People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 August 1893 — “Me Too, Pete." [ARTICLE]

“Me Too, Pete."

“I agree with Mr. Cleveland' tnal simply repeal -without amendment or substitute, is the only thing to be considered now.”—Benj. Harrison. If the gold bugs lind a better friend in Cleveland than they found in Harrison it is because he is an abler man. If tlie Democratic party does more for the money power than the Republican party has done. and is still willing to do, it is because it will have bettor opportunities. The contest to-day, between these two parties is, which can do the more for wealth. Heaven knows our debts are hard enough to pay now, but should the Sherman law be repealed without proper substitute they would be doubly hard to pay. This action by congress would leave the country “stuck” ou a gold basis as securely as a ship grounded on a Florida reef. Silver would then be completely 7 demonetized and the debtor would then have to face his creditor shorn of half his ability to I>ay. No sane man who is not under the influence or pay of the goldi tes but will admit that the gold basis is insufficient to uphold the great fabric of our commerce. We need both gold and silver as such basis, and that congress which ordains otherwise will go down under the overwhelming and everlasting condemnation of the people. The old parties during the. last campaign were poking their jeers and jibes at the People’s party in various ways. A favorite epithet was that of “Calamity Howler," a term applied to them because iu their speeches and through their newspapers *hey pointed out the fact that without a change of linancial j*>!icy /ue ship of state was going surely upon the rocks of rain. How about it now, breth- • ren." In all candor x>aae for-

ward and confess the corn. Who were the true prophets? Witness the terrible financial srorm abroad in the land at this v r ery hour, and then answer. More than three hundred banks and thousands of once prosperous business enterprises have been swallowed up in the great vortex of commercial disaster, and the end is not yet. The | People's party is the only party that can point back to the recent campaign and truthfully say, “we told you so.” Fear of “Democratic free trade!” Why did not this fear come last November? No president ever received as large a; vote as tariff reform Cleveland j received last fall. No party was ever so overwhelmingly defeated as was the Republican protection party nine months ago, and now you say from fear of free trade legislation this panic is brought about. Are the American people so ignorant, so fickle minded, and so short sighted as to vote themselves into such a hole as this? No, our voters were not afraid of free tiade when they voted for Cleveland, they understood both parties upon the tariff question —really tariff was the only question that was allowed to be discussed, and the people voted for it to be reduced. Nobody in this country is afraid of free trade, nobody is expecting free trade; on the tariff question the people are now with Cleveland just as they were last November. Let us lay politics aside and vs common sufferers look into thg cause of the present trouble. Now is no time to be looking after the interests of a set of politicians, no time to be seeking party advantages. We are in the midst of a great financial panic. Fortunes are daily passing away, thousands are daily thrown out of employment, want and distress are appearing on every side, and the questions with all honest me are, what is the cause and what is the remedy? While sincere, patriotic men are honestly inquiring into these great troubles, honestly seeking remedies for relief, wicked, designing men are trying to deceive and mislead. Many politicians of the Republican stamp are trying to make political capital, trying to get party advantages out of the people’s distresses, knowingly and designedly they are trying to hide from us the real origin and cause of this great money famine* that is bringing so much trouble and want upon our land. We hear such expressions as “the free trade panic, want of confidence in the Democrats, free silver and wild cat money madness,” * etc. A man giving out such trash as this to a distressed people, to an honest people that are earnestly and sincerely seeking to learn the cause of, and the remedy for our present financial ills would give his child a stone when he asks for bread, would steal the cripple's cruel) or adulterate the sick man’s medicine. There is not a Republican editor or politician in the state but knows he maliciously lies when he says the fear of free trade legislation is causing the present financial disturbances. There is not a Republican editor or politician but knows .that the Cleveland administration is anti-silver; there is not a Republican editor or politician but knows that free silver, be it good or bad, will never come unless enough Republicans vote with the silver wing of the Democratic party to bring it.