People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1893 — Our Plea. [ARTICLE]

Our Plea.

To bring prosperty to the country something more than a change of office-holders is necessary. Harrison out and Cleveland in, but the change can affect no one except the man who gains or loses an office. To what extent the decapitation of postmasters has increased the price of agricultural products is not clear to the farmer. The baldheaded and shallowpated commissioner’s court of Carpenter township doesn’t talk as glibly of bucking Judge Wiley’s court as formerly. Plutocracy wants one dollar and forty cents for every dollar of debt evidence it posesses, and brands as repudiators and scoundrels all those who insist on their right to pay their debts with dollars of the same value as those in which the debts were created.

John Jerkwater Ingalls repeats that old chestnut that a dollar will buy more now of the necessaries of life than at any former period. If we were largely a nation of buyers there would be sense in the statement, but as we sell a great deal more than we buy, one must be a plutocrat to realize the advantage of it.

To carry on the affairs of the county for ’92, our commissioners claimed they aimed to put the county levies so as to get $25,000. This sum they thought sufficient to meet all necessary county expenses, but through the operations of the new tax law the 45 cent levy brought into our county treasury for county purposes $30,632, or in other words brought $5,632 more money than wanted. Now, being $5,632 ahead and taking it that $25,000 was enough to run the county in ’92, and that ’93

should require no more money than the commissioners thought would be needed for last year; our county tax should be $10,000 less this year than last. This year we will pay $27,887 county tax, add to this sum, if the fee and salary law stands, the amount turned over to the county by the recorder and sheriff, and we will have a county fund of, perhaps, $30,000. Had our county tax been reduced, as it should have been, it would not have been over $20,000 this year. With the $5,632 extra, collected last year, added to a $20,000 tax this year, ample means would have been furnished to meet all necessary county expenses. Newton county, with more taxable property than Jasper, managed last year to run county business on $20,474; Pulaski, with a million dollars less property than Jasper, got along last year with a county tax of $15,993. Poor, little, sandy Starke ran its county business last year on $25,526. Several, yes, many, counties of the state last year managed county affairs on $15,000, $14,000, $13,000 and even as low as $7,814. Why is this? How is this? What have we done that we should be treated as we are? Is it a crime to be a citizen of Jasper county? Do we not deserve as good treatment from our county officials as the people of

Newton, Pulaski and seventyfive other counties of the state do from theirs? We do not want to be guilty of complaining without a cause, but when we compare our county with other counties we think we see something wrong. When we pay our tax we know something hurts.

The problem of legislation is one of increasing importance in the American States from more than one point of view. The average legislature meets at least every two years. This means a flood of laws, good and bad, to be perpetuated upon an unsuspecting public, which takes little interest in the outcome of the majority of acts. It is only the occasional bill that arouses public attention from its general lethargy upon the question of laws. The very profusion of American state legislation is an evil in itself. Measures are rushed through at lightning speed, read by titles and as a result the next session must either repeal or amend. The bills introduced in an assembly of the usual state legislature will show not less than six hundred and often upwards of a thousand.

As a consequence of this prolific offshoot of American legislative genius our legislation is done principally in committees. Here is the lobbyist, the politician’s paradise. Here corporate power exerts its' influence. The usual legislative body is a mediocre set of men, in any way scarcely prepared for the work they are expected to do. A glance at the two bodies in session arouses in the mind of the looker-on a deep distrust in American Democratic government. For instance, seated in the upper house of the legislature of one of our most progressive states may be seen a species of the homo with these characteristics: Hair uncombed, beard tangled and unkept, boots daubed with clay and above his head on the desk, clothes soiled and careless, vest unbuttoned, reading a newspaper while the chaplain was offering prayer. Let us have hope in the power of the American people to assert its better manhood.

A catalogued list of bills introduced in the legislature of this same state came under our notice. A few titles of which we will select that the unsuspecting American citizen may see his legislator in the capacity of the humorist, using for such the dignity of a great state. Bill No. 750’s title is: “A bill to

pension school teachers.” A bill of this nature in serious intent is more just and proper than many would grant, but it is a “joke” with little point. No. 743: “A bill to change the name of Mr. Longbottom,” a member of the house. No. 715: “A bill to tax bachelors and appropriate money for the same.” One of the most comprehensive and needed bills is No. 620: “A bill to tax lobbyists who put in their time here during the session.” A fair sample of the efforts of many disciples of Lycurgus to battle the laws of nature may be found in bill No. 600: “A bill to prevent wine from turning sour.” The farmer is not always lost sight of as will be attested by the following: “A bill to encourage the raising of sheep and discourage the raising of dogs.” But the light of practical political wisdom is displayed in bill No. 571: “A bill to abolish all work.” Posterity will devote its hours in singing praises unto the fame of the author of that bill. The most interesting of all and the worst reflection of the mind of the legislator as well as many constituents will be found in bill No. 309: “A bill to provide for the opening of a jack pot with a pair of tens.” We would like to recommend this to Carter Harrison and his friends. Another timely bill is one to “discourgambling.”

These might be extended, but are sufficent to show the vile efforts of a dignified body to express its ideas of a “joke” through legislative intentions. The American people are not careful enough in the selection of their law makers. Before they can take any who may aspire, the rank and file must have become like the citizen of ancient Rome, so educated in the problems of the day that they can take up any of the duties of state to which they may be called. There is a false, unhealthy sentiment abroad which discounts often any attempt to place in our legislative halls men of peculiar fitness unless he controls some political card. On this manner of procedure let us have a change of sentiment.

In our former articles we have spoken of production, transportation and transmission of intelligence under the former or domestic age. A moment’s reflection will be sufficient to convince any one that a monopoly could not exist in any one of those departments, for the very good reason, that the necessary capital to embark in any one of them, was so small, that almost any one might become a competitor. In fact, the producer was so often the transporter, that the margin for profit was constantly kept down. The machinery used in production and the means of transportation, rendered profits too uncertain to allow the employment of many operatives by one person, hence one of the great sources from which millionaires spring was unknown in the former age. Reflection will also make it clear, that in those days there was not that paying of profits to any one that is such a noteworthy feature of our times. The conditions were such that whatever was produced or manufactured the profits remained with the producer and manufacturer. It was the golden age of individualism in which industry, except for one wrong, would have received its just reward, and that wrong was the pernicious financial system of that age. The system was of British origin and was allowed to survive the shock of the revolution and become our permanent national policy and a more absurd and pernicious policy could not have been adopted. We will explain it as we desire all our readers to be informed, not only about production, transportation and transmission of intelligence in those times, but also about the financial system of the bygone age. The system was about this: The person or persons desiring to start a bank would secure a charter from the proper authorities and then for every dollar of specie in their vaults they were allowed to issue three in bank notes, which not infrequently rose as high as twenty in notes to one in coin, and as an inevitable result, bank suspensions and bank failures were occurring every few years, to the great injury and annoyance of all engaged in business. The great panics caused by this system came during the war of 1812, in 1837 and in 1857. It must be borne mind that these notes were not a legal tender, hence where the creditor demanded it, all debts had to be paid in gold and silver. It is true that the states in the latter years of the system provided better security for the billholder, but nevertheless the whole system was full of fraud and uncertainty and occasioned great loss to the country. There were two redeeming features in the financial system of that period, and had it not been for them it is difficult to imagine what evil consequences might have resulted from the foregoing system. Those were the United States bank notes and treasury notes, now called greenbacks. Both kinds of notes were a legal tend-

er to the government for all debts, dues, etc., and they being such, always remained at par and were accepted by all the people and banks in the full discharge of debts. Notwithstanding the evils of the monetary system of those times our material, educational, moral and religious growth kept about even pace and was fairly good. Take the seventy years of our national life, from 1790 to 1860, and we believe they will always be regarded as the best in our history and it can safely be said that it produced a class of people taken as a whole that have never been equaled in any country or age of the world. Now the object of these articles is to contrast the two ages, showing the advantages and defects of each, and how it is possible to combine the individualism of the former with the industrial activity of the latter, and retain that sterling worth of character that made the past age so glorious. Material growth at the sacrifice of our moral and religious progress is too, costly and must not be permitted. The People’s party is a party built on the issues of to-day, to deal with questions that have never been dealt with and the party believes that if these questions are rightly dealt with, that old fashioned honesty, industry and that sterling integrity that characterized the bygone age will return to bless and glorify us. Remove the temptations to defraud that exist in nearly all our corporations and so construct our industrial system that each will receive the full value he creates and no more, and we have neared the millennium. (To be continued.)