earnest. It is
tha argument of gaunt poverty against
wealth. When a free people have reached
that condition the dictation of party
bosses and the nomination of party
conventions have no terrors for them.
"God alone knows what will happen iu
the country within . the coming six
months. My course is mapped out. I
realize that a great peril confronts the
country, and, God helping me, I will ig
nore all party obligations, if necessary,
and in my humble way exhaust every
power I possess to avert it." Recurring
to the gravity of the situation Senator
Tillman expressed the opinion that Mc
Kinley would be the republican candi
date, "and maybe," he said, "it is best
that it should be that way.
"The tariff cannot be made the supreme
issue in the campaign, but its discussion
may mollify popular resentment on the
financial question to some extent and
avert the preception of a condition that
means an alarming repetition of nullifi
cation history in this country."
1 Senator Tillman starts for Colorado
on the 8th. "I don't know, "he said,
what I shall say in my Denver speech. I
generally speak from impulse and trust to
the inspiration of the moment. My text,
however, in this instance will be the pro
test of one of Cleveland's office-holders
against my speaking as a democrat. If
Mr. Mew Bhould do me the honor to be
present I will teach him that democracy
means more than a free ticket to Cleve
land's pie counter. To do that success
fully it may be necessary to draw a com
SENATOR
LLMAN
parison between Jefferson, Jackson, Lin
coln and the despot in the white bouse."
Tillman is four or ten years in advance
of southern sentiment. With all his con
ceded power in South Carolina politics
he cannot lead the masses into a new
party movement which does not bear
the democratic label. All this talk about
democratic disintegration is fiction. So
long as the election machinery is under
democratic control the "solid south"
will remain "solid." What does it mat
ter that the people are in revolt when
their votes are nullified by returning
boards?
What do democratic leaders care about
broken pledges party duplicity and
double faced platforms? Their appeal is
not to the public conscience. The elec
tion manager is king and "the king can
do no wrong." At least he makes no
mistake in counting democratic ballots.
It is well enough to look at this matter
dispassionately.
The south must be left out in counting
the vote necessary to elect the next pres
ident. Only: where there is absolute
unification of all anti-democratic oppo
sition is there the ghost of a chance to
defeat the "organized democracy."
This can be effected by agreement to
subordinate all national and state ques
tions to the supreme issue of self preser
vation. This was done in North Caro
lina in 1894 and succeeded.. It is the
oue certain road to success, in all the
southern states in 1896. Anything else
means continued democratic supremacy.
Spasmodic attempts to organize inde
pendent movements in the south have
invariably collapsed. The signal failure
to make the least headway with the in
dependent silver movement is only the
repetition of a familiar experience. The
most vigorous efforts in that direction
have resulted in a waste of individual
enthusiasm and energy. Yet, paradox
ical as the statement may seem, the peo
ple are ripe for revolt. In the two or
three intervening months before the
party conventions possibly something
may happen to develop this latent force
in the southern situation. At this time
speculation as to what the "organiza
nized democracy" in the south will do
regardless of national issues is idle. Dem
ocratic disintegration depends entirely
upon the strength of the anti-democratic
opposition, and not upon any difference
upon party issues. Any opinion to the
contrary is a well demonstrated de
lusion.
PEIFER AFTER BOND DEALS-
He has the Feiseverance of a Saint and
the Patience of Job-
To show the patience and perseverence
of Senator Peffer, in his repeated at
tempts to bring up his bond resolution
during the last few weeks; the said at
tempts being foiled again and again by
the defender and guardian of the ad
ministration David B. Hill and others,
we give the following clipping from
Janet Jenning's correspondence in the
N. Y. Independent:
"There was just one senator inhisseat,
Mr. Peffer. whom Senator Hill was watch
ing, as a cat watches a mouse at long
rancre. but none tne less certain 01
its capture. Senator Peffer's resolution
to investigate the recent bond sales had
been reached on the calendar the previous
day, and at once Mr. Hill interposed
inmselt as a bulwark between me aaram
istration and the passage of the resolu
tion. The title of the bill was read by
the clerk, as follows: "Providing for a
committee of five senators to investigate
and report generally all the material
facts and circumstances connected with
the sale of United States bonds by the
secretary of the treasury in the years
1894, 1895 and 1896." Then Mr. mil
was on his feet, and did not sit down un
til he had for that day "side tracked"
the resolution. In was in vain that Sen
ator Peffer protested, or that half a
dozen senators, democrats ana repuoii
cans, came to his assistance. Mr. Hill re
sorted to every parliamentary tactic,
fenced and parried, evaded and argued,
and proved himself more than a match
for the six or seven opponents. And now
he was watching Senator Peffer to head
off the resolution again when the Kansas
senator, on the conclusion of Mr. George's
speech, called it up. To sit through a
three-hour's speech by Senator George
on the constitution of Delware, made a
hard day for Senator Hill."
It is a curious bit of study, the perse
verance of the one man for a wrongful
purpose and of the other for a good pur
pose. We are glad to see that Peffer's per-
severancej has been rewarded to this ex
tent: that a day has been set during tne
coming week for its discussion. Whether
it will pass "is another story" as Kud-
yard Kipling would say.
Gold Only and Always.
Andrew Carnegie says of the Pennsyl
vania movement for combining silver
and protection:
"It is like the celebrated image which
was made of pure gold to the waist and
of clav beneath. The one, protection, is
sound, and it will bring prosperity; the
other is unsound, and . will maintain the
present depression which exists in this
country. If I have to vote for a free
trader and sound money or a protection
ist and free silver, I will vote for the free
trader, believing that sound money is of
even more vital importance than pro
tection to the interests of this country.
Deal Gently with Them.
The populists must make every effort
in their power to obtain recruits for
their party. We can add to our party
strength by circulating populist news
papers and documents. We can aid
voters searching for the truth by kind
ness and gentleness. Remember that we
can not hope to obtain converts to our
party by hard words and calling our op
ponents names. Helena News.
OWNERSHIP
Has a man the Bight to own a Whole
State or County?
WHERE SHOULD THE LINE BE?
Getting at the Fundamental Prin
ciples of Limited Ownership.
What the Great Scholar and Historian
Thinks About it.
Among the profound and scholarly
articles in the April Arena is one from
Dr Ridpath on the limitation of owner
ship of property. Tue Independent
presents the following extracts from it:
The hints of limitation are to be found
alike in man and nature. Man is nat
urally a limited animal. There is no
part of him, no element In him, that is
not by nature under limitations. He is
not composed of infinities but finities.
His life is meted aud bounded at every
extreme. He begins in protoplasm and
ends iu dissolution. His entrance is an
ascent and his exit a tumble down. All
of his powers are naturally and whole
somely circumscribed; and the limitation
is not such as he himself regards as slav
ery.
Take the case of the senses. The sight
of a good eye reaches from one mile to
six miles, according to the bigness of the
thiug seen. The finer sounds we do not
hear at all and the heaviest connonade
or thunder, beyond the horizon of a few
miles, is mere silence. No animal can
feel what it does not touch, or taste
what it does not feel. Round about the
nature of man there is drawn such a limit
that his whole world of sense is not
twenty miles in diameter. He does not
fly; and his swimming is a fit subject for
humor; he is a walker or at most a rider.
It takes time for him to go abroad, aud
other time most tedious for him to get
home again. The young man full of
hope, coming back from across the sea
to the wicket gate of his adored, finds
the last five miles a thousand. ,.'
She for her part.leaniug out of the win-T
dow, reckons the last hour to be eternity.
Both are limited; not even the exulting
hope and beunding heart of youth can
cancel time and space.
A large fraction of life a third.they Say
is spent in sleep; another fraction in
eating and idling; another in the weak
ness of childhood and the weariness of
old age; still another in sickness and
accidents and the mistakes of avocation.
A fifth fraction is expended in going
about and in useless intercourse with
others in like employment. The sixth and
last traction is consumed in marrying
and in giving in marriage and in attend
ing to the principal business of lire which
in America is voting a party ticket
Certainly these limitations, partly
natural and partly artificial, are suffi
cient to curb life within a narrow circle
of activities.
It is enough to make happy even a
miserable . member of human society to
look around him in the world, to walk
abroad, to hear the songs of birds, the
clamorous music of the circada, the bark
of the distant squirrel; to see the flight
of many creatures, the swimming of some
and the scampering away of others.
Though there is limitation upon tbem
all a limitation drawn around all activ
ity and power as if with a geometer's
hand yet there is no complaint or an
guish or hunting for change or symptom
of revolt. Nature and the living creat
ures that inhabit her domain are all visi
bly and manifestly meted and bounded
with principles and confines which may
not be passed; and yet, taken as a whole,
nature is an orderly plase, well fitted for
happiness, given to hospitality, and per
vaded with much good cheer. The only
creature that seems to be disorderly,
troubled, vexed with cross purposes aud
unsound sleep, is the principal inhabitant.
What is the matter with him?
There is much the matter with him;
and his ailments are hard to define. On
the whole, the trouble with mankind
seems to be that the limitations deman
ded in order that society may exist and
the individual be free have not been
laid with the right intent, by the right
authority, in the right place. They have
been laid with wrong intent, by illegiti
mate authority, in the very place where
thev ought not to have been laid at all.
They have been laid by power, by self
ishness, and by organized tyranny, on
the weak and unorganized elements of
society, where there was no need of limit
ation or any suggestion of it except the
suggestion to enslave. So much distress,
so much confusion, have arisen from the
misplacement of limitation that human
beings have become distrustful of the
principle of limitation; and as a result
they find no stable equilibrium between
the extremes of anarchism and slavery.
There is, we must admit, no well-or
dered, well-defined, and well-established
human society in the world. Everything
is slipping in the one direction or in the
other. Every human being seems to be
pushing his neighbor either into slavery
or into anarchy. Each elbows the other
into one of the extremes of unhappiness
and conflict. Nobody seems to stop to
consider whether it is not possible that a
social state can exist in which the limit
ations are so laid that life in it maybe
as easy and natural, as contented and
perfect, as is the life of the irrational and
unconscious orders of being that flour
ish around us. They live in easy perfec
tion, and die without distemper or an
guish. Why should not a man get
through the world as well and as happily.
as a rain crow, a bass, or a beaver.
That men are happier and better for
possessing property, for having some
thing of their own for getting as a re
ward of their toil a possession that they
may enjoy, can no more be doubted than
that rain refreshes the fields and sun
shine makes glad the world. That prop
erty is also the beginning of that cruel
strife which has converted the world into
a slaughter bouse and ultimately made
every human being so selfish that he can
hardly any longer, by the utmost strain
of his powers, prefer another to himself,
can as little be doubted as denied. Is it
not possible that the doctrine of limita
tions applied to property might rob it
of its power to curse and promote its
power to blessf '
It is not property moderated and lim
ited, but only the want of it, or the law
less excess of it, that curses the world.
It is the too-much or the too-little that
blasts the hopes of men. There is a vast
area of intermediate possessions, between
the extremes of poverty and wealth, that
is almost an unmixed blessing.
We may note also that it in iu this in
termediate and wholesome region, be
tween the extremes of want and surfeit,
that the genius of the world and all of
its saving forces are born and econom
zed. We are accustomed to say that
geniui has its birthplace iu poverty.
This opinion prevails because in some
conspicious instances the children of the
humble poor rise to the godlike stature.
That anyone so born should rise at all is
a thing so remarkable as to attract the
attention of the world and to favor the
opinion that only the the children of
poverty can be great. In a few instances
the children of the rich are born great
also. But the rule is that the greatness
and power of human life proceed from
the intermediate condition in which there
is neither abject poverty nor abounding
riches. In this there is emphatic sug
gestion of the principle of limitation ap
plied to property; and here the debate
properly begins. If society could agree
that property shall freely exist, that
every man shall have for his part all that
he earns by his labor and skill, and no
more, men indeed would not be equal in
their possessions, but poverty on the
one hand would cease, and the glut of
riches on the other hand would disap
pear. Those who have nothing and
starve would rise into the vast and
healthy body of society composed of
those who have something and live.
Those who have too much and surfeit
would be drawn back from excess, and
would be absorbed in the great body from
which in an evil day they were permitted
td escape.
What follows? It follows as the night
th4 dav that somewhere between the
.ritfkt to own the valley of the Mississippi
or the whole United States a line of
limitation must be laid, fover which no
power known among men may be al
lowed to pass. To pass this line is to
prepare the antecedents of the inevita
ble enslavement of mankind. It is thus
perfectly clear that a restriction 6n land
ownership is a necessity of the situation
which has supervened in human society.
The principle of unlimited ownership can
not be longer admitted if civil and in
dustrial liberty is to be maintained as a
part of the rights of man. It is already
Absurd to speak of unlimited land owner
ship, or to attempt to defend it. 1
doubt whether any man in his senses
here in the high light of the laet decade
of a great century will dare to champion
the supposed right of an individual or of
a corporate body to own the five states
of our great Northwestern group, or to
own one of them, or a quarter of one of
them. If there be such, be and i diner
toto coelo and forever.
ONE CENT A DAT
The Swindlers Have Kept the Peo
ple Fighting Over it for 25
Years.
Suppose we take the entire custom rev
enue of 1890,-$229,668,585-and di
vide it up among 70,000,000 people; it
is but a little over three dollars per cap
ita, or less than one cent a day!!!
Give us free silver and an abundant
currency and good times and homes free
from mortgages, and all the people in
dustrious, prosperous and happy, and
we could pay ten times the McKinley
tariff and no man would feel it. Leave
us in our present condition and a feather
becomes a burden too great to bear.
See, friends, how you have been hum
bugged for twenty-five years by these
two mutual societies of co-operating
swindlers. They have played on you as
a musician plays on a tiute. They have
fooled you to the top of your bent. You
have roared and shouted and all for
what? One-seventh of a cent a day!
About the ration of a well conditioned
rooster!
The Goldite Candidates.
Louisville, Ky., April 4. 1896. Gov.
Bradley has papered the town with poa
ters announcing his candidacy for the
presidency. Bill stickers have been sent
throughout thestate with orders to cover
thedead wallsand fences with tne posters.
The governor says he is not fighting Mc
Kinley. but is trying to secure tne presi
dency.
St. Louis, April 4, '90. The McKinley
managers here are planning to overrun
the town with politicians irom tne aia-
lor's state. They have not only renteu
all the spare rooms in the city, but have
just leased the big exposition building,
and will divide it into nunareas 01 smau
rooms by building temporary partitions.
Breckenrldge Redlvlvun.
Lexington, Ky., April 5. '90. Col. W.
C. P. Breckenridge has been practicing
law here ever since the suit for damages
of Madeline Pollard two years ago caused
him to be succeeded in congress by Col.
W. C. Owens. Now that he is canvassing
the district again to run for congress
this year, the old movement of the ladies
in the district is being reorganized, and
he will have the wonien against him, as
be had two years
PHILADELPHIA SILVERITE5.
HOW NEW YORK OOLDITES
MADE THEM RECANT.
They owe Thirty Millions of Gold
to England Due on Call.
There has been a great deal said about
the deal made by certain Philadelphians
of the manufacturer's club and the silver
senators and the repudiation of it by the
club at a called meeting. Wharton
Barker who was at the bottom of the
whole deal now tells the reasons why the
club was forced to take to the water.
He says:
The manufacturers' Club of Philadel
phia held a remarkable session on Mon
day last, iu which it repudiated any un
derstanding with the silver senators as ,
to the relations of the bimetallic to the
protective policy. Injustice to the gen
tlemen of the majority, we must say they
were under an urgeut pressure from an
other city to do something to counter
act the impression made abroad by the
recent conference between a number of
our large manufacturers and the sen
ators who, taking the stand that bi
metallism and protection are insuperable,
have declared their purpose to block all
tariff legislation until their demands for
the restoration of silver are recognized.
The money-dealers of that city have
been reduced to sore straits by the terms
of their recent advance of gold to the
treasury. While only about f 10,000,
000 of that loan was actually imported
from London, some $ 30,000,000 more
was advanced by Englishmen on what
amounts to a call loan and used to offset
American obligations in England so as
to check the export of gold from our
ports. This arrangement was carried
out on a plea ad misericordiam, as
needed to strengthen the hands of the
gold party iu the United States, and
with the assurance that this would en
able them to hold our country in the
ranks of the gold standard nations.
Naturally, the Englishmen do not wish
to make any such accommodations to
us unless they get an equivalent. . To
keep us in the position of a debtor na
tion 011 a gold basis is the most profit
able arrangement possible for them; but
capital is proverbially timid, and any
thing that seems to show that we are
going to abandon that position, alarms
them. 1 or this reason the money deal
ers of our sister city were very much
alarmed at the prospect of an alliance of
the manufacturing with the silver-pro
ducing communities of this country, and
spared no pains ' to impress upon Phila
delphians the necessity for a counter
demonstration. That the majority had not much con
fidence in the strength of their cause is
shown by their limiting discussion to five
minute speeches at the outset, even the
proposal to extend this to ten being
voted down. The resolutions, adopted
by a vote of two to one, contain nothing
remarkable, the adoption ol bimetallism
being put off until that indefinite future
in which the "creditor nation Mr.
Gladstone's phrase will volun tarily give
up her hold on her suffering debtors.
As the abolitionists used to say
"Nothing is settled until it Is settled
right." Resolutions that everything is
lovely will not stop the grinding process
which is absorbing the capital ot the
manufacturer aud undermining our in
dustrial system. They will not enable
New York to meet the balance of some
$150,000,000 payable to London be
fore; next September, independently of
payments for imports made in the mean
time. They will not ward off the suspen
sion of gold payments at the treasury
and everywhere else, which must come
when the process of borrowing gold to
redeem greenbacks has reached its neces
sary termination, a termination pointed
out by both Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Car
lisle. They will not secure the Philadel
phia manufacturer any release from the
miseries of our wretched tariff, for the
republicans will have no more control of
the senate in the tiextcongress than they
have in this, without the help of votes
from the silver states. "It is a situation
which confronts us," not resolutions.
AD SUMMUM BONUM
Possible, Probable, if not Positive Bi
metallism. As a fair, fine and finished specimen of
alliterative literature this letter is let in.
Two wide, winding words were omitted
as they could not be deciphered.
An Ethico-Economic Exploitation of
the Virtue, Value, and Verisimiltude of
Cometallism or the Impartial yet Inter
dependent Cocoinage and concurrent
Circulation of Standard Gold and Silver
Dollars, and Connascent Issue of a corn
portable Paper Currency Consectaneous
Therewith.
To whom it may concern: The pro
silver action of the Senate, the duome
tallic animus of the House of Representa
tives, and the goldful attitude of the ad
ministration, presage and precaution,
that through conciliation and conces
sion (though not necessarily the com
promise of a cabal) can a speedy, salient,
and safeguarded settlement of the cur
rent, congressional cameralistic conten
tion be found and furnished.
To this end the following federal finan
cial legislation is siucerely subserved and
submitted, towit:
Be it enacted etc, that until interna
tional agreement or action shall make
such restrictive and regulative rule and
requirement uncalled for or unnecessary,
all bullion of the prescribed fineness and
amount offered by any porson or per
sons at the mints of the United States
for coinage shall consist of one-half each
in value at the (present) lawful ratio
of gold and silver. '
Sec. 2. For Buch conjoint deposit cer-
tiflcates, bills or notes,-of convenient
denominations for circulation shall be
issued, and same shall be a full legal ten
der, except in cases specifically stated
otherwise.
Points in favor of cometallism:
1. It would show common sense and
compatriotic sagacity in recognizing and
regarding tbatsilver as well as gold pos
sesses the common attributes and dis
iderata of a money metal; namely duc
tility, durability, divisibility, distributi
bility, determinability etc.; and that
when used together without any individ
ious or inimical discrimination against
either; silver by reason of comparative
abundancy would to the cometallic sys
tem of currency supply sufficiency, and
gold on account of relative rarity
contribute stability and steadiness not
unlike the corelation of the centripetal
and centrifugal forces in physics.
2. If plentifulness of money the
term being used in opposition to wealth
in real estate and other property tends
toward inviting and influencing intelli
gent industry, (rather than attracting
and alluring as so-called dear money
does intriguing investment in bonds,
mortgage debentures eto.,) then comet
allism would be in the line of publio pol
icy as evolving earnest and enlightened
efforts in place of enervating and effemi
nate ease as the portion of a few, and in
jurious idleness if not insobriety on the
part 01 many.
A more extended explanation and ex
ploitation of advantageous and admir
able features of foregoing, together with
comments appropriative, agnostic and
adverse 01 leading government officials,
prominent politicians, influential jour
nals, well known bankers, manufacturers
et. a!., may be had by addressing with
twenty-nve cents stamps to cover cost
of copying; postage etc the undersigned.
(Uemos) Wm. H. Fitch.
Bear's Marsh, Wood County, Wis.
"Cranmoor," March 27, 1890.
THEY ABE 00MING.
Another Convention Will Meet With the
Populists at St- Louis-
A call is printed for a meeting of reform
forces in national convention, in Pitts
burg, Pa on May 25, 1896. If we are
correctly informed this movement repre
sents the temperance element which, is
not willing to be swallowed up by I pluto
cracy. They will on May 25, appoint a
committee to confer with the prohibi
tionists, who meet May 27, in the same
city; and if they can overthrow the in
fluence of the money power, iu the latter
convention, they will all adjourn to St,
Louis, and meet there July 21, one day
before the meetings of the people's party
and the free silver party; and if possible,
agree, through committees, in nomina
ting the same candidates for president
and vice-president; and then with a plank
in all three platforms, for the initative
and referendum, they will help us to take
possesion of the government, and pro
ceed in their own way, to fight thesaloon
power while we are fighting the money
power. '
THE OLD GUABD.
They are Appreciated in Their Own Oamp
Valentine, Neb., April 4. '96.
Editor Independent: As the time
draws near which decides the lines upon
which the next national populist cam
paign is to be fought, naturally a tremor
runs through the rank and file to know
what advantage, or disadvantage they
may be given iu the fight. This inquiry
is honest, and is uot necessarily aimed
at the leaders. Still, the unwarranted
attack made on our leaders by the Asso
ciated Press, causes them to be over
sensitive, and attribute some well meant
discussion, as being meant for them. As
to those lies, Mr. Editor, we don't any
of us believe them. I don't think Brother
Snyder believes them. If he does, all he
needs to do is to think back a few years,
when the State Journal attacked the
men of his own county, and he among
them for disgracing the flag, when they
were trying to honor it; and for employ
ing an ex-confederate general for speaker
when iu fact they employed an ex-union,
officer, then failing to correct the state
ment, after receiving unanimous petitions
from the (J. A. R. Post shows how -infamously
contemptable and dishonest, the
press association can be. We all of ue
honor the old guard. Though a humble
worker, I was one of them too. But we
must remember we have lots of recruits.
Some of them don't realize what the old
guard has been through, nor the traps,
and pitfalls, that are always laid, for any
set of men, who undertake to advance
the world.- It is to encourage this class
to rely on the counsel of the old guard,
and send them to their convention when
it meets, that much of this discussion ap
pears. We will send men from Cherry
who will stand by their guns. I doubt
not the rest will. He will have more
faith in Senator Allen for president,
than in any other man on earth too. We
believe he has a bioader perception of
our national needs, and more courage to
to defend, and carry them out, than any
other man we could name. If that con
vention gives us something to fight for,
we will help shell the woods.
We should like to see the initiative and
referendum head the platform. We shall
hope to favor the government ownership
of the public utilities, and to oppose
private monopolies, well knowing that
we will be opposed by them, any way.
The amount of courage we shall have
to fight, depends on the amount of good
we should be able to do, if we should win.
If we send good, strong, active men to
St. Louis, and the reform forces exercise
good judgmeut, we have thebest fighting
chance of any party in the field.
Charles E. Doty.
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