People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1895 — THE POPULIST CONFERENCE. [ARTICLE]

THE POPULIST CONFERENCE.

Outcome of the Meeting in St. Loola— View* Aired In an Address. St. Louis, Jan. L—The work of the conference of the national committee of the people’s party with the leading members of the rank and file came to a fruition Saturday night when that committee submitted to the conference as the result of its consideration of the discussions of the conference an address to the people. Its presentation was met by the gathering with a shout that rang through the hall, and the indorsement of the conference was given with vigorous viva voce vote. The address follows: ‘•The rapid increase of our vote in every part of the union and the startling events of the last two years vividly justify both the existence of and necessity for the people’s party. The contention of the party that one of the great needs of this country has been and is an enlarged volume of circulating medium Is now practically conceded by ail parties and by the government. The gold power and banking interests are insisting through the president and his secretary that the enlarged issue of our money supply shall be given exclusively into the hands of the banks; that silver shall be excluded, all treasury notes retired and gold alone should be a legal tender, thus making the monetary question an issue which must be met at once. "Within the present year the corporations, grown arrogant because of the vast possessions of wealth and the exercise of unconstitutional powers, have made war upon the people and Induced the federal courts to exercise in their interest unusual and arbitrary, powers; induced the Invasion of the states by federal troops without the request of either the executives of said states or the legislatures thereof, and arc at this time, through a recreant administration and a truculent congress, attempting to clothe the railroad corporations by means of a pooling bill with power to further and more systematically rob, oppress and plunder the people; and having -already deprived the people of access (o the silver mines of the country as an independent source of money supply are now, in the interest of a banking oligarchy,’ endeavoring to ‘deprive them of the right to have their government, in the exercise of its constitutional power, issue the money of the nation and control its volume. “In the opinion of your committee these events are startling, subversive of the liberties of the citizens and destructive of business and social security; and, adhering to the Omaha platform in all its integrity, your committee lnlslsts upon the restoration of the coinage of gold and silver as it existed prior to 1873—at the ratio of 16 to I—without regard to the action of any other nation, and that all paper money shall be issued by the general government without the intervention of banks of issue, the same to be a full legal tender. “We also declare our implacable hostility to the further issue of intorest-bearing bonds. "We denounce the pooling bill as a move toward completing the*, monopoly of; transportation and demand that instead congress proceed to bring the railroads under government ownership. "The, power given to congress by the constitution ‘to provide for the calling forth of the militia to execute the laws of the union to suppress insurrections, to repel invasions,’ does noPwarrant the government in making use of a standing army in aiding monopolies in the oppression of the public and their employes. When free men unsheathe the sword It should be to strike for liberty, not for despotism nor to uphold privileged monopolies in the oppression of the poor. "We ask the people to forget all past political differences and unite with us in the common purpose to rescue the government from the control of monopolists and concentrated wealth, to limit the powers of perpetuation by curtailing their privileges, and to secure the rights of free speech, a free press, and trial by jury—all rules, regulations, and judicial dicta in derogation of either of which are arbitrary, unconstitutional, and not to be tolerated by a free people. “We recommend the immediate organization of an educational campaign by the national, state and local committees." In addition to this address the national committee adopted the followingl resolution: “In view ot the fact that the state of Alabama and other southern states are without a republican form of government because of the rule of a political oligarchy which is perpetuated by monstrous frauds at the .ballot-box, the imperative necessity of a free ballot and an honest count is a constitutional right, and we demand that it be given and move that the chairman of the national executive committee appoint a committee of three to submit evidence to the press of the country and to congress to substantiate this alarming and revolutionary condition that they may be awakened to the peril caused by this existing autocratic anarchy in the south.” , The following were appointed: J. €. . Manning, Alabama, chairman; Henry D. Lloyd, Illinois; Lee Crandall, Alabama.