The Nebraska independent. (Lincoln, Nebraska) 1896-1902, May 28, 1896, Image 1
1 7 The Wealth Makers and Lincoln Independent Consolidated. VOL. VII. LINCOLN, NEBR., THURSDAY, MAY 28, 1896. NO. 51. Q'( Ww y J GO HELP YOURSELVES GREAT SPEECH OF GENERAL WEAVER IN PORTLAND. Your Child Comes to a World Where It Has No Right to a Foot of Soil. Heaven Help Only Those Who Help '' Themselves.' - The following is an extract from a speech recently delivered by General Weaver in Portland, Oregon: I say that a government that stands still, and with its police force holds the people in subjection while the corpora tions rob them of their national right to earn a living and clothe and feed them selves, is a rebellion against God. (Great applause.) It is a rebellion against the natural rights of man. (Applause.) Ib there a man or woman here tonight that does not need something? Iam going to give you a little off-hand talk tonight, but I am trying to explain your natural rights. You are living in rented houses; you have not standing room on God's footstool. You have not the right to occupy this earth without getting the consent of some other man, and your child that comes into this world comes in unbidden, without the right to lie down upon the footstool of its heavenly father, and you have not the power tonight to take care of your family, (cries of "that is right, that is right,") nor to educate your children, nor to support the wife whom you led to the altar, because your wages are just enough, if you have any at all, to pay your rent. But you are not any worse off here nor as bad off as we are in our state of Iowa, because you have industries here; we have not. You have great lumber foresls here; you have fishing industries that we have not. We are depending almost entirely upon agri culture in our state; there is very little manufacturing. You have great advant ages, cut with all your advantages labor here is in a mendicant condition. The remedy lies with you. God will not do anything for a man that he can do for himself. Do you suppose lie is going to take you by the coat collar and lift you out of this condition? He has provided, J. B. WEAVER. in the very foundation of this govern' ment, the means whereby you can help yourselves. (Applause.) The greatest crime save one that can be committed by a man is to be idle and to refuse to do everything that is in his power to change this abominable order of things. (Great applause.) I cannot change this condition; the gentlemen who are coming here to assist in canvassing .this state cannot do it; there are none who can do it but the peo ple of Oregon. You can set yourself free if you will. (Great applause.) But you will have to do it in the way pointed out by the constitution of your country. You must simply go as freemen on the morning of election day to the polls and deposit your sovereign will in the ballot dox, ana vote tor your own emancipa tion, or God help you. You will never be free unless you do it. That is a sacred . duty of American citizenship. The great , est crime that man can commit is to sell his vote. (Great applause.) And that is one of the greatest temptations today that confronts the laboring men of this country. This matter has been going from bad to worse for twenty years. The old parties have debauched, degrad ed and impoverished the people until $ 2 or $2.50, a side of bacon or a sack of flour looks like a little fortune. (Great applause.) And bribery is one of the crimes that are rife today in the United States. They are bribing the electors all over this country. And who do they bribe? Do you suppose they go to a man that has a family, that is well to do, in comfortable circumstances and a home of his own and offer to bribe him? No, sir. They go to the men from whom they know they have taken away the last vestige of respectable citizanship in the United States; (applause) those are the men that they tempt all over this country, and it is one of the marked evi dences of the decay of the body politic and of the republic. I advise the officers and members of this club, one and all, to organize closely and securely and com pactly to resist, in every ward of this city, the men who offer to bribe the voter at the ballot box. . (Great applause.) I want to tell you and I am not speaking particularly for Oregon, but I am giving the note of warning largely for the whole country that we demand an honest election in every state in this Union; we want yon in Oregon to stand by us in making that demand heeded in every ward and every precinct in this city. You will be put to the test on the first day of June, and you will be put to the test in November again twice this year will you be thrown into the crucible and it will be ascertained whether you are capable of free government whether you are willing to do that which Ood has required you to do, or whether you will be fooled and cajoled and forced by party discipline and allegiance to vote against yourselves and to enslave your own fam ily. You all know well that you cannot wit ness the further degradation of labor and the fall of prices and retain your manhood. It is utterly impossible that you can exist and be happy or comfort able or free if this state of affairs is to be continued. What is the remedy? The remedy is what I have just been hinting at. Whose government is this: Upon what foundation does this government rest, what class of people? What does this honse rest upon? Upon its founda tion! What is the foundation of society? Ihe laboring man! (Loud applause.) He builds everything: he creates all wealth by his labor, and yet he has less of it than any other man in the. world Now, whilst he is laboring and creating this wealth he cannot retain it. It is im possible under present conditions. He must change these conditions so that he will be able to retain his full share of this wealth. That is done by force of government; he must throw around him self the safeguard of law, not for the pur pose 01 taking from another man any thing, but in order that the wealth that is created hereafter by his labor shall re main with himsolf and with his own fam ily. (Applause.) The accusation that these laboring men have a desire to con fiscate property is slanderous. They neither want nor demand anything of the kind, nor is the party in whose inter ests this club is formed striving to do anything but to erect barriers against syndicates and trusts and thieves who want to rob labor of its earnings. A man may say: "I am an humble man; I live out here on a little ranch. Nobody knows me, and I don't know anybody." That is nothing. If you will rise up and assert your manhood you can help to revolutionize your neigh bor ana this city, and this you must do before any good can be accomplished in your interest. Now, the party that I have the honor to belong to, the people's party, is the party of the common people. Christ called very few nobles, very few wealthy men. bo the people's party has within its ranks very few of the nobility, as no bility is counted now-a-days. They have God's aristocracy, for Christ said: Blessed are the poor." We have the aristocracy of Christ. (Applause.) We have no objection to the aristocracy, we do not exclude anybody, but we are not seeking them. We are like the Dutchman who was asked what his poli tics was.. He answered, "My politics is 50 cents a' bushel for mine grain and swei glass lager beer for 5 cents He says, "I mean business," and that is what we mean, business. If you will help us, the people's party intends to take charge of this government, and if we don t conduct it alter we take charge of it better than the democratic party has done in the last four years, we will quit. (Laughter.) We will not have the gall to ask you to keep us in any longer. If we do not stop this decline in prices, and stop business failures and give you better times for the laboring and busi ness men, I authorize you to say that, so far as Weaver is concerned, the peo ple's party is disbanded. Now let the coyotes that have been yelping at General Weaver's heels or wearing out their throats and toes howl ing and kicking, get out and make a few speeches like this, and the rest of us will be more inclined to listen to them. Another Eminent Popnlist. Monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at as a possible refuge from'.the power of the people. In my present position, I could scarcely be justified were I to omit raising a warning voice against this ap proach of returning despotism. It is not needed nor fitting here that a general ar gument should be made in favor of pop ular institutions; but there is one point with its connections not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capi tal on an equal footing with, if not above labor, in the structure of govern ment. It is assumed that labor is avail able only in connection with capital, that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. Labor is prior to and thus independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty; none less inclined to take or touch ought which they have not honestly earned. Let thtm beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which, if sur rendered, will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they, and to fix new disabilities or bur dens upon them till all liberty shall be lost." Message of Abraham Lincoln to congress, Dec 1861. Appendix Congres sional Globe, 37th congress, 2d session, page 4. Editor Join Forces. On Tuesday, June 2, 1896, at the New York Life building, Minneapolis, there will be an important meeting of the free silver, people's party, and reform press of the state of Minnesota, to organize for the campaign so as to work together in the great battle of November. The Honorable Thieves. The house of representatives has done another reprehensible act, that of voting each member f 100 per month for a clerk during the time congress is not in ses sion. What on earth congressmen need a clerk for when not working, ia more than, we can understand, and just why a congressman is allowed a clerk at any time is more than most men can see. NOW AN OPEN SECRET. Certificates and not Cash in the State Treasury. ANXIETY OF REPUBLICAN FICIALS. OF- The Next Treasurer Must Stand in With the Gang or There will be a Burst up. Idiotic Financial Management of Kepub lican Legislatures. Lincoln, Neb., May 19, 1896 lditob Independent: It is an open secret that the present state treasurer is maneuvering to name his own successor, This is openly charged by some republi, can papers. The interest of the presen incumbent in securing a friendly success or is easily surmised. It is the same that which caused the board of educa- tional lands and funds to refuse by a vote of three to two to invest the idle $ 600,000 of permanent school funds in state securities drawing five per cent, in terest. The question is pertinent "have these funds been deposited or loaned where they are not available for such in vestment?" The outgoingtreasurer may need an incoming one who will accept cer tinea tea of deposit on banks that may or may not be solvent, and thus shift losses to the taxpayers as in the Hill Mosher case. The struggle in the repub lican state convention will be on this line and that convention will be controlled, as to the office of treasurer at least, by bankers who have state funds on deposit and no man need hope to be nominated for that office who will not pledge him self to accept and carry doubtful collater als for large amounts. A system of state financiering that not only permits, but encourages and sustains the perpetra tion 01 such outrages on the people, is pernicious and most assuredly ought to be abolished. Whether 1 his system was originally devised in the interest of bank ers and speculating state officials mat ters not, such interests it has alv,;itys been made to serve.'' Let me repeat that money raised by tax ought to be paid back to the people for services rendered. or applied on their corporate obligations as fast as collected. No accumulation of any considerable sums of money in the hands of officials ought to be permitted or possible. This would reduce the li ability of bondsmen, and losses to the people, to the minimum. Lack of sym pathy for the suffering bondsmen would permit the prosecution of defaulters and rascais by wnom public lunds are now "legally" lost through deposits and loans. The treasurer of Nebraska gives bonds in the sum of $2,000,000 furnished by the bankers of the state in consideration of which cheap money is furnished the bankers by the people through their state treasurer. In smaller degree a sim ilar consideration exists in the several counties of the state, and bondsmen have been known to deed away their property and hiregreat lawyers to void and avoid their legal liabilities as guarantors. rne cunningly devised scheme of "sep arate funds; general, sinking, road etc., is the basis of the evil complained of. Under this plan funds will accumulate under the administration of an honest official, because there can be but partial disbursement of the amount . paid in taxes by a single individual. The several funds must be credited their proper por tion and the disbursement must come from one of these funds; Hence a bal ance remains in each fund for future de mands on that funds. But a cute and successful man in charge who can fail to find any money credited to the fund drawn on, will in a short time accumu late a fund large enough to start a bank or open a store even in oneof our sparce- ly settled western counties.' 1 he treas urer of the city of Lincoln carries in banks from $25,000 to f 50,000; Lan caster county treasurer, from $ 150,000 to $ 200,000 and our state treasurer from $1,000,000 to $1,500,000. The grocer who would divide each day's sales into the separate funds from which, derived, as sugar fund, flour fund eta, and refuse to pay bills except as de rived from like funds, would at best be thought a crank. Suould the burglar capture, or the banker fail and the grocer lose the funds he refused to pay out, he would be classed as an idiot. But should he use this device, (division of; funds as a pretext to keep from paying his bills when due he would justly be called a knave and a rogue and denied credit among honorable men. Yet our coun ties and our state pursue a policy not unlike this and one subject to all the criticisms named from , the crank te the rogue and the knave, and no effort has ever been made to reform or change the system. . Like Secretary Carlisle who with mil lions of idle money in the national vaults refuses to pay demands on the treasury in lawful money but borrows of a foreign syndicate and changes non-interest'-bear-ing obligations into interest-bearing bonds, so our state officials, who with hundreds of thousands of idle money which cannot be used, make forced loans on the people by converting non-interest bearing claims into interest bearing war- rents, which they refuse to buy with other idle funds and thus save the inter est at least to the taxpayers of the state. "Stand up for Nebraska." P. Whoop the Tariff. Neosho, Mo., May 17, 1896. Editor Independent: Please find in closed post office ; order for which enter my subscription accordingly and change the address from Beatrice, Nebraska to Neosho, Mo. I have just moved here, therefore will iose my vote tnis tail, xt makes me a little hot when 1 think of a Dago from Italy going to Nebraska and voting on his first papers in six months, and I move"" here from Nebraska and have to stay a year to gain my citizenship not withstanding I gave three of the best years of my life to the service of the country, and that my ancestors fought in tne revolution. uut then whoop up the tariff a little higher and that wili fix those foreigners. I must change at least two votes here in Missouri to even up for losing mine, and I need the Independent to help me in the Lord's work. So please Bend her along as soon as possible. And here's to W. V. Allen hoping he will be the next president of the United States. Yours for the right, J. P. Wesleb. Clem baaver Declined. , . Omaha, Feb., May 13, 1896. Editor Independent: With .your kind permission I would like to make a statement to the voters of our party. Sometime ago it was suggested to me by my friends from different parts of the state, that I be a candidate for one of the three delegates at large, to the St, Louis convention, and as 1 like any other person, felt flattered at the prof fered honor, I thought to make the race. 1 have since learned that Hon. J. A Edgerton, chairman of the state commit tee, is being put forward by his friends who are my friends as well as a candi date for one of the three places. Now as Mr. idgerton represents the younger ele- mont of the party, and the other two should, and in all probability will be our senator and governor. I wish to hereby thank my many friends who have proffered me their support, and with draw from theraceasadelegate-atlarge. Give us the principles of the Omaha plat form and a candidate in full accord with the platform. . D. Clem Deaveh. HE GOT TIRED. Cockrell Swears He Will not Stay in And Fight for Gold, Washington, D. C, May 18, 1896. ' Representative Cockrell, of Texas, who has for a long time been a member of the House, and who is a brother of Sen ator Cockrell of Missouri has written a letter to the people of his district in Tex as declining to be the democratic candi date for congcess unless he is nominated with the understanding that he will not vote for the nominee of the democratic convention for president if that nominee is a gold bug or a straddle bug. He says that he is determined to be free to do what he thinks is right and best for his people irrespective of party. In clos ing his letter be says: "The gold standard once recognized by law and backed by the wealth ot the world nothing short of a bloody revolu tion could wipe it out and bring relief to an overburdened people. The people must tane a stand lor their liberties. 1, for one, am tired of parading under a democratic banner which has been so foully besmirched by men who claimed to be democrats, but who are agents of the British gold trust. ' OH! GIVE U3 THE TARIFF, Keep the Pauper Potato Raisers out. In the last issue of the representative' Donnelly says: We want the whole world to under stand that we have seven hundred bush els of first-class potatoes, and that we cannot sell them for one cent a bushel, or in fact for anything; and that we are raising a lot more to pile on top of them. "We want theMclunley tariff asrainl We must have it. If we don't get it the pauper labor of "Yurrup" will rush in a flood of potatoes and undersell our po tatoes! Horrible thought! They will sell their tubers for half what we can get for ours which is nothing! One-half of nothing! who can raise potatoes, in com petition with the pauper labor of "Yur- rup," and seii them for one-hail of noth- ngf It can t be did. For God s sake bring on your tariff on a clean plate. We want John Judas Carlisle to come along and comfort us with the informa tion that the purchasing power of the dollar was never so great as it is today; and that the purchasing power of the po tato was never so little; but that the money lenders do not deal in potatoes and so we are all happy. ' We would like John Judas to come into our celiar and deliver an oration on this subject over them potatoes." We have a club that would just about fit into John's cranial bumps, and iwe would only want one good whack at him: and we would cover up the remains with potatoes, and use the whole mess to manure our fields next year, and raise more potatoes under the single gold standard!" lo show that Mr. Donnelly is not un duly exagerating the condition among the farmers, we append a price list published in the papers of the day. "Potatoes are selling on the wholsale market here at as low as one cent a bushel for Early Rose Varieties, the low est price ever known in the history of this great potato belt. Prices for other varieties are as follows: Kings. 2 cents bushel; Hebrons, 3 cents a bushel, and Burbanks, 5 cents a bushel. Farmers are spreading their potatoes on their farms as fertilizers." Now let some old republican farmer sit down and comfort himself with the gold bug aphorism, "the best money is the money of the greatest purchasing power. Dominion of Man. We have an account of God's creations and tbey were land air, water and all animal and vegetable life, and over all these things man was given dominion not money or corporations. Judge H. C. Caldwell. TAUBENECK SPEAKS Warns the People Against the Asso ciated Press Liars. NO SINGLE PLANK WANTED. There Will be no Surrender and no Fusion with Old Parties. Populists Will Make Their Own Plat form and Name Their Own Candidate. The following is a letter written by Chairman Taubeneck to the editor of the Joliet (III.) News, iu reply to an in quiry regarding a fake dispatch recently Bent out from Indianapolis; ' Charles H. Ferris, Joliet, III. My Dear Sir: Yours of the 20th inst. enclosing clipping fron the Chicago Record, con o taining press dispatch from Indianapolis, dated May 19, giving what is supposed to be the proceedings of a conference be tween the Indiana populists, bimetallisms and silver democrats, received yesterday. In reply will state that so far as head quarters and the national comraitte are concerned, there is not one word of truth iu the report It is a deliberate falsehood from beginning to end. If Indiana pop ulists have gone into a combination of this kind, they have not taken any one in other states into their confidence. No Eopulist, bimetallist or silver democrat as ever mentioned a single word to me about a combination, as stated in the dispatch. ; , You must accept, with much allowance. anything that comes from Indianapolis. Twice before, and within the last year, nave late statements and dispatches, in which populists have figured, emenated from that city. I repeat, as I have a hundred times before, that no union of the reform forces can ever be perfected in either of the old parties. 1 have spent too much "time and labor to get people to leave the old parties and 1 shall not advise them to go back regardless of what their respective parties may do. Fopulist editors and populists in gen eral must realize that we can not con trol the columns of the old party press, We have no way to prevent them from publishing false statements. Anything that appears along those lines, especially now when there seems to be a break-up in the ranks of the old parties, must be accepted with much allowance. It mat ters not what the democratic party may do at Chicago, or what the bimetallists may do at St. Louis, or whether they meet us at all; the people's party will hold a national convention July 22d, mate a platform and nominate candi dates for president and vice president. Our convention will be ' controlled by populists, and whatever, is done at that convention will be the work of the rep resentatives of the people's party elected by the members of that party through out the United States. This report from Indianapolis, in re gard to the populists indorsing the nom inees of the Chicago convention, is on a par with the statement made about a one plank platform, or a single silver plank platform. There isn't a populist in the United States, so far as 1 know, who has ever advocated a one-plank platform, still less a single silver plank platform. I never did, and do not now, favor such a platform. It is no credit to a gentleman or a populist paper to misrepresent the views of others. The talk of selling out, con trolling state conventions and state del egates, is a downright insult to every populist in the land. As though popu lists could be persuaded to do something against their convictions! It is humil iating to the people's party to have pop ulist papers publish such nonsense. If I had no better opinion of the average populist than these papers express I would certainly give up the contest as hopeless. I know the populists are hon est and at our national convention they will do that which is best for the party and our country. Every populist in the United States has a right to express his opinion as to what the platform should contain. He also has a right to work and vote to select delegates who will rep resent his views in the national conven tion. Anything short of this means to throttle free thought and free speech. The delegates to the national conven tion will do that which is best for the party and our country as the conditions confront us in 1896. That is, they will do that which it best for , the people's party, and not for either of the old parties. Whether the silver organiza tions throughout the United States meet n. e. tacbenecx. risi with as at St. Louis or not, will not in the slightest degree deter us from pursu ing the same course as though tbey had not called a convention for the same date and place as ours. Nor will the people's party ever surrender the principle that the government alone has the right to issue all money, whether it ia gold, silver or paper, and that all money must be a full legal tender and not redeemable in coiu. Let the populists throughout the United States elect good, honest, true, cool and deliberate men aa dele gates to the national convention, and we need not have the slightest fear aa to the result . The people's party, at its national convention, will take care of itself re gardless of what the democrats may do at Chicago. I have no time to enter in to a controversy with any member ot our party; no good can result from this. Dissension in our ranks ia the laat argu ment to win recruits. I am anxious that our national convention shall be a suc cess in uniting all the elements opposed to present conditions. We need every voter who is dissatisfied with the old parties. I repeat again, that so far as the national committee is concerned, this report from Indianapolis is a delib erate falsehood, manufactured for the purpose of creating dissension in our ranks. And, if it does create anv dissen sion, the populists will be responsible for it. We ought not to let these reports in terfere with what isour duty toward our country. Nothing would suit the repub licans and democrats so well as dissen sion in our ranks; especially now when they know we will receive a large follow ing from their ranks in the south and west. Yours for our cause. H.B. Taubeneck. THE OLD MOSSBACKS. Tbey try to Keep us at the Tail end of Civilization. The gold bugs of this country are de termined that the United States shall eternally tag at the tail end of civiliza tion side by side with the pig tailed Chinese. Every nation either owes or controls its railways except the United States and China, - while the mossback old tories raise a howl every time a pop ulist sugests that we should at least try to keep step with the advancement of the age. Once in a while' one of the mow backs gets an idea into his head. Such seems to be the case with the New Orleans Picayune. It says: "In Australia you can ride a distance of 1,000 miles across the country for $6.50 first class, while workingmen can ride six mile for two cents, twelve miles for four cents, thirty miles for ten cents, and railroad men receive from twenty five to thirty per cent more wages for eight hours work than tbey are paid in this country for ten hours. In Victoria, where these rates prevail, the net income for the roads is sufflcint to pay all tho fed eral taxes. In Hungary where the roads are state owned, you can ride ail miles , for one cent and since the roads were bought by the government the men's wages have doubled. Belgium tells the same same story fares and freight rates cut down one-half and wages doubled. Yet the roads pay a yearly revenue to the government of $4,000,000. In Germany you can ride four miles for one cent on the government owned lines, Yet the wages are over 125 per cent, higher than tbey were when the corporations owned tbem and during the last ten years the net profits have increased 41 per cent. Last year the roads paid the German government a net profit of $25,000,000. People who favor the government owner ship of railroads claim that if our gov ernment owned the railroads we could go to San Francisco from Boston for $10. Here is the proof: The United States pays the railroads not quite $275 to trans port a loaded postal car from Boston to San Francisco. A passenger car will carry fifty passengers, which, at $10 each, would be $500 a clear profit of $225 per car, and this, too, after paying 5 per cent, on watered stock, which is fully 100 per cent, on the cost of the road. ' ihese figures are taken from a reliable source." Senator Kyle's Idea. It is folly when our welfare and that of our children is involved to argue for a generation and split ourselves into a dozen factions because we cannot agree as to all the planks that should be em bodied in national and state platforms. Five hundred reforms can be named, all of which are good, but it would take a century to unite all the people if they were embraced in one platform. Our efforts must be directed toward union. Both state and national platforms must be short and decisive and yet in- clnde the fundamental isssues. In my judgment it uld be well to confine our state campaign to the financial question, including: 1. h ree silver, a declaration against the issue of bonds, the issue of a paper currency by the government direct and in sufficient volume to bring our circula tion to $40 per capita. z. Ihe transportation question. Rig id control of railroads and other corpor ations, with government ownership of trans-continental lines. 3. An honest, clean administration of state affairs. Senator Kyle. A Few Finanaial Facts. This excellent book by S. S. King con tains 60 illustrative diagrams showing clearly the misfortunes that have come to the people, the causes that produce them and the remedy that will remove them. A large number of copies have been furnished to the Nebraska Silver League which they will sell in order to raise money tor postage at one half the regular price. Send 25 cents and get two copies. Address Secretary of silver league, 1122 M street, Lincoln, Nebraska. A a. :i:fo.rtU.lVI,1.-.,