People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 September 1895 — A WOMAN'S VIEW. [ARTICLE]

A WOMAN'S VIEW.

The Noble mid Accomplished Author of “ Richard’s Crown” Tell* Ithat Is the Ratter with the Body Politic. I wish to call your attention for a short time to a few facts in our American system of finance not found in the Metropolitan Press which will be of interest and of use to you as American wealth producers, as American citizens, as American voters. The national debt under which the wealth producers are struggling, principal and interest, is not a war debt. Oh, no. Thirty years ago, shortly after the close of the war, Secretary Boutwell in his official report said the nation was practically out of debt. Now, during these thirty years of profound peace with all the nations; with prosperity, unbroken and unparalleled; with resources, diversified and manifold;with productions from field, forest and mines; agricultural and mechanical; where do we find ourselves? One of the richest and therefore one of the grandest of nations this world has ever produced. This sounds well when spread out on paper and gives one a touch of local pride to be born a citizen of Americe.

But let us inquire a little farther on. What we are after now is facts; not oratory, not diversion. not burlesque; just plain, everyday facts. Who are the owners of all our fabulous wealth? Foreign and home stock jobbers, usurers, bankers bondholders and corporation s, generally; who never added a farthing's worth to the nation's wealth. What of the wealth producers who created all the wealth? How fare they? Alas and alack! After thirty years of hard labor, with uniform prosperity, they find themselves worse off than at its beginning. They find their farms, their homes and their products cut in two in prices. There are no sales except forced sales. The farms, the homes, and possessions are blanketed with debt and mortgages. The wealth producers of America, today, at a forced sale is a bankrupt nation. Their assessed valuation at a forced sale would not pay their indebtedness, The indebtedness of the American wealth producers who must pay all as well as produce all is according to official records'at the lowest estimate forty billions of of dollars; not millions, but billions of dollars. No man can compass or estimate this vast amount. At an annual interest of six per cent, which is a low estimate, from shore to shore, it is two billions four hundred millions of dollars. Divide this yearly interest by twelve and we have as a monthly stipend to pay to foreign and home aristocrats two hundred million dollars. Divide again by thirty and we have the enormous and appaling sum of six and two thirds million dollars per day interest to pay, to say nothing about ever paying the principal; Sundays and work days alike, the interest keeps ticking right along. Labor has produced all the wealth and all has gone into the vaultsand the safes of the idlers. How did it get there? Easy enough. It was legislated from the homes of the toilers into the vaults and the safes of the idlers. It couldn’t help going there any more than the’ water can help going over the precipice at Niagara. All forces were in that direction. It couldn't help going and so it went. The momentum was too great to overcome. England's system of class laws which were engrafted into our American legislature between the years '6l and ’74 inclusive, did the deadly ■work. It did just what it was intended it should do when it was placed there. It has done the same for every other nation under the light of the sun which has engrafted England's system of robber laws into its legislature. It was placed there to rob and it robs and will continue to rob so long as the laws remain and there is anything left to plunder. Better than war and bloodshed, better than Norman brigandage, better than the des potic laws of the bandit chief. It plunders its victims and seis

them into the streets so smoothly and adroitly that they don’t know who did it nor how it was done. Is there, then, no hope for the laboring, wealthprodu ing populace of this great nation? Yes, one hope left and only one. The only hope is that they will arouse from their lethargy and apathy, that they will behold their true condition, that they will break away from the old party ties that have so long held their brains in bondage, that they will unite at the ballotbox as men, as fathers, husbands, sons and brothers, and wipe out and forever from our statute books of our nation the last vestige of England's robber system of laws that have so nearly enslaved us. This is the one only remedy. This is our salvation as a republic. The appalling conditions which confront us. today, are the di rect and legitimate result of England's class system of laws enacted into our legislature under republican administration. The republican party are di- ! rectly and solely responsible I for the great crime (for crime it j was and not a blunder) with all its direful results on the American people. The democratic party is only the echo of the republican paUy. At the close of the war the nation was out of debt. For a quarter of a century the republican party bad absolute control. Under republican rule between the years '6l and '74 inclusive, the tools were forged in congress and were placed directly into lively and efficient service to work our ruin as a republic. As long as the republican party remained ; n power they plied these tools to their uttermost—they carried out both the spirit and the letter of the despotic system of laws they nad created. They plied these tools until the republic trembled on the verge of destruction in debt, ruin and bankruptcy. “Old Glory” did it all. The people stood it as long as they could. They knew something was wrong but where was the wrong? Surely, the grand old party which saved the Union could not enslave it. There must be a change, so the people went over to the democrats. I was a bitter dose but they must .go somewhere. “A drowning man will catch at a straw" runs the old proverb; and it proved “ the last straw to break the camel’s back.” What would the democrats do? Why they camped directly on the camping ground of the republicans as soon as they moved out. They not only used the same tools forged by a republican congress, but they even enlarged and improved upon them as oppurtunity offered. They endorsed the selfsame system of class laws the republicans instituted and carried them out to the very letter. Both old parties are alike pliant tools to the money power. Wall street and Lombard street, London, own them both alike, soul and body, and manipulate them as clearly and palpably as does the showman behind the scenes manipulate his puppets, dancing them on the playboard for the edification of the people who keep up the show by footing the bills. No than has ingenuity enough to pick out a Wall street republican from a Wall street democrat. They could not pick themselves out were it not for the label they have worn so long. The only difference between them is one is in power, the other is out and wants to get in. Both, alike, should be allowed to wear a medal for their persistence and the people should certainly be allowed to wear one for their forbearance. It would indeed seem ludicrous were it not for the infintely pathetic side to the situation to hear people prate about the democracy of today. To compare the grand and glorious principles of a Jeffersonian and a Jacksonian democracy with our present Cleveland administration; you might as well compare the east with the west, light with darkness, virtue with vice, heaven with hades. And the same of a Lincoln and a Harrison-John Sherman republicanism. Like the weakling sons of a genuine old blue blood aristocracy who have degenerated into profligacy and

I dissipation, they have only the records of their ancestors “ to ' point to with pride." The grand ! old constitution-loving demo- | cratic party— what hasn’t it done for the people? Why. it ; has been working for more j than a century, like so many beavers, all the time at the tari iff. lowering the tariff. They I have kept on lowering it until now it is higher than it was in '42. more than half a century ago. How long, think you. at this rate will it take Wall street money sharks under a Cleveland administration to get the tariff fixed just 'where they i want it? And the glorious old republican party—blessings on its memories. It has kept right on saying the Union for more than thirty years; it has been fighting the war over from nearly every church pulpit and political rostrum in America. It has kept on saving the Union until, today, the tramp, tramp, tramp, of the I unemployed, of men out of j work, out of money, out of hope i and home, is heard in every city, town and hamlet over the broad land. It has kept on saving four millions of blacks from the manacles of chattel slavery until it has enchained more than sixty millions of both blacks and whites in a system of bond slavery ten thousand fold more dangerous and deadly. It has kept right on protecting the dear people until it has protected them into debt of at least forty billions of dollars to to be earned, principal and interest, every dollar, by their sweat and toil, and be poured into the vaults and safes of an idle autocratic aristocracy.* How long think you will it take the money sharks of Great Britain, aided and abetted by the money sharks of Wall street, to save the Union under a HhrrisonJohn Sherman administration? Eternity is not long enough and heaven is not high enough nor pure enough to wash away all the great crimes it has committed under the name of loyalty upon the American people. Anna D. Weaver.