People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1895 — Page 3

Hare you any opinions of yoor own? Both old parties foster banks of issue. Greed and creed are about to destroy he church. Every man who votes for a gold-bug foes honor to John Sherman. Bland will perpetrate a series of lectures on the Southern people. Let us have a little Jefferson doctrine llong with the Monroe doctrine. Fifteen cent corn and prosperity are not on a parity with each other. It didn’t require any gold reserve to carry on the war of independence. Sherman’s new book is too vitupergumptious to suit some of the bosses in the g. o. p. Ask the man who says there is plenty of money to lend you a “fiver” —then watch him squirm. Why don’t the silver men get out of the old parties, if they want to unite with the Populists? It is now reported that Cleveland don’t want a third term. We are pleased to hear that there is something he don’t want. The democrat who votes the ticket again can be safely put down as among those who don’t know when they have enough. There is no good reason why every able bodied man should not find employment at remunerative wages in this country. In most of our large cities it is a crime to be without bread, and a crime to ask for it, yet there is no work for the idle to do. A free silver man who will vote for a gold-bug candidate because his party nominates one, ought to trade backbones with a fish worm. The man who howls for free silver this year and votes for a gold bug next year lacks something in the upper story or has a very weak backbone. If the free silver democrats had half the backbone that the gold-bug democrats have they would get out of a party In which they figure only as doughfaces. The most that can be expected from the National conventions of the two old parties on the silver question is a straddle platform with a gold-bug candidate. The best evidence that the money power are not capable of running this government is that they have made a dead failure of it —so far as the people are concerned. The first thing the democratic party ought to do when it meets in national convention is to pass a vote of thanks to John Sherman for putting them righr on the money question. The Populist cause is gaining everywhere, yet it would gain much faster if every Populist would go to work with a will. The most effective way to work is to scatter reform literature. The whole tendency of the Cleveland administration has. been towards the theory that the credit of banks was better than that of the government, and that Englishmen had more rights in this country than Americans. It was one of the Vanderbilts who said “the public be d d,” and now the Vanderbilts have cornered sulphur. No wonder they want the public to be d d,” since they expect to get the contract of furnishing the brimstone. It is surprising to see how fast the principle of government ownership of railroads, telegraphs, telephones electric lights and water works is taking root in the minds of the people. Keep up the agitation of government ownership of railroads. The free silver democrats ought to be able to see that they have been making a losing fight all the time “inside of their' party.” They will have their Waterloo at the national convention and then those who still remain with the party are no friends of silver. If making dollars cheaper is equivalent to a repudiation of a part of our debts, the making of them dearer is confiscation of a portion of the debtor’s property. The dollar has been made dearer and by this method the people have been robbed. The question is how long will they stand it? The constitution prohibits the states from issuing money, but congress has usurped the authority to farm out this privilege to the banks, and the money power is now asking an extension of that privilege. The democratic party once said in its platform that congress had no right to do this, but the democratic party of to-day wants to go farther even than the republicans did in the privileges granted banks of issue. The most absent-minded man was not the man who hunted for his pipe when it was between his teeth, nor the man who threw his hat out of the window, and tried to hang his cigar on a peg, nor even the man who put his umbrella to bed and stood up in the corner—but the man who wanted free silver and voted an old party ticket. His mind had been absent ever since he was born.

A true Christian never lived on etThe question is not one of comp&rilon, but of justice. . 1 ■ i Money “good in Europe” is not pariotic enough to stay at home. The kind of dollars the gold-bugs want are those that will buy the most aws. If the government must stand good 'or the bank-notes, why not better issue them direct? President Cleveland is guarded all the time by detectives. The wicked fleeth when no man pursueth. The “Flood of Gold” about which the cuckoo papers are blowing, appears to be flowing toward Europe. Senator Vest evidently thinks that the best way to get what you want is to vote for what you don’t want. The man who will buy a vote will sell a vote. The man who buys his way into congress will sell himself to the highest bidder. All bribing in this country is done b; men who have money. Workingmen could not commit such a crime, if they wanted to. An overproduction of work is probably what makes it so cheap. A man can buy more work for a dollar now than ever before. It is worthy of note that Governor Clarke of Arkansas whipped the pugilists, without having to spit tobacco juice in their faces. The People’s party is the only free silver party. A vote for either of the two old parties is a vote right along with the gold-bugs. Election of senators by direct vote of the people is obr application of the “initiative and referendum" that every voter can understand. Bank money has reduced the land owners of England from 160,000 to less than 16,000, and it will do the same for this country if it is persisted in. The parity of the two old parties was established by “international agreement.” That is why they both want the money question settled that way. The production of gold in America last year is said to have been the greatest in our history. Yet, the total amount was not sufficient to pay the annual interest on our public debt. Only one state democratic convention in the United States this year declared in favor of free coinage of silver —and yet “silver men” profess to believe that they can secure reform inside the party. Jeffersonian democracy said that congress had no right to charter a bank with power to issue money. Carlisle says the government has no right to issue paper money. Which is democracy? Coxey’s papey says the difference between Populism and demo-republican-ism is this: “The former believes in the law making money, while the latter believes in money making the laws.” Epigrammatically and religiously correct.

Eastern democrats say they will be content with naming the presidential candidate. They are willing to let the west and south make the platform. They expect to name somebody like Grover, who will pay no attention to the platform. Submitting amendments to the state constitution for a vote of the people regardless of party is a practical feature of the “initiative and referendum” already in operation. If constitutional law can be made this way, why not statute law? The railroad companies, east and west, are forming a gigantic freight trust. This means milions of dollars more tribute to these highway robbers. The Inter-State Commerce law, and the anti-trust law are dead letters in the hands of pliant tools of the corporations.

Rights of Property.

A writer, discussing the present financial situation, says: “Property values have some rights to survive.” That’s right. The prices of corn and wheat, pumpkins and potatoes, hog and hominy, have as much right to an increase as have the values of bonds, mortgages, promissory notes and gold dollars. “A dollar will buy more now than ever before,” means that it takes more garden truck and farm produce to get • dollar than ever before. Why should the shade-dweller’s income increase in value while the prices of the workingman’s outgo go down? Property values have some rights in the case as well as the values of dollars, hoarded, awaiting good “chances.” The dollars that are so plentiful increase in value even as they lie idle in the vaults of the banks waiting. And so has the value of wheat increased, you say? Yes, in the elevators —not in the wheat-bin. Not much. You had wheat —“something to sell,” and you hoped to get “plenty of money.” Did you get It? If not, why not? Why not? Can you cure the matter with votes? If not, why not? If so, how? Think!—Nevada Director.

THE PEOPLE’S PILOT, RENSSELAER, IND., THURSDAY, DEC. 5, 1895:i

SILVER BOYCOTTED.

BANKERS SEEK TO DESTROY MONEY OF CONSTITUTiON. Clearing Bonce Report shows that not a SUver Dollar is used by the Banks In Settling Balances —Thus they Hope to Cast Discredit upon. Silver. Silver Knight: The amount of lying which both parties do to deceive the people on the silver question ought to make the devil proud of his pupils. Both parties in their platforms continually declare they are in favor of the use of both gold and silver as money, and every cuckoo and subsidized politician has this lying declaration on his lips. Notwithstanding the law makes no discrimination between gold and silver coin and every obligation of the government is payable in silver, no administration can be found which does not falsely assert that the obligations of the government are payable In gold alone. This is not all or the worst of it. Every administration since the crime of 1873 has made it a business to boycott silver and drive it out of use in violation of law, in violation of the pledges of both parties, in violation of the constant assertion of the presidents of both parties, and in violation of every principle of honor, decency and truth. This lying system permeates every department of the government at Washington, and is done in pursuance of the orders and mandates of the English gold trust. The following from the New York World i 3 one of the methods used by the enemies of the people to destroy the money of the constitution: Banks Boycott Silver —Clearing House Report Shows that not a White Dollar Passed in Balances —Reviving Trade Makes a Change—Over Half a Million in Small Certificates TakeD from the Sub-Treasury for Local Use.' At the annual meeting of the Clearing House association yesterday, Manager Sherer reported on the year’s credit trading of the sixty-six banks in the association and of the eighty edditional banks and trusts companies which clear through members. The report rolls millions upon millions. Here are some of the figures: Aggregate exchanges..? 28,264,379,126 Aggregate balances... 1,896,574.349 Total transactions.... 30,160,953,475 Average exchanges daily $ 92,670,095 Average balances* daily 6,218„276 Total daily average...? 98,888,372 Largest exchanges on any day (July 2).... 194,637,038 Largest balance on any day (Jan. 29).... 16,027,133 Largest transaction on any day (July 2)..... 207,117,447 Exchanges ?1,073,513,117,948 Smallest tranactions on any day (April 13) 53,008,183 Total transactions since organization of clearing-house (42 years): Exchanges ?1,073,513,117,948 Balance 49,463,653,582 Total ?1,122,976,771,531 The balances of January 29 were the largest on record. The sub-treasury in this city, which makes its settlement through the clear-ing-house, has been debited during the year with ?242,982,953, and credited with ?95,159,905, an excess of debit balances of ?147,823,048. The banks paid their balances one to another in various kinds of money, thus: U. S. gold coin ?50,000 U. S. bearer gold certificates 5,000 U. S. order gold certificates 25,000 Clearing House gold certificates 1,335,000 U. S. Treasury notes 15,436,000 U. S. legal tender certificates ’ 1,009,405,000 U. S. legal tender and change 879,318,349 Total ?1,896,574,349 It will be seen that the greenback or legal tender note, either in the form of certificates of deposit issued by the local sub-treasurer or in actual notes, does almost the entire balancing. Silver does not pay a dollar between banks in this city, and for nearly twenty years not a single silver dollar nor a certificate calling for the white metal has passed as final redemption money from bank to bank. This practical boycott is the unwritten law of the banks. In 1878 the clear- j ing house put in its by-laws a positive prohibition of the proffer of a silver dollar in settlement of a debt by one bank to another. The silver men in congress promptly passed a law forbidding national banks to remain members of clearing houses having such a rule. The rule was at once expunged from the by-laws, but it remained in practice and is lived up to today. The United States sub-treasury, ! which last year paid ?147,823,047 in cash to Manager Sherer, did not offer a single silver dollar. It might legally have done so and at times it would have been very convenient to do so. Once the sub-treasury had a payment to make and had ?30,000,000 in free silver, and very few treasury notes or greenbacks. It could have turned over silver certificates, which are printed up to ?1,000, but rather than do so it made some quick shifts to get greenbacks. No sub-treasury has Jret been bold enough to try the experiment of using legal silver in payment of legal debts. In New York it would have brought an Immediate extra session of the clearing house, and not unlikely have resulted in a boycott of the United States treasury so far as facilities for clearances were concerned.

To the customers of the banks the silver certificates are freely offered. In fact, the majority of counter payments are in these or bank notes. Each bank works off this sort of money as quickly as possible, but the ever-redeemable, never-redeemed greenback is jealously retained as a tried gold-drawing piece of paper. Gold, of course, is held back, and Manager Sherer now has in the vault some ?32,000,000 in fine newly-minted gold which has been deposited there by banks which are short of vault room. The Clearing House association elected these officers: President, William A. Nash, President Corn Exchange Bank; Secretary, William H. Porter, VicePresident Chase National Bank; Clearing House committee, Edward H. Perkins, Jr., President Importers and Traders’ National Bank; George G. Williams. President Chemical National Bank; Henry W. Cannon, President Chase National Bank; James T. Woodward, President Hanover National Bank, and A. B. Hepburn, President Third National Bank. At the Sub-Treasury yesterday New York banks took ?610,000 in small silver certificates in exchange for larger legal tenders. Transfers of ?770,000 to other cities were called for. Of this amount ?50,000 was paid for in gold, and ?676,000 went to New Orleans. The Canadian banks are just now issuing many small bank notes and come to the Sub-Treasury here as a convenient place to replenish their required reserve of gold. One bank yesterday took ?100,000.

WE NEED A WAR.

Mast Kill the Surplua Population for the Benefit of the Rich. In conversation with a gentleman he said that “we ought to have a war in order to kill off the thousands who had nothing to do and could get nothing to do.” And this is the 19th century! This is a civilization that has been moulded by the influences of Christianity and softened by the tenderness of brotherhood! This is an age that is brilliant with the power and creations of accumulated wealth! This is the country in which millionaires increase, churches and school houses multiply and art galleries and libraries and colleges and inventions grow more and more numerous! And yet, like hungry men from a shipwreck it is brutally concluded that we must kill some of our number that the rest may live. The idea is monstrous; it is savage; it is devilish. If in 1,900 years the human race is yet so near a barbaric state as to harbor a thought as horrible as this man expressed, there can be no longer a doubt of the gospel truth of the doctrine of man’s total depravity. The thought at once ignores, brutally ignores, the teachings of Jesus Christ and outrages every lofty sentiment of the heart. That it should be deemed necessary or advisable to slaughter thousands, that the Goulds, and Vanderbilts, and Morgans and Rockefellers should keep their useless millions and accumulate more, is a violation of every principle of civilization. The Almighty, we do not believe, ever created men for other men to kill in order that there might be more room on the earth for greed and plunderers. In a sparsely settled country like this, not yet inhabited by the one-tenth of the people that it can support, to talk of its inability to feed and clothe and house a portion of those who are already here, is not only preposterous, but is the savage experience of a blood-thirsty disposition that would shame a cannibal and offend the religion of a Choctaw; and if such talk cannot awaken the masses to change our systems so that a man can live where wheat sells for 50 cents a bushel and potatoes for 25 cents, God help the nation and the race.—Chicago Voice.

England's President.

Anyone who supposed Cleveland would permit Secretary Olney to push his “vigorous foreign policy” evidently don’t know Cleveland. The president has called Olney down just as he did Gresham on the Corinto affair. A Washington dispatch of Oct. 26th says: “You can bet every dollar you can get hold of,” said an attache of the State Department to-day, “that there will be no trouble between this country and Great Britain over Venezuela. To take up Venezuela’s case by force means the establishment of a protectorate by the United States in South America, and I can assure you that nothing is farther from the minds of President Cleveland and Secretary Olney. The vigorous foreign policy we have been talking about will be on paper entirely. “Spanish-American sympathizers assert confidently that the boasted “vigorous foreign policy” of the United States has come to a sudden and inglorious end. Those know of the personal and social relations between Sir Julian Pauncefote and the President never could be made to believe that any firm stand against Great Britain would be possible under the present administration, and now they are more convinced of this fact than ever.” English capitalists knew what they were about when they put Cleveland in president. No greater friend of England and enemy of the interests of the American Republic ever occupied official position this side the big pond.— Sentinel. The old party papers will probably drop politics entirely, just after election. The people are bo agitated that the politicians want them to cool down enough to be handled without gloves by the bosses next year. But it won’t work —there are enough Pojmlist papers to keep things warm, and the campaign of ’96 is already begun.

Why is it that men who are “born to work” do not find a job that was born at the same time for their accommodation?

SENSATIONAL BOOK.

STARTLINQ REVELATIONS REGARDING PULLMAN STRIKE. ■Ten the Regular Soldier* and Army Officer* Thought It Disgraceful to Kill Workingmen for the Benefit of Corporation* and Threatened to Revolt. Mayor Pingree of Detroit, Mich., has written a book, which, In Its introductory chapter, makes certain startling disclosures which every patriotic American should hall with acclamations of delight. Mayor Pingree is built upon the pattern of Gov. Altgeld of Illinois. He Is honest, earnest and courageous. He loves his fellow men who are in distress. He abhors plutocrats and all their devilish machinations. He regards them as the arch enemies of the republic who would, if they could, debauch angels and wreck the government of heaven to carry out their satanlc policy. Mayor Pingree introduces the Pullman strike that he may give the public an astounding secret connected with that affair in Chicago! He speaks like one who knows whereof he speaks, and the public has learned to place implicit confidence in his utterances.

The secret disclosed by Mayor Pingree is that the officers of <he regular United States troops brought to Chicago by order of President Cleveland, who foolishly took the advice of Olney, the corporation lawyer, who was attorney general in Cleveland’s cabinet, met at one of the hotels and denounced the policy of using the army to perpetuate wrongs and by so doing to degrade it in the eyes of the people. . . . Whenever opportunity offered they (the army officers) compared the information gathered by their own men and themselves, and when they exhausted inquiry and were satisfied, they met in one of the Chicago hotels. That meeting was one of the most extraordinary for its significance that was ever held in this country. It was a calm and quiet comparison of notes gathered by the officers themselves, and the conclusion was clear that the army had been brought to Chicago under a pretense for the purpose of siding with the corporations In an industrial struggle. Mayor Pingree, in what he says, states what multipled millions of men believed at the time was true, that it was clear there was no emergency of sufficient moment to demand the appearance of the United States army. The troops were in a dilemma. “The unhappy operatives at Pullman,” says Mayor Pingree, “were not armed men, nor were the men of the Railway Union who took their part cutthroats or armed rebels. It was clear that it was a fight for Just wages. It was clear that it was a fight for Just wages against Pullman and his sympathizing corporation gang, who refused arbitration. Pullman had said, There is nothing to arbitrate,’ and a misguided President of the United States had sent the troops to back Pullman. It was clear to the eyes of those officers that the police, or at the utmost the state troops, were equal to the disturbance that had been going on, and it was clear to them that such work for the army would, when the real facts were known, render the army obnoxious to the thinking people, as showing that it waß at the beck and call of corporations and as showing that a corporate aristocracy had the control of the army, and that if a republic were to be maintained it would call for the total abolition of an army that could be made use of for such anti-republican methods.” “There in that room,” says the author, “officers who had seen service in the great war of the rebellion, expressed their indignation that they were called out to be used, as was patent to them, not so much to quell a riot as to crush labor unions, in a city where cowardice and greed for money predominated over common sense; where howling newspapers egged on rather than allayed the excitement of a badly misinformed city, and all under the flimsy plea of enforc- i ing the interstate commerce act. They were to be used as the general managers might deem best.”

“These officers,” says Mayor Pingree, “did not confine themselves to the mere expression of Indignation. Their patriotic feeling led them further than I that. They denounced among them- | selves the advisers of the President of the United States who had sent them on such a mission. It was not the spirit of insubordination, but of righteous indignation against being used against the defenseless and the weak, an& to bolster up wrong and greed, which animated many regular officers. “In their righteous anger they were willing to give their views to the public, and a second meeting was to be held to formulate those views, which were to be spread over the length and breadth of the land to the people of the republic. It is a pity these did not see the light of day at the time. Had they been published there might have been a different; end of the great strike. The people! would have known the truth. All the facts of this meeting were, however, well known to newspaper men of the Chicago dailies, and those from other cities who were on the ground, and some day it will be history, and be to the credit of our army, although now it may not appear so. “By some means the particulars of this first meeting leaked out before the second meeting was held, and a courtmartial of the officers who participated was ordered. Hhis created great excitement among the railroad managers, to whom the particulars had come. The facts were also known to the newspapers—at least they were known those in the interests 6t the corporations; but they were told not to DUblish

them, and they kept these important (acta from the public. • • • "The facta,” says Mayor Pingree, “of the court martial also leaked out at the time, and the publication of that, too, was suppressed. Among the officers to be court martialed for expressing an ipinion against using the army for such unholy purposes was a colonel of a regiment, who had served through the war if the rebellion, and whose name is well known in this state. But the courtmartial never took place. The commanding officer was discreet enough to ; forward particulars to Washington, and the President, aghast at the front of independent American citizenship which he had aroused in his subordinates by his anti American methods, squelched the court-martial, but the colonel was retired from active service, and the other officers were cowed by pressure from Washington authorities. “This action on the part of these thoroughly American officers is one of the bright spots on a black page of American history; a page as black as that of Homestead, where workingmen were on the defensive against bogus philanthropy and hypocritical patriotism. Their action shows clearly that the intelligent ; men of the nation are holding to the opinion that Justice, and not gatling guns, is the best recourse of this nation under all circumstances. “It shows that men who have seen serious service in armß are averse, except under direct necessity, to sweeping the streets of great cities with machine i K l >ns; that the men who have defended , the flag want the arms of the nation . dignified by placing them against the I rea l foes of the country, and not against the workingmen, who constitute the bone and sinew of our population, and the bulk of our soldiery in time of real war. The troops of the United States should never be called into any struggle that does not involve a conflict between civil authorities and the mob, with the express intention on the part of the latter of overturning the government. They should never be called on to interfere in industrial struggles between employer and employed, as there has never been a time, and the time can never arise, when the constabulary, the police, and the militia of any given state can not handle the matter, however grave. “No matter how loud the call of corporationists and their managers, a deaf ear should be turned to their frantic appeals for the Interference of the United States troops. They were never intended for this purpose by our forefathers.” Little by little the well planned corporation infernallsm of calling out the regular army to sweep the Btreets of Chicago with machine guns for the benefit of corporations is leaking out, and In due time Cleveland, Olney and Mills, and their coadjutors, will stand eternally photographed in the mlndß of the American people as inhuman beasts of j prey, and the story told by Mayor Pln- ! gree lifts the rank and file of the regular army to the serenest elevation of paI triotism. The secrets disclosed by j Mayor Pingree show to what depths of I depravity Cleveland’s administration could descend to defeat the American Railway Union, whose only crime was to assist famishing men and women to escape from the Jaws of George M. Pullman, a millionaire man-eating tiger.— Railway Times.

Rev. Walter A. Evans of Malden, Mass., is another preacher who is liable soon to find himself out of a job. In the Arena for October he has a striking paper entitled: "Preacher and Plutocrat: or the Corruption of the Church Through Wealth.” "The favoring nod of the plutocrat,” writes Dr. Evans, “is the open sesame to good standing and promotion in the aristocratic church; and the shrug of the plutocrat’s shoulders, his very praise (whispered in secure secrecy), judiciously faint, will apply to the preacher, through the denomination machinery, the ecclesiastical gag and boycott by which, in the Bmooth usage of the modern inquisition, God's prophets of righteousness are reduced to silence.” The preachers all feel more or less the tightening of plutocracy’s grip on the church, and we are pleased to note that many of them prefer to preach the simple creed of Jesus and live on the homely fare which the hard-hearted old world bestows on its reformers.

If the free coinage men in the two old parties don’t soon join the Populists, they will be wandering about, gloomily, hopelessly singing: “Fatherless, motherless, sadly we roam, our nursing bottle stolen, our reputation gone.” The gold-bugs will steal their old party nursing bottle; their reputation will be shattered among the people, and they will be without any party at all. Come and join us, boys, before the gold-bugs sell the roof from over your heads. You fellows are old enough to begin taking care of yourselves. Let the nursing bottle'and the bosses go to England if they will. Another fine specimen of municipal corruption under old party rule has been uncovered at Pittsburg, Pa. A press dispatch says: “Sensational developments continue as the result of the investigation of the affairs of the city attorney’s office by the subcommittee of councils. The authorities have already figured out a shortage of SIOO,000, and it is said that before the investigation is closed it will be shown that the city is a loser of at least $500,000 or more.” S 3 Our public debt increased last year about one hundred million dollars more than the total amount of gold mined in the world during the same period. A hard problem for the single gold stands ard advocates to explain.

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