People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1893 — Not Dead Yet. [ARTICLE]

Not Dead Yet.

Perhaps Mr. Cleveland went to New York to attend Tam many’s great remnant sale. — Minneapolis Tribune. Mr. Blount, who was sent to Hawaii to “sit on annexation,” certainly has hatched out a remarkable bird.—New York Commercial Gazette. Democratic papers tell us that it was disappointed office seekers that played the mischief with them at the late election. Land of Goshen! How many disappointed office seekers are there in that party, anyhow? The Rensselaer Republican says: “It will be next to impossible to pass a free trade bill through the senate if the Republican senators unite to oppose it.” Well, then, Brother, we will hold the Republican party responsible for any free trade measure that becomes a law this sitting of congress.

The financial burdens of the government are said to be lighter in Alabama than they are in any other state in the Union. The tax rate next year will be only five mills for state purposes; while the counties are prohibited by law from levying a tax of more than five mills, or at the rate of 50 cents on the hundred dollars. There is a special tax in some of the counties that makes the rate a little higher, but in no case is it over one and a quarter. Our Republican friends assure us that their recent victories, at the polls, will put a quietus on free trade legislation the coming .session of congress. They tell tliis assurance they have given the country of continued McKinley protection will, and really is now bringing better times. These same Republicans, within the next six or eight weeks, will be telling us of the great calamity the Democrats are i ringing upon the country by undoing Republican tariff legislation.

The Pilot is neither a deRefender nor a defamer of any particular branch of the ChrisHun church, It is not at alia religious paper. Recognizing Lie great fact that all men do not see alike and act alike in ’.natters of religion, as well as in matters of politics, wp are willing to let each church go on in ' - own way doing the good it can. This world of ours is wide and needy, there is work for all i■eli gio us denominations th :> I teach, “Whatsoever ye, would •Liat men should do unto you. du ye even so unto them.” There is no great dispute among < ur many churches concerning what is right and what is wrong, but the contention is over nonessentials, over mere plans and methods of church work. To frown down ali appearances of religious intolerance is the part of good citizenship, to extend Iho right band of fellowship to all religious denominations is Tie mark of a true Christian. The Pilot is at war with no rhurch. it is the mouth-piece of i * particular . church. All j < hureh notices and church news; i hatura/jf interest to the pub-j lie will find a welcome place ini culumus, V ■ A

Does anyone think that England is not interested in America? Things are coming up every day that go to show that she is thoroughly aroused as to the present administration and is offering and receiving advices on every hand. Only last week the Washington Post quoted a telegram sent from Washington to the London Press in which the policy of the administaation, in regard to Hawaii, was foreshadowed several days ago before it was divulged to the American press. The Post says that the foreknowledge of the president's policy, as set forth in the British telegram, was visible about this time in the utterances of Claus Spreckels and other friends of the Queen, but neither the American people, in whose name these things were done, nor the provisional government, against which the administration meditated an act of war, had an inkling of the purpose of the State Department. The Post concludes with the following significant statement: “When foreign governments and stray mugwumps and outside speculators can obtain information which is scrupulously withheld from congress and the American people, an investigation, and an effective one at that, would seem to be in order.” The Post, it should be remembered, is not a Republican paper, but one of the few really independent papers in the country.

The Republican and Democratic newspapers over the country have been setting up a great wail that the Populists were a thing of the past. But by reading the following taken from the Chicago News of November 16, 1893, will it probably tell you a different tale: If we are to believe the reports of correspondents and the editorials written since the late elections—that is, in the press of the two old parties—populism is downed forever, and the people’s party will never again cut any figure in the political arena. Just why this statement is made prominent in all the dispatches and editorials is something of mystery. Heretofor we have been led to believe that the People’s party wasn’t worth considering, and now we find that its great influence in politics has been overthrown. In lowa and Ohio where the populists have {been lamentably weak in numbers compared with states farther west, we are told that the People’s party is no more and that the great strenght the young party has gained in these states is lost forever. That such a big fight should be waged against so small an enemy is enough evidence that the enemy has more strength than the old parties care to acknowledge, and there is hardly a populist who is not satisfied with the result, r As to the populist defeat in Kansas it amounts to practically nothing. County elections in this state never are a test of I party strength. Comparatively few Kansas farmers give a rap ' how a county election goes. If ! the day is fine they would rather i husk corn than lose the time it takes them to vote. Anyone who is acquainted with Kansas politics knows that the farmer (vote is light in an “off” year, • and of course the great strength of the People's party is the farmei’ vote. Hence the recent ; election is no test of how the .state will go next year or two years later.

i The total vote this year was 192,424, or from 75,000 to 100,000 less than the usual vote. The Republican vote was not any larger than usual, and both the Democrat and -Populist totals fall many thousand below the 1 usual number. The returns are not yet complete, but the only counties to hear from are in the far western part of the state, where the voters are few and far between. Taken altogether, there is nothing to prove that t lie pop- , ulists are wiped out of Kanasa. ■Jerry Simpson has been making :a few speeches throughout the state and has been greeted by as i big crowds as ever. i Reports from Nebraska indicate that the People’s party is I the controlling power in that J state, and although the populists were defeated in Colorado, the

. conditions were similar to those • of Kansas. If the Democrats have a single i gold standard and tariff-reform platform in 1896 and the Repub- • licans advocate a single gold I standard and tariff reduction as I the parties seem likely to do, • how either can expect to carry a silver state is question of extreme interest. The party that adopts either one of the above platforms—and they are both the same—needn’t get get drunk nowon account of carrying the western stated. The west won t stand a gold pill and the sugarcoating will have to be pretty thick to make the southners swallow it. The next presidential election will settle the Question of populists strength, and then is when we shall know something definite about the west and south.