People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 October 1895 — POPULIST SOLILOQUY. [ARTICLE]

POPULIST SOLILOQUY.

To fuse or not to fuse, that is the question— Whether ’tis nobler in minority, with patience Still to fight the old monopolistic parties, Or to join hands with one to down the other, And by this fusion win’. To vote — merely to win The offices, by compromise to say we end The heartache and the thousand oppressive wrongs Workmen are heir to—’tis a revolution Retarded by this move. To. fuse, to sell — To lose, perchance our all; aye there’s the rub! For with ambitious men what quarrels will hatch When we have seated high an halfbreed crew, Must bid us pause: there’s the respect We all should have for earnest men — For who would bear the gall and tricks of jugglers, The, wasted time, the much more fuddled people, The “policy” moves, the disagreement and delay, The old party methods, the useless laws That oft result from doing what’s on file, When we ourselves might all this jumble save By faithful work and waiting? Who would patient bear To grunt and sweat under such galling yoke, With shrewd enraged thieves taunting, “Is this your boasted principle, division of spoils?” And such just reproof from rascals, Makes us rather bear the ills we have Than join the gang ourselves. Thus fusion (without conversion) would make failures of us all; And thus the noble plans of reformation Be blended all with such weak nonsense. And peace and profit of great need and moment With despair their currents turn away, And the loss be all the workman’s. GEO. A. PUCKETT, Hardy, Ark.