People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1896 — NO PILOT LAST WEEK. [ARTICLE]

NO PILOT LAST WEEK.

We were unable to issue the Pilot last week because of the press of other duties, and when we explain to our readers the nature of those duties we believe they will forgive our delinquency. In the first place we have for several weeks been making frequent visits to Indianapolis doing the little in our power, as a member of the “Committee of Thirteen,” and as secretary of the state central committee, to bring about a union of the silver forces to the one great end that our heroic leader, William J. Bryan, might receive the full electorial vote of Indiana. On Saturday, Oct. 10th, in answer to a call from our chairman, we hastened to Indianapolis, andforthree days we labored with men of divergent views to effect a complete fusion on the whole state ticket, believing that where so much was at stake the most complete har mony should prevail. That the friends of fusion were successful only in part is a matter of manifest pleasure to the lieutenants of Mark Hanna. That we succeeded in effecting a union on the electorial ticket seems now, when the plot to defeat it is being revealed, to have been little less than miraculous. To a few determined patriots is due the consummation of that most desirable and necessary union, most prominent among whom on the democratic side were State Chairman Martin and National Chairman Jones. Too much praise cannot be given Mr. Martin for the unflinching stand which he took in the interest of Mr. Bryan. He was assailed by every enemy of free silver in the democratic party,- but stood firm

and true to the great trust imposed in him. The agents of Mark Hanna dogged the footsteps of the populist committee attempting to create suspicion and discord in that body. That the state organ of the people’s party was run for weeks in the interest of McKinley, the pages of the Non-conformist conclusively prove, and that its editor was paid $125 per week by the republican committee is known to be true. Fear of the gold standard democrats under the leadership of Ex-chairman Holt alone prevented an equitable division of the state offices and harmonious fusion, and now the treacherous renegades have thrown of their mask of friendship and are fighting the whole ticket as a reward for the confidence imposed in them. And to-day the whole gold democratic force of Indiana, happily too insignificant outside of Indianapolis to be even an element in the result, is working as hard for the republican state ticket as they are for McKinley. The people’s party state candidates, being cognizant of the unscrupulous methods of the republican machine and the rank treason of the gold democrats, would nearly all have withdrawn from the ticket had they understood the facts in time to do so, and they are now asking populists to cast their votes straight for the men who have furnished of their limited means the money to make the campaign for Bryan in this state, and are giving their time and talent to the free sliver cause. A further excuse for our delinquency is that w T e were called upon to print of one issue of the Silver Daily 100,000 copies, and in doing the work our machinery was several times disabled, thus causing unexpected delay. Few people realize what 100,000 papers mean, and to illustrate would say that the papers folded three times and laid one on

another would make a pile 192 feet high. We will be on time next week and finish the campaign we hope without further delay.