People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1895 — What May Happen in 1896. [ARTICLE]

What May Happen in 1896.

The intensity ’ of ilie silver campaign now in heated progress is developing some very strong indications of a split in both the old parties on this is • sue. The masses of the people in all parts of the country are strongly attached to silver and refuse to be led by the bosses who defend the single gold standard with a zeal and determination that could be aroused only by the limitless purse of the Rothschilds and their American allies.

The people resent the ridicule and brutal attacks of the goldbug press upon their honest convictions, and are suspicious of the Herculean efforts being made by the great banking interests with headquarters in New York, to-“educate” the people against silver. They look with alarm at the rapidity with which the great papers of the country have been bought up and their powerful influence changed from silver to gold. They saw with disgust their legislators in the last congress betray their trust through the corrupt distribution of public patronage. Everywhere the spectacle is presented of the utmost harmony between democratic and republican leaders; almost nothing is being said on the tariff. and each party says the other is all right on the financial question. It is given out squarely through all the official sources of both the old parties that they are a unit on the money question; both are for gold; both are against silver; both are for the distruction of the few remaining greenbacks; both are for bonds, gold bonds, plenty of them, hundreds of millions more than we now have; both are for national banks with their circulation untaxed and loaned to them free by the government; both are against the income tax; both, by their acts have proven a practical unity of opinion and purpose on the stupendous tariff farce.

The voter is athirst for infor mation on the subject of finance and everywhere he is laying aside the goggles of party prejudice and carefully reading with the naked eyes of a free elector the plain, logical statements of fact, and drawing his own conclusions. A marvelous revolution of thought is taking place and as the days go by the disturbance of old ideas is increasing.

The effect on many will be to stimulate them in an effort to have their honest convictions incorporated in the platforms of their respective parties, but the majority will go to the populists and help win victory for the principles of the Omaha platform. Those who carry the fight into the old party conventions will have a warm job on their hands, for this is a battle to the finish, and whichever faction is defeated will bolt, and organize an independent convention. It need surprise no one if in the campaign of 1896 there are two republican and two dem-, ocratic tickets, the conditions being fully as favorable for such a development as were the conditions in 1860. It must be remembered that under such circumstances the peoples party will cut no insignificant figure, for in the last election it polled one-fourth of all the votes cast. It has since made immense growth through the agitation of the coinage question and the natural effect of the crushing defeat of the democracy last fall. With the opposing parties divided and a prospect of success large numbers who have populist sympathies would leave the old parties and vote with them, thus practically assuring their success.

In the event, also, of the formation oLa new party by the silver republicans and democ.-ats the chances of success for the populists are equally as good, for the same support would go to them as though the old parties divided into four parties. Again, if the silver men capture both the old party conventions, it is a settled question that the gold standard men will bolt and unite in the formation of a gold standard party. If but one of the old parties is saved to the goldites, that party will receive the united support of all the banking interests and gold democrats andgold republicans will stand loyally by it shoulder to shoulder. In any event the prospects of victory for the masses though tne people's party in 1896 is flattering indeed. The wrecking of one or both of its great opponents is a foregone conclusion in the minds of every thinking observer, and the opportu-

nityis propitious for winning a glorious victory. On, brothers, on.