People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 September 1895 — Page 5
THE BRUTE ACT.
GOLD BRUTES NOW ABUSING R. G. HORR. Because He Was Unable to Meet Truth with Truth They Blame Him for Not Falsifying What One Paper Baya. The following from the Boston Herald shows the crafty trickery of the hireling political liar: “If the matter were more serious it would be a subject for annoyance and regret that in the debate going on between Hon. Roswell Horr of Michigan and W. H. Harvey of Illinois, the author of “Coin’s Financial School,” the sound money side of the argument should be taken by one so little fitted as the ex-congressman of Michigan for the discussion of the financial question. As a humorous stump speaker Mr. Horr has few equals, but the currency question is not a problem that can be settled by a joke or a humorous figure of speech. Mr. Harvey is a plausible writer, a skillful dealer in half truths, and so far as study of the subject is concerned, must be many tjmes the superior of his opponent in r&nge and variety of information. To £ave a man put up in public debate which is advertised all over the country who, upon trial, shows that he cannot cope with his adversary, is, with the unthinking at least, to cast discredit upon the side which he is defending.”
Oh, no! It was not a serious matter. Strange, however, that the goldbugs should have made such a hullabaloo about how they were going to break up “Coin’s Financial School” add stop the “silver craze” all at one swoop. Strange, too, that the goldbugs, having their choice of a champion, and being themselves the challengers, should have selected a “stump speaker” like Horr. Were they only joking? Did they think the "School” such a that a jackass could bray it out of existence? If the goldbugs are not posted on the currency question, as the Herald complains of Horr, then why do they set themselves up to educate the American people? If their cause can’t stand in debate, why don’t they just admit that they KhVe no cause? Surely, with all the truth on their side, as they claim, they ought to have somebody with sense enough to prove it. Surely they are not all ignorant. If they are, they should post up. Maybe that after they learned something about the currency question they would be in favor of “free coinage, 16 to 1, without asking any other nation on earth.” Most men want proof, and it is surprising that a man should be a goldbug or anything else and not be able to tell why. Certainly it will east discredit upon the cause Mr. Horr advocates, with the THINKING people, to know that he was unable to cope with his adversary. Mr. Horr was. before the debate, regarded as the ablest defender of goldocracy—and the result shows that he had a weak cause. No doubt about hfs eloquence and all that—but the truth was on the other side, and such being the case, no man on earth could have downed Harvey.
The Main Issue.
Never since the war has there been more discussion of the money question than during the past three months. The free coinage champions are the most enthusiastic, active and aggressive, and representing the views of a large majority of the people, naturally their meetings are the largest, their books are most widely read, and success seems already within their grasp. But the gold standard fellows are active too. They are long-headed schemers, and working hand in hand with the leaders of the two old political parties, they expect to divide the silver vote so that the minority may rule. It seems absurd, but the handful of gold-bugs opposed to the people have as the matter now stands a better show of winning than have the silver men backed by the sentiment of the masses of the American people. That is because sentiment won’t elect silver men. It requires silver votes, all cast for the same set of candidates, to elect silver men. Democratic and Republican silver men will throw thenvotes away trying to reform the two gold-bug parties. The Populists are solid for silver, and will not fuse with either old party to help elect gold-bug officials. So that as it now stands the silver men are in three camps and the gold-bugs are practically a unit, having control of both old parties, and being sure of getting their own candidates elected, if they can only manage to keep the silver men from bolting their parties. A strong effort is being made to stop the discussion of the money question, and line up the old parties on the question of tariff—which the money power considers a safe question to discuss, no matter which side wins—if it will only keep the people blinded to the main issue. But the money question will not down. The people are aroused, and will not be satisfied until it is settled. . The gold-bugs assume all virtue, and their cry of ' sound money” is only a catch phrase by which they will try to dodge the question. There can be no doubt of the honest intentions of the silver men, and no doubt that they consider independent bimetallism the best means of securing •'sound money” in sufficient quantity to transact the business of the country. The talk of international bimetallism
18 a farce, and the question must be decided for America by Americans only The silver men have the best of the argument and the majority of the people on their side. Now if they will only vote together the thing is settled, and the howl of the money brokers may go on forever. No man can prophesy the outcome next year. Whatever the people decide that they want and then unite to vote for they will get. But if they vote the old party tickets straight, there is absolutely no chance for anything but a gold-bug victory.
A Primary Leeson in Finance.
A bright boy whose father is one of fortune’s favorites, fi*ids among the other presents in his stocking on Christmas morning a |lO national bank note on the Third National Bank of Chicago, 111. At the breakfast table the boy begins to ask questions about the bill: “What is it good for?” “That is money, my son. It will buy anything you want.” “But what makes it any better than any other piece of paper?” "Because the government says it is good. You can see the signatures of the register of the treasury and the treasurer of the United States on it.” “What did they sign it for?” “To know that the government stands good for ft and will see that the promise on its face is kept.” “What promise?” “The promise of the bank to pay ten dollars.” “Is that what it is?” “Yes. It is a promise to pay money, and not money itself, strictly speaking.” “Then the bank sends out these promises to pay money?” “That is it exactly.” “What makes people take them?” “Oh, everybody is glad enough to get them, because they can buy anything they want with them, and the government’s guarantee makes it sure that no oiie will lose anything on them.” “That must be a nice thing for the bankers. If I should get some promises to pay money nicely printed with green and black and red ink would people take them for money?” “No, indeed. Whatever put such an idea into your head? Banks couldn’t do it if it wasn’t for the law.” “Well, why does the law let some folks’ promises to pay go for money and not others?” “Because the folks who make these promises to pay are rich and have lots of money of their own.” “Ob, then, it is on the principle that ‘to him that hath shall be given.’ ” “No, not that, but they use their money to buy government bonds and then put the bonds into the hands of the secretary of the treasury and he gives them the notes.” “Oh, they trade off the bonds for notes and the government gets out of paying out any more interest on the bonds it takes in.”
"Not so fast, you young financier. The government only holds the bonds to make sure that the bills will be paid. It keeps on paying interest on them just the same as if the bankers held them.” “Well, I suppose that is fair. The banker gets interest on the government bonds but he has to pay interest to the people who take these notes of his for what they have to sell.” “Wrong again; you seem bound to get the cart before the horse. The people who get these notes from the banker pay him interest for the use of them.” What! Pay him interest because they take the promises to pay?” "That is exactly what they do. The promises to pay circulate as money and they pay interest for the use of the money.” “It seems to me that is getting the cart before the horse. When you make a note in a promise to pay money don’t you have to pay interest on it to get anyone to take it and let you have anything for it?” “Yes, but in the case of the banks it is different.” “You bet! I should say it was different. The banks draw interest on their notes and you pay interest on yours.” “You are getting it straight now.” “But isn’t a bank note a debt just the same as your note? Don’t it show that the bank owes so many dollars to the man who has it. “Come right down to the point of the matter, I guess that is about the size of it.” “Then as you pay interest on what you owe, the more you owe the poorer you are. but with a bank it is different. They get interest on what they owe and the more they owe the more money they make.” "I suppose that is true, too.” “Pa, when I grow up I ain’t going to sell groceries like you. I am going to be a banker.”
The Greatest Failure.
We regret to criticise the usually accurate Dun’s Review, but from its summary of failures for the first half of 1895 there is a great and unaccountable omission. It is only one failure, to be sure, and Dun has collected the evidence of 6.657 others. Yet the liabilities of the 6,657 were only $88,839.944, while those of the one were $336,000,000. We refer to the Cleveland administration, which by falsifying its books, endeavoring to deceive its creditors, and, in part, temporarily suspending payments, conceded in bankruptcy on July 1. The assets are a fishing-rod and a large collection of first personal pronouns.”—N. Y. Press. The Missouri and lowa Democrats occupy opposite positions on the silver problem. Now the question is, how will they vote in 1896?
THE PEOPLE’S PILOT. RENSSELAER. IND., THURSDAY, SEPT. 12. 1895.
STRIKING CONTRAST.
ONE LAW FOR THE RICH, ANOTHER FOR THE POOR. A Vivid Object Leoion —A Rich Girl Goes Unpunished for a Most Shoekinc Cold Blooded Murder- —Poor Girl Sentenced. A few’ weeks ago. an ignorant, passionate Italian girl employed in one of the sweat shops of New York, cut the throat of the man. who under promise of marriage had betrayed her, and then contemptuously refused to fulfill, his obligations, remarking: “Boys marry, men do not.” The girl was tried, and sentenced to death, and although 40,009 petitions have teen sent by men and women to the governor, urging pardon, or at least commutation of sentence, for a deed committed in the frenzy of shame and despised love, no hint or token has been given by the august executive that the law will relax its hold upon the girl’s life. On the second day of August. Miss Elizabeth M. Flagler, only daughter o 4 Gen. Daniel W. Flagler, chief of ordnance. U. S. A., shot and instantly killed a fourteen-year-old colored boy for stealing pears on the grounds of the Flagler residence. The boy it appears had walked out into .the country, and the fashionable suburbs where the Flaglers reside. Seeing the luscious fruit hanging temptingly near the fence, he yielded to the temptation, and put two or three pears in his pocket. From the second story window Mis?. Flagler observed the boyish act; filled with rage at the loss of her pears she fired: the bullet entered the boy’s heart, who fell to the ground and died without uttering a word. A meaner and crue-ler act was never committed; yet the verdict of the coroner’s jury acquitted Miss Flagler of criminal intent, and was couched in the following language: “We find that the said Ernest Green came to his death by a bullet fired front a pistol held in the hands of Elizabeth Flagler, but we do not think she did it with murderous intent. We believe that the shots were fired carelessly and indifferently, but upon the evidence we cannot hold her.” We are further told that the Flaglers are very prominent in army social circles; that they have a handsome house of an Italian style, beautifully furnished. and that Miss Flagler is tall and dignified. Gen. and Mrs. Flagler are in Washington, and Miss Flag.cr, when she recovers from the shock cf killing the colored boy, will accompany her par-’ ents on an extended trip abroad. Do we need anything more to convince us that the people have no rights that wealth is bound to respect; that in our class distinctions there is one law for the poor and another for the rich. One girl, Child of poverty, robbed of her only possession—her honor — maddened with shame and grief, slays her betrayer, and is sentenced to death. Another girl, proud daughter of wealth, is robbed —of her pears—by a foolish boy, and instantly kills the boy robber, but is acquitted on the ground that she “fired caieler.sly and indifferently.” One wretched girl in the death cham- 1 her awaits her doom; the other in a luxurious home is preparing for a trip abroad.
There are two kinds of people on earth to-day, Just two kinds of people, no more, I say. Not thp sinner and saint, for ’tls well understood The good are half bad, and the bad are half good. Not the rich and the poor, for to count a man’s wealth You must first know the state of his conscience and health. Not the humble and preud, for in life's little span. Who puts on vain airs is not counted a man. Not the happy and sad, for the swift flying years Ering each man his laughter and each man his tears. No; the two kinds of people on earth I mean. Are the people who lift, and the people who lean. Wherever you go, you will find the world's masses Are always divided in just these two classes. And oddly enough, you will find too, I wean, There is only one lifter to twenty who lean. In which class are you? Are you easing the load Of overtaxed lifters who toil down the road? Or are you a leaner, who lets others bear Your portion of labor and worry and care? —Ella Wheeler Wilcox in Harpers Weekly.
She Governor Pro Tem. of Wyoming.
Miss Eleanor Alice Richards, daughter of the Governor of Wyoming, during a week's absence of her father, was acting governor of the state, empowered to exercise all the prerogatives of the office. She is her father’s private secretary, and a very valuable one. The Lieutenant-Governor of that state is merely the president of the senate, and it is rather strange that no official is designated by the constitution to act as governor at such times c: nee.
Sapphira—Truth is stranger than fiction. Ananias —Yes, but that is because we meet truth so rarely.
IMOGENE C. FALES.
Which arc You?
The Reaso(?).
MACHINERY VS. LABOR
CO-OPERATION MUST COME IN THE NEAR future. The Propreiw of the Haman Race IXemanav That It Shall —Some Facta Gleaned from the New York Labor Report. In his summary of the twelfth annual report of the bureau of statistics of labor of the state of New York the commissioner' states “the decrease o? the working force by the use of machinery” as follows: Carpenters. 15 per cent; clothing, buttonhole workers, 50 per cent; shirtmakers, 30 per cent; suspender-mak-ers, 33 1-3 per cent: food products, bakers and confectioners, 20 per cent; furniture workers. 35 per cent; hatmakers, 50 per cent: matmakers, 60 per cent; boiler-makers and iron shipbuilders, 43 1-3 per cent: horseshoers, 33 1-3 per cent; boot, shoe and slipper makers, 37 per cent: sail makers. 30 per cent; seamen, 50 per cent; bookbinders, 31% per cent; printers (compositors), 41 1-3 per cent; type founders, 50 per cent; brown stone cutters, 50 per cent; silk ribbon weavers, 40 per cent: coopers, 62% per cent; wood carvers. 20 per cent. And what becomes of the men who are knocked out of a job? Do they stop eating when forced to quit work? Does the landlord stop the rent? Do their children no longer need clothes? Do they become gentlemen of leisure, spending the summer at Newport, and the winter in Italy? Has this glorious machinery relieved the workers of the necessity of earning a living? Has it provided them a better opportunity to employ their faculties? Does it free them from poverty? Do their wages go on as before? Do the ones who operate the machines get wages commensurate with their greatly increased capacity of production?
Have the hours of labor been reduced, so that all may enjoy leisure and all may earn a living by 50 per cent less toil? Have the idle poor been placed on a parity with the idle rich? Is the machinery feeding the men whom it has crowded out? Have the idle poor been placed on a millionairenium ? “Labor-saving”—for whom? It saves for the absorbers the expense of hiring men at living wages, and dispenses with the services of the only kind of men on earth who have earned a right to a share of the earth’s products. It makes slaves, beggars and thieves of men who are honest, able and willing to work. It stuffs useless paunches and starves useful brain and muscle. It builds palaces for lazy hogs, and drives industrious, intelligent citizens out to sleep on the highways. It drives womanhood to prostitution, and manhood to hell. It cultivates fashionable hotbeds, and sends virtue to the ice-house of charity to freeze to death. All because the machinery is owned and monopolized by a gang of speculators whose only object is to make money, and who don’t care if everybody else on earth is crushed so they get their interest and dividends. The machinery is a good thing, if it were used for the benefit of the people, instead of being used by a few to enable them to dispense with the balance. When these men are crowded out and dare ask for their rights as men, the fellows who own the machinery also own the government, and order out troops to shoot them down. Thus does “labor-saving” machinery save labor —by dispensing with the laborer and substituting the machine. Men have rights greater than money, property, or machinery. And if a time should ever come when machinery can do all the work, then every man would have a right to live without work. But that time will never come, and no man has a right to live without labor, whether he owns machinery or owns nothing. The progress of the race demands cooperation, and unless the demand is heeded civilization will fall weltering In its own blood.
Always a Humbug.
New York Advertiser: A Democratic newspaper calls attention to the fact that the order promulgated by the Administration directing postmasters throughout the United States to use their official positions as a means of distributing Secretary Carlisle’s financial addresses, is clearly in violation of civil service regulations. This will not surprise anybody. Mr. Cleveland’s proclamation, warning Federal office holders that they must not express opinions at variance with the position of the Administration on public questions was not intended to deter these functionaries from exerting themselves in the dissemination of opinions which had received the stamp of the PresD dent’s august approval. In the estimation of the present occupant of the White House activity in preaching politics on the part of office holders becomes pernicious only when it lacks the Executive sanction. When that sanction has been given it becomes not merely commendable, but an imperative duty. What a tremendous humbug the Cleveland Administration is, anyhow! The Republican and Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Kentucky will go through the motions of a discussion. That If all they will do—there is nothing between them.
DICTATOR GROVER.
No Other Preaident Has Presumed to Govern the Great American People. Mr. Thomas F. Bayard has borne the character of a brainy inan and has been ranked among democratic statesmen. The people will learn with regret that he is rapidly going into an imbecile dotage. His last illusion is. perhaps, the wildest of his vagaries. He imagines that this country lias changed its form of government, and that it has become a monarchy with Grover Cleveland as its ruler. Here is what he recently said to the English people in reference to our people ami their government: “The President of the United States stands in tie' mid-t of a self-confident and oftentimes violent people and it takes a man such as Mr. Cleveland to govern them.” The most charitable view that we can take of this utterance of Mr. Bayard’s is the one we have given above. To suppose that he is still possessed of a vigorous, healthy mind is to believe him a traitor to his people and to the principles he has always professed. The only strength of any true man as a President of these United States is a strength to obey the laws and faithfully carry out the behests of the majority of the people. The strength of a President of this government lies in his ability to serve the masses. A President of the United States is in no sense a ruler. Were it otherwise men of such common origin and training as Grover Cleveland would never reach the Presidential chair. It is because the President is not a ruler that often such men as Cleveland are selected from the masses and carried by a wave of popular enthusiasm to the office of Chief Executive. Were it otherwise the people of this government would select men of 'birth, of ancestral lineage, men who were accustomed to command. Who would think of selecting the errand boy, who had been the lacquey and the fag of all employed in some village store or shop as a ruler of a great nation? A president of a democratic country is selected from the, people because of his nearness to them, because of his practical knowledge of the service the people endure and a manifestation of his ability to faithfully serve and sympathize with the people. He is selected because he is in sympathy with and has a disposition to encourage and uphold the self-con-fidence and self-reliance of the people. That Mr. Cleveland has disappointed the hopes and expectations of the people we confess. That he has proven himself a hypocrite the masses of the people know. That, he has usurped authority and violated the constitutional rights of the states is admitted. That he has become the tool of the bankers and bondholders and sacrificed the prosperity of the people to this class is to his everlasting shame. But that be governs the people save as a usurper and perjured official is not true. He hypocritically proclaimed the belief that the public office was a public trust, and in the face of this proclamation has used public property for private use as no previous President has ever presumed io do. This man of plebeinn antecedents has presumed to usurp powers and to dictate to his official family as no President witli a military training or newness from association with kingly government which surrounded our first Presidents ever thought of arrogating to themselves. The sovereign people are the governors of this country, whether they perform that function as a mild-man-nered or a violent people. The very fact, that ('leveland assumes to govern is proof positive that the people are not violent.
Sleeping in a Graveyard.
There is no rest for the wanderer — not even in the grave. At Oakland, Cal., a few days ago a tramp was arrested for sleeping in the empty vaults of Mountain View cemetery. Footsore and weary, hungry and ragged, the son of man hath not where to lay his head. A trespasser on the earth; owning not one foot of the great globe Into which he was sent by no will of bis own; his very birth a crime against the divine right of property. Driven out of the public parks by the policeman's club. Chased off the highways by the big orange planter’s buli-dog. Afraid to walk the streets of the cities lest he be arrested for being out of a job and without money. At last he wanders to the graveyard where death is supposed to make men all the same size. But even here lie is mocked by huge marble monuments erected to the glory of rich men, while in an obscure corner lies buried perhaps his own wife or child with a wooden slab to mark the spot. Filled with dumb pain he. kneels in anguish. He has been driven, hunted like a criminal. He breaks down here, becomes a man for the time; wishes that he might die, yet will not commit suicide. Worn out, exhausted by his feelings, he crawls in an empty vault to sleep. When he wakes the feeling of the evening before is gone. He faces again the harsh countenance of a world ruled by greed and selfishness. He is desperate and can’t help It—there are curses in his heart, as the cold hand of the law is laid upon his shoulder. The manhood is crushed out of him, and the wild, persecuted, passionate animal nature makes of him a very demon. Yet it is not his fault. He feels that heaven is a delusion, religion a snare, and all earth a hell. How can he help feeling that way?
Boss Rule.
The people of the United States are under the rule of the political bosses, always have been and always will be unless tbe masses decide to take a greater interest in practical politics.
The boss rules because he grasps the scepter and nobody objects. His reign is a usurpation, and is possible simply because of his impudence and the lukewarmness of the people in asserting their rights. There is an occasional revolt like that in Pennsylvania against Quay, but the result usually is that one boss is deposed and another enthroned. This is the outcome for the reason that the revolt is not by the people at large but that of one political faction against another faction. It is never ah uprising of the people at large: and better things cannot be hoped for until voters as a mass, the common miltions, assert their power in politics and transform politics from a prc*cssional game to a strict, common matter of business. The boss is sure to come to grief sooner or later for he constantly grows more arrogant and tyrannical: but while his downfall may be a source of satisfaction. the people are not benefited, for while the boss goes, his methods remain.—Voice.
What Mr. Harvey Says.
In speaking of the manner in which the silver dollar was destroyed in 1873, Mr. Harvey, in the Horr-Harvey debate in Chicago, chases the culprit in the vicinity of John Sherman’s domicile. Mr. Harvey said: “I want every man and woman in American, who wish to preserve free government to this republic, to read the Congressional Record, giving the words uttered in the senate on Jan. 17. 1873. It shows that the silver dollar was in the bill that came from the house that was to put us on the French ratio, and that the senate agreed to it. Mr. Sherman himself extolled it and said that it was a dollar that would float around the world. This dollar was agreed to by both houses and was in the bill when it went to 'the conference committee. The duty of the conference committee was to settle disputed questions on which the two houses had disagreed. The silver dollar was not one of the questions on which the two houses had disagreed, and yet Ihe bill turns up enrolled, with the silver dollar erased from the bill by the conference committee. • Senator Sherman and Mr. Hooper of the house handled the bill, and these two men or a corrupt clerk made the omission. The significance of this can best be understood when I say that these men represented that they were re-enacting the law of 1853. except in changing the size of the silver dollar and the law of 1852, the silver dollar only had free access to the mint.”
What Heroines of the 100 Men?
In a few days the enormous coal dumper along the Nypano railway trestle, the Columbus street bridge, will be ready for operation. It is a recent invention, and the only one now in use is located at Ashtabula, it weighs several tons, and by picking up a car loaded with coal and dumping the fuel into a boat. In the river, it does away with the employment of nearly KID men.— Cleveland Press. "Does away with the employment of a hundred men" does it? But what does it do with the men? What does it do with their wives? What does it do with their children? It they go to the next town in search of work, they find that another machine lias just dispensed with the employment of a hundred other men. If they start, through the country In search of work, they find thousands of men ahead of them. Finally their rents are unpaid, their families are turned out on the highways to beg. steal or starve. If they beg they are sent to prison to work for nothing. If they steal they are imprisoned for life. If they do neither they starve to death. What is to become of the hundred men and their wives and children? That is the great problem of to-day.
A Deadly Danger.
Prof. Bemis, of the Chicago university, feels the claws of plutocratic monopoly. The university that is endowed with Rockefeller’s stolen money doesn’t want to pay a salary to a man whose teachings expose the essential scoundrelism by which Rockefeller “made” $75,000,000 in thirty years. Even the plutocratic press nre constrained to feel alarm at tbe possibility of our higher institutions of learning being so controlled as to exclude all correct economic teaching from the students. Universities endowed with stolen money is not an edifying spectacle of itself. But when all knowledge is to be filtered, through the servile tools of monopoly, the situation becomes disgusting as well as fraught with the most deadly danger to free institutions. —Ex.
A Newspaper Trust.
Philadelphia, Pa., special: D. L. Ward, the local agent for a number of out-of-town paper mills, said to-day that, a news paper trust was an assured thing. The trust, be said, would have a capital stock of $35,000,000. and is intended to have a monopoly of the industry. Ho said that a slightly increased price is already demanded. 'News paper has already advanced from $2 to $3,” said he, ‘ but this is due to a scarcity of water, as the large news paper manufacturing mills are run by water power.” The tifty-four mills expected to enter the combine have a total capacity of 3,020,000 pounds of news paper a day. Put not your trust in democratic papers, that pretend to be friendly to the Populists, in order to persuade former democrats back into the party. Remember the Chicago Times, and beware of the Dispatch. The gold bugs will be in the saddle riding both old parties in 1896.
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