People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1894 — Official Call! [ARTICLE]

Official Call!

FOB PEOPLE'S PARTY CONVENTION. TO BE 22ELD IX RENSSELAER, OX SATURDAY, FEB’Y ITtli, 1594, AT 1 O'CLOCK P. 31. The members of the People's Party of Jasper County, Indiana. are requested to meet at their respective voting precincts on Saturday, February 10th, 1891. at 2 o'clock, p. m. for the purpose of re-organizing the precinct committee for the coming campaign by electing one chairman of precinct committee, who shall be a member of the Jasper County Central Committee. Also a precinct committee composed of one member from each road district. The chairman of the precinct committees, will meet in Rensselaer on Saturday, February 17th, 1894, at 1 o'clock p. m. for the purpose of organization and consultation. We would further submit for the candid and unbiased consideration of the voters of Jasper County, the following proposi-

lions, and would respectfully request of all who agree with us to meet with and assist us in the organization of the county. Yfe believe that the present deplorable condition of the country, industrially and financially, was deliberately planned and carried out for’the purpose of foisting on the t people of the United States, an additional and unnecessary interest bearing debt for the sole benefit of capitalists, at the expense of the producers. We believe that the remedies proposed by the twb old parties will only aggravate and prolong the trouble.

We believe that no people can make themselves prosperous as a whole, by taxing themselves either under the McKinley system or under the Wilson system; that all taxes should be in accordance with the ability to pay, and that no industry should be taxed for the purpose of supporting any other industry. This, both the old parties do, as, witness the McKinley law, and the Wilson bill. We believe that the times demand a more rigid economy in the administration of the affairs of the nation, state, and county; that a congress that expends as much of the people's money in six years as the debt created by most gigantic war the wmrld has seen, is not the congress for the people. That a legislature that continues to go deeper in debt, and that pays out over two hundred dollars a day while in session for services that could he commanded for twenty dol-

lars, is not the legislature for the people; that county officials who keep up high taxes in times of great depression and under an increased appraisement, and continues to pay out, in many cases, a sum nearly double that for which the same value could be obtained is not the best for the county. We believe that the only way to relieve the people of these wrongs is to put a party in power that was organized for that purpose. This is the purpose of the People's Party, and to this end we would respectfully invite all honest voters to calmly and without prejudice make an honest survey of the situation, the promises, work and purposes of parties in the field then make your choice. When every voter has heard all sides and then thus decided, we will be satisfied. Marion I. Adams, Chairman, County Cen. Com.

George K. Holmes, special agent of the United States census. though not a “calamity howler,” gives figures in the Political Science Quarterly that surpasses anything “Populist cranks” have ever yet put out. Mi-. Holmes says that 9 per cent, of the families in the United States own 71 per cent, of all the property in this country. He puts the public, corporate and private debt of the United States at §18,027,170,546. This debt, he figures at S3OO for every man, woman and child in this “best government under the sun.” With such a vast debt as this drawing interest, we can readily see how fast the creditor class is taking unto itself the whole country. Mr. Holmes says the accumulating power of interest is, in the long run, the greatest agency of concentration, and even now “it is equal to one-twentieth of the annual product of wealth, and one-half the annual savings.” With such figures as these before us shall we close our eyes and say it is but the cry of an empty headed alarmist? Have we not for years seen how this country is passing from the many to the few? Thomas G. Sherman showed, us. in 1889, that 100,000 persons in the United States would in 30 years, at the rate wealth was then going to the few, own three-fifths of the entire property of this nation. Figures and our own observation show us that home owners are decreasing every year; figures and our own observation show us that year by year the many are becoming more helpless and dependent, while the few are becoming more greedy, exacting, and independent. Is it not time for the people of this country to stop and see “where they are at?” This serious condition that now confronts us, these rapidly growing evils, that in late years have come upon us have all been brought about by legislation. What are the remedies offered for these ills? The party under whose rule 9 percent. of ouW population has acquired 71 pier cent, of the nation’s wealth, the party that betrayed the people, robbed them of their money,, doubled their debts, promised them bread and gave them bonds, now asks to be placed again in power to pursue ths same course it did be--1 fore. The Republican party does not claim any change of heart. Its cry is still for high tariff and a single gold standard. Its promise is that it will do just as it did before. What it has done is w r hat gave Mr. Holmes these figures that tell of so much sorrow, privation and toil. The party in power, though not responsible for the condition these figures show, is making but little, if any, effort to change them. Are we going |to allow this concentration of

wealth to go on for the next twenty-five years as it has for, the past twenty-five? Our people cannot plead ignorance, the majority see things about as they are. Has the time come when “wisdom cries in the streets and no man regards her?” Is there not a power somewhere that can arouse the people to a realization of the dangers that threaten our land?

In 1888 the Republican party promised the wage worker if he would help to restore it to power, it would enact tariff laws that would enable employers in protected industris to pay better wages. On this promise, working men gave Harrison their votes. As soon as the McKinley law went into effect strikes were made in almost, every protected industry in the country. These strikes were more numerous, more persistent than any this country had ever before seen and they were not made for an advance of wages, as had been

promised, but they were made against a reduction of wages. It is a notorious fact that more strikes, more lock-outs and more labor troubles have occurred under the workings of the McKinley law than were ever before known. Laborers, in protected industries, were so enraged at the Republican party for its violation of pledges that, at the first opportunity, they hurled it from power and placed a party in its stead that promised to bring them better times by taking a very opposite course their betrayers had pursued. Had McKinley protection given labor what it had been promised by the Republican party, to-day that party would have full control of this government. To be-, lieve otherwise is to brand the wage workers of this country as a set of ungrateful, ignorant, lazy rascals.

The Republicans are going to prolong this country’s miseries just as long as possible for the effect it will have on the fall elections. They know they cannot defeat the Wilson bill. They know with that bill a law, be it a good or bad law, business will, for a tim6, become more settled. We say for the good of the country, let the tariff bill pass as soon as possible. If it is as bad as Republicans say it is. the sooner the people see its. workings, the sooner will they get rid of it. Republican senators would not dot a single •]” or cross a single “t” in this Democratic tariff bill if they thought it would make it one penny better for’ the people. Republican opposition in the United States senate to this bill is not for the purpose of bettering or defeating it, but to prolong the time of its taking effect, hoping thereby to make political capital out of the misery and trouble, delay will bring.

On the 14th of January the Washington correspondent of the Nonconformist wrote to his paper that the bond scheme would be sprung in a short time, and gave as his reasons that the same set of Jew’s that was there all through the extra session of congress till the day after the repeal bill passed had suddenly, turned up in Washington again, and had been in consultation with Secretary Carlisle and Senator Sherman and some others of the gold bug senators. On the 17th he wrote again that the bonds w’ere sure to come and gave as a further reason that Sherman had been down to the treasury building and held a long conference with Secretary Carlisle. Well,,the bonds came in less than three days more. “There is something rotten in Gotham.” Why should an American worry himself about our money circulating in foreign countries? We sell to foreigners more than we buy from them, and ought to receive the difference in money

from them. But then, we owe align capitalists several billion dollars on which we pay interest, and they are the fellows who want our money to circulate in their own countries. They own some of our great newspapers and so far as the financial question is concerned, they edit a good many more, for they furnish matter to be used as editorial and pay for its insertion at advertising rates. So completely is the press under the control of the money power that the type was already set and the plates all ready for use when Shylock should touch the button giving the proper signal, setting forth howSecretary Carlisle would proceed to issue bonds, with or without the consent of congress, almost before he had concluded to do so. And yet this is the source from which so many depend for their political information and prejudices.

The Republicans taxed the farmers and laborers and gave the money as subsidies to shipowners and sugar refiners. The Democrats protect the coat that the farmer has to buy, thus adding one-third to its cost, but compels him to seil his wool that makes the coat in competition with the whole world. It matters not which party manipulates the tariff, the farmer and laborer is plucked just the same.

The Plutocrats and bicycle manufacturers are still agitating the road improvement question. The one to get more bonds, the other to make a better market for bicycles. The people should sit down hard on any scheme for road improvement that requires a government issue of bonds. If the government is to go into road building let it pay for it in legal tender money. We submit it to the merchants whether they can continue to do business successfully under a gold standard and a consequent continued shrinkage in values. What you buy under a limited money supply is dearer at the time of making your purchases than it is when you make your sales, and if a competitor buys later than you, you must lose money or trade. Elsewhere in this issue of the Pilot will be found a call for a People’s party precinct and county convention. Let everyone w'ho has his own and his neighbor’s interests at heart turn out and participate in the organization, and then go to work with a will to redeem this mis-ruled government from the clutches of the Wall street Shylocks.

The spectacle of a government borrowing money to pay its expenses when it, at the same time, had locked up in its vaults tons and tons of silver which it could coin and pay out on any of its obligations was never before witnessed since the government was organized. Oh, what astute and patriotic statesmen these United States are cursed with! Of 600 laborers under one foreman in the Carnegie steel works at Homestead, only 65 can speak the English language. The others are Hungarians and Dagoes imported to take the place of American laborers. That is how the American laborer is protected. The protection is all on what he produces. Do you see it?

Who is the greater savage, Queen Lil. or the editor of the Republican. He calls her a savage for wanting to behead, those who overtnrew her government, then winds up by saying Secretary Gresham ought to be shot for the part he took in trying to carry out the instructions of his chief. If the income tax bill becomes a law, we will give the Democratic party an apology.

The United States census shows that 64 per cent, of the families of this country live in mortgaged or rented homes. Give us the gold standard and thirty years more of “protection to American homes,” and what will the census then show? The present order of things under a gold standard is bonds and interest for the Shylock, and ox tail soup for the laboring man. Great is the Plutocrat and Grover is his “stuffed” prophet. The Inter Ocean says Burke Cockran, as an orator, stands second to no man in this country, and Burke is a Democrat—strange. There is one subject about which the old party papers generally tell the truth. That is, when they show up the other party.