People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 April 1895 — A GRAND SPEECH. [ARTICLE]

A GRAND SPEECH.

WATSON ARRAIGNS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. The South and West Must Unite and Save the Kepublic —A Speech Kinging with the True Spirit of. Populism. Congressman Black has agreed that his contest with Tom Watson in the last campaign was a dog-fall. He has resigned, and they will hold the election over. Mr. Watson has already been nominated by his constituents and entered the campaign. The following is an extract from his speech at the time of his nomination: Here today in the midst of the brave men who have been by my side in all the darkness and danger of the last three years, I do assert most positively that we did not want to leave the Democr: tic party. We did not want to go. We left the house of our fathers with heavy hearts. We p: rted with old friends' sadly, rer ctan' )y. I it we just couldn’t stay. In the temple of Joiferson and Jackson strange god. have been set up, and we just couldn’t bow to them. We were not strong enough to put the other fellows out, and we were too strong to submit —so we shouldered ourselves and walked. We founded a new party that the crc d of cur fathers mi Tt not want for shelter. a home, a shrine. We could not. bear to sea the principles upon which the gov rnment was fo> id- d sn ot’.;:; < d Lem mh the eastern i dlnence which then controlled, an-! still controls, both the old parties. We could not bear to see our “govern:!. tof the people, for the people, and by the people” perish away from off the earth without a protest and st:■ ie. t o we formed a new party, consecrm'ed to the good old creel, and locate ed iti'in the old landmarks. A c founded a new party because we believed that the new wine of reform would fare badly in the old bottles of po' ■ 'd eorrrmtion. I a new party was necessary be. ie the negro of the south would ever co,lolly co-operate with the while m: <;i the ; j :tb. ) i!’: ? a new party was necessary be • the white farmer of the west, he 1. Ing a Republican, could ever coop I-.- with the v.bite farmer of the sou; i, i;e being a Demm:rat. 1 r’.w.e a new party w: s absolutely ne< ry t> -■ ure a. political platform vl -h would be simple, honest and p Live declaration of principles, and not a mere cowardly, contemptible, and deceitful juggle of words which mean one thing at the north and another thing at the routh, one thing to the Wall j.trc t interest and another to a-’,:! uli'i’o*! lit rmt, one thirg before election am! quite another when the ■ ?': n arrives for salary grabbing am 1 duck hunting.

Vo were wire in forming a new pa- iy. !' the Den': ..its had not gained so co ■i'd.o avi -y in ISG2 that question might have-continued for many y< the sub; qt of angry debate. Ju.:. if ever there was a crowd that ; su:.'red from getting too much of' a go . 1 thin;?; it was the Demo- rats, who cap'-.red the. pr-.w.idency, the senate,! th- houw. and thus secured :ib: ..Into ■ control •). ■ ompankd witli indisputable re on. •] ■ y. 1 .J. < or h of the Republican party ; lr t to han;; an excuse on. The’ People's party was not big en gh to held in front of a screen. D'-.'''ter -. generation of lies,PV i ■ Ir:' ; re. ; ■ . > j ; j f; :. i; Ic am! tc.'.e the wluk rosy ■ -lity ior everything done and n : .1 in t il the If ? wy of party polite.-. r ■ a baa never iw-n so complete ice the “Wonderful One H. Sh-y” went to pieces in one c • . .'ire, simuß:: neons and compl e s. 'fa-up ;-n pic of utter annihilation—has there been such an allround catastrophe as that which has h;. : ype.ned to the Democratic party. It not only mamver’ to do nothin;' jt has pledged to do, but it also contrived to do everything ii.s leileus had aht the republicans for doing. Herring by the hated "Reed rules,” th' democratic spen’-or, Mr. Crisp, managed to sail the dear old democratic ship into every port whore the rei-U'.'ican vessel had ever touched. The free-silverism of the democratic party dosed the doors of the mints as a “preparation” for free coinage. The closed doors remained closed. The preparation for free coinage is a joke ■which has little fun in it to the man ■who sold cotton at 5 cents or wheat at 40. The “economy” of the democrats emptied the treasury, burdened us ■with oonds for borrowed money, increased our taxes, and sold us into vassalage to Rothschild. Their tariff reform is a crazy quilt, whose shreds and patches were sold to the highest bidder, and which go reeked with the “communism of elf” that even Grover Cleveland was ashamed to sign the bill. Their pledges to increase the currency materialized in a contraction of more than $100,000,000 in one year. Their stern warnings to the greed of corporate wealth bore fruit in giving three cabinet positions to corporation lawyers and to such a complete surrender to the railroad kings that the United States army and a United States mall sack are kept ready at all times to aid the corporations in quelling strikes. Their bimetallism never rested, never wavered, until it had established

the single gold standard- destroying one-half of our money and our values —and thus adding to the value of the dollar, to the exaction of the debt, to the burden of the tax. Merchants fail because the customer can no longer buy; farmers fail because 5-cent cotton cannot pay tax, expense, and debt. Laborers suffer because on a falling market no man can assume new risks. And the market fails because the quantity of money—money of final payment —has decreased and still decreases. Ruin stares this republic in the face and the. democratic party, aided and abetted by the republicans, is to blame. To cure the ills of contraction the democrats have contracted. To undo the “crime of 1873” they have repeated it. To restore public credit they have ; given more debts to pay. To "relieve the people” they have added to your taxes. To emphasize their love of “reform” ’ they have added to the national expenditure at a time when the jails are so much more desirable than thou- j sands of homes that heretofore honest men are committing petty crimes to • secure the refuge which the law pro- I vides for the criminal. Such is the record —the recent record —of the dem- I ocratic party. Hence the halo has gone from it forever. The most devoted democrats cannot longer refuse to see what their party has done and cannot refuse to read the hidden results in the almost universal bankruptcy of our people. It won’t do to say Cleveland did it all. That is not the truth. Cleveland is bad enough, God knows! He has sold himself for money. He has fattened in her misery. He has made merchandise of her distress. But the cabinet was also democratic and it dwelt w ithin Cleveland’s shadow without a murmur. The senate was democratic and it has not dared to question the schemes of the president. The house was democratic, and it was as servile as any tyrant could have wished. A party acts through its chosen representatives, and in this instance all the representatives of democracy frpm president to senate, from senate to house, and from congress clear on down to village postmaster, Cleveland’s ruinous policy has met no resi ta.nce. What has been done has been done by the party and the party is responsible. f v.ch being the tree, what -shall be done with it? “Cut it down. Why cumbcreth it the ground?” The democratic party of today is a mere piece of cunning machinery with which the east rules and loots the south and west. Friends, take your own choice, but as for mo, as long as I have breath I shall fight the battles of the south as against the deadly domination of the cast.

I cannot bear to sec my people fbrever victimized by the money power which Hamilton fortified in the class law's which now throttle us. 1 cannot bear to see the south ! stripped of : II her glory without the wish to offer her all the strength of my arm, all the zeal of my heart. Patriotism,inita last analysis, is love of home, of wife and child, kith and kin, friend and neighbor. The southern leader who blindly or willfully enslaves the south —the land of home and kindred —is a man whom. I-cannot understand —to respect. The south is 1- i: y sacrificed to the east a»d southern leaders have been b. thing the victim to the altar. Can we not end the fearful condition? Cannot we Georgians unite ’ for Georgia; we southern men for the south?. Let us get together. As southern men let us think of the south, work for the south, live for the south. Let us get off our knees and be mi i. Shall we forever truckle to the east? Shull we never be as’aamed of its dictation?

In the name of the manly courage ' which once made southern heroism a synonym of daring, I challenge yen to a performance of your duty. No law yet sanctions the infant les of ' Clevclandism. No statute supports the bold usurpation by which he has decreed that “coin” means gold only. No legal foundation upholds the, single gold standard. Bad as the repeal of the Sherman law • was, shameful as the inaction of congress on the bond question was, the destruction of the bi-metallic standard and the establishment of the single gold standard was a mere act of Cleveland’s will. j He knew that congress was too cowardly and )too corrui* to interj fere —and he usurped an authority which did not belong to him by law. ' It is not too late to restore bi-met-1 ailism. But act promptly. He who dallies ' now is twice a dastard, he who doubts is trebly damned. | We cannot afford to trust a party ‘ Which does not know it own mind; I which is rent into factions; which is ; controlled by the privileged classes, j -which has sold us into bondage to ' England and the Rothschilds; which has increased our taxes; which has | made our debts and taxes . harder to I pay, brought down our cotton to 5 cents, beggared our farmers, pauperized our laborers, and bankrupted our merchants —a party which keeps no campaign contract —which preaches Tom Jefferson and practices Tom Reed, to whose stump speeches in favor of free silver an exhibit is attached in the shape of a brand-new silver dollar stamped 1894, and to whose votes la congress the smile of

John Sherman goes by way of chromo and illustration; whose economy loads us with bonds; whose tariff reform is sold at so much per yard to the trusts and combines; whose states rights mean an empty mail sack on a freight car, with the United States army by the side of it, to pilot it through a local riot; whose free silver means no silver at all; whose love of the people means unlimited concessions to the privileged interests, and - whose rabid appetites for doing wrong things in the most offensive way wes never so fully illustrated as when congress violated the Sabbath in order to put the finishing touches to their unholy schemes of spoliation, of legalized robbery of the helpless taxpayer. I love my country—l want to serve her. I have no enmities to nurse, no hatreds- to gratify. Always and every- I where my voice has been for peace—and shall ever be! I accept the nomination, and shall endeavor to carry your standard, as usual, to victory. And this time I hope to be allowed to receive the commission which I have twice won. This district has nothing to fear from me—unless my intense desire to be of service to it be a danger. It has nothing to hate me for, unless my loyalty to the principles' of Jefferson and Jackson and Stephens be a cause for hostility. No greater barm can be done to this people, this state, this section, than the eternal continuance of political crime, which defies the will of the majority as expressed at the ballot box. Every sane man in the district knows the Populists are in the majority. They have the right to be represented. They choose me, and with an honest election, there is no doubt of my success in the campaign. It is the ambition of my life to be of service to my people, to help purify our politics, to reassert the doctrines of good government, from which we have g;>..e astray. II is not my purpose to tear down, but to build up—and to build upon the foundations of right. It is- not my purpose to perpetuate strife among our people, but to shown them that the interest of one the interest of all, and- to try to harmonize them upon the principles necessary to the salvation of the south. Give me a fair election; treat me justly; commission me to fight your battles, and so far as in me lies, the result shall be good for you, and good for my countrj

Doesn't It Make Jon Tsrc<l? How often the silly assertion is made/ "Any man can get work who wants to i work,” by superficial minded people I who never slop to consider conditions ,that are constantly enlarging the army of unemployed. Only a few months ago a contractor called for men to do some work on a street crossing in Chicago, and while he only wanted about sixty men, more than 5;000 men were on hand at the place appointed. The city council of Salt Lake City ! appropriated money to keep seventy- 1 five men at work six weeks in clearing ' ditches. The plan was to work sev-enty-five men one week, then lay them ' off and put on another seventy-five, i with the view of giving as many as ' possible a chance to earn something, i Those wishing to work were required , to register at the county building, and it is estimated that from 1,000 to 1,200 were on hand at an early hour to register, and the crush was so great that doors were broken down and windows ■ broken. Six men fainted in the crowd, overcome with excitement and exhausj tion. The scene described by the Inter • Mountain Advocate was terrible. Men ; climbed over each ether in a battle for .bread for themselves and their suffering families.

In San Francisco over 3,000 unemployed men have registered at, the relief headquarters. In all the large cities thousands of mon have been idle ! for months, while in t . ■ smaller towns ; and in the country millions arc idle, j When we step to consider that one-': half of the people of the country are ! not consuming one-half of what they j ought to consume, and one-third of the people scarcely eking out an existence, ' is it any wonder millions are idle? It is not because of a scarcity of food or ! . clothing that so many millions go hun- ' gry and in rags, but because the masses i of distribution of products are so nioI nopolized and controlled by a few that i they are beyond the reach of millions of consumers. Improved machinery is displacing labor. In the leather and pa.per indus- ; tries alone ninety-five per cent,of labor ! has been displaced by ranchfner«y..! : Thousands of printers art being turned | out of printing offices by type-setting 1 machines. .By • the aid of machinery male labor is being displaced by fe- | male labor, and woman’s labor in turn :is being displaced by child labor. In : thousands of instances parents and families are wholly, or to some extent , dependent upon the children for support. | Instead of adjusting our civilization > or social conditions to the new order of things, and keeping pace with the constantly broadening field of invention, by reducing the hours of labor ; and having less labor, machinery is i made to do the work while men are being turned out to starve. Is it possible that our civilization has gone to seed? If man —humanity —is nothing any more, well may we ask, are we living in vain? The hew bonds sold by Cleveland and his “former law partner” are now worth nearly $10,000,000 more than Grover got for them. This is a specimen of Democratic economy which a Democratic congress had not the cour- ■ age to rebuke. Have you felt any prosperity?

The way to have better business is to vote for it. Do you vote the same ticket that monopoly does. Let every Populist try to convert one old party voter. The platform trimmers are not in sight any more. The People’s party is gaining recruits everywhere. The Democratic party would have a remnant sale if it had anything left to sell. While the plutes are organizing the militia let the Populists organize legions. We might have more confidence in that si/ver party if it had something to do. We don’t hear of any Populists joining the free silver party recently organized.

Plutocracy can’t build a fortress that a hungry people can not level to the ground. The almost universal cry comes up from the Populists that the Omaha platform is good enough. Send to Gen. Paul Van Dervoort, Omaha, Neb., for instructions about how to organize legions. One million men ought tq join the Industrial Legion this year. With such an army at work victory would be assured. The church must come out on the side of the people or die. It can’t live while it holds on to the skirts of plutocracy. Help Gen. Van Dervoort to organize the workers into Legions. We can hope to accomplish but little without organization. Two million men organized into the legion would be an invincible army with either ballots or bullets. We must have them. I . The Republican party will next get the toe of the people’s foot. The trouble is, that neither one of the old parties know what they are kicked for.

Just think of our revolutionary fathers waiting for an “international agreement” and “England’s consent” to establish their independence. Scat! < The mayor of Buffalo will let the poor people of that city plant potatoes on the vacant lots this spring. Be careful, gentlemen, there is some socialism in this. Senator Peffer’s whiskers are rather long, to be sure, but they are not half so long as the moss on the back of some men who are still voting the gold bug ticket. Some of the church members are incensed at Dr. Parkhurst because he has taken a part in politics and upset a rotten and corrupt municipal administration. We wonder what the church is for? ~ There is a good deal more noise being being made about that shot that was fired at an American ship by a Spanish gunboat than there is about the raid which the English syndicate made on the United States treasury, in which they “scooped”, us for $10,000,000.

Report says a solid mountain of gold has been discovered in Australia. If such a thing were possible how long would it be until gold would be demonetized? It would not be a month after the fact was established until the money kings of Europe and their poll parrot mouthers in this country would be assailing gold as they are now fighting silver. It is not the intrinsic value in gold alone that makes it the favorite metal for money of the gold hugs, but its scarcity, which enables them to corner it and thereby dictate a monetary system for the whole earth. Contrast the difference, will you, between H. O. Havemeyer’s salary as president of the Sugar trust at SIOO,OOO a year, and his employes who labor in a temperature of 120 degrees Fahrenheit at 80 cents a day. Mr. Havemeyer’s salary is $333.33 1-3 a day for 300 days in the year,' or over $93 more for oiio day than his employes receive in a year at 80 cents a day. Object lessons of this kind ought to open the eyes of all laboring men, and particularly Havemeyer’s employes, but doubtless many have voted for and will continue to vote for a system that forces such conditions upon them. How long, Oh Lord, will the stupidity of the people endure such things? Ah, the stupidity and patience of the laborer! Capitalism and corporate greed are continually increasing its burdens until labor is staggering under its load, and yet it is blindly plodding along, seemingly without courage enough to enter even a mild protest. As a sample of burdens heaped upon the laborer thd fact is cited that the gross earnings of the Pennsylvania railway in 1894 were $16,500,000 less than in 1893, but the company really lost nothing, as it threw all its loss and $8,500,000 more on its employes and producers of its customary supplies by. reducing expenses $25,000,000 by cutting wages and other savings. And still the yatient, plodding, stupid labor ass staggers along under its burdens!