People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1894 — Populists as Prophets. [ARTICLE]

Populists as Prophets.

Populists may not be statesmen, but they certainly have won the right to be called prophets;

The preamble to the Omaha platform set forth in vivid color ing the condition and dangers of the country, predicted widespread ruin if corrective measures were not speedily adopted. They were not and the results are before the country. Again, the Populists said the election of Harrison or Cleveland would bring no change, that under either one matters would become worse because the policies of each were the same and all wrong.

Are not their predictions verified before your eyes? "When the bill for the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman law was before congress, the whole yelping, howling and barking pack of the dogs of plutocracy from John Sherman, Dan Voorhees and the hired editors of the great dailies to the scurvy politician holding forth from a store box, all said repeal that and every wheel and spindle will start, every idle man will be employed, and a great business boom will sweep over the land. The Populists said no, that cannot come to pass, for the panic was caused by a contraction of the currency, and to cut off the source from whence comes the only addition to our currency, don’t you see, cannot in any way relieve the distress, but will serve to aggravate the disaster, and through the press, from the rostrum and in the halls of congress, the Populists served notice on the minions of Plutocracy, of coming events and told them times would grow worse instead of better after repeal, and when it did occur that they would be held responsible for it, for they now warned them of it. They -were wrong and the Populists were right. Times have

steadily grown worse, prices are steadily declining, and now when their false predictions are apparent, their lying treachery manifest, the infernal scoundrels like Cal Brice and the' plute press who feel themselves able to defy the storm of public indignation, cooly inform the people that it is the inevitable result of a re-adjustment of values to the gold standard, .that business must hereafter be conducted on a lower scale of prices, thereby admitting now T the very thing the Populists told them would come to pass, and which they then stoutly denied. The Populists are prophets of no mean ability, and our Republican and Democratic friends w r ould do well to heed their warnings.