People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 April 1893 — The New Road Law. [ARTICLE]

The New Road Law.

How much longer will this monopoly ridden, usury eaten, and rum soaked civilization last, is the uppermost thought in the minds of all true patriots. Bend your backs, farmers, work yourselves and wives almost to death to produce something, and by the time it is done these fellows that rise at nine o’-clock in the morning will have a scheme that will beat you out of it. All last year grain dealers said, “were it not for the Hatch bill, grain would be much higher.” The Hatch bill was hilled and grain fell about five cents per bushel. Throw in your hooks, plates, the waters are alive with gudgeons. Each day that the sun shines, board of trade thieves estimate the amount of stealing that will come to them out of your hard earnings and they’ll get it sure as long as you vote for a cheroot at the dictation of some , uckleg lawyer or bank thief political roustabout. If asked to name the four great wrongs in our government, we would say, Ist, the ovils found in our monetary system; find, the liquor traffic; 3rd, the granting to corporations for speculative purposes, the exercise of public functions; 4th, the violation of God's law and man’s right in our land system. CorIrect these aud you hasten the d ly of the Lord.

Heretofore the farmer looked to the opening of the lake navigation for a reduction of freights, but in the year of our Lord 1893 Vanderbilt and his English allies step in and buy up the lake tonnage and up goes freights and the farmers with them. That would be sad, indeed, were it not that you got to vote the old parly ticket last fall. You can well afford to have your fool heads and necks broken for that glorious privilege.

Say voter, have you done your duty when you received from your father a government of equal rights to all and special privileges to none, and delivered to your son, one owned and ruled by monopoly, where the people were systematically plundered by law*? What say you, you hidebound party slave, that v*ould sooner enslave your wife and children than forego the pleasure of gratifying party hate. “I have read your People's Party platform, and it is all right, but—” Stop right there, for we have more patience with almost any one else than the fellow who admits the right and v. ants to answer us with a “but.” Vi e now ask, doesn't the experience of all ages count for something. isn’t our grand educational institutions and a free press groat helps; hasn’t every principle formulated by the People’s party been successfully carried out by governments, though not ail by one government., and as we have done many' things that no other peoplo ever did, is it juot possible that we may give practical shape to all these ideas and lead the world in these as we have in other matters. So keep your “but” to yourself and give us your vote and let us i r what you concede to be the! . right

We are now within a couple of weeks of the World’s Fair opening and no rate other than the regular one has been made by the railways. Nothing could more completely illustrate how these thoroughfares dominate congress and all our state legislatures than the fact that the rapacity of these thieving corporations is not to be disturbed. I The truth is, they own our congress and state legislatures, I body and boots. And yet when people of brains talk of government ownership and operation of railways, a purchased press and all the flyblown political hacks shout it would be too much power in the hands of the government. Just as though it isn’t as much power in the hands of the railroads to own and run the government as it would be for the government to own and ran the railroads. Where is the difference in the power? We know where the difference would be in the pay.

It is the belief of many papers and people that senatorsVoorhees and Vest have changed their positions on the silver question.' These two gentlemen have been the strongest, champions of silver on the democratic side of the senate, and strange as it may now seem, they stand first in influence with an anti-silver administration. So far, Mr. Voorhees has had but to say to Mr. Cleveland, this man must go here and that man there, and lo! they have gone. Voorhees is ch airinam of the senate finance committee and so evenly.is it divided between gold and silver, that Vest, who is also a member of the committee, lolds the decisive and controlling vote; these two men, Voorhees and Vest, can do more for or more against silver than any other two men in the United States. It is said that to win these two senators to his silver plans the president has given them their own way in the matter of government appointments.

If this be true, it is surely a deal that is not at all creditable to any of the contracting parties. Can we believe that Senator Voorhees would barter away his conviction on so important a question, for political and family advantages? He has always claimed to be a free-silver mau. The first speech ho made in the U. S. Senate was for the remonitization of silver. When here four years ago. he told us he was a first cousin to the Greenback party. He has ever tried to pose as the friend of, and believer in the increase of currency, and now, when he is in a position to carry his long acknowledged convictions into actual practice, he backs down, sells out, and joins the crowd he has denounced on every stump in the state. Such a political Summersault, such a radical and miraculous conversion, Mr. Voorhees, will retire you to private life, a despised and disgraced old man.

Can we believe the president would be so short-sighted, so intriguing and dishonest as to be a party to such a deal as. this? If Mr. Cleveland is honest in the financial doctrines he mdvocates, if he wishes to lead the people to his way of thinking, and thereby make his ideal monitary system the adopted system of his government, he must not trade offices for votes. We trust that this is a wron o, o idea the press has formed, for wdyvpuld very much regret to see odr president and senators dealing and dickering in such a disgraceful manner. However much we have differed from Mr. Cleveland, politically, we have never regarded him as a frivolous, narrow-minded, tricky politician, seeking by intrigue, barter, and bluff to carry his ends. If he is actually in the deal as some of his party papers sent him, he is not the mgin we have always taken him to be,

Mr. Cleveland is surely smart enough to know that his party can not be strengthened, nor his financial principles be applied in national affairs, by such a dishonest course; we are not yet ready to say that the president is “swapping” offices for votes or that he is a party to this silly, wicked deal.

Goodland Herald. The new road law as passed by the last general assembly is substantially as follows: Upon petition of at least fifty voters in any township or townships contiguous to each other, including therein any incorporated town or city of less than 3,000 population, a vote may be taken upon the construction of free gravel, stone or macadamized roads at the next spring or fall elections called for the purpose. Twenty days’ notice must be given in the newspapers or by posting notices. If a majority of the votes cast are in favor of the building of the road the com r missioners shall proceed to the building, but not otherwise. The construction must be awarded to the lowest bidder, and the bidders shall file a bond in twice the sum of their bids. For the raising of funds the commissioners shall issue the bonds of the county for the full amount of the contract in bonds of not less than *2OO, payable in one, two, three, four and five years, with interest at not more than 6 per cent. The bonds shall be sold at not less than face value, and the proceeds to be set aside for use in the construction of the particular road for which they were issued. A special tax shall be levied to liquidate the maturing bonds and to pay the interest on the uumatured bonds. If any money be left after the construction of the road it shall be kept for the purpose of keeping the road in repair.