The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 13, No. 22, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 31, 1894 Page: 4 of 16
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SOUTHERN MEBCUB?
MAY 31,1894.
WHY COXEY MARCHED.
General Coxey makes the followl ng
statement to the Washington Post as
to the objects of his march to Wash
ington.
44 You ask me what led to this move-
ment; and I reply that It was the great
ory that we have heard all over the
land for a number of years, and which
is louder to-day than ever before—
How can the distress of the unem-
ployed be relieved?
It is not only the laboring man, but
the small employers of labor in this
country who are feeling the effects of
a false system of government, which
apparently looks oUy to the interest of
the bondholders, the big corporations
and the monopolists,
The laboring man is suffering for the
necessities of life, but the mental ago-
ny of the business man is as great if
not greater than of the starving work-
man. How can a worse condition be
imagined than that of the merchant
who dreads the coming of the morning
lest with it comes the sheriff to close
up his business? And yet such a con-
dition exists to-day throughout the
land.
The "origin" of this movement which
you ask for, was my comprehension of
the situation as above outlined. I have
been accused of all sorts of motives in
connection with this peaceful crusade,
but I assert that my sole and only mo-
tive is to bring, in an unmistakable
way, to the attention of congress, the
necessity of such legislation as shall
better the condition of the majority of
the American people.
I, an the people who share my views,
olaim that the present condition of dis-
tress has been brought about through
a poor financial system. A year ago
we had in circulation $1,5000,000.000
of actual money. One billion was in
the hands of the people making the
small exóhanges; $600,000,000 was in
the banks as bank reserves, and upon
these reserves the banks had created
84,000,000,000 of confidence money,^or
$8 of confidence raonay to every dollar
of actual money that they had to re-
deem it. This confidence money was
created by the discounting of notes.
The business men manufactured their
products and sold them on from one to
four months time; then endorsed these
notes and deposited them in the banks
and checked against them"
Now, as I have said, the banks had
created $4,000,000,000 of this conñdence
money, making the exchanges of the
business men just the same as the act-
ual money on the exchanges of the peo
pie. When the panic came on, which
was created by England throwing se-
curities on our market, converting
these securities into gold, and then
withdrawing the gold from this coun-
try, a false hue and ory raised by the
bankers and the press, succeeded in
creating a fear in the minds of small
depositors in savings banks and other
institutions, who thereupon withdrew
their savings and earnings from the
banks.
When the manufacturers (the em
ployers of the very employes who had
withdrawn their deposits from the
banks) went to the banks to obtain dis-
count upon the notes which they had
taken in payment of the products they
had manufactured, the banks refused
■ueh discounts, The employers of la-
bor being unable to get money upon
these notes with whioh to pay the la-
borers, were necessarily foroed to close
down their works, and 4,000,000 idle
men were thrown upon the country,
In view of this situation and consid-
ering that it was brought about by a
false financial system, for which the
legislators of the country are directly
responsible, it seems to me that it is
the duty of congress to do all that is
possible to remedy the evil. The only
thing that can be done to give employ-
ment to this vast army of unemployed
is to inaugurate a public improvement
system for the employment of men, and
to issue the money direct from the gov-
ernment for the payment of them, such
money to be full legal tender for all
debts.
By issuing the money direct and
without the intervention of banks, all
necessity of paying interest on this
money when it gets into circulation is
avoided.
Such a plan as I have suggested will
set all the idle and unemployed at work
immediately, giving them a purchas-
ing power which will enable them to
go into the grocery store, the clothing
store etc, and buy the necessities of life.
Prices of necessities will then go up,
because of the increased demand for
them, and thousands of small mer-
chants in all parts of the country will
be saved from the threatening hands
of the sheriff.
Passage by congress of the non-inter-
est bearing twenty-five-year bond bill
will furnish money direct to the peo-
ple without payment of interest, sub-
stituting actual money for the confi-
dence money with which we have been
doing business, and which has now al-
most vanished, and will enable the
states and counties to make public im-
provements that will not only give
millions of men employment, but will
be of lasting benefit to the country.
The idea of this march to Washing-
ton is to attract the attention of the
whole people to this Important subject,
and to arouse them to their own inter-
ests. I trust it will cause thousands to
go to the nation's capital and to stay
there until congress takes some action
upon the measures for their relief.
I have no right to expect anything
but a courteous welcome at Washing-
ton. We have a constitutional right
to peaceably assemble and discuss our
grievances and to demand redress and
relief. We have no cause to believe
that we will be met by armed opposi-
tion.
When our mission is over we will
disperse. For such as are without
means to pay their fares to their homes,
I believe that congress will pass an
emergency bill. It will be the fault of
congress if any citizens who have made
this heroic march in the interests of
the American people at large remain a
charge upon the District of Columbia."
TORNADOES.
The word 4 "tornado" is from the
Spanish, and means twisted.
Tornadoes proper are essentially
4'twisters"—small whirls of great in
tensity—but along with the twisting
occurs several curious features, in part
easily seen tobe the result of this twist-
ing, in part not eas> te explain.
For instance, tornadoes are apt to
carry muoh mud and dirt with them
and this they drive with such
force into timber and olothing
that it is about impossible to get .it out
again.
t; When a tornado crosses a north and
south fence, and leaves it standing, to-
ward the south end the mud is plaster-
ed on the west side, and toward the
north on the east side; this is because
the tornado is a whirl, and the direc-
tion of motion is contrary to that of
the sun.
The tornado often strips the clothing
entirely off its human victims. If its
yictim8 are fowl, the feathers are often
stripped off completely.
Tornadoes sometimes exercise* a cu-
rious expansive action. If the walls of
a house are not carried away; and es-
pecially if the whirl passes centrally
over it, they are likely to fall—not in-
wards or toward one side, but outward
at all directions.
At other times the effect is more like
that of suction. Boxes are opened and
their contents tosssed out. Files of pa-
pers are neatly uncovered, and the pa-
pers promptly distributed over the
country, but especially toward the
northeast.
What are called tornadoes seem to
be at least five different sorts of phe-
nomena, but with no sharp line of dis-
tinction between them.
The tornado occurs at the hottest
time of the day and in the hottest sea-
son of the year.
They are especially likely to occur
when the temperature is unseasonably
warm and the air very moist. They
are most usual when the air is calm,
4'close," murky: still hot afternoons
are the most favorable for them.
They occur in all temperate latitudes
where the air is not too dry, England,
France, Germany and China have their
tornadoes, There is also a tropical
storm called tornado, common on the
coast of equatorial weBt Africa.
The United States has the reputation
of producing the most destructive tor-
nadoes and also of having the greatest
number.
The home of the tornado in this
country is the comparatively fiat region
from the hundredth meridian to the
Alleghany mountains. They are least
common in the northern and southern
parts of this belt, and they sometimes
occur to the east of the Alleghaniés.
It is not easy to say what part of this
region is most afflicted. It can be safe-
ly said, however, that tornadoes gener.
ally begin in the spring, near the
southern edge of this area, and grad-
ually creep northward.
Tornadoes are by no means a com-
mon phenomenon. I have spent the
most of my life in the area mentioned,
and have ne/er seen one, except a mild
one of the third type mentioned above.
The great majority of the inhabi-
tants in this area probably pass their
entire lives without knowing more of
tornadoes than what they see in books
and newspapers. Tornadoes are not
very often destructive, and when they
are, the path of destruction Is very nar-
row.
The area in any state in the region
where tornadoes occur, which is actual-
ly swept by them in any year, is prob-
ably not more than one part in 100,000,
and the chance of being killed by a
tornado in the same region in a year is
not greater than one in a millipn.
This risk is so small that it is not worth
borrowing trouble over. Of course the
chance of injury to dwellings, timber
and stock .by atmospheric agencies gen
erally is very muoh larger,
Tornadoes travel in a northwestward
direction, and leave a path a few rods
wide by a few miles long.
The danger is greater on the south
side of a tornado than on the north
side, beoause there the speed of advance
(20 to 40 miles an honr) is added to the
speed of the whirl in the tornado.
When a tornado actually comes,
which, though not probable, is always
possible, the proper thing to do is to
run northward, if there is time, and it
will pass to the south; run south or
southeast if it passes well to the north;
take the cellar if not certain where it
will go.
The cellar is the safest place in ail
cases, and its west wall or southwest
corner is the safest part of it.
It may be well to state some things
we 44dont know."
We do not know exactly the mechan-
ism of a tornado, but it is probably a
drainage of air upwards, the whirling
movement resulting from an unequal
inflow from different directions.
We do not know where they origi-
nate, but it is probably in the lower
cloud layer.
We do not know that sun spots have
anything to do with them, and there is
no evidence that anything outside the
earth plays any part in making them.
We do not know that electricity
makes tnem, though they often (but
not always) ehow remarkable electric
phenomena.
We do not know that tornadoes are
increasing in number, but we do know
that the area in which they occur is
becoming more thickly settled, and
that the art of reporting news is con-
stantly growing in efficiency and com-
pleteness.
There is one thing we do know about
tornadoes, and that is that the danger
to any one person meeting death or in-
jury from them is extremely small.
That of meeting death by lightning,
small as it is, is twenty times as great.
That of -meeting death by railway trav-
el is much greater yet, and that from
driving a horse and carriage is still
greater.—Prof. Mark W. Harrington,
chief of the Weather Bureau.
WHAT SCHEME IS UP NOW ?
At the Memphis meeting of the na-
tional Alliance, a resolution was passed
by that body which declared, 44 hat
the time has arrived when all Alliance
papers should be put on the same foot-
ing," and in pursuance of which the
national executive committee met in
regular session, and by formal publica-
tion declared a national organ of the
national Alliance no longer necessary.
From a circular letter from the nation-
al executive committee, we clip the
following:
We are "to labor for the education of
the agricultural classes in the science
of political economy in a strictly 'non-
political spirit. Our demands are all
political. It is utterly impossible to
discuss them in a non-political spirit.
In our judgment, they are the essence
of politics, 1. e., the science of govern-
ment. They have been formulated in
a "non-partisan spirit," and as they are
for the purpose of developing a better
state or condition of the masses who
produce wealth, "mentally, morally,
socially and financially," regardless of
their political affiliations, they should
be advocated in a non-partisan spirit.
A partisan is a person who belongs to—
that is—is a slave of, a blind follower
of a party. Partisans are not expected
to have opinions or principles of their
own. They surrender them to politi-
cal conventions or leaders. They are
simply the tools used by political par-
ties to accomplish their purposes. The
A
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Park, Milton. The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 13, No. 22, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 31, 1894, newspaper, May 31, 1894; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth185563/m1/4/: accessed May 21, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .