People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1896 — Page 4
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The People’s Pilot. BY F. D. CRAIG. (Lessee.) PILOT PUBLISHING 00., (Limited,) Proprietors. Qatib H. Yeoman, President. Wm. Washburn. Vice President. Lee E. Glazebrook, Sec’y. J. A. McFarland Treas. Tbb People's Pilotls the official organ of she Jasper and Newton County Alliances, and .« published every Thursday at ONE DOLLAR PER ANNUM Sntered as second class matter at the post office in Rensselaer. Ind.
Congress will probably authorize the building of six of the largest size war ships and fifteen modern torpedo boats. One bill before congress -asks for $87,000,000 for new battle ships and torpedo boats. It will hardly become a law this session. Cleveland does not favor the recognition of the Cubans as belligerents at present, though congress in both houses is nearly unanimous in asking him to do so. McKinley will undoubtedly be the next Republican presidential candidate, and he is on record as opposed to the free coinage of silver by the United States except by international agreement. That is the exact position of every gold standard advocate. International agreement was the straddle planks in the old party platforms of 1892 and will be again in 1896. The United States army, which for years has been fixed at 25.000 soldiers, has commenced its steady growth to the mighty proportions of the arm ies of monarchial Europe. The beginning is small: being only about 20 per cent for the artillery and infantry, or 5771 men and officers. The additional cost is but the trifle of *1.757.073, and the government borrowing gold to meet expenses.
Will Build a $100.000. Shell.
Commissioner Mart ind ale made the statement a few days since, that it was their (the commissioners’) intention to expend *IOO,OOO on the new court house and leave it in an unfinished condition, omitting the heating apparatus, furniture and minor details. The Pilot has maintained that the commissioners intended to violate the law by involving the county in debt beyond the one per cent limit. Now we have it direct from the John Bull of the commissioners court himself that they will build as much of the court house as they can with SIOO,OOO and let the future provide for its completion. Why, certainly a very respectable shell can be put up for SIOO,OOO. The windows, which are to be of the finest French plate, according to Commissioner Martindale, can be temporarily fitted with wooden shutters and- nailed up. What the care if it does take a few more years to get the building ready for occupancy? there are plenty rooms that can be rented for the officers and the opera house will serve for a court room; Jasper county is r ; ch and the blessing of hard times will enable the bonds to bring a good price. But then the state legislature is accommodating and perhaps some special favor may be granted to Jasper, as was done for White, and another issue of bonds authorized. In any case the taxes will get on the top round of the ladder to prosperity and stay there.
The proper way for the government to prevent deficit in its postal revenues is to abolish the franking privilege entirely. Let all official matter be paid for just the same as private business. If that was done there would be a handsome surplus even in these hard times. It is the “deadhead” stuff for campaign purposes that is swamping the department. If the 16c postage rate on merchandise was re duced. one-half it would take millions of dollars annually away from the express companies and put it where it rightly belongs. The express monopoly is attempting through its immense lobby at Washington and its pliable instruments in con gress to have a law enacted that will exclude from the United States mails as second class matfer all periodical, books and many other publications, thus depriving the people of the existing opportunity to get the very best literature a marvelously low price. It will be a greater calamity to the nation than war with England if it. should pass.- • 'B' *Y '
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Appeal to Subscribers.
It is not necessary in this connection to refer to the fact that times are hard, that people are economizing i n every possible
way} that only the most .pressing debts are being paid by many, for the reason that they can get no money. Now this condition of affairs bears heavily on the publisher of the county paper, and especially the reform editor, whose subscribers are often poor. His subscribers cannot respond to his call for payments, and he finds it hard to meet current expenses, and if, as in the case of the Pilot, there are payments to make on machinery and type, it is doubly hard. This little statement is made that the friends of the paper who can render it a little assistance now, may know that it is urgently needed. We do not ask donations, simply the payment of something on subscription account for yourself or for some one else. There are *2OOO due on subscription alone. Many cannot pay now. but will later on; others can pay but are careless. There are many who could easily send the paper to a distant friend for a year, or to a neighbor, and would, perhaps, if they but thought of it; many are doing so. We simply ask the reader of this to do the best he can to help the paper meet its pressing obligations. This year promises to be the most important in the history of political parties in America, and if the Pilot is unhampered financially it will play no small part in the making of political history in Jasper county and the tenth congressional district. It advocates the strict adherence to the principles of the People's party, and the nonaffiliation with either of the old parties. .Its editor feels that he is laboring for the individual interests of each subscriber as well as for society as a whole, and only asks that his hands may be strengthened to accomplish the greatest measure of good. Thanking you for many past kindnesses we remain, fraternally yours, F. D. Craig.
Attention Indiana Populists.
To the Voters of the P ople’s Party: By direction, and under the authority of the state central committee of the People’s party of Indiana, a state convention will be held atlndianqpolis, commencing on Tuesday, the' 28th day of July. 1896, for the purpose of nominating candidates for the several state offices, and the selection of presidential electors at large, for the approaching campaign. The basis of representation for delegates to said convention has been fixea by the state committee as follows: One delegate for each township in the state and an additional delegate for every one hundred votes and such major fraction thereof, cast for Dr. C. A Robinson for secretary of state in 1894. It is recommended that such delegates be selected at county, rather than township conventions. The time and place for holding county conventions for the selection of the delegates herein provided for is left to the discretion of the several county committees. i All persons who are dissatisfied with the servility and corruption of the two old parties are cordially invited to participate with the Peoples party in such conventions, and in support of the candidates to be nominated at our state, district and other (conventions. We welcome all 1 persons who believe that the interests of the people are abpve and beyond party lines, and who are unwilling to wear party labels when such party has abandoned the principles'which were the original basis of its birth and formation. N. T. Butts. Chairman. S. M. Shepard. Sec’y.
THE PEOPLE’S PILOT, RENSSELAER, IND.. THURSDAY MARCH 12, 1896.
Is II Worth the Price?
The world is full of young men who are panting to throw off the restraints of youth and enter into the battle of life. In every class, in every college, there is at least one boy who nurses the profound belief that he is “the coming man, and that he will open a new chapter in the book of human achievement. In the court house he will win cases Bob Toombs or Ben Butler would have lost. In medicine he will cure where Pasteur, or Koch, or Battey would have killed. In science, he will make Humboldt, and Spencer and Huxley and Darwin appear pigmies. As an orator he will spell bind where Phillips or Prentiss would have put to sleep. As a statesman. he will begin where Gladstone left off. As a warrior the first ‘Tbund” in his ladder of glory will be an Austerlitz or a Jena. Yes, indeed, I know what we are saying. When I was at college this “coming man” was in every class. In fact there were two or three of him in every class. And, of course. I was one of him myself. That was long ago—so long ago that when I met one of “the coming men” of these college days a few weeks since, I found him as gray and as subdued as a still, drizzly day in October. He was travelling about selling a new edition of an oxcellent cook book. This feverish, desperate contest for fame and wealth and position—is the reward worth the labor?
Is there any “reward” at all, in the success achieved, which brightens the home, gladdens the heart, and fills the soul's desire with satisfaction? In that hub bub of talk about you, which the world calls fame, how manv of the talkers are men whose good opinion is of actual value? And how many of these worthiest of the people are citizens whose good opinion is so indispensible to you that you would work you legs off and your heart out to get it? What is that good opinion going to do for you that you should turn your days into days of drudgery and your nights into sleepless vigils of anxious thought? What are you going to get out of it that repays you for the health- and the peace and the happiness paid for it? Napoleon believed that fame was the only immortality. He had no belief in the soul. \et after toiling so hard over his books that he stunned his growth; after reaching supreme power by such a career of blood, hypocrisy, selfishness, genius, labor, lies and good luck as the world never saw before; after carrying his triumphant eagles from Cairo to Moscow he had the mortification to learn that.there were people livingeven in France who had never heard of him. And, you see. he had been ram - paging around, with infinite noise, for twenty-odd years, just to make people hear of him! Where there is one man m the world today who has any clear idea as to who Napoleon was, there are forty thousand who never heard of him. Once upon a time a very prominent burgher of the town where I iive—a man of eminent respectability and in-telligence-closed a harangue I had been making to him on the subject of Napoleon’s greatness, by asking me with the utmost seriousness if Napoleon was dead.
What , was there in the splendid fame he won that made it easy for Henry Grady to give his young life into the frozen arms of death? What is there in Bill Nye should work himself to death—killing himself to supply the public with fun? Where is the recompense which repay to the slave of ambition the loss of the sunny days in the fields, the myriad voice of the autumn woods, and the leisure hours at the fireside of a happy home?
Shall there be no rest for weary feet in this mad race for fame and wealth and position? Shall there be no furlough frbtn this all-devouring army? Shall there never come a time when the rainy day is mine and the long, sweet hours in the quiet library? Shall the fever of pursuit so entirely enslave us that there shall be no hour that belongs to friendship, none that belongs to solitude and reflection, npue to memory and to the sacred teachings of regret? Tom Reed once said to me “we are not judged by character, we are judged by reputation.” Just so; and perhaps that’s the
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very reason why it is worth while to stress the fact that the reputation is not worth the price we pay for it—for surely the real value .of the man is his character and not his reputation. Get all the fame that flows from a good life. Such fame is as healthy as the light that pours from a star —as unfeverish as the breath of a rose or the song.of a bird. Such a fame is but thS halo that follows sterling worth. Get all the money you can honestly get. You owe it to yourself and those who depend on you to bring the vessals into port, if you can—safe from the storm* The man who says he loves being poor is a liar, and he takes you for a fool—else he wouldn’t tell you so. Win position in life, if you feel that duty calls for you there. No man should under rate the importance of fame, of wealth, or of position:—but the man who pays his health and his happiness and his life for them pays too much. —T. <E. W., in People’s Party Paper.
The Farmer’s Position.
What does the farmer give to the world and what does he get in return? The products of his toil nourish and sustain his fellow citizens of the United States, and are sent abroad to feed the inhabitants of Europe; and for all this bounty he is being shabbily paid in dollars so few that he is cramped and hampered, and advised to economize, to work harder, to keep quiet and to be contented. Within tlie last few months several hundred million dollars have been borrowed, most of which must be added to the *5,000,000 that this country already owes abroad. The farmer is expected to foot the bill, at least 75 per cent of it, for he furnishes that proportion of foreign exports. When the civil war closed our national debt was about $3,000,000,000, and probably hot one third of it was owed abroad; now, while the debt has been .reduced to nearly $1,000,000,000. our municipal, railroad mortgages and other obligations have been piled up until it is believed that they now amount to over *4,000000,000, all due to foreign capitalists, and on which interest has to be paid in gold, of w T hich the farmer must pay threefourths of the whole, both prin cipal and interest, Under the gold standard this debt is being doubled and if the foreign effort to force their monetary system still further upon us is fully carried out, it will be doubled again, and perhaps trebled. The farmer has to foot the bill with wheat at 50c a bushel: coni and oats in the same ratio. Not be ing able to keep the balance of trade in favor of this country, with our former gold and silver obligations amounting to *I,OOO 000,000, and wheat, corn and oats at prices fully double to what they now are, how are we to proceed with a debt five times as great to be paid in gold alone, when the men we owe are in possession of nearly all the gold? There is no gold in this country worth speaking of; a little in the treasury, a few millions in banks and saving funds, the rest has been Shylocked.. The last'bond issue was to have been a popular loan, which they well knew could not be, because the bonds are purchased in gold and the people do not possess the gold. The people apply to the banks for it and are told that they cannot have it, Why, if all kinds of money are to be parity,, are these bonds purchasable only with one kind? The people have silver and paper only; somebody else has the gold. it was foreseen that the bonds would finally be taken by a syndicate, and a little later on a syndicate will get the gold that was paid for the bonds; then it will depart to foreign shores. And the farmer has to foot the bill, at least 75 per cent of it. Of the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of imports—diamonds, wines, silks, etc., —mone is imported for him. Of the *75.000.000 annually spent by Americans trading in Europe, none is spent by the farmer. Of the hundreds of millions of dollars that are borrowed from Europe, none goes into his shrunken pocket; nothing is squandered by him in luxurious! or riotous living, yet all eyes are turned to him to come up and settle with foreign creditors and he is ridiculed, slandered and condemned if he dares evpn /to open his lips in protest, and. whether he protests ©r not, hei
must work on, keep still, economize, and let the rule of Mammon go on. The gold power, which is but another name for British greed, has taken the place of the old slave power in this country, and it is just as unreasonable, just as tyrannical, and just as inhuman as ever the slave power was. It names pliable candidates to be voted for, supplies the cash to both parties, writes party platforms one year and breaks them the next; forces its measures through legislative bodies, threatens juries and actually creates them; breathes the breath of life into vast monopohes which control the necessaries of life; despises the plain people, (especially the farmers) slanders all who dare to oppose it by speech or act; breeds discord and strife between different sections of the Republic; floods the country with pamphlets written by Wall street Tories; furnishes printed matter free to needy (?) newspapers; bribes government officials with railroad passes; endeavors to stay the rising tide of genuine Americauism. and smothers the fire of patriotism in the hearts of the people, Fellow Farmer.
A Utah Recruit.
The Utah Democrat, a free silver democratic paper published at Ogden, Utah, has a clear conception of the political situation, and joins the Peoples party with the following editorial: “The proposed silver party promises nothing but free silver. They have no press save a few sheets that have sprung up in Utah. These obstacles are all overcome in the Peoples party. They have an organization, national and most perfect, with more than 2,000;000 voters at the 1894 election. They have an army of over 3,000 newspapers that are valiently fighting (every one of them) for free silver and other much needed reforms. Besides. this, this party is fast growing. While in every state that held an election this fall the total vote was from 10 to 20 per cent less than the congressional election of 1894. still the Peoples party made clear gains in every state. They gainecjju Nebraska 7,000 votes, in lowa, 20.000 votes, in Ohio 5,000, in Kentucky 15,000, in Kansas we have not the total vote, but they gained 24county officers: in the city of Denver alone they gained 7,000 votes, and in Utah they gained more than 1,000. Looking things squarely in the face, j we believe it better policy to* be ! able to be part of the great young party of the nation than to simply be a tail of the people’s Pfirty kite. That is all the | silver part y could hope to he—|as after the People's part y have | held their convention it would jbe suicidal for a silver party to put a ticket in the field in opposition to them. It would be the very thing the republican party wo : Id want to see done.
“Farther than this, the peo pie's parly deals with tne railroad question and the land monopoly question.' Surely, both of these questions are vital questions for Utah. We are being most unmercifully fleeced in this valley in the matter of freight rates, and land monopolies are fast gobbling up the public domain, and our small farms are fast passing into the hands of the usurer. After looking at these questions fro* every side, we have concluded to unfurl the people’s party banner, nail to our mast head Finance, Transportation, Land, Free Silver and Death to Inter-est-bearing Bonds, and abide by the result.” —Progressive Farmer.
Peoples Party Convention.
Members of the Peoples party are requested to meet at their usual places of meeting in the several townships of Jasper county March 21, 1896, at 2 o’clock p. m., for the purpose of electing a chairman for each precinct and perfecting the precinct organization as was done about two years ago. The precinct chairment then selected will constitute the county central committee, and, will meet at the Nowels House in Rensselaer, March 28, 1896, for the purpose of perfecting the county organization, setting time for holding of nominating convention, and transacting such other business as may come before the meeting. J. A. McFarland, Chm’n. li. Strong, Sec.
Oih Minute Cough Cure touches the right spot. It also touches it at the right time if you take it when you have a cough or cold. Bee the. point? Then don t cougb A.. F. Long, Druggist.
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Paragraphs From The Progressive Farmer.
Col. Dan Jones, Democratic candidate for governor of Arkansas, declares that he will not support the nominee of the Chicago convention except upon a free coinage platform of 16 to 1. * * M. Isn’t it funny the way the Republican papers urge the Democrats to nominate Morrison? The Democracy of a few years ago would have scorned the advice; the Democracy of today will perhaps accept it. * -* Make a tramp and you destroy a man. There were no tramps in America until we adopted a system which made money too valuable to employ labor; therefore that system, the gold standard is responsible for the tramp. Can you tell "why the dollar that bought only one bushel of wheat a few years ago was not just as sound as the dollar which now buys two bushels? Which would you rather have, the dollar you got for one bushel, or the dollar you now get for two bushels?
* * There are 800,*000,000 one cent pieces in the United States. Thi6 is equivalent to $8,000,000, and the metal is worth perhaps ten thousand dollars. Is this “sound money?” Why don’t the bankers object to it? Oh, it don’t interfere with the bankers! * * Cleveland now threatens that if congress does uot at the present session provide for the destruction of the greenbacks, he will call a special session for that purpose. Instead, congress should immediately order the administration to pay out silver on coin obligations according to law and the contract. * * Every Populist, every lover of equal rights and good government, should begin to plan to attend the great joint convention at St. Louis July 22. Those two conventions will be the greatest ever known in the United States, and they will represent the most emphatic protest against existing conditions ever made in any country. * * We have in mind a locality where a certain piece of property was taxed *44.77. The people, tired of such high taxes, flopped over and put the other old party in power. The very same property was then taxed *72.45. This is no joke, for we have the receipts. The old parties are both alike, except that each may be a little worse than the other. * Tramps are so’plentiful in Wisconsin that a state convention has been called to consider the question. The tramp is a modern institution in the United States, and so is the gold standard. Both came together, and both will leave together. The tramp is the product of that system which makes money too highpriced to employ labor.
How many of your neighbors don't take any paper at all? These can not expect to know anything of the conditions that oppress except as they are told. How many" others take none but old party papers ? These can know nothing except what they get warped and twisted in the interest of a party. Let us try to get into the hands of all some means of learning what it is that, hurts them, and what is necessary to do in order to relieve the hurt. * T,he party lash will be used from now on as it has never been used before. Already the gold standard elements of both old parties are taking pledges of the silver men of their respective parties, that they will stick to the party, no matter what action it may take on the finance question; and those who will not give such a pledge are being mercilessly excoriated. The silver men who cannot be bought with offices or promises, arc to be whipped in or kicked out. * *
* The only word the administration has for silver Democrats is “surrender or die!- Recently 63 Democratic members of the Kentucky legislature joined in a request that Carlisle advise jthe few gold bug Demo l crats that prevent the re-election of Senator Blackburn, to join with the majority and end the struggle. reply was to the effect that if the silverites wish harmony in the Democratic party they should abandon Blackburn, and elect a gold-bug.