People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1895 — Page 4 Advertisements Column 5 [ADVERTISEMENT]

We most educate or we moat perish. Now is the iU*e to push the work of organisation. * ' Any law passed in favor of tfterieh U constitutional. See? And now comes the Democratic party trying to pose as a free silver party; Scat! ■ *.u -e-f V • _ % Everybody seems to be disposed to get in line again on the Omaha platform. The divisions in the Democratic party must be met with unity in the People’s party. The only over-production we see in this country is an over-production of fools. An old party promise is not worth the paper it is written on, unless given to a plutocrat. The “sound” currency men are now very busy, which means the devil is not fo'eep. There is talk of nominating Cleveland for a third term. Should they do so the People’s party should pass a vote of thanks. ■■ - .. ... • Sentiment favoring government ownership of railroads is growing faster than any other principle embodied in the Omaha platform. We don’t indorse everything in “Coin’s Financial School,” yet it is guild 1 (ci a lure to circulate. It knocks the gold bugs "off’n the Christmas tree.” The advice to drop all other issues but the currency question would have more weight if it came from Populists themselves. As it is, it is well the people so promptly rejected it. Mr. Bland announces his intention of still continuing the light for free silver in the ranks of the Democratic party. This is as good a thing as the gold bugs want. They own Democratic party. The political mountebanks of the two old partifes are scheming how to construct their platforms so as to again fool the people. It will not only take a change of platforms, but there must be a change of leaders, and this they will not submit to.

The alien landlords who hold 25,000,-' 000 acres of land in this country will escape taxation under the decision of the Supreme court of the United States on the income tax laws. The Astora and great land syndicates, who own millions of acres of land and derive millions of dollars from rents, also escape. Why should these land owners escape? It is true the Supreme court has decided the law as applied to incomes from land rents unconstitutional, but what fair-minded man believes the decision a just one, except those greedy land-owners who are heartless? Very few men have any respect for a decision that seems to have been strained to protect as far as it was possible to do the very wealthy classes. This decision is so closely akin to the noted Dred Scott decision that it is already meeting with the righteous condemnation and contempt of the people, who look upon justice as now rendered by the courts as a miserable farce.

Times are hard, eh? That is true —ah, too true, but what are you doing, reader, to better them? You may consider yourself as being but a drop in the great ocean of humanity, but you have, a vote, and every man and woman has a certain influence. How are you voting your influence? Are you voting with the men who make times hard? If you are, you ought not to complain, for you are aiding in imposing these conditions upon yourself, your family and yoUr neighbors. Do not be content to float as a rotten chunk in the stream of public opinion, but be a man, think and aT!t for yourself. It is your bounden duty to study the problems of government, as you have as much right to a voice in the affairs of government as any other man in it, and you are as much a factor —a part of the government as any other man, and to a certain extent responsible for the wrongs in government if you are not faithful to the trust imposed in you as a voter. Think of these things soberly and candidly, and let your vote and influence be cast with those who would correct the evils you complain of, and drive hard times from our land. If you are opposed to the government ownership of railways and telegraph lines can you give a good reason for your position on that question? If the' principle is wrong the world ought to know it soon, as it is rapidly comihg to the front and being accepted by men in all politics. If you have good reasons why government ownership of the natural monopolies is wrong you ought jto at once make them known. Who knows but what you are the very one to undeceive the people in this matter and expose the fallacy—if fallacy it be, of government ownership of railways? Then, again, is it not possible that the principle may be right and you are wrong? Is it not possible that you are guided more by prejudice than common sense and reason? Is it not altogether probable that'party bias may have a good deal to do in the makeup of your judgment? That you oppose government ownership because your party opposes it or does not indorse it? In short is not the reason of your opposition based on the fact that you are very much like a poll-parrot—mouth-ing over words you have heard somebody else say, and really have no welldefined opinion of your own in the matter?