People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 September 1895 — DEBS’ LETTER. [ARTICLE]

DEBS’ LETTER.

The A. K. V. Leader "Talk* Kight Out in Meeting” At the picnic in Fountain Park on Aug. 25th a letter was read from E. V. Debs, written in the Woodstock jail where he is serving out a sentence for contempt. Imprisoned as he is without trial by jury, refused the rights which every citizen believed was guaranteed by the constitution, it is not surprising that his language should be vigorous and to the point. He recognizes that the only hope is for the voters to rally to the standard of the people's party. From his letter w’e quote the following: ’‘ln surveying the field of politics corruption is seen on every hand, and as a result there has gone forth a resounding call for reform. To anticipate any change whatever from either of the two old parties is the culmination of political idiocy. They differ only in name. Their policy is in every important position is essentially the same The present administration is probably the most infamous that ever cursed the country. It is a moral and political malformation. From the vilest deputy marshal with a cl To and gun to the Buzzards bay partner of the Rotschilds it is one blended mass .of indescribable political villany. The people have repudiated by a storm of scorn which finds adequate expression only in the term cyclone. The democratic party, incapable and corrupt, full of false professions, detested and scorned throughout the land, is as dead as a mummy and emoalmed in its own slime*. There is no resurrection for it unless the people after all should | decide that it is better than the i republican party. In one regard I it may he said that the republican party, steeped to its eyes in infamy, is superior to the

democratic party because it does not hesitate to boldly champion every measure calcuated to enlarge the power of plutocrats, while the democratic party makes profession of loyalty to the people, then turns traitor in the supreme hour of trial. In an emergency of this kind what is the rational course to be pursued by men who would purify the government and once more have a government by the people? Come out boldly for the people’s party. There is no hope for reform that does not center in the supremacy of the people’s party. “The corporations debauch the courts, and the courts respond by declaring statutes designed to make them contribute to the support of the government from their stolen wealth unconstitutional. The corporations appeal to the courts for injunctions that they may better enslave the w’orkingmen. and at ,once they spread out over the land, and thousands of moral deformities from the slums, with clubs and guns, swarm the highways to do the bidding of judicial czars. The corporations appeal to Grover Cleveland, a combination of fat and flatulency, a trained hangman, whose statesmanship is symbolized by a halter, shotgun. and fishook. and sudden as lightning from a stormcloud an army comes with shotted guns to shoot workingmen with as little conscience as if they were savages away from their reservation. The corporations appeal to a pliant judge, whose robes are as spotted as the leopard's hide, for a decision to send innocent men in prison without a I trial, and promptly prison doors i swing open to receive the victims of despotic power. These hagi gard truths, sounding the deathI knell of liberty, demand of the i people an unconquerable deter- ! mination to place the party in I power pledged to sweeping re- ; forms, and there is but one party on which the people can center their hopes—tnat is the people’s party.