Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1890 — IN SPITE OF CLARKSON. [ARTICLE]

IN SPITE OF CLARKSON.

MR. LEONARD BROWN, OF lOWA, IS OBDURATE. Specious Casuistry Wasted by the Postoffice Mogul on a Dissentient from the Infamous Legislative Enactments Proposed by-the Republicans. [Des Moines Cor. Chicago Herald. 1 Some interesting correspondence showing the trend of public sentiment away from the Republican party in lowa has just been published here. The first letter is from First Assistant Postmaster General James S. Clarkson, written to Leonard Brown, of this city, remonstrating with the latter gentleman because he had denounced the Harrison administration for its autocratic tendencies, and the Republicans in Congress for defeating the free coinage of silver and for urging the passage of the Lodge force bill. Mr. Brown is a prominent figure in lowa among the industrial classes. He is a writer of force upon industrial questions, and an orator of rare power and genius. Clarkson recognized his strength when he took him East in the Presidential campaign and kept him on the stump continuously all the time in the doubtful States. Fully aware of what effect his defection will have on the Republican party, Mr. Clarkson has written him a letter full of flattering allusions and praise of that organization. He begs Mr. Brown, when he raises his hand and voice to strike at President ' Harrison, “to remember that he had a boyhood of poverty; that the best blood of America came down to him through men who proved their patriotism in every time of the country’s need; that he went to the war for the Union and offered his life; that he has remained poor despite his large legal practice and his public office —he is notworth 810,000 to-day.” But Leonard Brown is obdurate and fails to be convinced by Mr. Clarkson’s pathetic appeal. He quotes from Mr. Clarkson’s own paper a serious indictment of the reigning powers at Washington, wherein it is charged that the creditor class control legislation and that the executive officers of the administration are in line with this policy, interpreting the statutes to the extreme limit in that direction. He then contends that the free coinage of silver was demanded by the platforms of all the political parties, and was defeated in Congress by the threat of a Presidential veto. With regard to the poor peoplp of the South and the Lodge election bill, Mr. Brown says: We are treading on dangerous ground when we would take the ballot lx>x out of the hands of the people. Capital menaces labor to-day. The capitalist who has be3ome a millionaire cares nothing for the rights of labor. He cares nothing for the rights of the poor man. He' cares nothing for American liberty. That is the rule, to which, to the honor of human nature, there have been and are glorious exceptions. But the love of money is still the “root of all evil.” It Is true that the “less than a quarter of a million of persons” who practically “own the American Republic” own the courts, own Congress and the President. Our government to-day obeys implicitly the commands of the rich men. and is deaf to the voice of the people. The petitions of the toiling millions, white and black, go unregarded. Under the pretext of “protecting Industry,” it enriches the few. Under the pretext of “paying off the public debt,” it pillages the Treasury, buying in its own obligations at 127 per cent., thus making a present of hundreds of millions of dollars to millionaire bond owners, until, after twenty years, the amount of our national debt — though 60 per cent, of it has already been paid—measured by thenumberof days’ work, bushels of wheat, bales of cotton and barrels of pork that would be required to pay it, is as niuch now as it was in 1868. This accursed policy has resulted in piling upon the fa-rms of the Mississippi Valley mortgages amounting, according to General Butler, to 54.500.00C.0U0 and reducing prices of farm products below the cost of production. Under the pretext of “Increasing the currency,” it stops the coinage of silver, creates a money “as good as gold” to the usurers, but that will not pay a mortgage debt “when otherwise especially stipulated” in the mortgage, which is already being done by the loan and trust companies, and opens the way for indefinite currency contraction by “booming” the price of silver to where it was prior to 1860, above par with gold. Under the pretext of “preserving and protecting the freedom of . the ballot” it aims at the destruction of popular liberty by taking the ballot-box from under the control and supervision of the people and placing it under the control and supervision of irresponsible agents of an irresponsible power in the election of a Federal President and representatives, placing the nation above the States, as England is above Ireland, centering the powers of government in a junta of dictators for life and destroying the power of the people. The Lodge bill is a bad law. It is the culmination of a series of bad laws. It is the dagger plunged into the heart of the American republic—not accidentally but designedly—the result of a conspiracy of plutocracy to destroy democratic liberty. It is tfae winding up of American liberty and the inauguration of an autocratic and plutocratic despotism. Before I will see the ballot-box wrenched from the hands of the trustees elected by the town meeting and handed over to the tender “gdardianship” of United States marshals, appointed by a for-life-appolnted “supervisor,” appointed by a for-life-appointed judge, appointed by a President elected at a “supervised” election, I will give up willingly my life upon the scaffold as Sir Henry Vane did his. as Sir Walter Raleigh did his, as Robert Emmet did his. 1 love my country as intensely as did Warren, so I believe. 1 love the flag of my country with as deep a fervor as did Jasper, so I fondly think; but “loyalty io the Government and the flag” will cease in my heart the moment the bal-lot-box has been wrenched by Federal usurpation from the hands of the people. As Jeremiah mourned the lost liberties of Judea, so would I mourn over my ruined country. But before I put on sackcloth I will fight. Like Kosciusko on the ramparts of Warsaw, I will do battle against the despot. I would take down the old flint-lock musket from over my cabin door that my great-grandfather, Daniel Brown, carried in the revolutionary war, and with which, under Stark, in the ranks of the New Hampshire mllitip, hefought the British at Bunker Hill, and I would rebel against this accursed tyranny and fight for my freedom till I die. If the star-spangled banner is to become the emblem of this kind of usurpation I would trample the stars and stripes under my feet as our fathers did the British flag when it became the emblem of their oppression. If the whites and the blacks cannot harmonize their interests and live together in peace, the history of the Indian on this continent will be repeated in that of the negro. But their Interests are in harmony and the two races will live together In peace if let alone. Extend, then, dear Mr. Clarkson, the great confidence and'faith you have in msn to the Southern white people. “A lover of fairplay and a believer In human nature,” believe that our white Christian brethren of the South “are growing better all the time” in their feelings toward their former slaves, as time's effacing fingers are rapidly wiping out the prejudices of the past, reconciling the people to the “new order of things;” so that the revolution that was of force is becoming Intellectual; which it must be to be permanent and worthy the name of revolution. Believe that our fellow-countrymen intend to ba good. They are our kinsmen. You have near relatives in the sunny South, no 4cuU; so have I. What, then, will we do

by our kindred In the southland? Why, let | them attend to their own concerns while we i attend to ours. Beware! Let not the stealthy, i cunning enemy, the money power, under the | specious pretext cf “protecting the blacks in their right to vote” rob the American ' people of free government, guaranteed by , the Declaration of Independence of 1776. i We of the North cannot “solve the race i problem” for the people of the South by , means of coercion. We may help them by : words fitly spoken. Those most vitally as- | fected can alone solve the problem.