The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 10, 1904, Page 3

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, MONDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1904 PIPULIST Leader Watson of Georgia lssues PRIPAGNDA | THOHA, { e o WATISON - . — ! | | | { JIDATE FOR TE MANAGERS WE OF THE 1SSU BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Oct. 9.—Thomas E. Watson, the nominee of the Peo- ple’'s party for President, has sent the | following letter of acceptance to Sam- | 1 W. Williams, chairman of the Noti- fication Cc mittee: Samuel W Williams, Chairman parties have, in and have between | factory conditiops, | that a third pafty Qitizens who have looked in vain remedial legis- after a while, two courses: they either the evils of bad government, or pro- ird party ot of history, then the u there is nothing ency of the peo- tical education tatecratt, like rds its secrets. There would be profaned by y feet K organized government there is a rious reverence for authority. *“WI s, is right” to the unthinking muit! and the votaries of power never ocease impression. Thus, partly from artly from reverence for es- ority, the people, in every age, inclination to submit to bad t to resist it. The crimes e been committed under forms of ing classes against subject masses stagger belief. They have been so de- cruel, s0 relentlessly seifish, so 1just, that the biood of the stu- e within him as he reads the record. was the purpose of the law maker in ng such heartiess legislation? The motive to render permanent the rule of the few, ges Of the few, the power and the he few. Always and everywhere of this sort of legislation has been defeated 1 and the aristoc- ith the state which it misgoverned. who rule by 108e corruption, being corrupt themselves, sap the very foundation of social and political order. there 15 nothing in the m: t e but tame submis- sion to t3 there is no robust strength left to meet the enemy, within or without. A bhanaf are able to hold | Egypt down, people in the in- of the Rothechilds and other holders of signed by decadent and helpless Khe- Why? Because the life had been taken those poor creatures by centuries of mis- The common in Bgypt, has been dirt under the feet of masters so long that he hus come to believe that he is dirt, and moth- See how the two hundred millions m by one hundred w they submit to be English plunderers that at ¢ famine they perish by was that horrible _situation sossible? Centuries of misrule did it. | aristocracy, thinking ef its own In- s only, killed the epirit of the people by sus laws. When the evil hour came und | India needed robust manhood to defend the | ire, no robust manhood was there. The y shorn by ast breath How rules were effeminate, weakened by their won thelr own of power, r self-indulgence, their own privilege and opportunity. on the other hand, had long, had been siaves so long, instinct of patriotism was lacking: and he new yoke of the British the patient ox submitted. To be sn ox and wear a yoke had become second nature to the wretched wer ¢ Hindoo. But thcse things happened so long ago: ned to people of another race; in mes and among the white races such ent would be impossible. Self- ignorance of the present day takes ¢ comfort to itself, and blandly cngraiulates it upon the fact that legisla- ne of robbery are things of the past. <5, whose papers are owned by the pets of class leglsl no opportunity of patting the mel sage on the back, and of strength. clief that all is iell with the re ass legislation did, once upon & lead great nations to rutn—but that was Class legisistion is the same old the fruit is not the same. Thus ubsidized editor; and, the self- k with our republic, purrs with satisfaction, and thinks hichly of the editor. Yet, if one really wishes to know the truth, and will but icok im, he will observe ms which seased nation when ways characterized afflicted by class Did the people of Russia demand war with Japan? Were they consulted? Did they have any grievafice against the Japanese? No. The Czar 4id Dot want the war; the people did mot want it Who then forced Russia into that bottomiless pit of blood and suffering? The corrupt ruling class—the predatory capi- talists Who were seeking new fields of con. quest. A score of gold-hunting nabobs pro- voked the strife, and now the Russian peasant must_yield up his body, throw the weeds of widowhood around his wife, wring the cry of orphanage from the lips his child and feed the buzzards with his rotting flesh, in order | that yhscrupulous marauders may get thelr clutches upon more goid. in ¥y, see how the war-lord struts and swaggers and misgoverns. See him clap men, women and children into flithy dungeons for the high crime of speaking disrespectfully of their imperial master. See how the soldier rides on the back of his producer. See how the common people are ground down under the wheels of a_splendid. extravagant. insolvent litarism. See the millions wasted yearly on the personal vanities of the Emperor, See bow i ragged shirt | I was meant to supply homes to Individuai the emart young officers cut down with their swords the private soldier or the private olti- zen, and escape punishment, See how this proud peror sends to penal servitude for seven years a poor devil of a private soldier | who has expressed a wish that the swift train which bore the Kaiser on one of his j neys might have been siowed up €o that his Majesty’s loyal subject could have gotten a glimpse of the roval face. e how Italy is harrowed by the tax-gath- Who squeezes out every possible penny the common people in order that be maintained an idol_aristocracy and exaggerated militarism. In that unhappy ., $0 richly blessed by nature, misrule has been so flagrant that half of the people never bave enough to eat. See Great Britain, with its lands ‘monopo- lized by a few hundred lords, its legislation controlled by property interests and its hordes of homeless poor crying for bread along the streets of the richest cities in the world. Con- sider these legions of the homeless. Look into those tenements, packed, like sardines in a box, with hungry men, women and children. Think of the morals inseparable from such conditions. Think what passions must rage under the the workman who stops in the street to pick up the remnants of food which are foul enough to turn the stomach of a weil-kept dog. Think of the multitudes who sprawl about the parks, skulk under bridges, prowl through slums—not by tens, but by thousands; not in ome city, but ‘in all cities. Millions of human beings. God-created men and women, fashioned out of the clay as ourselves, in all esential respects the same sort of folks we are; yet they suffer, they starve, within sight of the synagogue, within earshot of the preacher, who is holding forth to his hearers upon the loveliness of the creed of Christ—the Christ who never owned a home”| and never carried a purse, and who under some of our statutes might have fared hard as a vagrant. GOLD STANDARD DENOUNCED. Declared to Be Unconstitutional, Un- scientific and Wrong. How s it In our own land? God never made 2 grander home for his children than that which the Cavalier In Virginia, the Dutchman in New York and the Puritan in Massachu- setts sought as a refuge from the systems of the Old World. In natural advantages this earth holds no region superior to ours, Once it belonged to the people. With his gun, the common man won it mile by mile from the Indi the Frenchman, the Saxon and the Spaniard. What the common man did not win with his gun he bought with his money. From sea to sea the land which is ours be- came ours because the common man was ready to pay for it with his tax money or his blood. What has become of it? With bewfidering rapidity it has been taken from the common people ‘and given to the corporations, It be- longed to the Government, to all the people. zens, and there was enough of it to last for many generations. To the extent of about 200,000,000 acres, it has been given to railroad corporations. and now when a common man wants a home in all that vast domain he must B0 to the railroad corporations to get it. A blacker chapter than that which records how both the old political parties united to despoil the common people of their land is not to be found in the annals of class legis- lation. Once upen a time we had a financial system of our own. Placed in the constitution as part of our fundamental law, it seemed to be firmly fixed. For a hundred 'years this money system was in operation among There- ore it seemed to be “irrevocabl: fixed” Very wise men created . hiy system of netional finance. It w: he o subject upon which Thomas Jefferson eog Alexander Hamilton agreed. These two were, perhaps. the greatest statesmen this country ever produced. S0 pre-eminent were they above all others that they divided the le into two Gistinct schools of political thought, But, upon the vital subject of finance these master minds reached the same conclusion, and that conclusion became a part of the con: stitation. ~ © Whether the Wall street influen produced the establishment of the moml Bragh dard emanated from wiser heads than these of Jefterson end Hamiljn may be doubted. Both of these kreat men served their country a long time and died poor. In fixing bimetal. lism as & eystem and the silver dollar as the unit of . they bad no selfish motive. Two lofty minded statesmen agreed upon thai system as the right system. It remained in force, giving full satisfaction until the money power in its march of conquest found it to be a barrier. The money power demands a stan- dard which it can contrel, and one metal is easjer to control than two.’ For the same rea- son it opposes movernmental issues of paper money, and will never content itself until the greenbacks are called in and destroyed. To establish the singie gold standard, which sets the comstitution aside, the statute had to be violated. The word “coin’’ had to be con- strued to mean “gold only,” and the paper note, jesued on silver. had to be redeemed in & manner different from that prescribed by aw. There are at least five reasons why the gold standard cannot be considered as fixed: (1) It tx unconstitutional. (2) It violates statute law. (3) The supply of gold might increase be yond all the circulations of the money power. Thus the standard of value would get beyond their control. 1In that event the money power standard. suddenly cease. itself would change the (4) The supply of gold might In that event contraction would at once set in, becauss the country’s expansion in business and increase {n population require a constantly volume of currency. 1If the horrors contraction should agsin come upon us by | | L 5 the eelfish policy of the money power the peo- ple wouid compel a change in the standard. Wall street gave us the panic of 1873; Wall street gave us the panic of 1893. Let Wall strect give us another, and it may find that It has given us one tod many. The American people have about reached the limit of endur- ance. We heard much of ‘‘constitution- allsm” in this campaign. The sincerity of the crime 1s shown by the fact that the gold stan- dard which violates the statute law and the constituticn is not only supported by Theo- dore Roosevelt, the imuerfatlist, but by Alton B, Parker. the chosen apostle of constitution- alism. (5 The gold standard is mot “lirrevocably fixed,”” because it is unscientific and wrong. Nothing is more certain than that the people of this country will continue thelr struggle until they have a naticnal currency which the money power cannot control, and which an- swers the purpose of perfecting exchanges with- cut becoming an armory from which the buc- caneers of modern finance draw the Irresistible weapons with which they attack values and raid the markets. One of the worst features of our financial system is the farming out to the national banks of the power, privilege and profit of supplying the country with paper currency. Instead of using its own credit for the equal benefit of all the people, the Government lends this credit to the national banker to be used for the benefit of the banker. Thus the na- tional banker becomes a beneficlary of special privilege. and, basing his notes upon the credit of the Government, charges his fellow citizens for the use of them. He, the privileged, fat- tens upon usury at the expense of the unprivi- leged. There are now about five thousand na- Uonal banks, which keep in circulation more than $400,000,000 of their notes. At S per cent this Tepresents a yearly profif of more than $30,000,000 which they derive from the special privilege of using the public credit for their private benefit. Clothed with the sover- eign power of creating what is practically a legal tender currency, they can contract it or expand it whenever they please; and, if they decide (o give the country a taste of their despotic power, as in 1883, there is no power which can protect the victim. No class of citi- zens should be clothed by law with such terri- ble advantages over their fellows. Jefferson and Jackson waged war against national banks, contending that they were hos- tile to the spirit of our Government. The Republican party has always favored national banks; thus, in the national platform of the party In 1896 and 1000, national banks were denounced in language strong enough to have satisfied Thomas Jefferson. At this time, how- ever, the counsels of the Democratic party are presided over by Arthur Gorman, who has always supported the system, and by August Belmont, who is a national banker. To prove that both *‘the great political parties” are now “'irrevocably fixed” in their support of the na- tional banks, we have only to remember that they united hands and hearts to recharter them two years ago. RAPACITY OF THE TRUSTS. Republic Pictured as Helpless in Their B Mighty Grasp. Another example of class legislation is found in_a study of our transportation system. We have given to the various corporations which control our telegraph, telephone, express and railroad business such enormous powers that the Government itself is a dwarf among these giants. Their revenues are greater than those of the Government. Their power to tax falls not only upon the public, but upon the Government itself. In the late conflict with Spain the manner in which they preyed upon the Government was something frightful in its rapacity. And the constant practice they have of charging the Government for the annual use of a postal car a greater sum than the cost of the car is but one evidence of the undisputed fact that the Government dares not deny them anything. They almost openly use the ‘‘frank’” of members of Congress to all to the weight of mafl matter during that annual period when the mail is weighed to adjust the ‘‘average.’ Hundreds of tons of junk is thus handled dur- ing those few days, ‘and upon this fraudulent mail matter the average for the entire year is based. The taxpayers have to pay. The Con- gressmen who lend themselves to this swindle get free passes and other good things. In ex- prees charges freight rates, telephone and tele- graphic tarffs the publc s plundered every day in the year, and the manner in which they submit to it s one of the marvels of the age. No other people among civilized nations are so cursed with corporation tyranny as ourselves, and we never seem to think that any remedy is possible. Half a dozen corporation kings can meet in the office of J. P. Morgan and ‘an tax the life out of any town or city in the United States. By a spurt of the pen they can add hundreds of millions of dollars to the bur- dens of the people. They enable the trusts to slay their rivals by granting rebates, or spe- cial rates, which make competition impossible. They debauch public morals by thelr methods of gaining what they want from Governors, Legislatures, Judges, editors, politicians and members of Congress. Napoleon once rose from a study of inter- est tables with the remark, “When I consid- e~ the deadly principle which lies hidden in those tables I marvel that it has not de- voured the human race.” That deadly prin- ciple fs precisely what has devoured so great a part of the human race every year. That deadly principle does devour a portion of the human race every year. The big fortune, by the law of its nature, tends to grow big- ger. Each colossal accumulation represents what one victor gained and ten thousand victims lost. For, in a fortune of a hun- dred millions there can be no such thing as fair reward for productive labor. Such a for- tune, or anything like it, represents, as a rule, the spoil of the successful marauder in the fiells where others had tolled.~ Such a man is a freebooter and his hoard often costs the losers more lives, more tears, more broken arts and ruined homes than are to be und in the track of actual war. When those Standard Oil knaves robbed the people of $36,000,000 in one day they felt entitled to the admiration of the business world. On the same day, perhaps, hungry women stole bread for hungry children and went to prison for it. J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegle, Charles Schwab and other consplc- uous captaine of industry increased their un- wieldly fortunes by pocketing $500,000,000 which other less conspicuous persons confided to the steel trust. No one was punished, and at one of those librarles which Carnegle has been establishing all over the country admis- sion was denled to one of the best books of one of the best Russian authors because it gave a vivid description of the condition of the peasantry in Russia. Himself a mon- strous product of governmental favoritism and “protection,” no book which exposes and de- nounces class legislation ean be gatisfactory to this man who has in his coffers so many millions which should have been left In the pockets of those whose honest industry pro- duced them, With a Standard Ofl accumulation, a Carne- gie accumulation and other similar accumula- tions repragented by such men as J. P. Mor- gan, August Belmont and Arthur Gorman, what is to prevent “the deadly principle of compound interest’” from operating with appall- ing results in this country? By the law of their nature those monster fortunes will grow larger and larger. As the owners of this huge wealth have taken more than thelr share of the common stock of the nation’s wealth so there must be Increasing millions of men who get less than their share. What will be the end of it? No student belleves it can go on as it is forever. All see danger signals ahead, That a rising tide of angry discontent is pour- ing over the country cannot be disputed. The evidences of it are visible everywhere. It H. H. Rogers, J. P. Morgan, August Belmont and men of that type think there is nd act of spoliation to which the people will not sub- mit they are making for themselves a fool's paradise. If the Standard Ofl crowd and the sugar trust crowd think that the American pecple are going to stand idly acquiescent while they gobble up all the wealth of the republic they are plaving with fire, It will not be permitted. Already more than half of the annual Increase of Wwealth is absorbed by less than a dozen trusts. Already we have men €0 rich that they could buy up the en. tive property contained in one of our States. It the *‘deadly principle of compound inter- est” continues to work for the Standard Ofl that group of plunderers will soon own the whole of the United States. They and their confederate kings will have such a grip upon our entire system, commercial, financial and political that the Government will amount to little more than & piece of necessary me- chanism to the Standard's system. The Fed- cral administration will take orders from some future Rogers just as boards of directors of dozens of huge corporations now do. The very life of the republic demands the curb- ing of these gigantic combinations and every aggressive step they take, from henceforth, will hasten the day when imperative public opinton will compel the constituted authori- ties to protect the public from ruthless spoli- ation of this kind. PARKER A MOVING TARGET. His Shiftiness on Issues of the Day Pointed Out. A third party has no right to exist unless there are abuses in government' which ‘*‘the two great parties” refuse to reform. Unless both the two old parties are wrong, there is no room or excuse for a third. But, If both the old parties are equally gullty of class legislation, and are equally subservient to the beneficiaries of speclal privilege, then it is the pathiot to form & not orly the right of party of protest, but a duty. Civil liberty is at a tage | grlnclplu. ship if we fail to realize our responsibility. The ballot is one of the weapons with which we must hold our ground. The contention of the People’s party being that both the old parties are wrong, we wage war on both. Ours is the two-edged sword. In our campalgn it may happen that we do greater damage to the Republicans than to the Democrats—as in 1892, when Mr. Bryan and other Western Democrats were instructed by the Cleveland managers to vote for Weaver. In another cam- paign, it might chance that the greater dam- age {5 dome the Democrats. In the one case as In the other, we would not concern our- sclves about the matter. Such a result is the accident of war, not the purpose of the cam- algn. It is our business to preach sound Populism, which is sound Jeffersonian "dem- ocracy, and to hit the Republicans on the one hand and the Democrats on the other. We must “hew to the line,”" letting the chips fall where they may. 3 . Neither in that speech nor in any other, have I done | so. Being a candidate for the Presidency | myself, 1 would have made myselt a side- | show to whichever of the other two cand dates I expressed a preference—whereas 1 am in full, militant, aggressive control of an in-| dependent show of my own. Much abuse has been heaped upon me be- cause more time was devoted by e to de- nunclation of Parker than of Roosevelt. The reason is obvious enough. Roosevelt is a raight ot Republican who declares boldly r Republican principles, deflantly defending existing conditions. To attack him is a short, | easy fob, He is 8o conspicuous and stationary a target that no one Who wishes to take & shiot at him could possibly miss the mark. He is not in ambush; he is behind no ‘‘blind’ he stands out in the open and he says to hl enemies, “‘Here 1 am — a Republican who stands pat on all existing conditions; if you want to fight,_ come on!’ Now, I can under- stand a Republican like that; and, while I would love to make my battle-ax ring on his helmet until one of us went down in political defeat and dcath, yet I could respect him -all he while, as a foeman Worthy of any man eel. Mr. Roosevelt wili get Republican vote: and no other. He is not seeking the support of Bryan Democrats upon false pretenses. He is not playing a confidence game on the negro questicn. He is not attempting to win Jeffer- sonlans by a sham adherence to Jeffersonian In short, there is no danger that effersonian Democrats Will vote for Roosevelt | upon the assumption that he is a Jeffersonian Democrat. There is no danger that Roosevelt will get a single vote to which I, as a Jeffer- sonian in principle, am entitled, ‘With Mr. Parker it is different. He is not a Jeffersonian Democrat, yet he seeks to secure the support of Jeffersonians. If he would speak out plainly and tell the people that he 1§ in principle the same, practically, that Roosevelt is, the Bryan Democrats would fall away from his by the million. D would then be enabled to organize such a party of revolt against the Republican rule as would sweep the country. His attitude is thoroughly dis- ingenious, profoundly lacking in true man- hood and leadership. He was willing to stand | upon the New York State platform which Mr. Bryan denounced as a dishonest platform. His position was so indefinite, 5o foxy, so entirely neutral, that Mr. Bryan declared, to cheer- ing_thousands, that Parker was ‘“‘absolutely unfit for the Democratic nomination,” and that “nobody but an artful dodger’ could stand upon that New York platform—which so much resembled its father, David B. Hill I belfeve it was also in the same speeches that Mr. Bryan declared that a man should be willing to die for his convictions—which is also & very sound proposition. Mr. Bryan, who is always careful in the statement of atured opinions, has assured the country that ‘“‘the influences back of the Par- ker candidacy are so intimately associated with trusts and great corporations that the Demo- cratic party could not appeal to the masses. “With such a candidate,” sald Mr. Bryan, | ‘‘they would begin with a foot race and end with a rout.’ Likewise he stated a self- evident fact when he declared that “the plu- toeratie element for the first time being is in control of the Democratic party.'” It was equally clear to Mr, Bryan, as it was to many others, that ‘‘the nomination of Parker was secured by crooked and indefensible methods,” and that the nomination of such a man who had, as Mr. Bryan declared, won the honor with “loaded dice,”” virtually nul- lified the anti-trust plank in the Democratic platform. These were fearfully important facts, and they produced the impression on the minds of millons that there was something stealthy, deceitful, cowardly and utterly dishonest in the Parker campaign for the nomination. Mr. Bryan stated facts, profoundly important facts, and they continued to be facts up to the time | that Parker actually got the nomination which he had ught on a ‘‘cowardly and straddling ,”" ‘the honor for which he had played loaded dice.”” ‘Whether or not the healing virtues, the nomination cured all the hypocrisy and fraud by which it has been obtained, is a question each citizen should put to his own intelligence before he votes. Those things which Mr. Bryan said were facts, before the nomination, were obliterated from the catalogue of facts by the nomination; they are facts yet. By a dictatorial tone, amounting to menace, Judge Parker was driven by the New York ‘World into the sending of the telegram which told the Democratic Convention for the first time, and many hours after Parker had se- cured the nomination, that the gold standard was “‘Irrevocably fixed.” Neither then nor in any utterance afterwards did he say that the gold standard was right, until he had been shelled so vigorously by myself and others for having deserted the free silverites without saying they were wrong, and having gone over i the gold standard without saying it was right. Even Judge Parker finally realized that the ground was caving under his feet and was literally driven to firmer footing. At last he has taken his place side by side with Roosevelt on the most deeply important fssue before the people. Let it be borne in mind that Wall street wanted the last Congress to issue more bonds; let it ba remembered that the Cleveland Demo- crats want the greenbacks called in and burnt; do not forget that the *‘eadless chain' precedent set by Cleveland stands as a prece- dent to be followed: recall how easy it s for the money power to hide their plans until the victim is in their. trap—and you will begin to realize what terrible dangers still lurk in this ‘money question. THE DEMOCRATIC WEAKLING. Nominee Equally Uncertain in Speech or in Silence. In Mr. Bryan's book called “The First Bat- tle” he compared the possible effects of the British gold standard to the ruin wrought by an invading army, sweeping the land with fire and sword. Mr. Bryan was right. The vast increase in the world's stock of metal- lic money and the enormous use of credit money, which universal confidence keeps afloat, postponed the evil day, but it is bound to come. Let the supply of gold fail, let con- fidence take wings, let the insolvent banks be suddenly called upon to make good their inflated labilities, and such a storm will break over the republic as has not been known n its history. Our_financial system is rotton to the very core. What has been aptly called hocus.pocus money s doing the biggest busi- ness it was ever known to do. What is enti- tied “frenzled finance” 1s holding such a car- nival as it never held before. This cannot last. The crash will surely come, and those who live to see it will feel as though the ‘world_were coming to an end. Would to God that Mr. Bryan were with me in this ‘‘The Second Battle”” Together we could have won the fight in 1896, but the Southern Democratis bosses would ot have it so. Chalr- man Jones bad to drive the allies apart by Dbrutal {nsults at the very opening of the cam- paign. In 1904, had all the Bryan Democrats Tefused to be bound by the infamous sellout to ‘Wall street at St. Louls, and had Mr. Bryan joined. forces with me, we could have won this contest. The temper of the people is ripe for revoit, and its getting hotter every day. They only need leaders whom they can trust. The Democratic masses who followed Bryan are sick at the heart. They listen without conviction when Bryan speaks for Parker. They want fighters at the head of the army and Parker is no fighter. Roosevelt stands in the open and dares Par- ker deflantly, almost mockingly, and Parker meekly stays out of the fight. In his formal letter of acceptance he says that he takes up the glove thrown at his feet, declaring that he will revoke that pension order, No. 78, But in the same breath e hastens to samit that Roosevelt did precisely what he, Parker, thinks . If elected he, Parker, will t once have Congress do what Roosevelt has ready done. Heavens! what a meek warrior is this. “Roosevelt did the right thing but not in the right way, and if you will elect me ! | idencs PV hen tn going w!;:. m - say. hs ‘;‘:’.."m"f Wil he deal drasticall Standard Oil trust, which has coddied_his Iitical ambition for the past two 2 t Wi he @0 %o the sugar trust. which his Cam. paign manager, Gormen. rebresents in the nited States Senate? On the negro ques- Hoevhy hae. he ‘been” sllent? - Does e ‘o demn Roosevelt for that Booker Washington lunch? “Does he condemn the appointment of negroes to office? Why did he fail make any reference whatever to that Republican platform which his running v creal " south s being iicked | dressed mefnseh-e- in_public. y ing for the New Yorker and against their own son—hers in blood and sympathy and death- less devotion—ought not the New Yorker to be_compelled to speak out on this question? In his formal letter of acceptance, just made public, It is curious to note that Mr. Parker Ji not once mention. the name of Jefferson, or any other great Democrat. ~He no reference to the titular deities of the Democratic party. The man to whom he alludes with the greatest reverence is William McKinley, and the next is James G. Blaine. He eulogizes the policy of both these states- men, and. finds fault with Mr. Roosevelt be- cause he has mnot followed their fllustrious example. Really, Mr. Parker's pecullar kind of Democracy amounts to a riddle. The most un-Democratic portion of Judge Parker's letter is that wherein he eulogifes the policy of James G. Blaine and Willlam McKinley upon the subject of reciprocity. What is reciprocity but free trade in those raw materiale which the protected manufac- turers want? If free trade be such a good thing, why not let all of us have some? If protection be such excellent medicine for the masses, why not compel the manufacturers to take It, too? In other words, why not have a system and stick to it? If protection is right, it should operate on all alike, If free trade is right, then the manufacturers should not be the only ones to get | Judge Parker pleads for greater favors to the manufacturers, Great God! Are they never £oing to get enough? If Republican policles are to be overthrown, it must be done by men who boldly declare agalnst them and who go up against them with a determination to defeat them. The way to whip the enemy is to fight it. The Democratic party has known what it was to be led by captains who put the battle cry into plain language so that all could understand where the difference was on vital issues. Such 2 leader was Jefferson. Such a leader was Andrew Jackson. Such a leader was Stephen A. Douglas, Such a leader was Willlam J. Bryan. In this campalgn it has no such leader. To their secret shame and disgust, the rank and file of the great Democratic party sces that their captain will not fight. In spite of party loyalty and a wish to believe otherwise, they see that Parker remains what Bryan sald he was last April—an ‘“‘artful dodger, absolutely unfit for the Presidential nomination.”” That Mr. Bryan himself sup- ports the ticket does not change facts nor cre- ate satisfaction. The great party of six and a half million voters sent their leaders to St. Louis without any instructions to surrender to Wall street. That surrender created a profound discontent, which will not down. Mr. Bryan himself can- not make that bitter pill palatable to the Bryanites. The sell-out was too brazen too sudden. too complete. Nobody suspected an earthquake like that, The ground opened, and down into the yawning chasm fell all the principles of the Democratic party. These leaders went to St. Louis clothed from head to heel In good Jeffersonian Democracy. When Dave Hill. Pat McCarren and August Belmont finished thelr work the Democratic bosses were 50 nearly nude that had it been a per- o€ ach sonal matter rather than political they could | its legislation. have been indicted for “a notorious act of public indecency.’” Able statesmen have un- And now_they are furlously angry with me because I am renewing the struggle which they abandoned. They resent the fact that some one else should try to do that which they were not willing to try to do. SOLD TO WALL STREET. | Democrats Said to Have Gone Over Body and Soul. “The People’s party is helping the Repub- licans,” cry the Democratic leaders. If these leaders had not abandoned their own platform and given over to Wall street we could not have hurt anybody. As long as the Demo- cratic party pretended to be Populist in prin- ciple the Populist party could not do business. Too many of our men were dupes of the fraud. The moment the Democratic leaders dropped our platform we seized upon it ggain, and We began to rehabilitate our own party. Sell out? Why, we have surrendered no convic- tlons: we have not parted with a single plank in our platform. What have we sold? To whom did we sell? If we had shed our politi- cal garments as the Democratic bosses did at St. Louls, and Wall street had dictated every line of our new creed, and had put at the head of our ticket a man who cannot state Whereln he differs in_ principle from Mr. Roosevelt, we would have hung our heads every time we passed a mirror to keep from looking into the eyes of renegades to Jef- fersonian Democracy, servile tools of Northern corporations. They went to 'St. Louls with principles; they came back without them; they were clay in the hands of the Pat McCarrens of the Standard Oil, Belmont of the Loulsville and Nashville, Gorman of the sugar trust. The very first under the auspices of the Standard Ofl Com. pany lobbyist, Pat McCarren, The chosen ad- Visers of Mr. Parker are the men who led for the trusts and corporations when the tax- payers were looted during Cleveland's second administration. From Gorman, who reeks with the foulest trust legislation of the last twenty years, to Carlisle, who wrote the sugar sched. ule at the dictaiion of the sugar trust. and Belmont, of the secret midnight bond ~deal, down to Olney, Wwho, in effect, advised the too willing Cleveland to lend the United States army to the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago, the notorious old band of boodlers are there. What may be expected of them if Parker s elected can be guessed by those Who remember the carnival of class legislation Which rendered forever infamous the second administration of Grover Cleveland. The leopard has not changed his spots, nor the Ethioplan his skin; that Cleveland crowd is hungry; it has been “out” a long time: Woe unto’ the people when that predatory band get thelr” clutches upon the Government again! What secret pledges have been m: Standard Oll? "What I8 its motive for pes ting half a million dollars into Parker's cam- palgn fund? Are they afrald of Roosevelt, and not afraid of Parker? What is the ground of their preference for Parker? The Standard Ol 1s not in politics for health or pleasurs. It always has an ax to grind. What s the motive this time? The sugar trust put $2401000 in the New York campaign alone when Clove. land ran against Harrison; and all of us know tho sccret pledges which were publicly re- deemed. Arthur Gorman and John G. Car- lisle saw to it that the tariff measure was so framed that the trust got more out of the peopls, by tens of millions, than they had gotten under that ‘‘culminating atrocity of class legislation,” the McKinley bill. Their Sena- torial representative, Arthur Gorman, has been placed in open control of the Parker cam- paign; hc has been the secret dictator from the beginning—what will his client, the suger trust, get out of this election if Parker is successtul ? Wall street wants more bonds; the ma- chinery for getting them is there, just where Clevelund left it; the same men ‘who worked Cleveland for bonds are steering Parker's cam- paign; what has been promised to Belmont and his ccnfederated corporations? Is the “endless chain” to be put in motion again? Voters who do nut consider these questicns do themselves injustice. The Wall-street organ, the New York World, compelled Parker to speak out on the money question; why should he not be com- pelled by the Hearst papers, and other really Democratic papers, to speak out upon other questions where the people have a right to information? What avails this cry about “extravagance’ That the Government is run with a reckless disregard of the middle and lower classes who pay most of the tariff taxes is known of by all men. But who beiieves that either of these “two great parties’’ is going to retrench ex- penditure? Appropriations for administrations are on the increase everywhege. With the Federal Government there is no’ such thing as going backward. The ““billion dollar Congress™ of the Republicans was succeeded by a Cleve- land Congress pledged to ‘“rigid economy™; and it was not long before the Democratic ap- propriations reached the billion dollar mark, Harrison reduced the public debt by a quarter billion dcllars, and Cleveland was not long in adding more than Harrison had taken away. It was the Democratic Congress devoted to “rigid economy’ which allowed the Chicago exposition to loot the Treasury of millions— time after time; and which gave to each mem- ber of the House a clerk at $100 per month. Besides, who could put faith in the pledges of the party which has so_little unity of con- viction as the national Democracy? What party ever made and broke so many pledges? What party ever changed its ground so often? What other party ever unloaded all of its prin- clples at one guick throw down as they did at St. Louis? They elected Cleveland on a free silver plat- form, and called a speclal session to violate the contract. They promised to put an end to national banks, and they issued new bonds to keep them in life. Then, when the bank charters expired, they united with the Repub- licans to give national banks a new lease of lite for twenty years. They promised to re- lleve the farmers {rom the McKinley tarifr, ard they increased the tax on lumber, nails, horseshoes, rivets, tacks, screws, pipe, flues, and wire. They doybled the tax on molasses, d put an addition’ of $45,000,000 to the price which the people were paying for sugar under “the_culminating atrocity of class legislation,’ the McKinley act. They pitied the laborer and ised to be his friend, and they let the Piillman Palace Car Company have the use of the army to compel the submission of laborérs to a cut in ‘They to abolish child labor in those States of the South where tho tic party {s most absolute child slavery is most immovably planted. They promised the people a graduated income | Nominee Declares That the Principles of His Party Are Genuinely Jeffer- sonian and Denounces Judge Parker as the Creature of Wall Street. tax, which should compel the millionaires and the gigantic corporations to contribute something to. the support of the Government | upon Which they fattened; but now they have | §iven ‘up the contest. The income tax no onger appears in their platformi. The million- aires and corporations supporting Parker are not the kind of Demoerats to clamor for a graduated income tax. How any party which has for recent years 5tood for so many different things and broken SO many contracts can ncw expect be trusted is & puzzle in ‘politics. The manner In which the platform of 1904 was evolved, the manner in which Parker's nomination was brought about ought to intensify the distrust which the bad reccid of t party justly creates. Every line of the platform seems to be in tremble lest it should displease the bene- ficlaries of class legislation. Every tone of quakiag voice seems to say to the corporations, “Day afraid; 1_won't hurt you." of Snug_the Joiner in summer Night's Dream,” the apparent lion | kindly dissipates the fear of his audience by them in advance that its roar is only for stage purposes. It that platform had been meant to please the people, how easy it would have been to write it! But it was meant to delude the people and to please the corpora- tions, hence jts wonderful contortions in ver- biage, its agonized cfforts to use much lan- guage and say nothing. This much must be admitted, however, to the candida fits the platform as though'a political tallor had meas- | ured him for it. Parker can probably use mors words and suy less that you are certain of than any man in America. PRINCIPLES OF POPULISM. Party Described as Jeffersonian to | the Very Core. The People's party is Jeffersonian to the core. 1t has mever emasculated its creed to curry favor. It has preferred to win its way into | minds and hearts by earnest advocacy of fixed , principles. Its chief reliance has been on po- litical education. It assails the evils of clase legislation and for every abuse offers a remedy. It does not blindly seek to tear down. It seeks to reform, to repair, to renovate, to restore. We would if we could go back to the system of our forefathers. The class legislation which is | the bane of our Government at this time ob- tained the upper hand in our republic twice before and was twice driven out. Jefferson ¢id it once, then Jackson. Democracy in Jack- son's day pald off the national debt, overthrew the national bank, revoked many of the privi- leges of favored classes and put the reins of power back into ths hands of the people. The protective principle was struck down and the Walker tariff inaugurated an_ era of great prosperity. Charles Dickens, who visited this country previous to the Civil War, wrote back to his home that a flaming sword in the air would not excite mors amazement than a beggar in the streets of Boston, and he ex- pressed his astonishment at the general pros- perity of the people. That was when genuine Democracy was ruling the land and inspiring ‘This prosperos condition con- in the main, until the Civil War. That le confiict’ was bardly less terriblo of life than in the legislation to which it gave provocation and cpportunity. National banks gained foothold once more; a mountain of bonds arose; monstrous tariffs, framed with the view of enriching favored industries, were imposed; corporations seized the public lands; the money power began that series of forays upon the Government and upon the producing classes which has transferred almost the whole of the wealth of the country to those who never bravely fought for the Government in time of war nor honestly served it in time of peace. The grand armies of industry win the yearly victory over nature by toll, produefng the wealth which the captairs of industry ap- propriate to themselves by subtle chicanery. The vastly greater part of the wealth of this country is enjoyed by men who never pro- duged a dollar in their lives. The Peonle's party makes no war upon private ownership, upon honest wealth or le- litimate vrofits. It simply combats the legis- lation which bullds up one man at the ex- pense of another, which gives special privileges to one class at the expense of another, which discriminates against a citizen or a class of citizens in favor of others. In short, the Peo- ple’s party declares its hostility to privilege and demands legislation whose motto shall be ‘equal and exact justice to all, without favors to any.” Such rascaiity as that of the copper trust or the steel combine should either be made im- possible or the administration of law so in- vigorated that the criminals who steal millions shall wear the ball and chain side by side with the thief who stole a pig- We believe In the money of the constitution. We do not bend in_superstitious reverence to silver and gold. We belleve that any cur- rency which the Government declares to be lezal tender will be ‘‘sound money’” long as Government Is “sound.” We have less fear that the Government will ever issue too many paper dollars than we have that it will issue too many bonds. A government must govern, and the creation of money is a part of the soverelgn power. The Government must decide how many soldiers shall come to the flag; must decide how many battleships shall hold ‘‘the ocean lists against the world in mail.”" It is no more Ilikely to make a mistake by issuing too much money than it is to make a worse mistake by calling too many breadwinners into the military service. ‘‘Rag baby!" cries the editor;.‘'Rag baby!" ries the fossil in the academy. Yet that same editor and that same academie fossil is auick to approve when the Government makes a bond out of rags and allows the banker to issue rag notes on the rag bonds. What chil- dren we are, after all! Some men go around in mental swaddling clothes all the days of their blessed lives. The People's party favors the public owner- ship of public utilities. In nearly every civil- ized country the Government owns the rall- ways, the telegraphs and the telephones, The last two should be a part of our postoffice system, to which should be added the parcel post, to free ‘our people from the extortionate charges of the express companies. The Peo- ple's party has always earnestly advocated the craduated income tax. This would not oniy throw the support of the Government upon the rich, where it should be, but would, in a great measure, prevent the accumulation of huge, unnecessary and dangerous fortunes. We favor the elght-hour law and the abolition of child labor in factories. where the unhealthy moral and physical conditions are almost certain to destroy the child. _We believe it to be a part of man’s natural liberty and equality to labor for himself and not -for a master, and that the laws should be so framed that there should be no monopoly of the land for either the living or the dead. Recently we have heard the insidious voice of those who tell us that “‘man is not born free, but must earn his freedom.” This pernicious and false state- ment comes from one of those millionaire col- lezes where opinions are censored, just as books are censored for the Carnegie librarfes. Upon this subject Mr. Jefferson said that “the God who gave us life gave us liberty the same time.” Ha also announced as a principle that “The earth is given as a com- mon stock for man to labor and live om. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated we must take care that other employment be provided to those ex- cluded from the appropriation. If we do not, the fundamental right to labor the earth re- turns to the unemployed.” To this doctrine 1 heartily subscribe. I-can not bring myself to believe that it was ever God's_intention or that It was ever just, for any portion of the human race to deprive other portions of that race of the opportunity “to labor the earth.” or. in lieu thereof, to be provided with other liberty to work. Idle land which no man is permitted to work, idle hands which are not allowed to work, form an indictment against any ruling class which will result in a verdict of guilty be- fore any impartial jury of intelligent think- ers. Mr. Jefferson further said, “The earth belongs in usufruct to the living: the dead have nelther right nor dominion over it.”" One of the evils of our system is that the living can transmit a monopoly to their de- scendants and thus the grip of the dead is mever loosened. UNEVEN DIVISION OF WEALTH. Legislation Blamed for Ills Affecting the Body Politic. In considering the labor question we should not lose sight of the fact that our working classes have had much to endure. Those who krow something of the horror of their con- ditions in the Pennsylvania coal flelds, for example, as shown {n Congressional investi- gations, can well understand their point of view. In many cases they have been goaded to madness by hardships. brutalities, oppres- sions, which human nature cannot always stand. The virtual slavery which exists i many a .mine is no secret. The empfoyes tinued 1 control which employers exert over ] in many fields of labor deprives the laborer of any real political freedom and amounts to a systematic serfdom. These men hav been mocked by many a pledge and prom~ ise. Many a politiclan has ridden into office as their especial representative and advocate, only to bring disappointment and despair to those who trusted him. Time and again na- tional platforms have promised abolition of sweatshops and unreasonable hours of labor. Sweatshops have not been abolished and un- reasonable hours of labor are much too com- Ton. In spite of all this talk of T’deny that it exists. “The mass numbers and under such conditions that mor- ality becomes an impessibility. The evil in- flucnce of these dens of flith and vice does not confide ftself to the immediate occupants of the temement. Such places are nothing less than cancers, eating their way into the very life of the nation. Upon the one band we have the young men and young women of the excessively rich, giving their lives to pleasure, to a sensualism which does not even wear a mask. Upon the other hand we have the boys and girls of the excessively poor, growing up under conditions which make unblushing m- mcrality 4 matter of course. The rapid in- crease of this class is appalliing. What is to be done about it? Does such a problem em- list no interest from those who frame laws and dircet the Government? Can there be any problem more important? reckage the citles results trom bad bad government. As a rule, these men and women at some time in their lives made earnest, honest efforts to sustain themselves by work. As a rule they were simply knocked down and knocked out by stronger men and sStropeer women in the flerce battle of exist- epce. Hard work, small wages, a spell of sickness—then ruin. How often is that the life story in the short and simple annals of the poor. Tens of thousands of these wretches are the victims of swindling stock issues, worthless paper, which they bought because J. P. Morgan or H. H. Rogers or some other king of finance was known to be engineering the deal. Other thousands are the frozem out weaklings of some raflroad reorganization or manipulation of stocks and bonds by the ma- Jority holders. Other thousands are men who labored for bare subsistence until old age came and then were turned out to shift for themselves. Man's inhumanity to man is at the bottom of most of the trouble, and the law itself has wrought much of this havoe by arming favored individuals and corporations with special powers which become resistiess weapons in their hands against their fellow man. It was the power of special privilege, given to the national bankers by Congress, which { had put them im position to create the panic of 1893. If a history could be written of the inception of that convulsion, the base motives of those who brought it about and the awful cruelty with which it smote its victims, the world would shudder at the revelation. It was a cold-blooded, premeditated crime; ‘t darkened many homes; it wrecked many & life; and it was the legitimate offspring of class legislation. Not long ago_an entire family destroyed itself because {t"Fad no money. The put their little ones to death and died with them rather than sink into the hell of vice and crime and misery which yawns for the man or woman who can get no work. This case was but one of a thousand. Does it de- serve no attention from rulers and lawmakers® Is it beneath the notice of the great? God forbid! I will fneur all the odfum which may cume to me from making the statement that a scelal and political system under which such awful tragedies are of comstant occurrence is profoundly unrighteous, is infernally wron; ‘There is absolutely no reason why our laws should not be so reformed as to bring about = more ecuitable distribution of the good things of life; no reason why the individual man or woman able to work and willing to work skould mot always find it at a fair wage; no reason under the sun why the reign of priv- flece may not be brought to end. Almost every il that now afflicts the body politic can be traced to its source in vicious iegislation. Government. instituted for public purroses. has been prostituted to private pur- poses, and that is the true secret of most of our troubles. LABOR AND CAPITAL. National Board to Arbitrate Their Disputes Favored. It is to-day more apparent than it ever was before that combined capital has deliberately come to the conclusion that union labor must be crushed. The verv apirit now actuates the Pullman Car Company, the harvester trust companies and similar_confederations of c#p- ttal, which moved the British Parliament cen- turies ago when it punished a combination of workmen as a crime. Not only did the capi- talism of that day deny laborers the right to form unions_ but a low scale of wages was prescribed and the workman who refused to work at the stated price was punishable by law as a criminal. Having thus enacted legis- lation which created poverty there was only one more step to take, and they took ft— they made poverty a crime. The moneyless man who could not pay his debts rotted in prison. The hungry man who begged for something to eat was hanged. During the reign of Henry VIII two thousand Englishmen were put to death each year for the high crime of being so persistentiy poor that they repeated the offense of begging three times. It was penal to beg at all; It was death to do it three times. The English King unMer whom these horrors occurred was at the head of the church of Christ, was the officlal ‘Defender of the Faith,™ and was as constant in at- tendance upon divine service as the Baers, Pullmans, Rockefellers and the Armours of our own day. He had known Erasmus, and had written a book against Luther. had reveled with Francis I on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and had for confidential Ministers Cardinals of the church of God. In other words, he conformed to all the outward forms of Christianity and ranked as equal among the great men of his own time yet he put to death an average of two thousand paupers every year of his reign for no other crime than that of giving cry to the pangs of hunger—the pecultarly atrocious featurs of which barbarity being that the law had produced much of the poverty which it had punished. In our own land there are many indications that capitalism is being instigated by the same spirit as that which lived In the anctent code. If labor unions can be crushed by cap- ftalism which has formed its trust, Hberty will be gone, mot only from the individual laborer but from every other individual. *Be- long to the trust or obey it will be abso- lutely the only possible outcome if the en- croachmients of these rapacious monsters are allowed to go on unrestricted. In every wvil- lage, every town. every city. every State, the American people are so badgered and insulted and robbed and oppressed by the hundreds of monopolies and trusts that the individual eiti- zen is reduced to a state of indignant but remedyless_impotence. From a Republican nominee one does not ex- pect a great deal upon the labor question_ and would be disappointed If he did expect it. But from a Democratic nominee one natur- ally hopes for a deliverance. Judge Parker's formal letter does mot recognize that such a thing as the labor question exists. He offers no solution of the trouble, and upon the ealm tide of his smooth rhetoric there is no sugges- tion that civil war smolders in many a region of our Christian republic, where capital and labor have taken each other by the throat. It is true that Judge Parker thinks tariff reform would benefit the wage-earner. So it would, if it were of the right sort. But Cleveland, once upon a time, sounded the ““tarift reform,” elected to do the work. Arthur Gorman was the master-builder who framed the measure which was to lessen the burdens of the op- pressed. and when Arthur Gorman got through with the job the burdens of the oppressed had merely been shifted from one shouider to the other. The, great-warm-hearted Senator from Missourl, George G. Vest. wanted coa: put upon the free list, in order that cheaper fuel could be had by the people. Arthur Gor- man opposed the measure stubbornly fn the Senate. When the sugar trust wanted a better rate than the Dingley bill was about to give them Steve Elkins brought Havemeyer and Gorman together in personal conference, and the trust got what Havemeyer came for. And Arthur Gorman is Parker's manager. The “tariff reform’ of the Democratic mom- inee must, therefore, be taken with care: and to the Parker letter of acceptance shouid be attached the Gorman tarifft act of 1504 as “Exhibit A." and the spesch of General Joe Wheeler against that measure as “Exhibit It T were President T would recognize that capital and labor have reached a dangerous antagonism. Its utmost influence would be used to establish a National Bureau of Ar- bitration. 1 would ask combined capital to one man, union labor to choose an- other and I would myself, as chief magis- trate, choose a third. Such a board of arbi- tration should have jurisdiction over labor troubles and would become a power of good. That something must be done, and dome soon, should be clear to all. A few more Colorado situations would precipitate the rule of the soldler, pald by the corporation, or by the taxpayers whose State officlaly are owned by_corporations. The People’s party advocates the inftiative, by means of which the people can such laws as they desire: the referendum. by means of which they can veto such legisiation as they disapprove, and the right to cancel the commission of such public officials as ziven dissatisfaction. One of the evils of the present system that the people are not consulted when are to be made, they only hear of the lative acts after they are published. fleet footed lawyers find it difficult to pace with the changes constantly being in_the stat=tes. The initfative and referendum woul most of that and the imperative right of recall would do a great keeping public officers faithful t cancel the commission of the who has been to duty punishment. It a power be Continued on Page 4, Column 1 o f L | : i i ’ ! not. i »