People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1896 — HALL THE TRAITOR. [ARTICLE]

HALL THE TRAITOR.

EIGHT SENATORS ARE POLITICAL COWARDS. Between the Cowards aad tha Traitor* the Liberties of the People Are Being Crucified—Time to Call a Loud Halt. Congressman U. S. Hall, of Missouri, who, like Livingston, of Georgia, and others, owes his position in Congress to the deception he practiced on the Alliance, or Farmers’ and Laborers’ union of his state, has been creating a little sensation in Congress. Hall is one of those shrewd fellows who took advantage of a popular uprising among the people against existing evils to boost himself and a few friends that helped him intjtra salaried positions. He never codid. haye broke into Congress any other way, and his treachery to the organization that elevated him to the position is a fitting evidence of the unscrupulousness of the man. He went to Congress as a free silver advocate. He assisted in constructing the St. Louis demands at the joint meeting of the AHiauce and Knights of Labor, in December, 1889, and also the Ocala demands a year later. He was then a warm advocate of fsee silver. In 1892 he took a prominent part in the Missouri campaign, running against Chas, H. Mansur, and aided other l£aderk\in deceiving the members of his party into the bel,ief that the national platform adopted at Chicago meant free silver. Now he says the platform don’t mean any such thing. He was speaking on the free silver senate amendment to the bond bill, and said:

“I observed a remark of my friend from Georgia this morning to the effect that in voting for this first section of the Senate amendment he was standing upon the democratic platform adopted at Chicago in 1892. I know that I am talking for a body of men who know that platform by heart, and I defy any one of them to produce one section of that platform that warrants a vote by any democrat for the first section of this Senate substitute. You can not find any such provision in the Chicago platform of 1892. You will find in that platform of the democratic' national convention a declaration that one dollar should be made as good as an other in the United States and the world over. You will find in the platform of one national convention a doctrine corresponding exactly with the first section of that senate resolution; I refer to the national platform of the populist party, announced at Omaha, July 4, 1892. That is the only political platform in the United States that has ever laid down such a doctrine as that embodied in this senate resolution.” Mr. Talbert, of South Carolina, asked him if he did not vote for free silver when he was first elected to congress? Mr. Hall replied: “The gentleman from South Carolina, asks if I did not vote for the free silver coinage bill in the extra session in 1893. I answer,, yes. But I will tell the gentleman that I have progressed since that time.” Now “progressed” is a very good word. Some one has called it “succumbed,” but in our opinion “progressed” is much more respectable. Besides, there is no suggestion about it of any undue influence being used to accomplish the desired result. Just “progressed.” Carlisle has “progressed.” Hoke Smith has “progressed.” J. Sterling Morton has “progressed/ We know of “oodles” of postmasters too, who have “progressed.” Benedict Arnold “progressed.” Judas “progressed.” The people have “progressed,” tod but it is backwards, and towards great er destitution and poverty. What Mr. Hall’s constituents ough to do with him is to “progress” to th< ballot box and elect him to stay a) home.

Mr. Hall’s sensation was that he hat heard that eight senators had votei for the free coinage amendment whi said they believed that the free coin age of silver would ruin the country. Of course nobody believed any sue) thing, and if they did it ought not t» startle the country, because the peoph know that there are several times eigh senators that could be relied upon to dt almost anything in the play of politics Mr. Hall tried to justify his changi of attitude and in so doing showed how near he was getting over towards thf republican camp. He said: “But let us take legislative proceed ings; take matters of parliamentary law. My friend from Georgia has hac occasion on this floor to cite a cast where our present speaker varied from the position which he now occupies up on the question of counting a quorum Certainly Mr. Reed, of Maine, held ai the time the view attributed to him, but further investigation showed him that he was wrong; and when he found he was wrong, what did he do? Once when the question arose in this house as to the right of the speaker to count a quorum, Mr. Reed, then a member, thought that such power did not exist. But investigation of the matter subsequently opened his eyes upon that question. What is the result? He changed his position upon that great rule of parliamentary law, aqd wrote himself down what history, after partisan prejudice and passion shall have passed away, will justify, as one of the greatest pioneers in parliamentary law that ever lived. (Applause.) That was a violation of consistency. I never in any l public utterance of mine condemned Mr. Reed for the position he took on that question, and I never in-

tend to do so; for he was, in my judgment, absolutely correct.” Mr. Hall then announced himself as “the one democrat from the rural districts, west of the Mississippi, in a purely agricultural region, that dares stand up and say that sound money is the salvation of the agricultural and labor* ing classes of this country.” Yes, indeed, Mr. Hall has “progressed” since we knew him in the Alliance, and between the “political cowards,” to use his own words, and the political traitors, the liberties of the people of this country are being crucified.