People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 May 1895 — Page 4

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The People’s Pilot BY P. D. CBAIO, (Lessee.) ’ ‘ PILOT PUBLISHING CO, (LUM,) Proprietors. Datid H. Yeoman, President. Wm. Washburn, Vice President. Lee E. Glazebrook, Sec’y. J. A. McFarland. Treas The People's Pilot is the official organ of the Jasper and Newton County Alliances,and is published every Saturday at ONE DOLLAR PER ANNUM . Entered as second class matter at the post office in Rensselaer. Ind. Rensselaer, Thursday, May 19.

People’s Parly Platform.

FOUNDATION PRINCIPLES. First.—That the union of the labor forces of the United States this day consummated shall be permanent and perpetual; may its spirit enter into all hearts for the salvation of the republic and the uplifting of mankind. Second.—Wealth belongs to him who creates it, and every dollar taken from industry without an equivalent is robbery. ‘Tf any will not work, neither shall he eat.” The interests of civic and rural labor are the same; their interests are identical. Third—We believe that the time has come when the railroad corporations will either own the people or the people must own the railroads, and should the government enter upon the work of owning and managing any or all railroads, we should favor an amendment to the constitution by which all persons engaged in the government service shall be placed under a civil service regulation of the most rigid character, so as to prevent an increase of the power of the national administration by the use of such additional government employes. FINANCE First—We demand a national currency, safe, sound and flexible, issued by the general government only, a full legal tender for all debts public and private, and that without the use of banking corporations, a just, equitable and efficient means of distribution direct to the people at a tax not to exceed 2 per cent, per annum to be provided as set forth in the sub-treasury plan of the Farmers’Alliance or a better system; also by payments in discharge of its obligations for public Improvements. We demand free and unlimited (coinage of silver at the preseut legal ratio of lb to' 1. • Dm: j. •> We demand that the amount of circulating medium be speedily Increased to not less than 160 Acr capita.

We demand a graduated Income tax. We believe that the money of the country should be kept as much as possible in the hands of the people, and hence we demand that all state and national revenues shall be limited to the necessary expenses of the government, economically and honestly administered. We demand that postal savings bank be established by the government for the safe deposit of the earnings of the people and to facilitate exchange. TRANSPORTATION. Second—Transportation being a means of exchange and a public necessity, the government should own and operate the railroads in the interests of the people. The telegraph and telephone, like the postoffice system, being a necessity for the transmission of news, should be owned and operated by the Government in the interest of the people. LANDS. Third—The land, including all the natural sources of wealth, is the heritage of the people, and should not be monopolized for speculative purposes, and alien ownership of land should be prohibited. All lands now I.eld by railroads and other corporations in < xcess of their actual needs and all la nds now owned by aliens should be reclaimed by the government and held for actual settlers only. SUPPLEMENTARY RESOLUTIONS. Whereas, Other questions have been presented for our consideration, we hereby submit the following, not as a part of the platform of the People’s Party, but as resolutions expressive of the convention. Resolved, That we demand a free ballot and a fair count in all elections and pledge ourselves to secure it to every legal voter without federal intervention through the adoption by the States of the uuperverted Australian or secret ballot system.

Resolved, That the revenue derived from a graduated income tax should he applied to the reduction of the burden of taxation, now levied upou the domestic industries of tills country. Resolved, That we pledge our support to fair and liberal pensions toex-Union soldiers and sailors. Resolved, That we condemn the fallacy of protecting American labor under the present system, which opens our ports to the pauper and criminal classes of the world arm crowds out our Wage ' earners; and we denounce the present ineffective laws against cm tract labor and demand the further restriction of undesirable immigration. Resolved, That we cordially sympathize witu the efforts of organized workmen to shorten the hours ot tabor and demand a rig d enforcement of the existing eight hour la on government work and ask that a penalty clause be added to the said Law. RusOlved. That we regard the mainteJtauce of a large standing army of mercenaries, known as the Pinkerton system, asa menace to our liberties, and we demand its abolition and we condemn the recent invasion of the Territory of Wyoming by the ttired assassins of plutocracy, assisted by federal officers. Resolved. That we commend to the thoughtful consideration of the people and the reform press the legislative system known as the initiative and referendum. Resolved. That we favor a Constitutional provision limiting the office of President and Vice President to one term and providing for the election of senators of the United States by a direct vote of the people. Resolved. That we oppose any subsidy or national aid to any private corporation for any purDose.

Nearly every reader of the Pilot has a friend some where ■who would like to hear from Jasper county. It costs but 2c a week to send them all the news, beautifully printed; why not do it? Twenty-five cents for three months ibcluding Coin’s Financial School.

It ia said that the Standard Oil Company is making a clean million dollars a day by Its advance In the price of coal oil, while the beef trust haa already made over fifty million dollars by cornering meats. Train and bank robberies are honorable compared with these gigantic hold-ups of the people by these robber trusts. Let plutocracy give the screw a few more turns; many people have not had enough yet * • • Attorney General Olney Is having a fine opportunity to apply the anti-trust law to the various combines and trusts now robbing the people with more daring and outrageous scoundrelism than ever characterized the James and Younger brothers, or the Dalton gang, but he and Cleveland have never been able to find any place where that law would fit except to assist the railway managers at Chicago In whipping their employes into submission in the great strike last year. As the anti-trust law bears the John Sherman brand, what else can it be expected to be than a miserable fraud?

* * • The whole country is laughing over the hot griddle dance the gold bugs are doing over the free silver movement in Illinois. As was to be expected, this Illinois "breaking out” is assuming the form of an epidemic, and despite the efforts of Wall street, Cleveland and his cuckoos to quarantine against it, it is spreading like a prairie fire, as the whole country has been inoculated with the free coinage disease of 16 to 1. • * * Here is a sample of how the “blight of Populism” is striking the country in spots; For years the associated banks of Seattle, Wash., have controlled the school board and county treasurer, and by manipulating the school fund to their own Interest caused the teachers to have to discount their warrants from 2 to 10 per cent. The Populist upheaval last fall caused a change, and recently—and for the first time for a number of years, the 140 teachers of Seattle walked up to the county treasurer’s office and received the face value of their warrants without any discount. This is the way Populism Is “blighting” many spots around the country.

• • • Well, old Democratic friend, what have you left to tack your party faith to? “Where are you at?” in other words. Have you a party at all, only In name? What does Democracy stand for to-day? Can you name a principle upon which it is united? What are you going to do about it? Better do a little thinking, hadn’t you? • • * If the churcheß vtere not largely under the control of the wealthy classes led by a stall-fed clergy, who are seeking their own ease and comfort, there would be no need of the earnest appeals for the church to come to the rescue of the people In their present anomalous condition. Christ will as readily rebuke Phariseeism to-day as he did nineteen centuries ago. • • • The country is waiting in breathless suspense for the book that Cleveland’s monkey—Eckles, Is to write in answer to Coin’s Financial School. Eckles serves his masters in Wall street as comptroller of the currency well—in fact he is as clay in the hands of the potter to the habitues of that infamous quarter, but when he essays to teach the people monetary science he will soon find himself in deep water. There are scores of farmers and laboring men in every county in the union who know more of true monetary science than Eckles will ever learn.

* * * It Is comforting to know that at last the money question is to be met “fairly and squarely,” as suggested in Mr. Cleveland’s letter, but you old fellows who have been demanding this for years, and got “protection” and "tariff reform” rot instead, need not throw up your hats yet awhile. Wait until you see or hear some argument—some of the “fair” and “square” business. We are several weeks removed from Cleveland’s letter, but as yet no logical arguments appear—same old rot, same old lies and stilted phrases about “sound money,” “parity,” etc. * * * It is beginning to gradually percolate through the minds of the fellows in Wall street and plutocracy generally that the great common people are doing a little thinking for themselves, and care very little about what bank ers, members of boards of trade, and the wealthy classes think or say, amt hence, we do not find bankers’ associations, boards of trades and other commercial bodies rushing into print just now with voluminous resolutions on the silver question. They are beginning to realize that so far as the people are concerned all such is but a waste of wind. * * * Won’t somebody try to discover a legislature that has done somethin*; besides draw its salary.

Products of Turkey.

Turkey sends out tobacco, the cereals, nuts, almonds, olives, all sorts of dried fruits, coffee, madder, opium and an enormous amount of wine, the last named article to France, to be reoottled and exported. A very important trade Is also carried on in fish, sponges and coral.

The Sunflower.

Investigation shoVs that the common sunflower exhales twelve ounces of water in twelve hours, and an oak tree, with an estimated number of 700,000 leaves, wduld In the same way give off something like 700 tons of water during the five months it carries its foliage. England uses 600,000 pounds of tea daily.

f T Y » y ' *rW. t T?/-f - . . THE PEOPLE'S PILOT, RENSSELAER, IND., THURSDAY MAY 1# 1895.

FINANCIAL REFORM.

ARB ARTS OF PBACB LESS IMPORTANT THAN WAR. All Argument* Advanced on Behalf of the Gold Standard Are Batlt On Prophecy Senator dona* on the Stand. Senator John P. Jones, Ln summing up his grand plea for bimetallism at the Brussels conference, said: “All the arguments advanced on behalf of the gold standard are built on prophecy, those on behalf of the double standard on achievement. “The advocates of the gold standard rely on what they suppose may happen. “Those of the double standard rely on the facts of history.” The facts and achievements he had amply elucidated in that great address which the Belgian delegate so praised by saying immediately after its close: “Gentlemen, after the remarkable speech which you have just heard little remains to be said. * * * It is not only a monetary treatise, it is a study of social economy.” Senator Jones’ words may well be heeded by many very earnest, very honest friends of bimetallism, who halt and doubt and block the way to successful American action by their fears that we cannot succeed independently. Some of them actually advocated the destructive policy of trying to force concurrent action upon foreign nations by creating sheer distress and making it so universal as to compel action. To such the idea of our being even temporarily placed upon a silver basis was to relegate our country to the social, economic, and moral level of Mexico and China, as though the prosperity of a great people depends upon the color of the money they use. But they ignore the facts of history and of current events. Mexico to-day affords the most promising field for the investment of money among all nations, according to reports, and upon a pure silver basis. France pursues serenely her course unaffected by panics, weighted down as she is by the greatest national debt and by her vast naval and military armament, and a Die to assist her powerful neighbor across the way by a loan of gold to help avert a monetary panic imminent when the Barings failed. The panic-breeding system adopted by the United Kingdom has time and again exposed its weakness, while the strength of the French system is manifested, for it provides money instead of wind upon which the industry and commerce of that great people securely rests. France honors all her money and provides a sufficiently, and her funded debt is so wisely distributed as to become a basis of emergency credit among the common people. No man can demand an exchange of one kind of money for another, for their idea of parity is unlike that of our thimble-rigging American financiers, who might wisely study the money question in its social and economic aspects, instead of by ways that are dark and tricks that are vain making its acquisition the sole object of their lives.

The recent history of our own country in the civil war, where the mightiest creative and destructive energies ever recorded were developed by a creation of a great instrument—money —in sufficient quantities to promote all the activities of a great people without gold and without silver, all appear to be forgotten. In returning to specie payments, what kind of strange delusion was extended over the brains of such a people as to tolerate for a single year after its discovery in 1875-’6 the nature of the fraud of 1873?

With the knowledge of the mighty power of sovereignty exercised to maintain the union of the state, why should they doubt as to the power of that sovereignty to save and preserve as equally great as to subjugate and destroy? Are the arts of peace of any less importance than ihe arts of war? Are the powers of our government greater for the conduct of war than for the conservation of the peace and prosperity of the people? Is political independence of foreign power more important than financial independence? Our claim is that the United States can alone act, with greater credit, with greater success, than with con current action of other nations, and we hove abundant evidence to justify faitn, The remarkable admissions of t ie Statist (London) recently, and those of the Financial News (London) a year 'go, and 3uch able men as Mr. Henry cks Gibbs and Mr. Morton Frewe \ ! (i go to sustain us in this vietv. he facts of history prove it. Why, were we to adopt the bra if “ideal excellence,” as Mr. W. ,-;t. John calls properly made nati ;>aper money, and properly guar issue and discard gold, the •i.Lo would soon outstrip the woria its Onward march, and interna ; changes could be settled by ucts enhanced in value and a volume sufficient to do it wit used gold. But the ab3urdiv upon a specie basis with one specie dishonored necessii sion of the idea possessed that governments ar* 5 ordr benefit of fund-nr>! ; We need a reenrres tt<" tal principle “th i ought to be, • . mon benefit, pr the people,” - s e ers of the rcontest be; the mass of which shall con i.r i republic, wno - suit when m /.. a itself?—J. W. 1 in . a a. Dnwi with »U uopoly.

A Just Rebuke.

I < Mias Kats Field In her Washington ipeaks of the populists ss the “disgruntled tailings” of both political pardas.” We are rery sure Mies Field has *ead history, and that she has noted ’.he fact that, springing in protest out rs the present which has been nourished by the past, has come every re’orm and all reformers. Using her syni- ! :lsm we could- mock every noble effort of humanity to make better its conditions. We could even sneer at the great Galileean who was pre-eminently | ‘disgruntled” with the two old sects, those scribes and pharisees. The cultured editor of the Washington can not be excused for her contemptuous ■ treatment of the reformers of today. Her vision is too broad, her historic sense is too keen, to charge her with ignorantly reviling the two million men who demand a more complete ascendancy of ethics in our civilization. Her offense consists in yielding to the rule of the popular of this culminating age. She is foolishly weak in this particular, and by so yielding she weaves the shroud of oblivion for herself and her paper. Just so did those Boston editors who reviled William j Lloyd Garrison in the fifties. William Lloyd Garrison’s cause triumphed, howeyer. He is today one of the few immortals yet given to American history. Those fastidious journalists and publicists who regarded him as a despicable “tailing” died when their j their hearts stopped pumping, and | Garrison lives growing greater with 1 each generation. We remember well, years ago, how all that Miss Field , wrote and spoke had the elemental strength of reform In it. Her love for humanity was apparent in every para--1 graph. How much we regret the grad- ; ual hardening of her heart we cannot tell. Inevitable petrifaction must follow if revulsion to the snobbery of the national capital does not take place in her. She is young enough to Bee the “disgruntled tailings" ln possession of every state legislature* in the republic, and even In possession of the executive j mansion at Washington. She ought to know this. She would know, If she had not been blinded by the glamour : of a corrupt capital and the flattery ; of a frivolous and flippant “four hun- ! dred” who have no more real life and | love than the vegetables of our fields, i The “disgruntled tailings”indeed! Such ; an invidious metaphor /Is beneath a ! woman of such general strength of | character. —Progressive Age.

The Theory of Overproduction.

An attempt has been made to account for the fall of prices upon tjie theory that there Is overproduction. It is unreasonable to ask us to believe that there has been an overproduction all along the line for twenty years, and the fact that millions of men have not enough food or clothing is sufficient to demonstrate that the theory is abßurd. Take wheat for example. The belief is general that this country constantly expands its wheat growing area. In truth, we had 2,000,000 acres less in wheat in 1890 than we had in 1880. The wheat crops of the world are not excessive. They do not increase as fast as the requirements of the population demand. Here are the figures for ten years: 1884 2,060,077,697 1885 2,063,502,925 1886 2,193,997,000 1887 2,227,415,000 1888 2,212,843,000 1889 2,085,505,000 1890 .......2,170,123,000 1891 2,359,294,000 1892 2.392,727,000 1893 2,359,636,000 It is urged that Russia and India are pouring out wheat in extraordinary quantities. In truth, the exports of Russian wheat, last year, were less than in 1890 and 1891. India began to export wheat only after 1873. She does so because her great annual tribute to England, like ours, is paid in commodities; and as prices fall, a greater quantity is required to pay the same amount of debt. India and Russia are famine ! -countries. The people have no surplus | food for export. When they dp export food, they do so because they must, not |at all because they have more than they can eat.

No Tragedy Like Poverty.

There is no tragedy like that pf poverty. No pain can grind the human heart like that which comes to the husband and wife when they face the cold fact that he is out of work, and then look at the tender faces of the little one 3, so confident that the father can take care of them. Yet we know that in thousands of homes in the happy land of America this tragedy is being enacted. If we knew that some fiend was passing from house to house killing women, and dashing children’s brains out, how long would the good people permit it to continue? Yet poverty is worse. The low, dull agony at heart, the fair ; er of expectation when retr t are heard, the ts —sh v i heart when she i '--i • -to work!” This is P id happy woman 1 ust feel it—one 1 precious a dol--1 nd what real ze what it •y in a city >eople who sy, who revel 5 ® light and • ’ut of which r , in order to real hearte. • f land in the t’reed from paying the income tax by the decision of the Supreme court. The me*’ who are drawing Salaries that are paid by the people of this country are taking mighty good care of foreigners.

TO FACE IT OR DIE

M'CLURE DIAGNOSES THE OEM-. OCRATIC MALADY. ■ ' ■ • igsr* It Is Chaos or Death? —Not a Slagle Hopeful State North, South, Eait o West for Democracy CleTelandiim. The Times, (Dem.,) edited by A. K. McClure, in a long editorial headed “Is it Chaos or Death?” says: “The attitude of the democratic organization before the country today is that of utter chaos, and the only problem for the leaders to solve is whether that once great party can be restored to its respect and usefulness, or whether the sequel to its chaotic condition shall efface it from the history of American politics. “Today the democratic party has not a single hopeful state north of Mason and Dixon’s line; it has not a single hopeful state in the west, and the southern states are all trembling in the throes of threatened revolution.

“The party has been condemned by the people with an emphasis that has never been approached in the history of our political contests, and the overwhelming defeat of 1894 called out no statesmanship in the democratic councils in congress, and intensified the madness of democratic lawmakers instead of chastening and recalling them to the lines of patriotism. “But for the heroic integrity and patriotism of President Cleveland the credit of the nation would have been dishonored, and business chaos and general distrust must have prevailed throughout the land. “No party thus poisoned with dishonesty in its vitals Can survive, and if there is to be a democratic party in the future it must be promptly organized on the basis of honest government, honest money, honest taxes, and honest elections. Perfidy or blundering in republican statesmanship will not restore the democracy to public confidence. It may destroy the republican organization, but it will not revive democracy. It must be in a position to command the honest men of every political faith, or it must die, and if it cannot retrieve its honor and its fidelity to the country, the sooner it shall die the better it will be for is followers. “The time has come when intelligent and considerate men will cast party lines to the winds to sustain the integrity of the national faith and the tranquility of business and trade. The Times will support no man for president in 1896 who 1b not squarely for honest money, for this is the paramount issue. The tariff question is settled, not only for the present, but for the future. “National and state credit must be established so clearly and positively that the whole world will accept it, failing in that we must pay our thousands of millions of obligations held abroad, not one-half of which could be paid with all the money of every kind now in existence in the country. That is the issue the democracy must face, and it must face it now. If it fails to do so it must die. With the democratic leaders rests the solution of the problem whether the present overthrow of democracy shall be temporary chaos or death. Which shall it be?”—People’s Party Paper.

Government Ownership.

The government ownership of railways, telegraph and telephone lines, is a question that is making more rapid progress than many people are aware of. The practicability of the idea of government ownership of the means of distribution of products is being manifested in hundreds of cities in the municipal ownership of water works, gas and electric lighting plants, there being no case of record where municipal ownership of these conveniences having been tried that have proven other than satisfactory. While we have not in this country got beyond municipal ownership, the question of government ownership is growing rapidly, particularly within the last two years. It is useless for a few foolish partisan slaves and superficial minded men to pooh pooh this idea, as it is coming, and the intelligence of the American people will in a few years accept it. Out of seventy-three governments in the world, only nineteen are without government ownership of railroads, wholly or in part. Fifty-four governments own wholly or in part the railroads within their borders, and so far not a single failure in management has been reported, but on the contrary, many of them are so successfully managed as to be sources of revenue to the governments, and yet the freight and passenger rates are far below the rates maintained by corporations, and far below the rates of American railways. Out of seventy-four governments, all own their telegraph lines except six, one of which is the United States, the others being Hawaii, Cuba, Bolivia, Cyprus, and Honduras. This government owns telegraph lines in the west connecting its posts and Ipdian reservations, and were erected for the convenience of the government, and before the country was settled or penetrated by railways. On these lines ten-word messages are sent for ten cents, but the moment they strike a corporation line two and a half cents a word is charged. If other governments are successfully operating railways and telegraph lines, why not the United States? Down deep in your heart, you who call such "paternalism,” can you give an intelligent reason why we should not? No, you know you cannot, but you object— the most of you—because it is the policy of your old party to oppose a question

(feat has been practically demonstrated In three-fourths of the world. ''* . Think of.it! In Germany the tare on government line* la only one-fourth of a cent ajnile! The wages of the employes on these lines are 120 per cent higher than they were when the liwea were undo* corporate management, and notwithstanding the cheap fares and higher wages paid the employes the German government derived from the roads last year a revenue of $25,000,1100 aa a net profit Think of that, you, who are having “paternalistic” shivers and predicting disastrous results if we should try government ownership of railroads In this country! Australia gave us a pattern in election laws, and about every state in the union has adopted it in some form, and now why not by this system of government ownership of railways? Only $5.50 is charged, and only firstclass fare, too, for riding 1,000 miles in Australia, while laboring men can ride for one-third of a cent a mile. In Victoria the net income from the railroads last year was sufficient to pay the federal taxes. In that country the wages of railroad men are from 25 to 30 per cent more for eight hours* work than are paid in this country for ten or more hours’ work. In Hungary, where the roads are owned by the state or provinces, the fare is one-sixth of a cent a mile, and since the roads have passed into the hands of the government the wages of railway employes have been doubled. In Belgium fares and freight rates have been cut down one-half and the wages of employes doubled. In all these countires the efficiency of the service has been greatly increased, the road beds, bridges, and rolling stock kept in better repair, and the trains are run with greater safety and with a less number of accidents than when the roads were operated by corporations. These statements are based on reports of governments where railroads and, their operators form a part of the government business, and hence it cannot be charged that they emanate from men of visionary or impracticable ideas.

In support of government ownership of railroads, we bring as a further proof of its feasibility and practical utility the fact that where we have government oontrol—that is, where roads are placed in the hands of receivers and are operated under the instructions of the United States 'courts, the management of such roads are characterised with greater economy and efficiency than roads are ordinarily under corporate control. For several years past more than one-third the mileage of railways in this country has been in the hands of receivers and practically under government management, as not a wheel is turned or a dollar expended that is not under the supervision of the United States courts. When, by reason of inefficiency or dishonesty on the part of the managers of a railway, a road is placed in the hands of a receiver, Uncle Sam takes It in hand and doctors it, putting the track and rolling stock in good condition and otherwise repairing the line and business. Instances are of record where lines had been run down until there was little left but the right of way and two streaks of rust, arid yet under Uncle Sam’s management in a few years was reckoned as first class railroad property. In conclusion would say, do not let your political prejudices so bias you as to hinder you from giving this question of government ownership your candid consideration. Study it carefully, and by your vote and influence aid in overturning this great monopoly.

We Second the Motion.

From the New York Sun: John G. Carlisle, he Says there’s a surplus in the treasuree! And John G. Carlisle, he Knows a heap more than you and me. If John G. Carlisle, he Says there’s a surplus in the treasuree, Then John G. Carlisle, he Ought to set it out so’s the folks can see. John G. Carlisle, he Is likely right as he can be. But, ’Tain’t that; To stand pat John ought to say where the surplus’s at

The Farmer’s Object Lesson.

A good, honest farmer was standing In front of the court house, yesterday, looking mournfully at his tax receipt. He said: “I brought a bale of cotton here "five years ago, sold it for $49.50. With this money I paid my taxes, $22; got a dress for my wife, $5; shoes for the children, $6; a barrel of flour, $6.50; fifty pounds of sugar, $4; ten pounds of coffee, $2, and went home happy with $3.75 in my pocket for the preacher. I brought in a bale today, sold it for $22.50; paid my taxes, $22.26, and have a quarter left. They tell me I can get flour and frock and sugar and shoes for half I paid then, but it 'pears to me I haint got the half. I’ve about made up my mind to invest this quarter in United States bonds and howl for the gold standard.” The rise in the price of oil has added many millions of dollars to the wealth of the Standard Oil Company. Did it earn this wealth? If not it must have stolen it.