THE ROBERT E. COWAN COLLECTION I'RKSKNTKI) TO THK UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BY C. P. HUNTINGTON JUNE, '.897. Recession No, . , A TRAITOR GOVERNMENT BY JUDAS REPRESENTATIVES. Representative Legislation a Fraud and Delusion, Direct Legislation the Right and Only Solution. We Demand Justice ! Where is She ?" BY J. H. KONES, OAKLAND, CAL. X^D BRA ^7 I ' OF T XJNIVERSITY COPYRIGHT APPLIED FOR. ^V PRICE, IS CENTS. [ A TRAITOR GOVERNMENT BY JUDAS REPRESENTATIVES, Representative Legislation a Fraud and Delusion- Direct Legislation tlie Right and Only Solution* BY J. H. KONES, OAKLAND, CAI<. COPYRIGHT APPIvIIiD FOR. PRICE, 15 CENTS. LJ& A TRAITOR GOVERNMENT BY JUDAS REPRESENTATIVES, The gray dawn of the twentieth century is fast approaching, and we shall herald it with the sweet chime of liberty bells, which will proclaim to the world the breaking asunder of fetters that will no more enslave us; the overthrow for all time of our enemies; the proclama- tion of a new birth and of a gov- ernment that will bind with cords of love into one brotherhood all mankind. Either this shall be our happy condition, or, hopelessly en- slaved, we shall be the prey of our enemies, when darkness shall sur- round us never to disappear. Our boast of great achievements in literature, art, science, inven- tions and discoveries innumerable, shall avail us naught if only upon a few they shower their special blessings, while to the mass of toil- ing and untoiling millions no bur- den is uplifted, but, weary with life, they perish within sight of plenty. Our government is repeating the old story of the nations of the past, disintegration has 'set in, and we are going into rapid decay. Each day reveals more of its incapacity and inability to cope with the vexed problems that confront it. Every act done by the ruling powers is, not to solve the problem of govern- ment and apply a remedy, but to stave off and avert the day of im- pending judgment. Wealth and class rule, rapid advancement in education and art, go along with immorality and vice. The oppres- sor and the oppressed a divided house murmurings ^of discontent, hatred and revolution. Under the existing order of things a revolution is inevitable, and it must come either by the ballot or by the bullet. It is our last ditch. If successful, the solu- tion of the vexed problem of gov- ernment is near at hand; but if we fail, the world will fail with us, and the future of the human race will be master and slave. China, Egypt and other nations show a critical period in their histories, the people bowing down before their masters ; they are, and ever will continue to be, a race of mas- ters and slaves. With all of our art, literature, science, education and religious teachings, we are apparently as far from the solution of the problem of government as at the time of Christ, and the churches to-day are not beyond the Jewish Church of his time. 4 No one of any intelligence can review our government who will not be greatly impressed with dis- may at the awful mess that has been made of it all, from the chief executive down to the petty officer of the village. Of the hundreds of cities in the nation, not one can be found which would be a fit pattern for reproduction. A statesman is something unheard of to-day, either in the Republican or Democratic ranks, and, with scarcely an excep- tion, they are* either professional politicians or boodlers, the latter constituting the great majority. It nauseates one to think of comparing such men as Cleveland, Harrison, Carlisle, Sherman, Hill, Matt Quay, Voorhees, Clarkson, Dudly and his blocks of five, Wannamaker, Depew, Mike De Young, Boss Buckley and Croker and a host of boodlers and hench- men who might be mentioned, with such men as Washington, Hamil- ton, Jefferson, Jackson, Clay, Web- ster, Sumner, Stanton, Wilson and Lincoln. Men to-day, as at other times, are filled with their own conceits and bitter prejudices; the windows of their minds are covered with cobwebs and dimmed with dust. Fact, reason, observation or experience have little or no effect in determining their political acts. Deception practiced upon them by political parties has always been successful. Poor blind fools ! they are the easy prey of every schem- ing politician who, by smooth false speech, hypocrisy and treachery, gives them over into the hands of their enemy, who strips them of their property and drives them out to starve or become vagabonds or criminals. Poor dupes and confi- ding idiots! Writhing and bleeding under tortures of the lash, they still cling to their betrayer, and curse the man who would expose his treachery. Take the laboring men, farmers and mechanics, who are the three producing classes, and who cast nine out of every ten votes that are cast, and compare their condition with that of those who do not pro- duce, and note the difference ! Then take the laws of the land to discover in whose interest they are framed, and you will immedi- ately find what and who make such differences. To these three classes the politi- cian directs his attention to secure votes, which he gets; and, when asked his candid opinion of voters, he will tell you plainly that they are a pack of "damn fools." Now look at your condition, and no one but such a fool will say the politician is right. I say it plainly, that for either the Democratic or Republican party to come before the American people UNIVERSITY for their votes, after the past low, slum record, is a gross insult to the intelligence of the people, and the record I shall present and defy them to disprove. Those two old political parties play the same old bunco skin game year after year. Their political bunco-steerers appear just before election, bubbling over with love for the workingman, and find the voters of the country such drivel- ing, idiotic suckers, that they can "run them in" times without number, with the same bald-headed chestnut ' ' tariff. ' ' After election, they immediately kick them out and have no further use for them until the next election, when the same old rot is rehashed and given them with like results. The sense- less cry of these two old parties for the last twenty-two years has been either ' 'tariff 1 ' or "tariff reform," as a panacea for hard times. In their loud-mouthed harangues and sawings of the air, they lash themselves into a foaming sea of rage against each other, each con- tending for a different view of the question, while in fact there has never existed a difference of over five per cent, between them on the subject. The tariff on imports does not exceed over two hundred mil- lions per annum, making a dif- ference only of ten millions per annum. No wonder those white- livered cowards howl upon the tar- iff question. At every election time they appear upon the scene with their wild jackass bray, while each year the country becomes more poverty-stricken, desolation steals through the land and mul- titudes starve. Parasites like the bond-holder, banker and money-shark, too lazy to work or to aid in production, are always assisted, and prey upon the products of others. Through the enactment of infamous and murderous laws framed for their special benefit, they "stand us up" in broad daylight and strip us of all our property, and then kick us out to starve, stealing away from us the very right to exist. After these thieving parasites have stolen by law our homes and the products of our labors, which we have worked like slaves to save, they endeavor to teach us to be resigned to our lot; that it is better for us to die of starvation than to steal a loaf of bread (which is more valuable in their eyes than our life) to save our very existence. A highwayman, compared with such a low-breed, is an angel of light. He will give you a fighting chance for your property and will spare your life; but when these assassins stand you up with the law, it is the dead-open-and-shut of your money and your life. 6 THE EXCEPTION CLAUSE. The vermin classes are the fav- ored children of this government. For their exclusive benefit the gov- ernment would not receive for cus- toms and duties anything but Shy- lock's gold, upon which he has a complete monopoly, but repudiated its own money for such purposes by placing an exception clause upon it. Then, to still further aid them, after they had obtained hundreds of millions of government green- backs through their gambling meth- ods, by depreciating our currency, they handed over to them untaxed interest-paying bonds to still con- tinue their hellish fleecing of the people. By receiving in gold on their bonds interest payable in ad- vance, they were enabled to keep the same gold moving around the circle, and every time harvest a golden crop or greenbacks, with which they secured more bonds. The government was continually falling short of gold sufficient to pay interest upon its bonds, and became a purchaser in the market for Shylock's gold. By this game alone they bled the nation to the tune of two thousand millions, or about one-half the cost of the war. At the beginning of the war the government created sixty millions of demand notes, receivable for all debts, public or private, with no exception clause, and they always stood at a par with gold. When in 1878 the government was willing to receive greenbacks for duties on imports, at the sug- gestion of General Weaver, a few months prior to January ist, 1879, when the government was to re- sume specie payment, it abolished all premium on gold at once, con- clusively proving that gold gam- bling was created by the exception clause and by the government's repudiating its own money. Noth- ing is more clear or better estab- lished than the fact that the excep- tion clause was put on the green- back by the Senate Committee, to whom it was referred, at the sug- gestion of the banker and the mon- ey gambler, who held a conference with it. No farmers, mechanics or laboring men could have had any influence with such a committee, as men of that class have spurned with contempt any attempt to in- fluence legislation by boodle, and have got nothing as the result. When the bankers mention boodle to the majority of our legislators, it strikes them like a streak of lightning, thrilling them from head to foot; a heavenly smile flits over their faces like that of angels, and they are ready at any time to eat dirt for them or sell their low, dirty souls, their daughters, wives or sons, for pelf. The standard of morals of Jack- the- Ripper transcends that of such legislators, as the standard of Lin- coln, Sumner or Clay transcends that of Cleveland, John Sherman, and Carlisle. The Ripper's victims were women already degraded and outcast, while our murderous laws, enacted for boodle by red-handed, anarchistic legislators, strike the dagger up to the hilt into the very vitals of this nation, and wreck its homes, give childhood and youth, manhood and womanhood, into the very jaws of rapacious robbers, pirates and murderers, who crush into a pulp all vestige of human rights, liberty and happiness. The skull and cross-bones now overtop the stars and stripes, and America is the land of the tyrant, pirate, thug and slave. Orphan and lunatic asylums, States' pris- ons and jails plague-spots of civi- lization which had hardly any ex- istence in the first fifty years of the nation's life, now overflow with in- mates and fill the land, increasing fourfold beyond the increase of pop- ulation. The boodlers and driveling poli- tical idiots now in Washington are fiddling away at their tariff and wooing a black queen of doubtful morals, in the South Seas, to attract attention, while the whole machin- ery of our government is shotted to mow down the robbed and despoiled toilers of the land if they dare re- sist the tyranny of capital, class legislation and imperial despotism. Hungry stomachs will soon collapse if fed upon tariff wind-pudding , handed over to the wage slave for his vote, by corporations, monopo- lies and money powers through the hands of the scurvy boodle politi- cians. The day of settlement is near at hand when the veil of deception shall be torn off the voters' eyes, which have been blinded by party prejudices and bigotry. No na- tion's savage chiefs, in all the rec- ords of history, have so unmerci- fully sacrificed its citizens or mem- bers, or put them into a more ferocious gang of cut-throats, than have those who rule us. What was once a land of homes has now become a boarding and soup-house institution. Not over one workman in a hun- dred has a home which he can call his own, and that has a mortgage upon it, and will be soon passed over to the money shark, who will see to it that money is made scarce so that the interest cannot be met. Free country ! Grand government E Tariff fools will fix this up. About one-third of the working classes of America have become paupers, tramps or criminals, and the rest are rapidly getting there. Home and home influences being 8 destroyed by poverty, the boys and 3*irls at eight, ten and twelve years of age are taken from school and forced to work in the factories, eking out a miserable existence, -competing for such an existence "with Chinamen or the lowest grade of paupers just imported from Asia -and other countries, working at itheir elbows. Despairing under ;such conditions of ever having a liome, they yield to evil influences; red, and the whisky is furnished Ifoy us which sweeps them off by thousands. * Henry George. Politicians or political parties who come before the voters of this coun- try to discuss the question of tariff or tariff reform as the way out of these difficulties, know better, and are nothing but the mouth-pieces and puppets of money sharks and monopolies, a band of liars and traitors, deluding innocent victims and a confiding people to sacrifice their property and life that they, such politicians and political parties and the classes they represent, may still further satisfy their avar- ice, appetites, passions and lusts. Such parties and politicians have forfeited all right to exist. The future historian will paint the pic- ture of them all dark; and when it is hung on the dark walls of hell, its background will be light. The stench thereof will pervade the whole earth; and the world will be forever contaminated in the reading of it. When these politicians are dead, they should be buried at the north pole, and their carcasses her- metically sealed with an avalanche of snow and ice. Even this will not be sufficient to down their odor, and the buzzards for ages will hover over their lonely graves. THE NATIONAL BANK. The profits of the gold gamblers became so great that they immedi- ately devised a banking system to still further continue their gambling 9 and thieving business, and handed it over to their hireling puppet, John Sherman, to see it through; and the old arch- traitor has stood at the helm ever since, selling his small soul and the whole American people for his lust of gold. To establish a National bank, bonds had to be issued, but to please the vermin, not taxed. Interest had to be given in gold, pay- able in advance. On a hundred thousand dollars in bonds there was handed over to the banker by the Controller of the Currency ninety thousand of the people's notes, un- taxed, at one per cent, per annum (about the cost of printing), and of these he had absolute control, and upon them he could, as he let them out to the people, place a tax of from six to twelve per cent, per annum. To shut out all of the small fry, no one could get such privileges, unless they could put up a fifty thousand dollar bond. A FICTITIOUS WAR DEBT. ("Shot and Shell," by T. A. Bland.) ''At the close of the late Civil War the national debt was about $3,000,000,000. The people gen- erally suppose that this entire sum was necessarily spent in supporting the government and putting down the Rebellion, in addition to the regular income of the Government. This is very far from the truth. Full one-half of this enormous debt represented commissions on bonds, interest on bonds, and discounts on Government money in buying coin to pay interest, etc., etc. "The total expenditures of the Government for 1862 were $475, 000,000. According to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, $15,000,000 of this was for the in- terest on the public debt, $64,000,- ooo of it discount, and $65,000,- ooo received for taxes, leaving only $341,000,000 of a debt. " In 1863 the expense of the Government was $7 1 5, ooo, ooo. Of this sum interest, discount and taxes make up $310,000,000, leav- ing a balance of actual debt of $405,000,000. "In 1864 the public expendi- tures were $865,000,000. Of this sum $78,000,000 was paid in inter- est, $505,000,000 on discounts, and $264,000,000 received from taxes, leaving only $18,000,000 legitimate public debt. The public expendi- tures for 1865 amounted to $1,297,- 000,000. Of this sum $77,000,000 was for interest, $389,000,000 dis- count, and $338,000,000 taxes re- ceived, leaving only $493,000,000 net honest public debt. " If the Government had con- tinued the policy inaugurated in 1 86 1, of meeting the public expen- ditures over anl abov* taxes by the issue of legal tender currency, 10 there would have been at the close of the war $1,257,000,000 Govern- ment paper money in circulation, and not a dollar of public debt. From this showing it is clear that the people were robbed of over $2,000,000,000 during the war; that this robbery has been going on ever since in the form of inter- est on an unnecessary public debt, and that we still owe, after hav- ing paid over $5,000,000,000, prin- cipal and interest, nearly as much as the actual cost of the Govern- ment during the war. This money has gone out of the pockets of the producing classes into the pockets of the non-producing classes, through a system of financial legerdemain, deliberately planned and persistently carried out." This money belonged to the peo- ple, and was as necessary to their national life as blood is to the body ; but the bondholders, bank- er?, and money sharks demanded that it be burned up. " Mr. Bout- well, Secretary of the Treasury, in his report in 1872, says on page 297, that $1,808,314,475.69 of money was destroyed." As it seri- riously interfered with the bankers' profits it was consigned to the flames, or re-issued, and a debt of about $3,000,000,000 was put upon the nation which they had no more moral right to put than to take the torch of the vandal and burn all the homes in the land. What we have paid on this debt in principal and interest together, with what we still owe, amounts to over six thousand millions. The amount which we owe to-day will take over one- third more of cotton, iron, wheat, and more of labor's products, to pay it off than it would have done at the close of the war, after paying on the prin- cipal $1,500,000,000. The banks, founded on these bonds, have paid in dividends six thousand millions of dollars, robbed from the indus- tries of the country. No wonder the venomous traitors keep up the tariff howl, to attract the attention of the farmer, mechanic and la- borer from the true issues, and cre- ate dissention and strife in their ranks they must keep his mind diverted while they skin him and tan his very hide. The sacredness of life, the strug- gles of the poor, the pleadings of the weak for help, the wail of an- guish that comes from the poverty- stricken homes, meets with no re- sponse ; they still plunge the dag- ger deeper into the bosom of the fallen form of humanity. What a difference we behold when we look at the treatment by the Govern- ment of these parasites ! What a kind father it has been to them, ever ready to answer their beck II and call, and to drive to the wall all of their enemies, or those upon whom they may wish to prey. Nothing but the most choice swans- down will suffice for their couch. The canopy of their chamber must be fretted with golden fire. Pic- tures of heavenly visitants throw the glow of light and love o'er their sleeping form. Their dreams of the night are set in pearls or rubies or diamonds, unpierced by one minor strain of sadness. Egyptian vases of flowers adorn the room and fill it with their fra- grance. Servants attend their waking, and fly to do their bidding through the day. Highly -favored child of man! Why so exalted, and we so abased? Why should you have the roses, and we get the thorns ? Why should you be priv- ileged to feed upon the products of our bone and sinew, and we perish with hunger ? We now know your secret. You have found that legislation is the magnet of power for good or ill, with an affinity for gold. By this magic wand you have diverted this current from its true object the whole people and it now admin- isters to your greed of gain and love of luxury, and panders to all your wants and appetites ; while poverty is bred, crime engendered, and destitution and want stalk through the land with their skele- ton forms because of it. CREDIT STRENGTHENING ACT. After the war, foreign and Amer- ican bondholders, who Had pur- chased the bonds, sought through Congress to have them paid in coin. " Payable for all debts, pub- lic and private, except for duties on imports and interest on the pub- lic debt" is printed on the back of every greenback. When a party purchased a bond of the Govern- ment by the greenback, it became a public debt of the Government, and was payable by the greenback, as declared on its back, so simple that it cannot be misunderstood. Nothing can be more plain. The low boodle nature of our Congressman is known all over the world. A sack was soon gotten up by the bondholders, passed over to the Congressmen, and then they formulated a bill, called "An Act to strengthen the public credit," which was immediately passed by an extra session of Congress, called expressly for that purpose. It was the first Act of the body. The bill was passed after midnight and was signed by Grant at the White House, a mile away from the Capitol, twenty minutes after its passage, March 18, 1869. This was four years after the close of the war, when the Government was paying its debt at the rate of two to nine million dollars a month. 12 The immediate increase of value to the bondholders was more than double. This brazen-faced robbery cost th*e taxpayers one thousand millions of dollars, five hundred millions of it enriching the foreign bondholder. Both parties are al- ways accomplices to these conspira- cies, and divide the spoils between them. General Weaver brought a bill before the House to pay the soldiers the difference between the currency they were paid in and gold, but these traitors defeated it. The soldiers, who tore themselves away from the happy firesides, and stood up to brave the leaden ball on the battlefield for their country, could get no recognition from these boodlers, although promised at the beginning of the war that they should be paid in gold. THE DEMONETIZATION OF SILVER. Hardly had the credit-strength- ening Act been passed, before these thieves were again planning an- other of greater magnitude, in the demonetization of silver. The credit-strengthening Act has made the bonds payable in coin, which was both silver and gold. Greed and avarice knew no bounds. We can obtain a faint idea of the greedy, thieving nature of our ene- mies, to whom we have been sacri- ficed by immoral monstrosities called Congressmen, by noting their further acts. A robbing scheme that had increased their wealth to one thousand million dol- lars at a single stroke was not enough to satisfy these wretches. Silver might be good enough for the wage slave, but was nauseating to their dainty appetites, which could only relish gold. Ernest Seyd, an Englishman, visited America in the winter of 1872-3, representing the governors of the Bank of England, and also some German bankers, bringing with him $500,000 in British gold. He interviewed the committees of the House and the Senate, and an Act was introduced in his hand- writing, called "An Act revising and amending the laws relative to the mints, assay offices and coin- age of the United States." The bill contained sixty-seven sections, and in one section the dollar was omitted, and hence it ceased to be a coin of the United States. Sub- sidiary coin was now all the silver coin in existence, and was a legal tender for less than five dollars. The bondholders could now de- mand and obtain their principal and interest in gold coin, while demonetized silver, good only to the amount of five dollars, was good enough for the wage slave. The difference between gold and silver at this time was at least 80 to 100, and this difference of twenty per cent, to gold would amount to five hundred million dollars. Figuring from what the public debt then was, and the in- terest during all these years, it would amount to that much more, making a cool billion dollar steal. Honest John Sherman took the boodle for the Senate, and distrib- uted it among his Republican and Democratic associates, while saintly Hooper, of Massachusetts, had charge of it in the House, and fol- lowed his brother John's example. If there is no hell for such men, then there is no justice ; and if there is no justice, then there is no God. Why, the standard of mor- ality in hell is so high compared to that of these men that all hell will hiss them when they make their advent there. America, in all its history never received a more fatal stab. Palsied and crippled, as it then was, its former , greatness has never re- turned. Incumbered with thirty- two thousand million dollars of debt, upon which it pays an annual interest of two thousand millions, far beyond all the productive re- sources of the country, with feeble footsteps, it to-day trembles on the verge of ruin. The demon- etization oi silver was accom- plished when the output of our silver mines would have come to the rescue of our country, and would have given us a me- dium of exchange that would have taken the place of the destroyed greenbacks. Free coinage of silver would have added hundreds of mil- lions to our circulating medium, and would have destroyed the mo- nopoly of money now in the hands of a few gold bugs. It would have destroyed to a great extent the credit debt, the interest system, all the result of a contracted cur- rency controlled and monopolized by a few for their own selfish ends. The Englishman would be obliged to pay $1.29 for his ounce of silver, which he now gets for 60 cents, to have his bushel of wheat laid down in Liverpool from India; and the American farmer would receive $1.29 instead of 50 cents, the pres- ent price for his wheat. It would have opened the trade of Mexico, Central America, South America and China, the principal part of which is now held by England. Finding that people could be de- ceived and kept in ignorance by an hireling press, these robbers have continued to repeat their infamous work with more frequency and brazen effrontery, until to-day, from the chief executive down, they trample the laws of the nation un- der foot and flaunt their defiance in our face. The refusal of the President to 14 enforce the Chinese Registration Act, declared constitutional by the United States Supreme Court, stamps him a perjurer, a typical anarchist, and a defier of the laws of the land he swore to enforce. THE GOLD RESERVE. The holding in reserve of one hundred millions in gold coin, for the purpOvSe of redeeming the greenback, and upon which we have already paid for bonds issued to obtain it nearly sixty millions of dollars in interest, is without any authority of law whatever, and was admitted even by Carlisle to Culbertson before his committee in January, 1894, in the following statement : ' ' As a matter of fact there is not and never has been an actual aggregation of $100,000,000 of gold , or any other sum from ttie other funds of the treasury. There is no law on the subject requiring the Secretary to maintain a gold reserve. It is a mere fiction, a bookkeeper's device. * * * // is based upon an assumption." Bonds upon which we have al- ready paid sixty million dollars of interest, were issued by the chief of all boodlers, John Sherman, un- der a Republican administration, to obtain a hundred million dollars in coin, and it has met with the full approval of the Democratic administration. Cleveland and Carlisle have gone even further: They have issued bonds to keep up an ill-gotten reserve fund, which is contrary to the laws of Congress, which espe- cially declare that there shall not be ' ' any increase whatever of the bonded debt of the United States. ' ' Here we have the strange spec- tacle of one party setting at defi- ance the law of the land, while the other party seconds it, and even exceeds their action by still greater violation of law. This absurd farce of government is at an end, and in the next act the people will appear and ring down the curtain upon the scene. Our halls of legislation throughout the land are simply slaughter houses where human rights and liberty are butchered, and hell prepared for us, instead of happiness. Within the last thirty years there has been scarcely an Act passed in the interest of the masses. In the past they have flaunted the bloody shirt in our faces, and now are dis- cussing the tariff question as one of vital interest to the working classes, simply to blind them as to the true issues. SPECIE PAYMENT. 11 Resumption" and "specie pay- ment" mean simply that all the property and wealth of the nation must be placed in the hands and at the mercy of cruel robbers, who have a monopoly upon a certain metal, which they can contract, expand or control its volume, and, by gambling methods, wrest from us our property and wealth and starve our lives. The total amount of gold in circulation in the United States does not exceed five hundred million, while the property and wealth of the nation is sixty- five billion. The proportion is about five dollars in gold to one thousand dollars of property. Gold being made the basis of value, the whole property and wealth of the United States can be closed out for five hundred million in gold, and there is no power on earth that can save it when the gold is under the complete control of monopoly, as it now is. The proportion being five dollars in gold, being the base of all value, to $1,000 of property valuation, withdraw one dollar from the base and you will have a shrinkage of $200 in property valuation. With- draw $2.50 and you reduce property valuation one-half; for if there is not sufficient currency in circulation to effect exchange of values, prices will fall, and the purchasing value of money is enhanced. To further reduce it will produce stagnation and death, for no civilized society can live without some medium of exchange. Any one individual or corpora- tion that can secure the exclusive control of the money of any city, state or nation, is possessed of its very life blood, and will as certainly devour its property and destroy its life as would a pack of hungry wolves. These money men are cruel, pitiless and devoid of all human feeling. The wail of an- guish, the cry of want, and the silent appeal for help that wells forth from a starving multitude, is met by their scoffs, mocks and jeers. We have as certainly been betrayed into the hands of these shylocks, as was Jesus Christ betrayed by Judas Iscariot into the hands of the Jews. The instincts of humanity were far more noble in Judas than in these traitors, for he repented and hung himself, while our . be- trayers glory at each ignoble act. GREENBACKS. The government issued to its people the currency (greenbacks) without interest, to facilitate their exchange of products. This issue of currency to the people direct by the government to meet current expenses, or for public improve- ments, if continued in, would be destructive to all banking institu- tions, bondholders and money-lend- ers, as the government could issue sufficient for all business require- ments, thereby completely killing 16 the credit, debt and interest system, and with it all of the low institu- tions that prey upon productive industry. Paper or rag money is valueless to the banker unless it can be passed through his hands for his tax stamp upon it, when it immediately becomes good money, because it is dear; but if issued by the government directly to the peo- ple without this tax stamp upon it, it becomes cheap money, and hence he considers it no good. Through boodle legislation the greenbacks (money without inter- est) were taken up and destroyed, or reissued which amount to the same thing in the creation of a bonded debt, and, in their stead, the bankers were given untaxed interest - bearing bonds, interest payable in gold coin in advance, and upon this they were given 90 per cent, of machine-printed bank notes at one per cent, per annum, without any legal tender qualities, unredeemable in gold, and redeem- able in the legal tender greenback, (specie basis is only for the suckers) of which they have complete con- trol. They then hand over to the people their debts a promise to pay, with a tax upon it ranging from five to twenty -four per cent, per annum, living upon the interest of what they owe,. besides drawing an additional interest upon their un- taxed bonds. In the name of God and human- ity ! what moral right have these infamous traitors to wrest and rob the people of their untaxed me- dium of exchange, wholly their own and the product of their industry, burn it up, and by so doing deliver us into the hands of rapacious robbers and vile gam- blers, through the bond system, upon which is builded a banking system, the most iniquitous and the most blood-sucking parasite that ever preyed upon human kind. Within the short space of thirty- two years it has clogged every wheel of industry with debt, mort- gaged nine millions of its homes, fettered and enslaved a once free people to the most inhuman, re- vengeful and unmerciful of masters. The people must be made to see that this robbery is accomplished by levying a tax, not upon the value exchanged, but upon a medi- um of exchange of values, which in and of itself has legal, but no intrinsic value whatever; that it is a stamp, a decree of law to ef- fect an exchange of values behind which stands all the wealth and the property of the government to make such exchange good. MONEY HAS A LEGAL BUT NO INTRINSIC VALUE. It is a certificate of indebtedness of society for labor or labor prod- 1.7- ucts, which it stands ready to honor when presented, such certificate being of no intrinsic value nor representing any, and when taxed is nothing but legalized robbery, as it is a tax upon merely a decree of law. There is no other money but fiat money, and any material the government may select, either dear or cheap, becomes money when it has the fiat of the government. The people have had enough of the trickery of the ' ' specie basis ' ' played upon them by this govern- ment and its banking institutions, when they have no more than one dollar in coin to redeem 346 cents in circulation. No fool needs to be told that the whole sixty-five thousand millions of wealth of this nation is better security for three hundred and forty-six millions of currency, than one hundred mil- lions Of gold BELONGING TO THE NATION'S WEALTH heaped up in the Treasury vaults at Washington. The cry of redemption to money is all rot. Money is the very life- blood of the nation, and should be increased to such an amount that all of the exchanges of values could be effected on a cash basis. All that is necessary is for the govern- ment to make it payable for all debts without an exception clause, receive it, and put it out again in circulation. There is no redeem- ing feature about it except as it may pay a debt, and be passed on for like purposes. Professor Browning Price says : " Money is a tool of exchange, nothing more. It is not a measure of values, nor a standard of measures, nor a repre- sentative of property. It transfers property conveniently from one party to another, as a wagon hauls goods from one place to another." The Supreme Court of Iowa says : "The gold dollar is not a commod- ity having an intrinsic value, but money having a statutory value, and each dollar has the same value without regard to the material. The gold dollar has not an intrinsic value." This idiocy of our Government officials and financiers is so ludi- crous that if they attempted to ex- plain their money methods to a common jackass he would resent the insult offered to his intelli- gence. Hear the fools bleat about the Government issuing irredeem- able currency, when even an idiot can teach them that the Govern- ment never yet issued one dollar of currency but behind it was every citizen, every dollar of wealth, and every foot of land in the nation to make it good, so long as it was legal tender for all debts. It is the imperative duty, and the constitutional right, of this Government to create its own money (greenback or coin) and de- OF TH i8 clare the value thereof, and forever free us from the enforced slavery of issuing interest-bearing bonds to obtain money which we have power to create. The money created by the Gov- ernment can be put into circulation in public improvements, such as reservoiring the rivers of our mountains for the reclaiming of the desert lands, the building of good roads, post-offices, dredging of harbors and improvement of the water-ways, to the extent of three or four billions of dollars. By such method, the wealth of the nation would be increased to double the amount of the money issued, be- sides giving to the people a cur- rency sufficient to transact all their commercial and business affairs on a cash basis. This increase of wealth by the issue of currency for public improvements to the nation would be ample security for it, and it is with a contemptuous sneer that we turn away from the gold- bug rot of redemption of money by a certain metal of supposed in- trinsic value, upon which they hold a complete monopoly, and that places all lands, labor and wealth within the grasp of unmer- ciful, gambling money sharks, who shrivel and shrink all securities within its narrow limits. A banking corporation has se- cured a monopoly upon a cer- tain metal, called gold, and, through boodle influence, it has enacted a law that nothing in the land can become money except this metal, which is to receive the Government stamp. The banker has now secured the complete monopoly of money in the form of bank notes and gold coin. He. contracts and expands it to suit his own selfish interest. He charges high rates of interest, and makes the metal scarce, to increase his profits. He compounds his inter- est, and his wealth increases with lightning rapidity. One penny loaned at eight per cent, when Columbus discovered America, if compounded, would amount to four times the value of the property of the United States. Compound interest methods do not work with sufficient rapidity to suit these robbers ; they want the earth, and they must have it at once. They invent hellish schemes to gather in golden harvests, every eight or ten years. Within the last eighty years there have been thirteen of these death-dealing strokes given to the business industries of the country, brought about by schemers, who fatten upon the desolation of the land, and the wreck of human life. Their method is to keep money scarce ; that creates credit, and credit means loans, discounts and 19 debts, and these mean profits and interest. Interest means that the principal shall return again, bring- ing its securities with it. Through the scarcity of money, high rates are charged upon all the loans, discounts and mortgages. This continues, till a vast sum of money has been loaned out, when sud- denly a great change takes place. These money gamblers are now playing for great stakes, and enter into a conspiracy with one another to pounce down upon the property and securities of those whom they now have at their mercy. All is previously arranged, and, upon a certain day selected by them, every bank in the country stops loaning money, calls in its loans, and re- fuses to discount commercial paper. A stringency is at once felt in the money market, business becomes paralyzed, and hundreds of thou- sands are thrown out of employ- ment. Those having loans, debts and mortgages cannot meet their obligations, or pay their interest ; foreclosures follow, and the banker secures their property, or security at one-third of its value. At a bankers' convention, held in San Francisco in February, 1894, an article was read by Benjamin C. Wright, in which he stated that January of 1893 "showed a larger business, as gauged by the bank clearing of the country, than any previous corresponding month for several years. February was nearly as good, and better than any February in the three years previous to 1892. March was better than February, and better than any March for the previous four years. April was the lightest of the first four months, but not much under that month in 1892. The first third of the year passed with really a better record from a bank's standpoint than had been known for any corresponding period in several years. As usual, ' ' he states, "the first wail emanated from Wall street." The telegram, sent broadcast, contained these words: "The tension in the com- munity is great, but the general comment is one of surprise that there are so few failures. Every- body is looking for trouble to come." All of this is fully ex- plained by the following panic bul- letin, issued by the banking con- spirators against our property and our life : THE PANIC BULLETINS. [Issued March 12, 1893, by Bankers' Association to all National Banks.] "DEAR SIR: The interests of the National Bankers require immedi- ate financial legislation by Con- gress. Silver certificates and treas- ury notes must be retired, and the National Bank notes upon a gold 20 basis made the only money. This will require the authorization of from $500, 000,000 to $1,000,000,000 of new bonds as a basis of circula- tion. You will at once retire one- third of your circulation, and call in one-half of your loans. Be careful to make a money stringency felt among our patrons, especially among the influential business men. Advocate an extra session of Congress for the repeal of the purchase clause of the Sherman law, and act with the banks of your city in securing a large peti- tion to Congress for its uncondi- tional repeal. Use personal influ- ence with Congressmen, and par- ticularly let your wishes be known to your Senators. The future life of National Banks as fixed and safe investments depends upon im- mediate action, as there is an in- creasing sentiment in favor of Gov- ernment legal tender notes and sil- ver coinage." This circular shows the direct cause of our financial panics, and the conspirators' method of assas- sinating a once free people. Such hellish fiends as these, that prey upon life and property, are backed up by the laws of our land, enacted by slimy boodlers, whose conception of morals are so low, warped and blunted that they can perceive no difference between the morals of Jesus Christ and those of a Nero. Mr. Wright still adds: "This factor, the want of sufficient ready money to meet demand obligations, is at the bottom of every business failure. There are times in the ex- istence of every bank when noth- ing but money can keep its doors open." Now, mark you, Mr. Wright does not say that there is not enough property or wealth in the country, neither does he say it is the tariff question, over-production or lack of confidence ; but the great and only crying need of the country is MONEY. It is the key- note of the situation. It is what we all want, all are looking after, and can't find. The most sacred duties and obligations of a Govern- ment is to provide its subjects with money, without which we cannot exist. When the Government proves recreant to such trusts, and puts upon us more bonded indebtedness, when it could bring relief to perish- ing millions within twenty-four hours by the creation of more money, we are justified in branding them as the lowest set of hellish imps that have ever been dug up from the slime-pits of hell. Mr. Wright still adds: "The paid-up capital of these banks is $1,084,607,600, while the amount 21 due depositors is $2,736,836, 100, ac- cording to the Controller of the Currency's report." How these banks can pay $2,736,836,100 with only $1,084,600,000 of capital is past comprehension. Henry Carey Baird, who is acknowledged to be one of the best authorities in America on money, says in regard to the same subject "that such a small amount of capital cannot pay the amount due depositors, anyone fit to be outside of a lunatic or an idiot asylum knows," and further adds : " But these banks, in the at- tempt to keep this windbag from bursting, are at work in precipita- ting a crisis in the country, and it will not be their fault if they do not succeed." The amounts due depositors, when demanded, have to be paid within a specified time. In 1890 the Controller of the Currency re- ported that the circulating medium of the nation was nine hundred million, and is now not in excess of one billion in circulation. The reason why deposits in the bank are three dollars to one in excess of the circulating medium is be- cause the same dollar is loaned and re-loaned different times, and each time the banker receive his interest out of it. His discounts reap him another harvest of profits. A bank begins business, depending upon depositors for money to make their loans. In the morning a business man deposits one thousand dollars. Later in the day a real estate agent asks him for a loan of seven hun- dred dollars. They proceed to the bank, and the business man offers to indorse his friend's paper for seven hundred dollars, but such in- dorsement is refused by the bank, although he has deposited there one thousand dollars. The bank will have nothing but freehold se- curity. The real estate agent, being in great need of the money, gives his property for security, and secures the loan. He immediately pays it out to a groceryman on a note over-due. The groceryman, having no need of the money, de- posits it in the same bank. The bank now owes the business man one thousand dollars, and the groceryman seven hundred dollars, making seventeen hundred dollars, one-fourth of which amount, $425, has to be kept as a Government reserve fund, leaving just $575 with which to pay the $1700 now due the depositors. Thus bankers devise cunning schemes to fasten the responsibility on the bank pa- trons to their securities, and, like Samson, pulled the pillars from under the Temple, until all is re- duced to a mass of ruins. All of these securities are lost, and are bought up by the banking fraternity, who own and control all 22 the money in the country, and who shrink all of the property and se- curity within their narrow limits. On February 15, 1890, The Econo- mist published a detailed statement of the affairs of eleven joint stock banks in London to December 31, 1889, showing that the total net wordly possessions of these banks in capital and surplus are $95,062,- 858, with $80,096,723 of this, or within $15,524,000 of the whole possession, on hand in the Bank of Kngland, with investment of $688,764,589. Henry Carey Baird remarks: "A pretty lively style of business, this drawing revenue in one mode or another on $688,764,569, for $15,- 524,000 actually out of their pos- session and control, or on $672,- 240,000 for the use of their credit alone. None of the banks claim that they can meet their obliga- tions to their depositors, not even at the ratio of one to three; they only rely upon their depositors' confidence in them to do it. The Bank of England's credit is $20 of credit to $i of value. All property or bonds purchased in America is done by English syndi- cates, who give a draft upon the Bank of England for payment. The draft is never cashed at the bank, but everything is adjusted by the maturities of these securi- ties and their interests and rents due them from Americans. They have ten billion dollars in bonds, lands, and other securities, and every year they draw off from our productive industry four hun- dred and eighty-six millions of dollars. As the securities and interest have matured, they have been re-investing it, until within the last two years. Now it is going over to England. In 1893 ninety-five millions of gold was shipped out of the country, and up to July of 1894 about fifty millions had followed it. The balance of trade has nothing whatever to do with our shipment of Gold to Europe. It is simply the maturity of interests, rents, and other various ways they have of fleecing the American suckers, that enable them to pass out our gold to old England. Our bankers are but the puppets and mouthpieces of the Bank of England. They rule the American bankers with a rod of iron, and if they refuse to obey their dictates will crush them like they would an egg-shell. The in- fernal manipulation of our cur- rency, the National Bank, the crea- tion of our bonded debt by the destroying of our currency, all had their origin in the Bank of Eng- land. Through their dictation, our Congress adopted the gold standard, and England now can, through the maturity of her securities, rents and interest, here all payable in gold coin, draw off every dollar of gold within six months, and bankrupt the whole nation through it. The latest statistics show that there is only five hundred and nine- teen millions of gold in the country. We have, with all our currency, in- cluding gold and silver, about one dollar of currency to pay eighty dollars of debt, and most of it is payable in gold coin. If the tariff fools will only show the voters how the tariff will enable them to pay eighty dollars of debt with one dol- lar of money, they will earn the lasting gratitude of the American people. When money stringency is cre- ated by these banking institutions, millions of the homes of the poor and worthy of the land, for which they have toiled the greater part of their lives, are thus stolen from them by high-handed land pirates, through legalized rob- bery and gambling methods. After having their harvest they let out the money again and set the wage slave to work for eight or ten years, when they attack him again with similar results. Each time the crop is slimmer, and soon everything will pass into the hands of these giant robbers. Thirty-one thousand persons own one-half of the property of the United States, and the other half is going over to them at the rate of two thousand millions a year. It requires twenty-five thousand wage slaves, working three hundred days in the year, to keep up Vander- bilt's income. The whole question of debt comes through the interest upon the currency. It is a tax upon that which is possessed of no intrinsic value, and which should be fur- nished to the people by the Gov- ernment as free as the air we breathe.. The Revolutionary fath- ers rebelled against the mother country because of a tax upon mer- chandise, but now their descend- ants pay to the same people, through their banking methods in- troduced here, a tax of ten cents upon every dollar they use, and which costs not over a fraction of a cent to make. The spirit of '76 has departed from the generation , and the American is a slave to his oppressor. England holds to-day in this nation over ten thousand millions worth of property wealth and securities, and yet she never crossed a bayonet, or gave for this great wealth one day of productive labor, but wrested it from us by her thieving banking system of usury and credit. She owns all of the gold in the world, and seventy per cent, of all the bonds, yet she never dug up one pound of gold in her isle or did a day's work for the bonds. The monopoly of the cur- 24 rency and interest system will kill any nation. Every nation must have some medium of exchange, and when tax upon such medium of exchange exceeds the productive powers of the nation its death knell has been rung. Congressman Walker, of Massa- chusetts, a strong Republican, puts the public and private debts of the United States at thirty-two billions. Frederick C. Waite (Republican) Special Agent of the Census Bu- reau, says in 77ie National Spec- tator that the total private indebt- edness of the American people in 1880 was only $8,750,000,000. In September, 1892, it was $19,700,- 000,000, an increase of thirteen billions in twelve years, in private indebtedness alone. It requires two thousand millions of dollars to pay the annual inter- est upon the public and private debts of the United States, being one thousand millions beyond the dead lines of our annual increase of wealth, and there is not over one billion dollars of currency with which to pay it, allowing nothing for the payment of taxes, or for business purposes. Is it any won- der that wrecks strew the land, that business is prostrated, and that millions are out of employment? Nor is there the slightest prospect that business will improve. It must continue to grow worse until there shall be a revolution in affairs of government. Money is so dear, and the means of investment so limited that no one can hope for a living, and pay such extortionate interest upon money. TARIFF. Nothing can be more grotesque or supremely ridiculous to see, gathered around the prostrate form of the nation in its death struggle, than these two old Democratic and Republican quack law-doctors dosing, experimenting, and doing up the dying patient with their hundred-year-old patent nostrum tariff remedy, that never has ef- fected a single cure in all its his- tory ; quarreling with each other only as to the amount of tariff dose to be administered, while with each dose the pulse becomes more feeble, and fainter glows the spark of life. It reminds one of the story told by Lincoln of an old farmer who went gunning with his boy, and, seeing as he thought, a squirrel running along on a rail fence blazed away at it several times without any ap- parent effect. The boy, seeing no game on the fence, was astonished by such acts, and, looking for some explanation of it, soon found it out, and told the old man that it was only a louse running on his eye- brow. The nation is not afflicted with the tariff disease, but is being 25 devoured by such vermin as the bankers, bondholders, money- sharks, trusts and monopolies. These vermin have so beclouded the vision of these old parties with boodle that they can distinguish no difference between a louse and the tariff question. The question of tariff is one of the most deceptive ever brought forward for public discussion, and out of which the politicians have made more capital, wrought more mischief and beggared the country through their discussion of it than by any other means. The Republican party advocates that the people of this nation should manufacture their own arti- cles and goods, and patronize home industry, not depending on or pur- chasing such products from other nations. To make this effective, and to enable our manufactories to be so sustaining, they advocate a high tariff upon all foreign pro- ducts, in order to shut out competi- tion. The Democratic party holds similar views, but advocates a lower schedule of rates. When the tariff question was first discussed, the cry was to protect labor ; now the cry is to protect our manufact- urers, which is the right way of putting it. It will be observed that while the protectionist cries out "Pro- tection to American industries," he takes every advantage he can to place his goods upon the free mar- kets of other countries, and destroy their industries. When France and Germany put a tariff tax upon the American hog, a squeal went up from the swinish nature of these protectionists that was heartrend- ing. Their nature will exult over a famine in Russia, where thou- sands starve, or will chuckle with glee when some terrible war breaks out, that will advance the price of their goods. This is the hog na- ture: Get all, and take all, but give back nothing. Self-preservation does not require it. Neither is there a particle of justice about it. Right demands that America ex- tends to other nations the same privileges and civilities that are ex- tended to her by them, and if she is unwilling to do so, then let her keep at home. In what respect are the working people of America protected by a high or low tariff? We grant that the articles manufactured are well protected, for within the last thirty- two years a crop of millions has been harvested from manufacturing interests, while the wage slave who produces the article is left helpless and unprotected. Observe the his- tory of the manufacturer of the na- tion ; it is only a history of sav- agery and oppression toward the wage slave. He has forced upon 26 him piece work, and continually cuts down the price as soon as he come up to a fair, living figure, thereby forcing him to do the work of three days in one, with only a small pittance for such a day's work, while the price of the article remains the same. The manufacturer has to be pro- tected against foreign manufacture, but he must have his wage slave come into unprotected competition with the free trade labor market of the world, to enhance the profits of the employer. Nor can it be shown where any of these men give protection to American labor to the extent of one cent per day, if foreign labor underbids Ameri- can citizens, who are being displaced by the worst class of immigrants from Asia and other countries, brought over here by the manu- facturing and capitalistic classes, to strike down the workingmen of America. The undesirable immigration of persons totally incapable of citizen- ship, means the displacement of a like number of American work- men, and, by free trade in labor, forcing them down to the lower level of barbarism, while the pro- tected capitalist and manufacturer smilingly doubles up his profits. When the McKinley bill was enacted, with its increased tariff revenue, giving to manufacturers increased profits, there was imme- diately inaugurated a systematic cutting of wages, and all through the land there were more strikes against the cutting down of wages than there was ever known before. No better proof can be had, to hurl the lie back into the teeth of tariff imbeciles, than to take the reports of McKinley 's own State : (i The Ohio State Board of Chari- ties give the number of persons in the State every year who are sup- ported wholly or in part by public taxation. The following is a state- ment of the aggregate for three years under Republican good times Harrison's administration: " 1890 : No. of persons, 97,910 ; cost, $3,166,778.88 1891 : No. of persons, 115,614 ; 0031,13,254,301.52 1892 ; No. of persons, 154,426 ; cost, $3,959,704.39 The cost for the three years being $10,380,784.79." The population of Ohio, accord- ing to the census of 1890, was 3,672,316. This, for the year, gives one in thirty- seven and one- half of the entire population of the State, supported wholly or in part by public taxation by the people within the State. That in one of the most favor- able States of the Union 56,516 paupers are bred within the short space of two years, costing the State $7,929,255.51 under a Repub- lican form of Government, speaks more than volumes concerning a rule that is honeycombed with rot- tenness. No more gross insult can be given to the intelligence of men than to ask them to accept the tariff question as a solution of the problems which have been growing rapidly worse each year under it, and which all facts and experience refute. " In 1890, in New York City, 23,000 tenants were ejected under Harrison's administration, while only 5,000 were ejected in the whole of Ireland in the same year." Arena foot note. The wage slave not only finds his labor unprotected, but when he buys goods is forced to buy in a protected market at monopoly prices. The whole country is full of corporate monopolies, trusts and syndicates, which pursue him like a bloodhound while he lives, and after his death these vampires have a corner on the coffin and grave in which he is buried. This talk of protection to the wage slave or farmer is "fatiguing in the ex- treme." The women and girls of America can wear their lives out in sweating establishments, making shirts at seven cents apiece, while the heathen Chinaman has only to wash and spit on it to get ten cents. In the Senate one of the Senators, greatly interested in protecting the raisin industry of the country, se- cured some California raisins at the stores in Washington, paying fif- teen, twenty and thirty cents per pound, and which had been pur- chased of the farmer for four and one-half cents per pound. This is the key-note to all of the tariff question and shows just who is protected by it. The farmer who produces the raisin has, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a mortgage on his farm on which he is paying 10 or 12 per cent, interest. He is obliged to secure a further loan at 1 8 or 24 per cent, to pay other expenses and to harvest his crop. On him is all of the care, anxiety and work of producing the crop. He is up early and late, and works all the year through, in all kinds of weather. His interest must be paid and his bills met. He receives for all his work and trouble, the Senator states, four and one-half cents per pound for his crops, while according to this same Senator's statement, he paid an average price in the store in Washington, within a fraction of a cent five times more per pound than the farmer was paid for them. If there is not something rotten in this Denmark, then there never was anything rotten. The farmer who did all the work and had all the care of producing them 28 was paid less than one-third of what they were sold for to the public at their cheapest rates. If our Congressmen would give some attention to ferreting out such rob- bers as the bankers, transportation companies, corporations, monop- olies, wholesalers, produce men, trusts and speculators, who prey upon everything that is produced, from its very beginning till it gets to the consumer, at a profit to them varying from one hundred to ten hundred per cent., they would be doing something of practical bene- fit to the country. These would-be legislators are but base hirelings, paid by assas- sins and robbers to legalize crime, and then keep their hands off while others plunder and destroy the people. In government ownership of the railroads the raisins would not cost for transportation in excess of one- half cent per pound. They could then be delivered direct to the con- sumer at a cost of one cent per pound. We could then well afford to pay the farmer five and one-half cents more, making ten cents per pound for the raisins, and the public would be benefited by the reduction on the average price of nine and two-third cents per pound. Destroy all the robbers between the producer and the consumer and we will destroy all necessity for tariff legislation or tinkering with the tariff. For wool the farmer gets five cents per pound, or $25 for his en- tire output of six hundred pounds. When this passes through the man- ufacturers' hands he adds, besides his large margin of profits and inter- est, 42 cents for protected tariff rates. It then goes to the wholesaler and retailer, who put their profits and interests upon it. The tailor, a competitive slave, secures it from the retailer, partly on credit, and makes it into a common business suit weighing six pounds, and sells it to the farmer for $25 which he got for his six hundred pounds of wool. The farmer just realized one pound of manufactured goods for each hundred pounds of wool. The competitive slave, after paying the cost of all materials, had six dollars for his work. We will allow that there are four pounds of woolen goods, and two of other material in the suit. The manufacturer would not require over eight pounds of the raw mate- rial all told to make four pounds of cloth, which would cost him forty cents. The other material before manufactured would not ex- ceed $i for the two pounds. Thus we see that after the wool left the farmer's hands and the hands of others who sold raw material which contributed to the 29 suit, there was left for the manu- facturer and go-between $17.60 to divide up as profits, deducting the small amount required for manu- facturing it. The introduction of labor-saving machines throw out of employ- ment multitudes of men and wom- en, and only adds another curse to labor. These heaven-born mes- sengers for oppressed labor have been captured by corporations and companies, which, through their trusts and syndicates, they main- tain and govern the price of their output, so that the laborer has no share in their profits, nor are his hours of labor reduced by them. One quarter of the labor of the United States has been displaced by them within the last thirty years. Neither do the new arts and in- dustries that are being created afford any real relief. The ques- tion of tariff directs the attention from the real issues, and means protection to the non-producing robber who is plundering and de- stroying the producer. Statistics show that four out of every five of the population live outside of our cities and the most of them are engaged in agricultural pursuits. It must then necessa- rily follow that four-fifths of the demands for the products of our manufactories and varied industries of our cities comes from this class, and that whatever tends to cripple their industries reacts directly upon our cities. By the contraction of the currency and the demonetization of silver, money has become so enhanced in value that it now takes just twice the amount of farm products to buy a dollar with which to pay interest on a mortgage or cancel a debt as it would have done when the debt was made. In other words, the debts have increased to double their amount, although the amount of money stipulated is the same. Transportation companies, prod- uce men, speculators, taxes tor the legislation of boodlers, all come in for their share of products. When the yearly clean-up is made, the farmer, instead of find- ing he is one or two thousand dol- lars ahead for the year's work, is dismayed to find that he is that amount in debt; and, failing to meet his interest upon his mort- gages, or to cancel his debts, he is sold out, and the farm is passed into the hands of a tenant. There must first be a demand for manufactured goods before any will be produced, and that demand must come from the first producer, and when he fails, we must all fail with him. Corrupt legislation has killed the goose that laid the golden egg. If the farmers had not been struck 30 down so unmercifully, they would have devoted their surplus to the improvement of their farms. New houses would have been built, de- mands made upon our manufactures and cities for clothing, furniture, carpets, harness, and a hundred and one articles necessary to civil- ized beings. Now all of his labor and products go to feed such ver- min as the bankers, money sharks and others who never did a stroke of work for what they wrest from him through the robbing process of law. The tenant farmer who soon takes his place lives like a heathen, cares nothing for the comforts and conveniences of civilization, and makes little or no demand for the products of the manufactories of our cities. The unkindest cut of all is to hear these vermin who have grown slick and fat on what they have robbed from others, tell us that the farmers and working classes have been living too fast, and they must not expect anything but the bare necessities of life. Take the record of these beastly vermin; it is one of rot, riot and licentiousness; eaten up with dis- ease, they care no more for human life or the happiness of others than they do for that of a rat. When- ever human kind strive to develop or bring out their inborn, God- endowed qualities of the human mind and soul, they snuff it out with their money power, and force us down to the level of the brute creation with their iron heel of des- potism. Repeal the charter of the national banks, re-enact the free coinage of silver at the rate of 16 to i, estab- lish government postal banks, then print three billions of green-backs, and let them out to the farmers or others who have property for secu- rity at one per cent, per annum, and we will have within one year the most prosperous time that has ever been known in all the history of the world. Then add to this the own- ership and control of all natural monopolies by the government, and within ten years we will advance more in the solution of the problem of government than has been done in all the history of the govern- ments. With money at one per cent, to effect an exchange of value, and that being paid to ourselves (gov- ernment), we could sweep the com- merce of every nation from the seas and lay our produce and manufac- tured goods in every port of the world, and swing wide open our nation's gates for the world's free exchanges. For exchanges we now have to pay ten cents tor the use of every dollar with which to make such exchange. Capitalists in Eng- land secure money at three per 3 r cent, with which they build ships to carry on the commerce of the world. Their annual net earnings are six per cent, on the capital invested. They pay three per cent, of it on borrowed capital, and de- clare a dividend of three per cent. American capitalists build ships to compete for the world's commerce at one quarter more expense occa- sioned by paying monopoly prices for material and dear money. At the close of the first year's trade, they have realized six per cent., the same as their English competitors, on the money invested, leaving them one per cent, in debt, which they borrow of England. In a few years England owns all of the ships and has run out her American com- petitor. What applies to ships ap- plies equally to manufactures. Money at one per cent, put into our manufactures would not only mean to supply our home markets, but to supply the world with prod- ucts. What the American people de- mand and must have is a legal dol- lar of no intrinsic value to make the exchange with, handed directly to them by the government, with no Shylock's or banker's tax upon it. The protection the American people must have is in their God- given right to hold and possess that which they produce, and he is a thief and robber who wrests from them such right. The only condi- that God Almighty imposed upon mankind for his existence was that he earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. These human vermin, who have always preyed upon hu- manity, must get away from us, and earn their title to an existence, for if they do not we shall exter- minate them just as we do other vermin. There is nothing that people so loathe and abhor as ver- min, for they have a filthy way of getting a living. Yet the world is full of the same type in human form, and the time is not far dis- tant when they will be held in as much abhorrence as the insect that crawls and feeds upon the human race. That free trade between nations or individuals pauperizes either is a lie black as hell. If a citizen of the United States produces one hundred dollars of wealth and ex- changes it with a citizen of Eng- land for the same amount of wealth produced there, it is the grossest of absurdities to suppose that either country is impoverished by the trade. If the Englishman is more shrewd than the American and gets the better, of the trade, England has been enriched at our expense, but the same holds good of Amer- ica if he beats the Englishman in the trade. Under a good condition of government no wealth would go out of our country, except as a gift, unless it would bring back a good return. If what they call the balance of trade is against us, it can only come by the individuals of a nation getting the better of our citizens in a trade, or it may come as it does to-day by the infernal foreign bank methods of levying a tax upon our currency and the extension of the credit system that robs us of our wealth and land, and that draws revenues from us in interest and rents. They not only say to the citizens of other nations, we shall not allow you to have free trade with our citizens, but we do not intend that our citizens shall have any free trade with each other. We have already shown that the mission of money is to facilitate trade in the free exchange of values pos- sessed with only a legal value. To prevent free trade in the wealth the citizens of this nation produce, both parties have been accomplices to the crime of taking up our un- taxed currency (greenbacks), burn- ing it up and then giving out in its place bank notes on untaxed in- terest paying a banker's debt, so that he can live on the interest of what he owes the people. All hail ! Live forever ! Blessed be thou of the vermin tribe. Live on the sweat of the poor man's brow, the washwoman's sighs, and the widow's tears. All power is given into your hands. Allow no free trade between any citizens ; put your grinding tariff of ten cents upon every dollar of wealth, or deny them the right of free trade, and send them back to bar- barism. Take everything in sight; let the wail of despair be heard in all the land, and the pinched and starved forms of children fill the streets. We will stifle them with the cry of tariff or tariff reform, and upon their ruins build aris tocracy, plutocracy and monarchy. NEWSPAPERS. America's greatest enemy is the foul carrion bird called the daily press, which lives upon the offal and filth of the nation. These dirty carrion birds, with keen scent for what is rotten, and a greedy appetite for filth, collect around the foul cesspools of immoral lives. Together they throw in the drag-nets and draw out from its slimy depths. The more of filth and stench it has the sweeter the morsel is to their appetites. After having glutted their appetites, they now prepare to serve their separate dishes of scandal in high life, adultery, incest, robbery, murder, lynching of negroes, the slums of New York and Chinatown, cow- -33 boys, faro games, fiendish deeds of a negro, etc. Saintly papers ! surely such dishes as these are fit for the gods, and must purify the lives of all more especially the boys and girls of the coming gen- eration, and lifts them up to a higher civilization. These low carrion buzzards when confronted with such facts excuse themselves by saying they only give what the public demands, when they know that it is the out- flow of their own rotten natures. Steeped as they are with immoral- ity and vice, they have not the faintest conception that other peo- ple's natures are different, so they give to the public what delights themselves. On every page there is some- thing to feed or appeal to the base nature of man, instead of trying to improve him by good, wholesome, practical knowledge. It matters not how pure a nation may be, if they have dished up to them day after day, year in and year out, these putrid dishes, soused over with the most sickening details, its morals will be surely subjugated and destroyed. No people can con- tinue pure when such a mess of sewerage is poured upon them from such low sources. Their word-pictures of obscenity and vileness are more degrading and contaminating than any pict- ures that ever appeared either in the Police Gazette or Police News. They invade the sanctity of home life, and detail to the public all the private affairs of innocent people. If a member of a family has dis- graced himself, they must drag all of his family and relatives be- fore the public and present their past records. If the facts are not sensational enough, they draw upon their subtle brains to supply the shortcomings. The effect is overpowering when these foun- tains, charged with impurities, ex- hort upon morals and bemoan the sad departure therefrom. In their editorials they preach against the evils of pugilism, while in the very same sheets flaming accounts are given of the coming fight of some bruisers. When such fight comes off, they spend thousands of dollars to get the first and most sensational news. The murder of Addie Gilmore, with all its horrible details, as served up by the papers, was prob- ably brought about by the reading of the murderous advertisements in the columns of the daily press. These murderers and keepers of brothels still advertise their trade in the columns of the papers under the head of "Massage Baths" or "Manicure" establishments. This would bring the blush of shame to the devil's face, but not 34 so to the faces of these editors. >uch papers are not fit to be read in the brothels they advertise. The ^very atmosphere is polluted by itheir presence. Yet, as a flood, they come to the homes of the land, and their influence is seen in -the terrible pictures they present to mis of the life of to-day. They be- come base hirelings of the money power and corporate greed. History shows that there is noth- ing so low that they will not stoop 4o. The most iniquitous measures =are advocated by them for money ^considerations. They keep the -voters in ignorance of the living Issues of the day, and gorge his ^nind with depravity and vice, Awhile the enemy steals away his iiome and life. To-day we hear the fierce bark of ithese hell-hounds, as they remorse- lessly pursue the bleeding foot- prints of our robbed and starved Humanity, wearily pressing their way to our nation's Capitol to ask, In the name of God and man, to pity them in their afflictions and extend to them a helping hand in their terrible struggle for life. "These hell-born monstrosities pros- titute their columns to sneer and jest, and ridicule this wail of an- guish and despair that comes up rfrom the better manhood and \vomanhood of the land. SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES. The belief that our forefathers indulged in, that this nation would solve the difficult problems of gov- ernment through the institution of schools and colleges, has dissolved into thin air. The curriculum of study in our colleges has no more relation or practical application to the affairs of life than the tail of an elephant has to the direction in which he is to go. The presidents and pro- fessors have lectured, theorized, and taught so much the dead lan- guages, higher mathematics, and ancient history that the moss has grown upon their backs. Nothing but the blue ether or ethereal space can engage their attention. They have hitched their char- iots to a star, and sail in the mystic fields of other worlds, and cannot be contaminated with the grossness of this. Ye Gods ! They are for other worlds, and im- perative duty demands that we straighten out a rainbow, point it skyward and then slide them out on their ears in a blaze of glory into some other sphere. Their rant about higher education is all bun- combe, for the more we get of it the lower our civilization becomes, and just in the proportion that we in- crease our daily papers, colleges and churches, we lengthen out the 35 list of insane people, criminals and paupers, until to-day the criminal list exceeds by four-fold the in- crease of population. If in the future they add no more check to bad government than they have in the past, we will have to look else- where for the solution, or be snuffed out entirely. The college students, when they strike earth, are hit on the carnal side of their nature. They pull their mouths askew as they puff their vile opium cigarettes, and swell out with great pride in idiotic acts. Sullivan and Corbett are the gods they worship ; such fill their thoughts by day, and haunt their dreams by night. The life and character of Jesus Christ never enters their thoughts, and is subject to their ridicule and jest. The greatest ambition of these educated idiots is to kick the stuffing out of a football, or of an idiot like themselves, and then have their pictures in the papers, with a column notice of their grand, heroic achievements in the interest of suffering humanity, for which they have been educated at public expense. Their highest grade of education is obtained when they can give a whoop iden- tical with that of the savage In- dian. We have in our national and public life to-day the out-put of our colleges, and there is not one in the many thousands who can com- pare with those heroes and states- men who lived in the early history of our country, when scarcely any facilities existed for educational purposes except the common school. Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln, the two greatest statesmen and philosophers that America ever produced, were educated in our public schools, and never saw the inside of a college. Both attracted the attention of the world for their profound philosophy, wisdom, in- ventive genius, patriotism and statesmanship. Franklin towered like a giant among the men of his time, and the philosophers of Europe were willing to do obei- sance, and learn wisdom at his feet. Lincoln became the butt for the slurs and jeers of the learned pro- fessions. He was dubbed rail- splitter, backwoodsman and farmer, but when the old ship of state was dismantled and stranded on the rocks of slavery and secession, God Almighty sent this rugged pilot to man the helm, and, through the dark, tempestuous night, brought the old ship out again into the open sea. His genius and learning has astonished the world. His speeches are masterpieces of composition and rhetoric, and Yale's professor fol- lowed him in his lectures, to learn -36- of the art. These men were edu- cated about things of earth and for the earth. They were brought in daily contact with its sharp corners and the stubborn facts of life, and sought how to avoid the one and solve the other. They never sailed in etherial space, or held communion with Greek gods ; neither did they frit- ter away their lives in the study of dead languages. They lived near to humanity's heart, learned there the lessons of life, and, with love born of God, wrought out deliver- ances. Brains are at a discount in our colleges big pedal extremities at a premium. Upon all live ques- tions of the day they trot out their old, gray-headed theories and dogmas. A twentieth century idea could not be shot into their Silurian brains with a cannon. Nothing has any interest to them unless it has to them an ancient smell, like the dead languages. Upon the money question they give us the old gold-bug rot of a gold standard. They fiddle upon redemption of coin, when any driv- eling idiot can tell them that all any one wants of money is to have it received, passed out again, and kept going on its mission of ex- change. Their dwarfed minds hand out to us the solution of the labor problem in competition and the right adjustment of capital and la- bor. "You can all come to our shores," they shout across the ocean to all Asiatics, barbarians and Scythians. Their solution of the whisky business is to protect and license crime, get a revenue from vice, and enrich the public treasury by the debauchment of the citizens. History shows that all reforms have come not from the so-called educated classes, but from the com- mon people, as they do to-day, educated in the practical affairs of life. OUR HELPLESS CONDITION. The condition of the country is chaotic; scarcely a ray of hope ap- pears upon the horizon. The two old parties are identical in the en- actment of laws destructive of every public good to the country. The Republicans have stood more sol- idly for Cleveland than his own party, and with both it is all rot, riot and ruin. The country would have more hope for reform from the harlots of the land than from either the Republican or Demo- cratic party. Read the history of the men who lead them and the history of their national conven- tions. In Minneapolis the G. O. P. had their headquarters of the Repub- lican National Committee at the 37 West Hotel. The New York Voice, commenting upon it, says: " They had four immense bars aggregating over 200 feet in length, over which thirty bar-tenders were kept busy passing the drinks, and eight large cash registers were required to re- cord the receipts, which averaged $4,300 a day/' "A number of drunken fights occurred in the bar- room among the delegates. The houses of prostitution imported hundreds of girls from other cities for the occasion, and did business in the most shameful and obnox- ious manner. The reporter counted fifty-five men that entered or stood in line before one of these houses, and forty-nine of them wore G. O. P. badges." The Democratic Convention at Chicago exactly parallel their twin brothers at Minneapolis, only it was not made so conspicuous, being spread over more territory. This is the kind of stuff these men are made of who head the re- form movements in the old parties, to lead the country up to a higher standard of morals, social purity and good government, and they are every way capable of doing it -"like hell." Any man who can believe that relorm will come from such a rot- ten source as this should not be allowed to be at large, as he is a menace to the life, liberties and happiness of the people. Nothing is more certain, not even death, than that he is feeble-minded and should be taken care of. For fear that some may still have a leaning toward the old parties, I will bring upfanother item of inter- est to convince them that both par- ties are totally depraved and past redemption. It would naturally be supposed upon the death of a Pres- ident that picked men would be selected by Congress to attend his funeral, and such was probably the case. Congress'approprialed $40,- ooo to defray the expenses of Gar- field's funeral, and appointed a commissioner to superintend it. The bill was run up to $73,000, which was allowed and paid, only few members voting against it. Here is the Congressional record of the bill. ' 'Theylbought and con- sumed 32 gallons and 233 cases of wine, in all lyoo gallons; 30 gallons of brandy ; 60 gallons of whisky; 3 barrels of beer; 2 barrels of ale; 5 cases of Apollinaris water; 3 cases of Congress; 2 cases of Old Tom gin, .and 5 gallons of rum; 10,000 cigars; 2000 cigarettes; 17 pounds and a gross of papers of tobacco." This for drunkenness and debauchery breaks all previous records in the history of wakes. Such a scene of drunken revelry and debauchery enacted over the remains of a professed Christian -38- President who had preached the gospel, by a professed Christian nation, would make the blood of a savage tingle with shame at the mention of, it and shows how dark infamy broods over the land. It makes no difference in which direc- tion we steer, we bring up on the same old rotten snags, and people might as well look to hell for reform as to look to this hellish brood. So far as can be estimated, we have solved no problem of good government, but have thoroughly convinced the world that we are nothing but a set of jackasses, with great braying propensities. The Su- preme Court of the nation slapped the working classes in the face when the organized workers en- deavored to enjoin an illegal issue of bonds, by telling them they had no standing in the Court. They have been served with injunctions from the same Court, forbidding them to quit work, compelling them to work at reduced w r ages, and enjoining other societies from giving them aid. In the court of the land the poor man gets no justice and pays the costs of court. With money, the greatest criminal can purchase his liberty. In Buffalo, the switch- men struck to have the State law enforced, granting them ten hours a day's work, which was contemp- tuously disregarded by the road, and the State ordered out the mil- itia, not to enforce the law, but to sustain the railroad managers in defiance of it. In Oakland the Southern Pacific Railroad Company have had notices posted in their cars for years that they were not allowed by the State to charge fares within the corporate limits of the city. They are now charging fares in defiance of the State law, and when they inaugu- rated it, put armed deputies on each platform to shoot any citizen down like a dog if he dared insist they obey the laws of the State. The Chinese held out in defiance of our laws and refused to register. When declared constitutional by the Supreme Court, Cleveland be- came a defier of our laws, and gave protection to his Chinese brother in doing likewise, and violated his oath of office. Wherever we look it is only to see the most flagrant violations of law on every hand, from the chief executive down. Governor Altgeld, of Illinois, re- lates an incident where several laboring men were congregated upon a vacant lot talking in a peaceful manner, when they were ordered to move on by some of the police. Some of the men protested, upon which the policemen drew their revolvers and fired upon the men who were going off and killed 39 four of them, some one hundred feet distance from where they had stood. Nothing was done to these policemen who committed these out- rageous murders. He also speaks of a peaceful meeting of working- men congregated in a hall, being invaded by armed police, and one of their number killed, and then they lined themselves down the stairs and clubbed them as they rushed out. Homes have been invaded with- out search-warrants, in the night, and fathers taken from their fami- lies, clubbed and beaten by police- men, thrown in jail for three or four days, and allowed no hearing. These acts are of every- day occur- rence in our land, but kept silent through the subsidized press. The tyranny and inhuman acts of des- potic Russia can be duplicated in our own land. They silence free speech in our large cities, and allow no workingmen to hold public meetings on the streets to talk over their grievances. No race constituted like the Americans will stand it much longer; and all through the land an uprising is on foot with cyclonic power to sweep these tyrants, op- pressors and boodlers into a mael- strom of perdition, and establish a government for the people. THE REMEDY. In the present form of our gov- ern ment, we have either made some* terrible mistake in setting at defi- ance the laws of government, or are totally incapable of good gov- ernment. If incapable, then we- are hopelessly lost; if through some- mistake we have set at defiance the: laws of government, then there* still remains some foundation npons which we can build our hopes. The fatal mistake comes through our representative system of gov- ernment. We have taken it for granted that worthy men could be selected from our midst to whom* we could delegate our sovereignty,, and through their agency secure just and equitable laws. Our past history demonstrates to us how sig- nally we have failed; and if it has. taught us one lesson more impor- tant than any other, it is this: To keep to ourselves individually the- power of government, and never" yield such a sacred trust to others- In such an act, through representa- tion, we surrender to others the- control of life, liberty, and the pur- suit of happiness, and place our- selves wholly at the mercy of those? we choose to represent us. In affairs of business we have ex- ercised keen foresight and intelli- gence ; in those of governnreiiit,. nothing but a chaotic mass of absurdities presents itself. 40 In bu siness life there is no dele- gation of great responsibilities with- out bonds; receipts for payments; titles and records for property; for loans, mortgages and securities. In government, how different ! Kvery sacred right of family, life and property is completely surren- dered to others upon their simple or implied promise to serve us. They are under no other than moral restrictions; and we have given them unlimited power either to ad- vance or destroy us by such legis- lation as they choose to enact. History has taught us that, with- out an exception, no man, church, society or party can be trusted with unlimited power; excessive abuses always attends it. Power belongs to the governed, and not to those who govern. The incorporation of the vicious principle that those who govern receive their power from the governed has been of all others the one fatal step that has precipi- tated the nation in ruins. No rep- resentative principle of government can be equitable or just; neither can equity or justice be attained by proportional representation; and it matters not how intelligent, sincere or honest such representatives may be. It is beyond the knowledge of man to determine just what princi- ples should be carried out, or laws enacted, to give a just proportion to those they have been chosen to represent. Such results can be obtained by the direct vote of the people upon all laws. The princi- ple that a good government can be obtained through the representative system is false in every particular, and nothing has been so signally demonstrated as has been the gro- tesque farce of government made by us. To further continue in this, line means certain destruction, and is inevitable death. The condition of the country is tenfold more degrading now than when was first launched this Re- public. The arm of the law has become palsied ; the daily press, hireling puppets of the money pow- ers, breeders of licentiousness and rot. All of these elements are a de- structive force in our government, and from none of them can help come. To appeal to the moral or better nature of the nation will meet with no ready response. Only one way lies open to us. We must appeal to the selfishness of men for self-preservation. Men cannot be trusted with power while all would like to possess it. The safety of society depends upon it being held collectively, and not individually. An unequal distri- bution of it immediately creates disturbance, and begets discordant relations. When men find that as individuals they cannot be selected out for special preferences, rather than be destroyed they will unite for the good of all. The death knell to our represen- tative system of government has been rung; we stand on the thresh- hold of a new era. It cannot and will not be continued by the people of this government. It has killed itself. Select from society your men to represent you, and two out of every three will sell out. It is not in human nature to do better than this. If such a statement is correct it is plain to see that to go any further in the line of represen- tative government is extreme folly; for not only can a majority be secured against us, but a two- thirds majority when required. The money and corporate powers are more powerful to-day than in all the world's history. It is beyond the power of human nature to resist this influence. To further delegate sovereignty to rep- resentatives means nothing more than to be sold out and the laws of the land perverted to administer to corporate greed and money power. The remedy lies with the people, to elect to office the People's Party, to repeal all laws of representative legislation, and enact laws giving to the people their rights to enact all laws of the land by direct vote upon them. By this one stroke the bribery and lobby system becomes com- pletely annihilated. Political rings and boss rule come to an end. Professional politicians, ward strik- ers and heelers throw up the sponge, and the advent of "a government of the people, by the people and for the people " will be begun. Halls of legislation, being shorn of their power to enact laws, having noth- ing to sell, and acting in the ca- pacity of stewards only, formulate laws, and submit them to the people to be enacted or rejected by their majority vote. This is called the Referendum. That every citizen or citizens shall have a right to propose or petition for a measure of law to his fellow citizens is called the Initia- tive. The Initiative allows a minority of voters to submit a measure of law to the people at any election, to be accepted or rejected by a majority vote. J. W. Sullivan, in a book written by him, entitled, "Direct Legisla- tion," recounts in the following manner the wonderful advance- ment made by Switzerland through this method of government : " They have made it easy at any time to alter their cantonal and federal constitutions, that is, to change, even radically, the organi- zation of society, the social contract, and thus to permit a peaceful revo- lution at the will of the majority. They have, as well, cleared from the way pf majority rule every obstacle, privilege of ruler, fet- ter of ancient law, power of leg- islator. They have simplified the structure of government, held their officials as servants, rendered bu- reaucracy impossible, converted their representatives to simple com- mitteemen, and shown the parlia- mentary system not essential to law-making. They have written their laws in language so plain that a layman may be judge in the highest court. They have fore- stalled monopolies, improved and reduced taxation, avoided incurring heavy public debts, and made a better distribution of their land than any other European country. They have practically given home rule in local affairs to every com- munity. They have calmed dis- turbing political elements, the press is purified, the politician disarmed, the civil service well regulated. Hurtful partisanship is passing away. Since the people as a whole will never willingly surrender their sovereignty, reactionary movement is possible only in case the nation should go backward. But the way is open forward. Social ideals may be realized in act and constitution. Even now the liberty- loving Swiss citizen can discern in the future a freedom in which every individual, independent, possessed of rights in nature's resources and in com- mand of the fruits of his toil, may, at his will, on the sole condition that he respect the like aim of other men, pursue his happiness." This is the open door through which we are not only to regain our lost liberties, but which opens up the way to the highest advancement in the art of government. The peo- ple, being the highest tribunal of the land, and directly interested, will give their best thought and discussion to the essential princi- ples of government, and number- ing sixty-five millions, will evolve more practical government in one year than ever could be generated in the narrow, contracted brains of party bigots and boodlers for- ever. By such a method of government the people will be swift to learn the difference between good and bad laws, and the sifting will begin. Those that experience demonstrates to be good will become crystallized with our institutions, leading up to a form of government based not upon theory, but upon acts and experience. In time the law-making process will cease, and we shall have re- duced government down to a com- plete science. With this one great object in view, all reform parties, such as the Prohibition, Socialist, -43 Single Tax, and others, should combine with the People's Party, as it has the greatest following, was the first to propose direct leg- islation, and now proposes to have no other than this one plank in its platform. Anything further in its platform than the plank advocating direct legislation is un- necessary, as then the people, and not the party, will enact tljjeir own laws. The people will go a step further, and annihilate party alto- gether, by direct nominations to office of their own candidates. This can be easily accomplished by having an election for the nomi- nation of candidates by direct vote, and the three who receive the highest votes being put up as can- didates for election. This gives a right proportion of candidates, and, when elected, they will look well to their service of the people, upon whom they de- pend directly for their re-election. And, still further, the Imperative Mandate by which the people have the power to depose from office im- mediately an unfaithful officer, and we have a sample government of the people having absolutely under control every law, appropriation and official. With this object attained, all re- form measures can be submitted to the majority of voters for their ac- ceptance or rejection, by a petition of a small minority of voters. A constitutional law that grants to a minority the right to submit a measure of law to the people to be voted upon is a hundred- fold more a secure safeguard to our lib- erties than any representative legis- lation that can exist surrounded by corrupt influences. The greatest dangers menace our Republic on every side, and if the reform elements cannot immediately combine their forces upon some specific object that will secure to us good government, nothing will be left of us on the shores of time but the wreckage of our once great ship of state. A few fundamental laws enacted, and others repealed, would give immediate relief. The charter of National Banks could be repealed, free and unlim- ited coinage of silver restored, our currency increased with an issue of three or four billions of green- backs, to be put out in public im- provements, and loaned to the farmer, mechanic, workmen, or others, on good security, at one per cent, per annum, amounts of loans not to exceed five thousand dollars each. We would destroy alien owner- ship of land, and enact a law that those who had an excess of one hundred and sixty acres of land would be compelled to put such land upon the market for sale, at a 44 stipulated price, and the price they would sell for would be the price they would be taxed. We would have a graded income tax, and nationalize lands, rail- roads, telegraph and telephone lines, all labor-saving machines and natural monopolies, and be- come a distinct, corporate govern- ment, having none of the dog-eat- dog competitive system, and swear- ing eternal death to vermin and parasite classes. The God-given title to life, "that man must earn his bread by the sweat of his brow," and not from the sweat of another's brow, will be our motto and title to citizen- ship. Woman will have the ballot, and through her purifying influ- ence and efforts we will drive the saloon, brothel, gambling hell, and other corrupting influences from our midst, and give to the children she rears a government that will continue, and increase those purify- ing influences that have blessed them within her home. All party strife and religious bigotry must cease. No A. P. A. firebrand, hurled by the Shylocks and vermin classes, to break up our ranks by religious strife and hatred, shall be allowed to sever the cord of our brotherhood of men. Government as now instituted means not the protection, but hatred and debauchment of its citi- zens. It does not place as much value on their lives as it does on that of a rat. The very dogs in our midst are better cared for and protected by them than are the lives of human beings. This thing is rank and smells to heaven, and the just retribution of a righteous God is at hand. CONCLUSION. Millions of the nation's best citi- zens have been brought to the brink of starvation by Judas legis- lators, refusing to give them a cur- rency to exchange the products of their labors. Without this cur- rency, the fields produce in vain, and labor meets with no reward. The proportion of goods necessary for each individual, and the time when required, are of such com- plicated nature that some medium of exchange must go between them to adjust their relations. Our Government has flatly refused to give to its people their currency, and it now remains with the people to furnish some substitute for it, or perish. Scrip has been issued by States and counties, and has answered the place of money ; as it interfered with the banker's profits, he has influenced the general government to forbid its use. One way lies open, and it will be beyond the power of Govern- ment to interfere : 45 In any State, county or city where the People's Party have elected their candidates they can immediately go forward with pub- lic improvements, if the people so desire, and pay for such improve- ments by orders issued in fractions upon the public treasury, or by the issue of bonds, payable in twenty- five years, at one-eighth of one per cent, per annum. These orders should not be pre- sented for payment, but be kept in circulation, and made to serve the place of money in the exchange and in the payment of debt. All classes would be willing to receive them in payment, and pass them along as the State, county or city would be ample security for them. They would be received for taxes, and, to prevent speculation in them, cashed by the treasurer at a small discount. By this method we could revive every industry of the State, and, instead of the starvation that now exists, have abundance through this medium of exchange of the productive energies, that are now going to waste. This plan can be successfully carried out, and if presented to the voters of the State will bring thousands of supporters within the ranks of the People's Party at the coming election.