People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1895 — THE CLOUDS PASS BY. [ARTICLE]

THE CLOUDS PASS BY.

THEY DjDN'T MEAN tP AND PEACE REiCNS. Dr. Fish Take* His Pen in Hand and DiacuH«cs the Situation —Populism Has PaatH-d Its Period of Danger —Now All Is Clear Sailing. * Populism has just passed through a period of crisis and danger. It has passed through safely—comes out heart whole and body sound. Of course every one familiar with the current literature of these days knows that a serious effort has been made to at least modify the people’s party platform. Whether it failed because the Reform Press association was stanch and immovable or because those who suggested change did not mean it is of slight consequence. The people’s party remains true to Omaha along gigantic lines of reform —and today it is one united body . This is a matter of great rejoicing. And not only because the party remains intact and immovable, but because the very men who suggested change remain true to the pole-star after the exciting attack and riposte between apparent factions. Mr. Dunning, of the Watchman declares again his fealty to Omaha. He is, of course, a strong man, and his journal has a strong hold upon Populists. That he will cling with unswerving devotion to his first love is gratifying to all reformers. He was terribly severe on socialists and the reform book makers of the age. But every one can forgive him for these attacks, and welcome him to fraternity. It was an hour of supreme temptation. The two gigantic carcasses, or party Dagons, had begun to smell in the nostrils of the world, and a parting between the toller and the pawnshop was at hand. Democracy was wrecked. Now came an opportunity for the great movement to yield its identity and sink into the lesser sea of storm-swept democracy, and win—win not our elemental principles—but power. The great abyss which has swallowed up party after party, and disappointed humanity for ages yawned before . us—at the bottom gilded promises for the office seeker. Victory was .-.lmost sure by yielding to the ■dissatisfied of the old parties, deserting our platform; and taking up an issue foreign to our substrat constitution — the silver issue! And, to urge us on to this dangerous course, we were told that the other reforms would come after —that as soon as one issue was settled they would take up another! When, in all the cycles of political history, has that promise been kept? Never. It is impossible to keep it. Again, through struggling years of oppressive warfare, and amid sacrificial tears, would the new party have to be organized—run the gantlet of the same dangers and temptations—brave the same abuse and meet the same tyrannic dogmatism—before the second reform could be brought to a consummation by another new party. Generations pass away in these almost hopeless efforts. But thank God, over, and over, and over again, the gulf was safely crossed—the party saved —and it is saved intact, with every man faithfully returning to his duty and his toil. And what next? Why, the silver democrats at once organize a fourth party! Yes, and at its very birth it staggers to its grave. It announces that it is not a party, after all! It declares that if either of the old par-, ties will nominate a silver coinage man on a free coinage plank, this new bantling will cease to exist. Great God, whatafarce! And wasittosuchafraud as this that the people’s party was to be tied? Thank God, over and over again, that “populi populorum” remained true to Omaha. The “new party” died a hornin’. It is now dead. Being dead it leaves nothing to bury. Silver coinage is not an issue. A wrong, a barbaric garniture of historic crime, can never become an issue in the progressive history of man. Silver coinage may be a temporizing “policy” of dealing with a mighty issue of self-bank-ing national credits. But the real issue to-day, upon which parties must build, or expire, is this: Shall the miserable fiction of a metal currency remain at all? The secret, unwritten, unspoken but tangible spirit of populism—shrieking and moaning from the million avenues of Wrong’s hecatomb —cries No! Aye, it sits upon the throne builded by the I Am, when Yesus and iris wore only graven upon Serapian rock —and cries out for the day and hour when populism shall destroy the crime of metal money. Populism declares for a standard based upon toil, and the substrat of that toil is the imperishable, and unhidable, and unspendable, and immovable value which comes from this tremendous dogma: Not a dollar of wealth was ever produced on earth which did not come from the tilling of the soil! The crisis is passed. The “new silver party” is ( born and stranded. Populism moves on. Silver will be recoined while gold is coined — so says I populism! But when the divinity ' which hedges power is swept away both gold and silver will go with it — and eternal value from intrinsic worths will remain. And upon that worth will humanity base its self-banking credit! —The Great West. ' The Populist' who thinks that the greatest mission of the People’s party is to, get office has outlived his usefulness and should join one or the other of the old parties. We believe in civil service. t As long as banks have control of th# money we will have panics. r