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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (April 28, 1894)
&. p- - -' v i ui tiJ:'-'-r-' 4 .-' '.. v : aVOL. 9. No. 20. LINCOLN, NEB., SATURDAY, APRIL, 28, 1894. PRICE FIVE CENTS. THE COXEY ARMIES. PANDERING demagogues of politics and the press make capital of the Coxey movement. "" Fools, anarchists and frauds unite in upholding a movement ' founded on idiocy and fostered by fanaticism. The cause of labor is Baid to be involved in the outcome of the Coxey demonstration, and politic newspaper proprietors and public men dare not express their honest opinions. Kelley's army invaded Omaha and Council Bluffs and the Bee and the World-Herald quailed before the legions of "unemployed' and cringed to the foolhardy leaders. Mrs. Peattie, the bright writer of the World-Herald, covered the cause with sentiment and the soldiers with sympathy, aud paid tribute to a movement that can result in no good. In this city the Netcs, always ready to pander to the clamoring protagonists of disorder and misrule, and prone to wail the wail of demagoguery, takes up the cause of the army and encourages a movement that is a growing menace to the prosperity of the nation, and that threatens the cause of good government. Cheap demagogues are blowing loud the horns of a procession that is marching on to Washington and stopping the wheels of industry and spreading the spirit of outlawry and anarchy abroad in the nation. The railroads and the daily newspapers are chiefly responsible for the spread of the Coxey movement the railroads for furnishing free transportation, or allowing their trains to be "seized," the news papers for magnifying the movement and pandering to the element that produces the "soldiers."' Both Omaha newspapers declared that 2,000 men from Omaha marched across the bridge to Council Bluffs Jast Saturday. A repre sentative of The Courier saw the procession, and there were exactly 387 men by actual count. Kelley's army of 1,300 to 1,600 men, really consists, or did consist when it left Council Bluffs, of about GOO, all told. If the railroad companies had exhibited the same firmness at the commencement of the demonstration that they have since, Kelley's army and theother armies would have made little progress, and there would have been small inducement to organize new armies. If the newspapershad not fanned the flame and excited thepublic, interest and enthusiasm would soon have waned. Newspapers of the Neics stripe denounce those who do not sym pathize with the "industrial' army project as monopolists, plutocrats, enemies of labor, and many other choice things, and Governor Jack son and others who have attempted to protect property and preserve order are declared to be all that is bad. Let us see how much sympathy this movement deserves. Take, for instance, Kelley's army. General Kelley deliberately threw up a permanent and and lucrative position to lead a band of malcontents. Many of the "soldiers" quit work to follow Kelley, and adventurers and tramps by the score joined the army. The army secured transportation and reached Council Bluffs, where the men remained several days in idleness, demanding to be fed by the people of Omaha and Council Bluffs. And when this army of several hundred idle men were encamped on the western border of Iowa the farmers of Iowa and Nebraska were looking in vain for field laborers. One soldier who was approached by our representative and asked if he could not obtain work, said: "Oh. yes, I could get work easy enough, and I think every man in the army could get work in twenty-four hours; but that isn't what we are after. We represent a much greater body of idle men, and we want work for everybody. The soldiers with Kelley for the most part are adventures who flocked to California to work the mid-winter fair, and who are glad to avail themselves of any means to get back east again. The march ing business with plenty of good food is a Bnap. A state official of Iowa offered to find work on farms for every member of the army who would promise to work and keep at it. George W. Holdrege, manager of the B. &. M. railroad company, offered to give immediate employment to 100 men, and to put 500 ad ditional men at work in a few days. To this invitation to work there were no volunteers. The soldiers were evidently enlisted for glory and not for work. The farmers of Iowa and Nebraska have more work than they can do. There is a good home and profitable labor on these farmB for every man in the two states now out of employment, and for several thousand more besides. Meanwhile the "unemployed" parade the streets of cities and hold mass meetings and resolve to turn the earth upside down. And is it to be supposed that an army of bedraggled men in the streets of the nation's capital will force legislators to enact chimer ical measures, and turn the republic over to the socialists? No good can come of hare brained schemes of misguided enthusiasts like Cox ey and Kelley. If the armies of the unemployed were to march on to the' farms of the country and the millions of acres of good land that have never been tilled and honestly seek work, instead of banding together and proceeding to Washington with a display of mock heroism, much more good would be accomplished. Very few men can withold sympathy or assistance from the deserv ing, and there is nothing more pitiable or affecting than the spec tacle of real poverty and suffering in this land of plenty. Probably those persons that are most severely abused for their hard hearted ness and their disapproval of the Coxey manifestation would do a great deal more to relieve genuine suffering then the trumpet blow ers of the press and other persons who profess to be deeply affected by the plight of the industrial army. Government is not a charity organization society. It cannot meet the demands of the fanatics, and even those who are genuinly deserv ing can not obtain immediate relief from it in the way of money and food. Hence it is folly for the unemployed to congregate in Wash ington, where each new arrival will make the situation more embar rassing. What will happen when the men finally reach the capitol cannot be foreseen. Peffer and Allen have done much to draw the army to Washington, and these gentlemen who sympathize so deeply with Coxey might very appropriately each donate his year's salary, $5,000, to the cause. Word comes from all quarters that the neatest and most satisfac tory dye for coloring the beard a brown or black is Buckingham's Dye for the Whiskers. You should use care in selecting your ice this year. Lincoln Ice Co., 1040 O street. Go to the-