People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1896 — Page 7

A $4,000,000,000 BALL

IN A •3.000,000 PALACE. WITH 4,000,000 IN THE COLO. Krtfflw Thouud Dollar Diamond* Shine and Ollaten Around » hSO.OM Fountain Opening of Wandorblir* An exchange says: “Last week Cor-, nelius Vanderbilt’s new residence was opened at Newport with a ball. The palace cost $3,000,000. More than 200 ehoice guests gathered around the $50,000 fountain by the grand stairway. It is estimated that these 200 guests represented $4,000,000,000, and if that does not entitle them to be termed the ‘creme of the creme,’ simmed milk ought to be good enough for most people.” The Atlanta Constitution commenting on this says: "There is a touch of ill nature in these comments. Ours is a country for all classes, the rich and the poor, all colors and races. A billion dollar bail is just as much in keeping with the spirit of our institutions and the tone of our society as any gathering would be. It is a good thing for the people at large that the rich are pleasure seekers, and their extravagance is in many ways a blessing. “The Vanderbilt ball turned an immense sum of money loose, and it directly and indirectly benefited thousands of tradesmen and toilers. Every state in the union would be better off if it had Vanderbilts building palaces, giving balls and scattering millions of cash in every direction. This is the way to look at it.” The Richmond, Va., Star replies: “We do not believe that a billion dollar ball is in ‘keeping with the spirit of our institutions.’ A billion dollar ball represents thousands of homeless and destitute people, made so by the robbery of the owners of the billion dollars. Their holdings are representative not alone of wrecked homes, but of crazed minds, despoiled virtues, of prisohs and poorhouses, of thieves and felons. They are representative of hundreds who were well-to-do to-day and to-morrow are homeless through the scheming and rascality of those who watered and manipulated the stockß of railroads and mines and other properties, which were turned over from the hands of the many into those of a few rascals who knew

the outs and ins of thievery, and often became the possessors of great properties without the expenditure of any money. No, the billion dollar ball is not in keeping with the ‘spirit of our institutions,’ unless cheating, stealing, and lying are in keeping with the spirit of our institutions. , “We deny most emphatically that every state in the union would be the better off for having a few Vanderbilts. For every Vanderbilt that every state should have would have to count its hundreds and thousands of idle and homelesss and the few millions they turned loose would not restore those who have been robbed and ruined to their own. “Tramps and paupers were unknown to this country until the millionaire made his appearance. With the coming of the millionaire has come the increase of crime, of tramps, of paupers, of idleness and anarchy. For many years this country moved steadily forward and the people were prosperous in the largest sense of prosperity without the presence of a single man with a million. With the coming of the millionaire have come all the ills that are known to the body politic. As the millionaire increases his wealth the people and the government have become poorer, until today we are told that but for the generous action and liberality of a few domestic and foreign millionaires our government would be without credit in foreign countries. When the government kneels at the feet of the millionaire it is no wonder that one part of the people uncover their heads and shout their praises while another and feebler part of the people are ridden over and trampled underfoot.”

There is another feature of this “spirit of our institutions.” About the same * time that Christ was born, and lay sleeping in a manger, the shepherds had a presentiment, and held a mass meeting, and started out to find relief; and that made Herod so mad that he killed all the boys under two years that he could And. While this billion dollar debauchery, one of the most profligate carousals that this nation has ever seen, unless it was a congressional orgie in a “Washington bazaar” or a presidential inauguration ball, l,sj()0 tramps held a mass meeting in Kansas—another proper presentation of the “spirit of our institutions.” It was a very quiet and orderly' meeting, with no special provision for the debauchery of women, no parade of drunkenness; and the Arkansas river took the place of the $50,000 fountain, the earth was the carpet and God’s blue sky was the covering. These were the representatives of the producers (owners) of that three billions upon which the thieves were rioting. And congress sits idly by, while the nation is plundered, more openly than when the British red coats marched overland to burn down the capitol at Washington.—Pueblo Independent. According to Mulhall there is just $1,040 in money and property for every man, woman and child in this country. Now if these 200 persons who attended Vanderbilt’s ball had $4,000,000,000 then there must be 3,046,184 persons who are paupers, or a much larger number who have much less than $1,040. In other words nearly four million paupers must exist in order that a four billion dollar ball may be given.. If, as the Constitution wishes, we had a few Vanderbilts and billion dollar balls in every state what would be the result? There are 45 states. Now a few billion dollar ballO would not leave a cent for the rest of

the people, as the nation*! wealth is hat $70,000,000,<M. It In easy to see from this that the Constitution did not know what it was talking about There are many more people who believe millionaires can be made without making paupers. It can’t he done. There is not enough money and property to go around.

No man every honestly made $1,000,000. Many persons must be robbed enable a man to get a million dollars Here is the pace. There is SI,OOO per capita. To make SIO,OOO one must make 10 paupers; to make SIOO,OOO, 100 paupers must be made: to accumulate $1,000,000 necessitates the reduction of 1,000 persons to beggary. This rule is as Inexorable as the laws of nature. Two men can not own the same dollar at the same time. Mrs. Vanderbilt wears a diamond worth $45,000. The annual report of the coroner of New York shows that 4.500 women are buried in pottter’s field every year. If there were not 4,500 paupers Mrs. Vanderbilt could not wear a $45,000 diamond. But we have overlooked something—production. If a man produce a million dollars he has not made one pauper and would certainly be a blessing to any community. But how much of the wealth of this country is in the hands of those who produced it? Practically none. The farmers of the agricultural states have produced billions of dollars worth of agricultural products in the last 25 years and are poorer to-day than they were in 1874. The same is true of all other productive industries. Millions of dollars are only aggregated into the hands of one perscm by robbery railway robbery, Standard Oil trust robbery, national bank robbery, interest robbery, rent robbery, and other robberies too numerous to mention. Some day the people will have sense enough to stop this, but how long will it take the people to see these things? Come now, old boy, get a wiggle on yourself and help us along. Are you doing your share? If not, try and do it. Be a man or get out of the way.

WAYLAND'S WAILS.

Paragraph* Clipped from “Appeal to Reason.*' The most disreputable, scoundrelly occupation that man can be engaged in, is that of pulling strings to place himself In office. To wish a party to succeed because it represents certain ideas is right, but to scheme to put himself forward is the action of just what I have called him.

The common people get punished for doing the very things in a small way that the office-holders and monopolists do daily on a gigantic scale. Just as kings and nobles could kill, rob and outrage womanhood by wholesale, but for doing which the common people were executed. The present state of affairs in the United States is just the old state of oppression in another form. Newspaper postage is to be increased to 8 cents a pound instead of one, if congressmen dare do it. Like the tax on whisky, it will aid the big dailies that are almost wholly carried by express companies, and the county papers are free inside the county. This 8 cent rate is the English standard. Anything to ape England and prevent the people from getting any benefit out of the government. Millions for wholesale murder, but not a dollar for the intelligence or benefit of the people.

The poor farmers feed the world, yet go ragged, live in poor houses and are »in want. The fabric workers clothe the world, yet are ragged, hungry and houseless. The builders shelter the world, yet are houseless, ragged and hungry. The people who furnish none of these have abundance of them and the many vote for the system that produces these effects and are too silly to see the cheat.

We are solemnly informed by the bankers that the withdrawal of SIOO,000,000 in gold and locking it up for the bonds will cause a stringency! And we are solemnly told the government must get that gold and lock it up or the nation will go to the demnition bow-wows! A case of heads the country loses and tails the bankers win. And men who dress well, eat three times a day, who can read and write, gulp both these statements down without salt! We are surely the greatest, wisest people on earth!

Why do you hug poverty so? Are poverty and want and anxiety so sweet you will not give up your stlly notions about private property to rid yourself of them? You see if all the property were public no one could draw an income from it unless they worked. It would have no rent roll, deeds of trust, mortgages, interest, etc., to get hold of and live in luxury on. Not a bit more than the postoffice or the public streets. Under such a system work would be provided for all and if they would not work they could starve. Houses better than 99 men out of 100 now live in could be had for SIOO a year if the wages were SI,OOO. If you don’t like poverty why the deuce do you vote for it?

Secretary of Agriculture Morton is not distributing any seeds this year, and the assets of some of our congressmen who have been selling their portion to seed venders will be cut down by that much, while the constituents of other congressmen who have been receiving them be losers. Things have come to a pretty pass when nothing can be put in sight of our congressmen, or in their care, that they won’t steal.

Tillman’s courage will Inspire others. The end is not yet

THE PEOPLE’S PILOT, RENSSELAER, USD., THURSDAY, FEB. 27. 1896.

DEAD STATESMAN.

COME HIGH AND CONGRESS REFUSES TO CHEAPEN. ranenU* and Obituaries gnat* aad House Decline to Omit Them —Growth of the Seaadal —Commissary Supplies —Home Bee eat Extravagances. (Special Correspondence Globe-Democrat.) Washington.—Senator Peffer has 500 newspaper comments on his congressional funeral bill. Not one of these comments is unfavorable. The bill has come before the senate three times and been sidetracked three times on parliamentary pretexts. It will never pass. Statesmen cling to their perquisites, in death as in life. Congressional eulogies are as farcical as congressional funerals are scandalous. In the house a few days ago a heroic .effort was made to do away with the congressional eulogies. It commanded just thirty-one votes. Those voting in the negative numbered 130. This division took place on the heels of a statement from former chairman of the committee on printing that in a single congress the bill for printing eulogies of deceased members had eost over SIOO,OOO. The house had a funny time in discussing the proposed reform.

Mr. Lacey, of lowa, .told of a constituent who had written asking for “some memorial addresses, because, as he said, there was nothing he read with so much pleasure as the obituaries of congressmen.” (Laughter.) “The whole country is about in the same mind,” commented Mr. Walker, of Massachusetts, and there was another roar of great laughter. Mr. Curtis, of New York, told how one of these memorial addresses “had transformed a venerable bachelor of mature years into a married man with wife and many children. (Laughter.) I need hardly say that this account of the deceased member somewhat disturbed his friends at home, who had always supposed that their distinguished representative at Washington had pursued an entirely different course of life.” (Great laughter.) Having had their jokes, the statesmen voted down the proposition to stop delivering eulogies to empty seats and indorsed the continued printing of them, with steel-plate engravings, in sombercolored books, at a cost of $50,000 or thereabouts annually.

The eulogies will be delivered and the funerals will go on after the old plan. It has cost us up to date over SIOO,OOO to bury dead senators. Senator Peffer’s bill does not propose that senatorial deaths shall be ignored. It provides that when a senator or representative dies at Washington, the branch of which he is a member shall appoint a committee “to properly prepare and incase the body of the deceased and forward it in charge of a sergeant-at-arms to the home of the deceased and deliver it to his family or to his relatives.” This is to be done at government expense, but “no action or proceeding requiring the expenditure of public money other than is herein provided for, shall be taken.” This is the proposed legislation which the press so unanimously indorses. Senator Hawley of Connecticut, Senator Mills of Texas, Senator Faulkner of West Virginia and Senator Mitchell of Oregon have in turn found parliamentary objections which have prevented a vote on the bill. Doubtless some other senators will be ready the next time the bill comes up as “unfinished business” to shunt it out of the way. One day the bill was to be considered at 2 o’clock. That day the senate adjourned at 1:48. Where Senator Peffer finds an unanswerable argument is in thegrowingextravagance in attending these funerals. Up to 1847 there had been forty-eight deaths of senators, and in only eleven of these cases was the senate called upon to spend any money. When senators died at their homes or during a recess of the senate, it was not deemed necessary for the government to turn undertaker. Now, however, no senatorial death is allowed to escape the contingent fund. Down to 1847 no senatorial funeral cost as much as SI,OOO. Since 1877 every senator but one who has died has been buried at government expense. It is perhaps worthy of mention that the last senatorial death before 1877 which did not cost the government anything was that of Lewis V. Bogy of Missouri. Mrs. Leland Stanford did not permit the senate to pay any of the bills of her husband’s funeral, but the Hearst obsequies cost the government $21,322.55. Some of the more recent congressional funerals illustrate the elasticity of the expense accounts. When Representative Houk of Ohio dropped dead during the last congress, he was given a casket that cost $350, to which was added a copper lining at a cost of SIOO more. A brick grave and a marble slab were put in by the thrifty cemetery management in Ohio. It cost $937.24 to take the committee from Washington to Dayton and back, and them en route. When these bills were audited it was found necessary to disburse in addition $74.60 for meals en route. Dayton is about fifteen hours from Washington. The committee was evidently composed of good feeders.

Another recent congressional funeral was that of Representative Chlpman, whose body was taken to Detroit. Here are a few of the queer items in the Chipman fufteral account: One-half dozen glasses $lB Six professional bearers..,. 18 Shaving 5 Pall-bearers’ invitations 5 .Canopy at grave 10 Soloist and male quartet....! 35 Four clergymen’s fees 40 Choir and organist 40

Mr. Chipman wan pot into a $550 casket and taken to Detroit in a special car at a cost of $669.39. The committee that went with the casket spent $492.51 for Pullman berths and “commissary supplies,’’sl4s.7s for “rooms, porters’ fees and transportation”—another ease of healthy appetites on a sad errand. Here is a compilation which shows how the scandal has been developing, and in which is found the inspiration for the Peffer bill: Deaths of representatives during the years 1890 to 1894 inclusive numbered 21 Their obsequies cost the government a total of $26,792 67 An average of 1,275 84 During the same four years eleven senators died, and the average expense of their funeral ceremopies was.... 4,542 02 Total for senate $49,962 22 Total for last two congresses $76,758 89 The first senatorial funeral at which government expense was incurred was that of Francis Malbone of Rhode Island. Among the items charged to the contingent fund in connection with the funeral of Senator Malbone were: Sixteen pounds of crackers $3 00 Eleven and a quarter pounds of cheese 2 81 It appears from the record that the committee to audit and control the contingent expenses allowed the item for crackers but rejected the bill for cheese. Senator Peffer had his attention called to the congressional funeral scandal when he, as chairman of the committee, was called upon to look over and approve the bills for the funeral of his colleague, Senator Plumb. He cut down one charge of SSOO to $l5O. But even after the scrutiny which the senator gave the items the total was $3,082.75. This was more than SI,OOO less than the average for the last ten senatorial funerals, but it was “equal to the estimated value of an average American farpi,’ / as Senator Peffer puts it. In the funeral expenses of Senator Plumb, paid by the senate, it appears that after paying S4OO for a casket and $55 for embalming the body in Washington, the committee employed another undertaker at Kansas to re-em-balm the body and to attend it two days, for which $l5O was paid. The sashes bought for the twelve members of the committee to wear cost $46.48. It appears that after reaching Emporia the members of the committee scattered In various directions to their homes, and then put in individual bills for what they spent in getting back to Washington by various roundabout ways. “Commissary supplies en route” for those twelye gentlemen cost $153.41. "Commissary supplies” cover a multitude of expensive habits. In the old contingent expense accounts of congressional funerals were found wine, brandy, cognac, almonds, raisins, syrup, soda water and so on. These items never appear now. “Commissary supplies” sounds better. When congress footed the bill for the nation’s hospitality to Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, one item in the official expense account was:

Champagne, sherry, madeira, postage, cigars, lemonade, bar bill, washing, medicine, post office stamps, porterage, and messengers, hack hire paid at different timer, telegrams, sugar, brandy and whisky in room, porter and ale, envelopes, barber’s bill $658.82 Brandy and whisky were called “brandy and whisky” in those daysf and not “commissary supplies.” One curious discovery, resulting from Senator Peffer’s industrious investigation is the fact that distance usually has little to do with the cost of a congressional funeral. Senator Plumb was buried at Emporia, Kan., and Senator Kenna at Charleston, W. Va. Emporia is more than 1,000 miles west of Charleston. Senator Kenna’s funeral cost $34.75 more than Senator Plumb’s. “Commissary supplies, meals and lunches” for the Kenna funeral cost $432.48 —about three times the cost of the same for the trip from Washington to Emporia. Charleston, W. Va„ is eleven hours’ ride from Washington. Besides this $432.48 for ‘“commissary supplies, meals and lunches” on the Kenna funeral trip, there was a charge of $76.50 for room and board while at Charleston. A Washington undertaker went on the trip and received $45 for his funeral services, while the Charleston undertaker got $56 more for his funeral expenses. The two items already mentioned for “commissary supplies” and for “room and board,” aggregating over SSOO, do not Include $29.75 for breakfast at an eating station en route. The car which carried the body of Senator Kenna was draped at a cost of $55. “Besides, undertakers,florists and hotelkeepers all perform their work and make their charges on the same grand scale,” Senator Peffer observes. How little distance figures in the expense accounts is shown by two senatorial funerals. The bodies of Senator Miller and Senator Hearst were taken to California. Senator Miller’s funeral cost $3,532.34. Senator Hearst’s cost $21,322.55. Senator Vance was buried in North Carolina, a little more than a day’s ride from Washington, but the expense account was $4,438.66. ' The first senatorial funeral that cost over $1,500 was that of Senator John C. Calhoun, for whose interment in South Carolina the government paid $3,106.47. Tliat same year the contingent expense account was drawn on for another senatorial funeral in South Carolina, and the amount was only $1,726.10. The Y,ery next senatorial funeral was Henry Clay’s. It cost the senate $5,447.02. The minuteness with which the generous accounts are kept is striking. No pennies escape. In the case of Charles Sumner o( Massachusetts, the items

charged to the contingent fund amounted to $4,687.99. Not in so muclk as a single cent was the government wronged. The funeral of Senator Hearst leads all others in costliness. Henry Clay’s comes next, and after that is Charles Sumner’s. Senator Beck’s body was taken to Kentucky at a cost of $4,453.45. The custom of drawing on the contingent funds for funerals of statesmen be£an, as already stated, ♦ th cases where deaths occurred at Washington when congress was sitting. It now extends to senators and representatives wherever they die. The last senatorial death was that of Senator Stockbridge of Michigan, which occurred at the senator’s home. A committee of senators was appointed and sent to the funeral at a cost of $1,171.92. Representative Myron B. Wright died during recess in the last congress. The sergeant-at-arms made up a party to attend the funeral and charged the expenses, $1,414.80, to the contingent fund. It will be noted that the cost of assembling a committee to witness the burial of a dead senator or representative at his home when congress is not in session is much greater now than the cost of giving a funeral in Washington and of sending all the way home with an escort was a few years ago. “The average congressional funeral,” says Senator Peffer, “is nothing more than a party of goodnatured gentlemen having a good time at the public expense.” In the fifty-second and fifty-third congresses there were twenty-one funerals of representatives; that is twenty-one funerals in four years from 1891 to 1895. The cheapest was that of Representative James Phelan, of Memphis, who died in the Bermudas, and was taken thence to Tennessee at an expense to the government of only $345.80.. The most expensive of these twenty-one funerals was that of J. L. Chipman, of Detroit, which cost $2,308.40. The body of the Hon. J. W. Kendall was escorted to the mountain home in Eastern Kentucky at a cost of $2,166.56, and one of tht members who went with it wrote forf the papers a very humorous description of the expedition on his return to Washington. W. B. S.

SOUND SENSE.

EUiraal Vigilance Is the Pries of Liberty. Missouri World: This paper has repeatedly advised the silver men of tho old parties who could not see their way clear to poin the people’s party, to withdraw from the goldbug parties and form a party of their own, and expressed the belief that if they would do so nothing could keep them and the populists from coming to an understanding. We said that when old party ties were severed they would not see so much in the populist platform that was objectionable to them. When the single plank platform was first advocated we asserted that the money question in its broad sense was alone worthy of a dozen campaigns. But we opposed the one-plank move. The party was advancing rapidly on the Omaha platform. The railroad and government loan and postal bank propositions were dear to many of our people. These principles of the party had gathered to us, we had reason to believe, a large per cent of our strength. They were concrete and caught the attention of people whose attention could not be attracted by the abstract money question. They were a great aid to the party instead of a hindrance, as the one plank men thought. While the question was up for discussion the bimetallic party was formed at Washington City. In its platform there was none of the alleged objectionable planks of the Omaha platform. We hoped this new party would be able to gather round its banner millions of voters. But from all appearances it proved a complete failure. One trip across the continent by Mr. Sibley and little was heard of it afterward. The silver men —most of them—who had abandoned the old parties found a suitable place in the people’s party and this left no room for the bimetallic party. Our national committee by a majority vote of those present, decided, last week, at its meeting in St. Louis, to ask those desiring financial reform but who are not ready as yet to join the people’s party, to hold a national convention at same time and place as the populist convention with the view of getting together. Months ago this paper suggested that the silver men of old parties form a party, if they could not come to us, appoint their county, state and national committees and call a convention at same time and place as the populist convention, and expressed the belief that the two bodies would agree. It would seem that we had no room for complaint at the committee’s action. But the silver men have not withdrawn from the old parties. They have not formed state organizations. It is possible that the bimetallic convention will have no constituency. That the delegates will not be appointed by the people. That the bimetallic convention will represent a very few people. That it will simply serve to give the t one plank men a strength muchJarger than the one plank sentiment, in case the two bodies go together, and that with a part of the populist convention and all of the bimetallic, they will be able to dictate platform and candidates. On the Other hand, there may be a bolt from the republican convention and there is pretty sure to be one from the democratic convention, and it may turn out that the bimetallic convention will represent millions of voters. We hope so. But let populists bear In mind that “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

The next election will wipe Mason, and Dixon’s line off the map forever.

HUMBUG THE PEOPLE.

AND THE DEAR PEOPLE LOVE IT SO MUCH. Th« Majority of Voter* Swallow ltoythine — Bon. Extract* from tho Say Inc* of Pro»*«loaal Politician* Who Rain tho Conn try. In these times of general dlstrwn (the money king excepted of course) it will prove interesting to gnaw a file —of newspapers. The people’s party at its national convention in Omaha In 1892 declared that the old parties had brought thin country to “the verge of moral, political and material ruin.” What a screech went up from on* end of the country to the other at this truthful statement and what fiendish delight the plutocratic papers took in calling the populists "calamity howlers” because of It. „ But you never see the word calamity in these papers now. It is a ticklish subject that they do not like to refer to. The calamity Is here! So there is no need of referring to it, and the less said the soonest mended. When a fellow has made a monumental jackass of himself he don’t care to mention the matter. So with the old party jackass politicians and editors. (Thin Is not very dignified but it is correct) It is fun to cram their own false sayings down their throats and show what fools they were. The masses of republican and democratic politicians and editors are not to blame. They were only the victim of the big confidence sharps and were humbugged with the rest. So we’ll let them alone. But the following quotations from the boss political blacklegs will prove the point: Grover Cleveland worked the repeal of the purchasing clause through congress by open bribery, dispensing offices for votes until even the papers of his own party began to ridicule his “pto counter.” And he worked his confidence game under the pretense of securing a return of prosperity. Where is It? Ask these fellows who went on record at the same time: Repeal the Sherman bill and good times will return within thirty days.— John Sherman. The financial situation Is growing brighter. I believe the recovery will bo more rapid than the country has ever witnessed. The crisis is over and you will witness an unparalleled recovery. —Comptroller Eckleu, Sept. 1, 1893. In ten days from this time the skies will be brighter, business will resume Its ordinary course, and the clouds that lower upon our house will be In the deep bosom of our ocean buried.—John Sherman, Nov. 1, 1893. The effect of repeal will be most favorable to the country. It is the time to cheer up. Recovery will be manifested from this time on.—Minneapolis Journal, Oct. 1, 1893. And these are the men who are recognized In our country as statesmen and leaders of public opinion.— Milwaukee Advance.

The Great Man.

The great man was so great that he held thirty million two-legged animalß In his left hand and thirty-five million in his right, in perfect balance. At the same time a great eagle appeared at Washington. When the eagle spread out his wings they tpuched Boston and San Francisco at the same time. The great man took the great bird on his hands and named the great eagle “Congress.” He decided to break the eagle to be a gentle servant for his private service. In his boundless wisdom he decided not to use physical force but to starve nearly to death, and it was a success. The great man then said, "My little country is not fit for a great man; guess I will take a trip to Jupiter and give that little globe an object lesson, and my eagle will fetch me there.” He then cut a large piece of meat out of a farmer’s heap, put the meat on the point of his sword, seated himself on the eagle’s neck, holding the sword in his right hand, with the meat twelve inches ahead of the bird’s head, and a black-snake in his left hand, whipping the bird all the time in order to make his meat tender. The eagle, flying for the meat, shot through the air like a cannon ball. As the air was full of road dust from below and meteor dust from above, the great man’s eyes became of no account. For the sake of producing light he put a gold piece in his mouth, but still the Egyptian darkness prevailed; he" then swore by his graetness that gold was of no account at Jupiter. Presently the eagle collided with a great wall, and the great man touched solid ground, but darknesß still prevailed. “Where am I at? Perhaps in hades! I desire a better place. I have changed my friends and my party, and I took my nation by the throat and choked the life out of her; but if I am In hades it is a step in the right direction. I will meet the rich man here.” Presently the rich man appeared, plated with gold and powdered with diamonds. Seeing a little animal crawling on the ground with a yellow speck in its mouth, he picked it up with his right hand and put it in the palm of his left, looked at it but could not tell what It was; he put it under a powerful microscope and pronounced it to be a genuine Jftnerlcan “gold bug.” Well, the rich man charged ten million dollars for entertainment and a return ticket. The farmers paid the bill.—J. Fatland, Newark, 111.

Of course the Populist platform of the coming campaign will be called the "St. Louis’- platform—but It will embrace the true and eternally right principles of the old Omaha platform.

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