People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 June 1895 — Page 4
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The People’s Pilot. BY F. D. CRAIG, (Lessee.) PILOT PUBLISHING CO.. (Limited,) Proprietors. David 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, June 20.
People’s Party 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.. ‘’lf 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 powerof 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 present legal ratio of 16 to 1. We demand that the amount of circulating medium be speedily increased to not less than WO per capita. We demand a graduated income tax. We believe that the money of the country should be kept as much as possible in the bands 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 lie 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 held by railroad* and other corporations In excess of their actual needs and all la n ds 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, net as a part of the platform of the People's Party, but us 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 Slates of the unperverted Australian or secret ballot system. Resolved, That the revenue derived from a graduated income tax should be applied to the reduction of the burden of taxation, now levied upon the domestic industries of this country. Resolved. That we pledge our support to .fair and liberal pensions toex-Unfou 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 and crowds out our wage earners; and we denounce the present ineffective laws against contract labor and demand the further restriction of undesirable immigration. Resolved, That we cordially sympathize with the efforts ot organized workmen to shorten the hours of labor and demand a rigid enforcement of the exist ing eight hour law on government work and ask that a penalty clause be added to the said law. Resolved. That we regard the maintenance of a large standing army of mercenaries. known as the Pinkerton system, asa meuac* to our liberties, and we demand its abolition and we condemn the receut invasion of the Territory of Wyoming by the Rired assassins of plutocracy, assisted by federal officers. Resolved, That we commend to the thoughtful consideration pf the people and the reform press the legislative system JMiown 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 1 lie United States by a direct vote of the people. Resolved. That we oppose any subsidy or national aid to any private corpoiation for «uy puroose. 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? 7 wenty-flve cents for three months including Coin’s Financial School.
1776 CELEBRATE 1895 1895. THE 4TH AT RENSSELAER THe GRAND BICYCLE PARADE. 9:30 ft.M. Headed by the Rensselaer Cornet Band and Forty Komical Foot Klowns. Best Dress Costume (on Bicycle): Gentleman, $5; Ladv, $5; Girl under 13, $3; Boy under 13, $3. Best Clown to follow parade on foot, $5. Marshals of the Day:—-Simon Phillips, Capt. Burnham, Capt Wasson, E. C. Mills and C. C. Seigler.
MORNING. ■ Grand Stand Program Begins at lo:30. ; Selection by Band. ! Invocation. ! Music by Quartette. ! Music by Band. » Ly > s ea ps’ | n Jianao lis.Ii 5. E W D - 1
3 p.m. Mammoth Bata Ascension 3 p.m. and Parachute Descent by Prof. Van Gilder.
THE INCOME TAX DECISION
The Supreme Court upon rehearing before the full bench has declared the entire income tax law as a whole to be unconstitutional and void. Five of the judges. Fuller, democrat, Illinois; Field, democrat, California; Gray, republican. Massachusetts; Brewer, repuolican, Kansas, and Shiras, republican, Pennsylvania, were against the law. Four of them. Harlan, republican. Kentucky: White, democrat, Louisiana; Brown, republican, Michigan, and Jackson, democrat, Tennessee, were for the law. No decision of the court has ever disturbed the whole country as this one. and it opens questions that are far beyond the lines within which the taxes for the support of the general government may be raised. The constitution prohibits any direct tax other than a sum to be laid upon the several states in proportion to population. The majority of the court reasons that 1. A tax upon land is a direct tax and therefore a taxon rents or incomes is a direct tax. 2. A tax upon personal prop erty. or on the income of personal property is a direct tax. 3. All the income tax being laid upon the real or personal property therefore it is unconstitutional and void.
If a lavman were permitted to argue before this august body o F irresponsible autocrats, it miszht be asked what kind of property did the framers of the Constitution have in mind as legitimate sources of revenue? Does real
THE PEOPLE’S PILOT, RENSSELAER, IND., THURSDAY JUNE 20, 1895.
estate come in at the doors of the custom house, or are the bales of imported goods not personal property? Is not tobacco the product of the land, and are not beer and spirits personal property? But this decision is not a mere matter of strict legal interpretation. The American people take but little interest in courts whose opinions are confined to the constructive meaning of established laws. If this were all the power herein exercised the intense feeling now shaking the entire country would noi-havebeen aroused. It is the awful magnitude of a judicial power over-topping the representatives of the people in congress assembled making and unmaking laws, that begets consternation and rings out alarm. The income tax is a very old form of raising revenue. All nations have exercised this power from time immemorial. It is now done in England and in Europe. It has been done heretofore by the United Ststes both in time of war and in time of peace. It is not true that it is wholly a populistic measure, as it was passed by congress and signed and approved by Grover Cleveland. It is not true that it is a socialistic measure begotten in hatred of rich men. and brought forward to invidiously over tax the successful business man. It is not true that it is unpopular any chore than all taxes are likely to be unpopular with the one who has to pay th°m. It is a ques-' tion of popularity; the greut mass o f the people will approve ‘ the principle that those who| draw large sums of money, as'
AFTERNOON. Contest Exercises will Begin at 1:3o. Climbing Greased Pole, $2 Foot Race: First, $10; Second, $5 Potato race:—-First, $3; Second, $2 Bicycle Race: Free For All, (14 years and over.) Ist, $5; 2d. $3; 3d. $2 Free For All,(Boys under 14 yrs.) Ist, $3; 2d. *2; 3d, $1 Free For All,(Girls under 14 yrs.) Ist, S 3; 2d. $2; 3d. *1 Bucking Horse, not over 5 to OIH enter. First person riding horse to ukl II receive the purse. Ijrl wr
salaries, rents, dividents and interest. should, and of a right ought to be made to pay proportionately to the expense of government in protecting their persons and incomes. But these are the very men who have combined to secure this decision. And they have succeeded by the change of the vote of one man. Within one month influences were brought to bear on Judge Shiras by which he overturns himself, four other members of the Supreme Court, the legislative dcpartmentof the government, and the representative character of this republic. Can any man doubt that this Supreme Court decision will in some way be overruled by the sovereign people. Sound Money.
The New Boom.
It is a fact that business has wonderfully improved in the lats four weeks, and nothing like it has been seen since the spring of 1892, and hundreds of factories that have been idle, or only half employed, are now crowded with orders, and it is nothin? uncommon to hear it said “We are from two to eight weeks behind orders.” 7-he first bulge visible to the naked understanding was that in wheat, beef and oil. Other things responded to the pressure and before it was known things were “wide open” in a dozen lines. Employment was found for there to-fore id,e hands. Businessmen found money suddenly “easy.” and yet on every hand the Question is asked.
“What is there to cause it?” A gentleman, well known in business ciicies, just returned from the East, informs us that money can be had in any quantities, at low rates, for the asking, provided, of course, his house was in good standing and entitled to credit. At the same time he says “No wildcats need apply.” Collections have eased up all around, and the general disposition is to do “business.”
It is hut the beginning of a new era, and has behind it two vital forces. The first is, the bankers are tired of the results of the panic they started in 1893. Second, they see that to continue the policy they then adopted to buldoze Congress into silence on the sheer question will drive every thinking voter over to free silver, and thus permanantly defeat the very purposes for which they originated that panic. Let it not for one moment be supposed that their motives in letting up now are either charitable or humanitarian. Trusts know no party, no creed, no charity, and the financial trust, the mother of all other trusts, is no exception. What they did in 1893 they did for gain. What they are doing now is also for gain. That they over-reached themselves and got into deep water in '93 is ancient history. That they won’t ’-do it again,” goes without saying. Let all good business men be thankful that they have weathered the storms, and that after two years of unparalelled oppression they, these bankers, are willing to let us go forward with the world's work, even though their motives
be selfish. Letusall goto work earnestly and repair our wasted fortunes.—Vox Populi.
Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly For July.
The current July number of Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly presents an art-display that is unprecedented even in the history of this great periodical of the people. It contains no less than one hundred and twenty illustrations, many of them full-page engravings, in the best style of modern pictorial art; including the work of such well-known illustrators and painters as Carl J. Becker, Valerian Gribayedoff r Joseph Pennell, Hurbert Herkomer, Cecil Lawson, G. Favretto, Makowsby, L. F. Fournier. Lepere, Enrico Sera, Henry Dawson, J. Becker, G. A. Davis, Pruett Share, A. B. Shute, F. Adams, Walter Dunk, and others. These pictures are for the most part illustrative of the literary features of the number, among which figure: “The Russian Church in America,” by V. Gribay edoff; “An Artist in London Town,” by Carl J. Becker; ‘•By the Tideless Sea” (A Memory of Shelley), by Marie Walsh; “Tuscan Fisherfolk,” by Leader Scott; “Down Cape Cod,” by S. H. Ferris; “Kangaroos and Kan-garoo-Hunting,” by Arthur Inkersley; “A Chinese Banquet,” by John Paul Babcock: “Rhone Sketches.” by Joseph Pennell; "H. H. Richardson, Architect,” by Horace Townsend; and “Roman Mosaics,” by Theo. Tracy.
Changing the Size of the Gold Coins.
The gold coinage down to 1834 was not in general use; it was worth more as bullion than it was as coin, and was exported' the silver remaining as the general coin in circulation in the country. At that time Congress did not, as it is now proposed, vote to put more silver in the silver dollar, nor did it demonetize silver; it voted to reduce the amount of gold in the gold coin, thereby reducing the value of the gold eagle or $lO coin to the value of about $9.75 in silver coin. The gold coin, which was" thus debased and reduced 2| per cent below the silver dollar, which had previously been at a discount in gold, became the cheaper coin, and silver, being worth more as metal than as coin, was exported, and gold then, because cheaper, became the general coin un circulation; For forty years, gold continuing all that’time to be of less valfie in our coinage than the silver, was used to pay debts.—Chicago Tribune, January 9, 1878.
It wait Astoniuhfng Information. When Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson devised the system of American coinage they T adopted the metallic plan for the express and direct purpose of securing to the American people, as a protection against all fluctuations in the relative value of gold and silver, the option to pay debts in coin of either metal. We continued the system in this country until 1876; the people were astounded with the information that in 18c3-4 we had abolished the coinage of the silver dollar, and declared it no longer a legal tender.—Chicago Tribune, January 25, 1878.
Dollar Defined. ♦ A dollar’s worth of silver is 412| grains standard (with al- ■ loy), or 371| of pure silver, j This standard weight was adoptjed by Congress in 1792, and has I never been changed; 371| grains lof pure silver constitutes exact- | ly a dollar’s worth of silver.— iChicago Tribune, January 17, |IB7B. I The Tribune and Workingmen. A laboring man would infinite- | ly prefer to be set at work earnj ing silver dollars than to starve j waiting for employment on a •gold basis. —Chicago Tribune, January 9. 1878. THE WINDSOR, B. F. Furguson sells the Windsor bicycle, a strictly high grade wheel, for less money than aby .one on the market. Call and ! get prices before purchasing ' elsewhere. I Grain will soon, be ripe. Get a McCormick machine from C. I A. Roberts, and cut it to satisfaction.
FEMALE PILLS. S - Per box, or trial box ft. fiSJ t or sale in Ken-selaer by Frank B Meyer.