THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT
April 23, 1896.
Nebraska 3nfcpcn5cnt
3 WtAlTH MAZSRS m4 LINCOLN
I HfDSMffDMlfT.
:lished every Thursday
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PULlST STATE CONVENTION.
!LV UVIVd IrW WUVUVav v www vujiw
dependent party of Nebraska will ba
Id in the city of Grand Island, on
ednesday, July 15, 180(5, at 2 o'clock
m., for the purpose of electing fifty
ven delegates, and fifty -seven alternates
the people's party national conven
on to be held in St. Louis, July 22,
396.
I Each county will be entitled to one de
bate at large and one' additional dele-
ate for each one nun area votes, or
ajority fraction thereof, cast at the
meral election of leva for Samuel Max
ell, for supreme judge, which gives the
llowing representation by counties:
dams.... 14 Jefferson 8
ntalopa. 11 Johnson 7
Mannar..... J Kearney, 11
Ulatne 1 Keith , X
Boon IS Keya Paha S
Box Botto 6 Kimball 3
Boyd Knox .' IS
Brown 8 Lancaster 97
Bnffalo
19 Lincoln 11
, t Logan..... 1
14 Lonp 3
14 Madison 11
McPherion 1
8 Merrick
, t Nance 9
Bart
Bntler....
Ca
; Oedar....
(Chase....
vuvrrj . . .
Cheyenne,
4 Nemaha 18
Clay 14 Nnckolli
13
13
oollax oto
Coming 7 Pawnee 8
Coater 18 Perkins 8
Dakota 0 Phelps 13
Dawes I Pierce l
Dawson ,14 I'lotte. 13
Denel 1 Polk 18
Dixon Red Willow
Dodge 18 Ktchardsoa 7
DouKlas ...4 Rock 8
Dnndy 4 Saline 10
Fillmore 14 Sarpy 6
Franklin 9 Saunders 31
FronMer.' B Scotta Bluff 1
Furnas... ,.11 Seward. 10
Gaice .......14 Sheridan 8
Garfield 8 Sherman 7
Gosper. 8 Slonx 3
Grant 3 Stanton 4
Greeley t Thayer 8
Hall 14 Thomas 1
Hamilton 18 Thurston 3
Harlan 10 Valley 8
Haven 8 Washington 8
Hitchcock. a Waynn ,,,,, S
Holt 13 Webster ,.,.10
Hooker 1 Wheeler 8
Howard York 14
It is recommended that primaries for
selecting delegates to county conventions
be held on Thursday, July 0; and that
county conventions torseiectingdeiegates
to Btate convention be held on Saturday,
July 11.
It is also recommended that the cre
dentials from each county be banded in
to the state central committee, prior to
the meeting of the state convention, so
that a full list of delegates can be made
out and the tedious delay occasioned by
a committee on credentials avoided.
It is also recommended, in accordance
with a resolution passed by the state
central committee, that in the state con
vention, the following plan of selecting
delegates to the national convention be
adopted: That nine delegates and nine
alternates be selected from each con
gressional district by the delegates
present; and that three delegates and
three alternates be elected at large. '
It is urgently requested that every
member of the party, who possibly can
do so, attend the primaries, so that those
selected as delegates may represent the
wishes of the entire party.
Every voter in Nebraska, who favors
an American system of finance and is
opposed to the gold standard, bond
issuing policy of the present administra
tion; who favors the free and unlimited
coinage of gold and silver at 16 to 1:
who favors reform in our systems of
money, land and transportation; who
favors more economical administration
of national and Btate governments; who
is opposed to the further domination of
Corporations in our legislation; who be
' lieves that the government should be
who is ready to cast aside prejudice and
Tote for the common prosperity of all;
every such voter is cordially invited to
participate in our primaries and assist
in the selection of our delegates.
By order ot the state central com
mittee. J. A. Edgerton,
F. D. Eager, Chairman.
Sec'y.
Notice.
This edition of the In
dependent is not
printed for the edification of populists
who are well informed on such subjects as
"intrinsic value" "scientific money," etc.
etc., but with the hope that subscribes
. after reading it, will hand it to men who
have had no opportunity of studying the
primary principles of political economy
as taught by the great scholars and the
standard writers on that science.
The next issue of the Independent will
be a red hot one. Look out for it.
There was a lot ot mighty good edi
torial matter in the Platte County Argus
last week.
The State Journal has joined the pau
per's and is taking tips from the Wall
street banker's fund. Wednesday it
printed one of the free gold bug cartoons.
It will make little difference whether
gold bugs conquer the silver men, or the
silver men conquer the gold men at
Chicago, for the populist will conquer
tho conqueror, whichever it is.
The Independent is for peace. It wil
endure almost anything for peace, but i
anyone comes around this office telling
as we must repudiate any of the princi.
plea of the populist party he'll get kicked
down the back stairs. After that there
downt
wilybe
wilybe peace, for awhile at least, in this
PRIMARY
PRIMARY PRINCIPLES. ,
First of all money is a unit of account.
Some of the older economists illustrated it
n this way. An English traveler explor
Dg the eountry around the bead waters
of the Nile, located himself for sometime
with an Arab tribe. He found that they
estimated the value of everything in
something they called a macute. But he
never saw a macute. lie inquired and
investigated, but he could not find a
macute. At last it dawned upon him
that tbey had no material substance of
any kind, which they called a macute.
They would say a cow was worth twenty
macutes, a goat ten macutes, a chicken
two macutes, but the macute was an
ideal thing. It was simply a unit of
account.
It must be plain therefore that this
function of money can exist withoutbeing
attached to any material substance.
Another function of money is its use
as a medium of exchange. A farmer
brings to town a load of wheat. He
sells it for ten dollars. When he receives
the ten dollars be is not paid for his
wheat. The money given to him Is of
no "use" to him. It will neither satisfy
his hunger or quench his thirst. With it
he cannot shelter himself, cloth himself,
or warm himself. The transfer of trie
wheat to the wheat buyer, and of the
money to the farmer, was only half of
the transaction. When the farmer takes
the money to the clothier and gives it to
him for a suit of clothes, when he receives
the suit of clothes, and not till then, is
the farmer paid for his wheat.
The function that money performs here
is a medium of exchange. It enabled the
farmer in a direct
-ec. way to exchange his I
it of clothes.
wheat for a suit
Money is often called a measure of
value, this Is manifestly an error. One
can take a yard stick and accurately
measure the "length" of a piece of cloth.
But he cannot take a quantity of gold
and with it measure the "value" of the
clpth.
To arrive at the value he examines the
texture of the cloth. Value is "measured''
if we may use the term at all in relation
to value, with brains.
Money has but one kind of value, and
that is power in exchange. It is desired
not for any quality in it, but simply and
solely for its purchasing power. "When
we speak of the value," says Prof. F. A-
Walker, "of either gold or silver, we
mean the power it has to purchase other
commodities including the one element of
money besides itself."
Prof. Sidgwick says, 'That the value of
money is the purchasing power ofmoner,
or its exchange value measured in com
modities. With these definitions every
staudard writer on political economy
agrees. To speak of any unit of
money as a unit of value is man
ifestly an error, and the proposi
tion is really unthinkable. How can
value be divided into units? The term
unit of value has been used for a purpose,
pnd that purpose evidently was to con
fuse thought. What then is value? The
definition of Senator John P. Jones is, in
my opinion, as simple and comprehen
sive as any found in the English language
He says: "Human estimation placed
upon desirable objects whose quantity
is limited." "
Value, then, cannot be an inherent
quality of anything. A thing to have
value must not exist by itself alone, but
evidently there must also be in existence
other things. Nothing has value with
out the presence of population. Besides
the thing called valuable you must have
a man or men.
That those who have thought on this
subject may fully comprehend the defini
tion of value here set forth, let me illus
trate it by the following incident.
I went into a bank in the city of Wash
ington and presented a draft on New
York for f 100.00. The banker counted
out to me $95.00 in greenbacks, and
then laid down a five dollar gold piece
with the remark, "That paper money
has no value in itself, but this piece of
gold has the value in it.
I replied, "will you treat to an oyster
supper if I prove to you that there is no
value in that piece of gold," and he said,
"I certainly will
I then took the five dollar gold piece to
n. aiMantmr, OI national reuuiouuu, a
chemist by profession, and I said to him
I want you to analyze this piece of gold
I want you to give me a certificate over
your own name of everything there is
"in it," and further certify after you
have made a thorough analysis that you
ha. ttP1 "all" that was "in it" and
that there was nothing else "in it."
The certificate that the chemist gave
me was to tne enect. ma mem nno
ninety parts of gold "in it," Beven parts
of copper "in it". three parts of silver in
i on thorn wrs nothing else " in it.
Then I took the certificate to the
banker and said to him "you said there
mn .ulna "in it." Here is a man of
science who has analyzed it, and he certi
He tho r tho ir old "in it. silver in
it." copper "in it," and nothing else "in
it." Now where is that value that you
said was "in it?" What's the color of
it? What's its weight? What does it
amoll like? What does it taste like?
Where, and what is it.
The position taken by the banker is an
old one. and has often been refuted by
standard writers upon political economy,
McLeod "Theory and Practice of Bank
ing, p.'48.," clearly explodes the fallacy
of value being in things, or as it is com
monly called, intrinsic value, lie says
PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.
"How can anything have intrinsic value
unless it has tho things it will exchange
for inside itself?" Further on, p. 50, he
says. "Moreover we see on considering
tha term value, that it is nonsense to
speak of the representative ot value."
To a, thinking man these terms, re
presentative value," "intrinsic value,"
etc., constantly used by the bankers and
the daily press must be as McLeod says
simply nonsense, and with McLeod stands
today every standard authority on
economics in the whole world.
THE PROFESSORS AND POPULISTS.
Every position taken by the populists
is sustained by the writings of the great
scholars and thinkers in all parts of the
world. There is no writer of standard au
thority or economist, who on the money
question is not a populist. We have the
scholarship and the learning of the world
all on our side. That this is not a vain
boast, we give a few extracts from what
some of these scholars and economists
say on a few points of populist belief.
WHAT IS MONEY?
Money exists not by nature but by
law." Aristotle.
"Money is that which passes freely from
hand tohand throughoutthecommunity
in final discharge of debts and full pay
ment for commodities, being accepted
equally without reference to the charac
ter or credit of the person who offers it,
and without the intention of the person
who receives it to consume it or enjoy it,
or to apply it to any other use than, in
turn, to tender it to others in discharge
AaVAa nr full rvnvment, for- commodi-
tie8pro. Franci8 A Walker.
,
"There is no such thing as intrinsic
value." Prof. Stanley Jevons,
"Value, like utility, is no intrinsicqual-
ity of a thing; it is an extrinsic accident
or relation.
"Value implies, in fact, a relation; but
if so, it cannot possibly be some other
thing. A student of economy has no
hope of ever being clear and correct in
his ideas of the science if hethinksof value
as at all a thing or object, or even as
anything which lies in a thing or object"
Prof, Jevons The Theory of Polntical
Economy, page 82.
"Value, then, is not a quality of single
things belonging to them as if by nature,
as hardness is a quality of a rock or
gravity is an attribute of goldjbecause all
physical qualities in physical things, all
that which makes or helps to make any
thing such as it is, may be learned by a
study of the things themselves, by them
selves. A careful examination and
analysis of the mechanical and chemical
properties of any physical thing will
discover all its distinguishing charac
teristics, all that makes it that particu
lar thing in distinction from all other
things; but it is plain already that the
value of anything (if it have value) can
not be found out by studying that par
ticular thing by itself alone; the question
ing of the senses, however minute, the
test of the laboratory, however delicatei
can never determine how much anything
worth, because that always implies
a comparison Deiween two wings or
more strictly a comparison between two
renderings in exchange. V alue is not
an attribute of single things; not even
if the things be physical and tangible."
Prof A. L. Perry of Williams College.
Principles of Political economy, page 35.
BOUNTY TO SILVER STANDARD COUNTRIES.
The necessary effect of a depreciation
of silver as against gold is to give a
bounty on exports from India and the
other silver using countries to England.
An English merchant can now buy many
more rupees than he formerly could with
the same number of sovereigns, and
therefore he can import from India,
though prices at Calcntta are not at a
level at which it would have paid him to
operate if he had not had that novel fa
cility in getting rupees." Mr. Bagehot
Depreciation of silver.
"Now, it seems to me probable if the
price of silver rose to its old level wheat
cauld not be profitably exported from
India until prices rose in a correspond-
ingdegree. For India, being asiiver coun
try, the price ol wheat there is indepen
dent of the tho relative value of gold and
silver. An exporter to England at pres
ent will give the Indian price in silver,
and he can buy his silver for less gold,
and thus competition will lower the price.
If the price of silver rose the exporter
from India must get more gold. Thus a
rise of silver would.on this view, raise the
price of wheat to acorresponding degree."
Prof. Nicholson.
THE QUANTITATIVE THEORY.
"In whatever degree, therefore, the
quantity of money is increased or dimin
ished, other things remaining the same,
in the same proportion tho value of the
whole and every part is recriprocally
diminished or increased." John Stuart
Mill.
"The value of money in any country is
determined by the amount existing.
That commodities would rise or Jail in
price in proportion to the increase or
diminution of money I assume as a fact
that is incontrovertible." Ricardo, Re
ply to Bosauquet.
If the quantity of gold in a country
whose currency consists of gold should
be increased in anygiven proportion,
the quantity of other articles and the de
mand for them remaining the same, the
value of any given commodity measured
In the coin of thkt country would be in-
creased inthesame proportion. William
Huskinson. Depreciation of the Cur
rency. . If the value of all other commodities,
in relation to gold, ' rises and falls as
their quantities diminish or increase,
the value of of gold in relation to com
modities mustriseandfallas its quantity
is diminished or increased. Torrens Po
litical Economy,
The rates at which money exchanges
lor other things is determined by its
quantity. Prof. De Colange in American
Cyclopedia of Commerce.
The exchange value of any particular
coin will vary in exactly inverse ratio to
the variations in the quantity of the ag"
gregate. Prof. Sedgwick of Cambridge
University Eng. Principles of Political
Economy page 251.
PAPER MONEY.
There is plenty of evidence to prove
that an inconvertible paper money, if
carefully limited in quantity, can retain
its full value. Such was the case of the
bank of England notes for several years
after the suspension of specie payments
in1797, and such is the case with the
present notes of the bank of France."
Prof. Stanly Jevons.
"A well regulated paper currency is so
great an improvement in commerce that
I should greatly regret if prejudice should
induce us to return to a system of less
utility. The introduction of the precious
metals for the purposes of moneymay with
truth be considered as one of the most im
portant steps toward the improvement of
commerce ana toe arts oi tne civwzea
life; but it is no less true, that with the
advancement of kuowledgeand science,
we discover that it would be another im
provement to banish them again from
the employment to which, during a less
enlightened period, they had been so ad
vantageously applied." Ricardo.
If in a country which wants and pos
sesses a metallic currency of seventy mil
lions of dollars, a paper currency to the
same amount should be substituted, the
seventy millions in gold and silver, being
no longer wanted for that purpose, will
be exported, and the returns may be
converted into a productive capital and
add an equal amount to the wealth o'
the country." Albert Galletin Sec, of D.
S. Teasury 1801 to 1813.
It is only fair to add that the only au
thority on the other side of all these
questions is Hon. G. M. Lambertson of
Lincoln, Nebraska who thinks that a
redundancy of money makes low prices
and produces panics.
SCIENTIFIC MONEY. 1
The injustice of a variable money unit
has at various times led to suggestions
for the remedy of the evil. As early as
1822 an English writer named Lowe
proposed that authoritative returns
should be collected, from a variety of
localities, showing the prices of com
modities of most general consumption,
and that from those a table of reference
be constructed, having regard to the
comparative quantities consumed in an
average household. By following, he
said, the .ourse of prices as shown by
such returns all contracts which by their
terms were payable in money could, ac
cording as they mature, be adjusted in
accordance with the principles of equity,
and the value of money thus be kept con
stant.
Some eleven years later a scheme some
what similar was proposed by another
English writer, named Scrope, the author
of a work on political economy. In 1838
G. R. Porter, author of The Progress of
the Nation, gave publication to another
plan involving the same general features,
with tables of prices of fifty leading com
modities, showing their average monthly
fluctuations for a period of years.
Commenting on those plans, Prof.
Jevons, who himself fully recognized the
evil of the varying value of money, writ
ing so late as 1875, sayB:
Such schemes for a tabular or aver
age standard of value appear to be per
fectly sound and highly valuable in a
theoretical point of view, and the prac
tical difficulties are not of a serious char
acter. To carry Lowe's and Scrope's
plans into effect a permanent commission
would have to be created and endowed
with a kind of judicial power. The
officers of the department would collect,
the current prices of commodities in all
the principal markets of the kingdom,
and by a well-defined system of calcula
tions would compute from these data the
average variations in the purchasing
power of gold.
(The goldites in the United States say
that gold never varies in value.)
"The 'decision of this commission
would be published monthly, and pay
ments would be adjusted in accordance
with them. Thus, suppose that a debt
of 100 was incurred upon the 1st of
July, 1875, and was to be paid back
on the 1st of July 1878, that the value
of gold had fallen in the ratio of 106 to
100 in the intervening years
And in passing let me remind Senators
that instead of falling the value of gold
has risen at an average rate of 2)4 per
cent per annnm as shown by the fall in
the general level of wholesale prices for
the past twenty years, ever - ince the
year when the UnitedStates demonetized
silver. Prof. Jevons, however, for good
reasons, suggested the idea of a fall, and
speaking of such fall, he adds
"then the creditor would claim an in
crease of 6 per cent in the nominal
amount of the debt."
There is not a doubt that in the case
of a fall in the value of gold as supposed
by Prof. Jevons, the creditor would in
sist on equitable compensation for the
fall; he wonld insist on being made whole
to the full extent of the increase of prices
of commodities for that is what is
meant by a ''fall" of gold money or any
other kind of money. But in the case
which more immediately comes home to
the great producing masses the persis
tent and ruinous fall in the prices of the
products of farm and factory for the
past twenty years, and the consequent
and ruinous increase of the burden of
debt, the creditor sees no equity to be
asserted by the debtor and denies that
this persistent and extraordinary fall of
prices is an injury to men who have bor
rowed money with which to buy homes
or to enter upon business enterprises in
the hope and expectation that the prices
of their products would enable them to
pay interest and to repay the loan with
out depriving them of their entire pro
perty. Extract from a speech of John
P. Jones.
Of the inequity of the single gold
standard, no standard economist ex-.
presses any doubt. Prof. Alfred Mar,
shall.of Cambridge University, England
than whom there is no higher authority,
writing on this subject of scientific money
"When traders are rejoicing in high
prices, bond and mortgage-holders and
other creditors are depressed, and when
the pendulum swings the other way
traders,- already depressed, are kept un
der water by baring to pay an excep
tionally heavy toll to their creditors.
"This serious evilcanbe muchdimished
by a plan which economists have long
advocated. In proposing: this remedy I
want government to help business. It
should publish tables showing as closely
as may be the changes in the purchasing
power of gold, and should facilitate con
tracts for payments to be made in terms
of units of fixed purchasing power.
"On this plan it A lends B 1,000 at
i per cent, interest and after some
years the purchasing power of money
had risen by an eighth, B would have to
pay asinteresttoot 45, but a sum that
had the same purchasing power as 45
had at the time of borrowing, that is,
40. And so on, The plau would have
to win its way into general use, but when
once it had become familiar none but
gamblers would lend or borrow upon any
other terms, at all events for long
periods."
Of course all populists, know that the
object sought to be accomplished by the
economists justice and equity between
aeDtor ana creditor, tax payer and
office holders, interest receiver and in
terest payer, can be arrived at, though
not so quickly, by increasing or dimish
ing the amount of money in circulation.
That is the idea most favored by the
economists of the United States and treat
ed at some length in Senator Stewarts
speech. "Silver and the Science of
Money."
PAYING TRIBUTE TO THE RICH.
Few people comprehend the vast differ
ence to the prosperity, of the people re
sulting from the government issue of,
free coinage of money, and the furnish
ing of the circulating medium by the
banks. To get bank money into circula
tion, interest must be paid on bonds and
interest must be paid on the money itself,
before it can be used as a medium of ex
change, but in the case of free coinage or
government issue, the money goes into
circulation without theenormous tribute
which the users of it are forced to pay to
the "idle rich."
If a farmer sells f 100 worth of wheat
and is paid for it in bank money, the
purchaser has to deduct this tribute to
the "idle rich" from the price he would
otherwise pay to the farmer, or he could
not do business at all.
This tribute is entirely unnecessary,
and if it were not for "the dense igno
rance on economic subjects which prevails
among the people," it would not be sub
mitted to for a day.
The present prosperity of France large
ly results from the fact that the people
of that republic do not pay this tribute
to the "idle rich," while- the people of
this republic do pay it.
It is a good sign to find a writer here
and there drawing attention to the awful
drain that bank money makes upon the
resources oi the people.
Mr. S. W. Powell of Minnesota calls at
tention to it in the Representative as
follows:
"There is another reason, and a great
one why all citizens of this republic, ex
cept those engaged in banking or loan
ing money, should stand for free coinage
of silver, and that is the difference in
cost of silver coin and national bank
notes. If a miner has $1000 worth of
silver bullion, under free comage he can
have it coined or exchange it for stan
dard dollars. The dollars he receives be
long to him if he gives 100 of them to
a farmer for a horse they belong to the
farmer. Thus they pass from hand to
hand and complete hundreds of transac
tions, each time buying something the
holder wants or liquidating a debt, with
no other cost to the people than the
miner's exertion; while a national bank
note cannot exist as a medium of ex
change until someone borrows it and
pays interest. All the people pay 4 per
cent on the bonds deposited in the
United States treasury to secure the
bank's circulation. The individual who
borrows it pays 8 per cent discount for
90 days, the longest time the bank loan
for. Ninety days is about one-fourth of a
year, so that portion of their circulation
that is loaned for 90 days is compounded
four times a year, and that portion
loaned for 30 days is compouded 12'
times a year, or about 33 per cent per
annum, a rate of interest that will bank
rupt any legitimate business."
ALWAYS REMEMBER.
Always remember that there is very
little silver bullion in the world. No man
can point where there is, all told, 5,000,
000 ounces.
Always remember that coined silver
that is now in circulation in foreign
countries is worth f 1.33 an ounce where
it is coined at the ratio of 15. to 1; and
is worth $1.37 an ounce where it is
coined at the rate of 15 to 1; and it ia
not coming to the United States to be
coined at $ 1.29 an ounce.
Always rememper that when the gold
jte predicts a flood of silver that they are
predicting an impossibility. There is no
fountain from which such a flood cam
flow.
GOLDITE LOGIC.
1. Free coinage of silver would double
the value of the silver baron's silver
bullion.
2. Free coinage of silver would put us
on a silver basis and the dollars with
which we would do business and pay
debts wonld only be worth fifty cents. '
3. The bullion in a silver dollar is
worth 67 cents now.
4. If we have free coinage the bullion
in a fifty cent dollar will only be worth
67 cents, You cannot create value by
law.
5. Nevertheless the free coinage of
silver would only benefit the mine owner
and he would get twice what he gets now
for his silver.
6. If you cannot understand that fifty
cents is twice as much as sixty-sever
cents, you have wheels in your head-
WHICH SHALL IT BE"?
Populists must decide now whether
the organization of the peoples party is
to be kept up as an economic and philo
sophical society for the discussion ot
certain theories of government, and
compel their incorporation into law by
forcing some other political party to
take them up and enact them, or whether
from this on, it is to.be strictly a politi
cal party and do the enacting itself.
The agitation which the populist party
has carried on has already forced the
enactmant of many of its principles into
law in various places, notably the muni
cipal ownership of gas plants, electric
lighting, city water etc., etc. In none of
these cases has this been done by t he
peoples party, acting as a political or.,
ganization. One or the other of the old
parties has been forced to do it and got
the credit for it.
Populist principles are becoming such,
a force in public affairs, that even the
State Journal is compelled to take some
of them up and give them editorial ap
proval. Last week it was advocating;
the public ownership of patent rights.
Populists may go on, if they will, ad
vocating their principles, educating the
public, and one of the old parties will
enact their principles, one by one into
law, and thereby live, and the populist
party.as a party cease to exist.
This was the history of the Chartists
in England. About two years ago, the
last one of the demands of the Chartists,,
was enacted into law by the British,
parliament, but the Chartist party died
long years ago.
The conducting of a philosophical and
economic society is entirely a different
thing from managing a political party.
The success of a party depends upon get
ting a majority of voters. You may
convince a man of the correctness of an
economic proposition but you may en
tirely fail to get him to vote with your
party.
The whole force must now be directed,
to getting men to vote the populist
ticket. That is practical politics. The
affairs of the party must be always con
ducted with that end in view. The ob
ject of a political party is to get votes
enough to put it in control of the govern
ment. The object of an economic society
is entirely different. It don't want to.
get control of the government and legis
late. It simply wants to teach the truth
and let some other organization do the
legislating. Which shall it be?
If civilization and free government are
to endure, populist principles must be
enacted into law. If the populists get in
to power, it will be done speedily. If
we continue on as an educating force only,
forcing a little this year and a little next
year, a generation or two of suffering
must be endured, before final relief and
prosperity will come.
Which shall it be? Shall we so manage
as to get votes enough to win, or shall
we just go on writing and talking?
We want a railroad system in this
country that will make the diamond
shirted banker, the republican boss, the
democratic boss, the members of legisla
tures, the members of congress,, the
judges, the big merchants and the law
yers pay just the same fare as the farmer
and workingman. Under the present
system the former classes ride free, and',
the farmer and workingman man pay
double what they ought to pay.
If you read this paper and1 like it, send
your subscription at once to the Indb
pkndent Pub. Co., Lincoln,. Neb.
thkt
1
leader.
i OU Uvuia.
