Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 20, No. 25, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 21, 1900 Page: 2 of 16
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SOUTHERN MERCUR1
Thursday Jjine 21, 1900.
DONNELLY'8 ACCEPTANCE.
Indicates his Willingness to Make the
Race. for Vice President on the
Populist National Ticket.
Reviews Some of the Conditions that
Confront us, in His Character-
istic Pungent Style.
"Hastings, Minn., June 11.—Hon. M.
W. Howard, J. M. Mallett and W. S.
Morgan, Committee People's party:
Gentlemen:—I have received your
valued letter of the 15th ult., formally
notifying me of iny nomination on the
10th ult. as the candidate of the Peo-
ple's party for the office of Vice Presi-
dent of the United States.
M! acknowledge the great honor done
me in that nomination, and if elected
shall strive to discharge the duties of
the position to the satisfaction of the
whole country.
"I endorse every word of the plat-
form adopted by the convention. Anx-
ious to be brief, they did not, perhaps,
cover every question upon which they
were agreed.
"Money is a necessary of civiliza-
tion. Without it the productions of the
people can not be exchanged. With-
out it all trades and commerce must
end. If it is furnished in insufficient
quantities its purchasing power in-
creases and the prices of labor and all
commodoties produced by labor corre-
spondingly fall. The rich therefore be-
come richer and the poor poorer.
"To supply the people with money is
the supreme function of government;
for the only end of government is the
prosperity and happiness of the gov-
erned.
"Hence the Constitution declares
that Congress shall 'coin money and
regulate the value thereof.' And in
the same section it provides that Con-
gress shall 'declare war, raise and sup-
port armies,' and 'provide and main-
tain a navy.' Congress has no more
right to authorize private banking
corporations to coin money and issue
it to the citizens than it would have
to authorize similar private corpora-
tions to declare war, raise and sup-
port armies and provide and maintain
a navy.
"And when the issue of the money
of the nation is left in the hands of
private corporations whose interest it
is to make it scarce, and therefore
dear, not a dollar of it can come to
the people across their counters until
some one borrows it and pays inter-
est on it
"The country is then in a horrible
condition. It is as if we were charged
for the air we breathe. It is as if our
army, controlled by private corpora-
tions, refused to resist the invaders of
our country until every citizen came
forward and paid them a private bo-
nus for defending his home.
"Originally all business was barter,
and gold and silver, valuable because
the pagan priesthood adorned there-
with the temples of the sun and moon,
became standard commodities, and be-
ing compact and portable, were finally
used in making exchanges and called
'money,' and so descended to our own
"Lately, however, a criminal conspi-
racy was organized among the capital-
ists of the old and new world to deny
the moon's metal, silver, access to the
mints They thus reduced the metallic
barter basis all over the earth one-
half.
"Political necessity has forced them,
in this country, to issue paper bank
notes to supply this silver vacuum, but
these are only in reach of these people
by being borrowed and paid for—with
more interest and more eventual bank-
ruptcy. And so they have set the py-
ramid of currency upon its apex—the
gold supply of the world—a cube about
twenty-seven feet square, which all na-
tions are now struggling to secure:
and now the inverted pyramid is tot-
tering to its fall, and the bankers will
scarcely be able to prop it up until af-
ter the next election. And when it
falls, mankind will be overwhelmed
with calamities for which history af-
fords no parallel.
"While we regard the redemption of
the money of our country in gold and
silver as a relic of barbarism and a
survival of the pagan superstition,
nevertheless we demand that if either
metal is to be used, both shall be used.
If there is to be a metallic basis for
our currency, it must be as broad as
possible.
"There is no more reason for mak-
ing our money of metals than there is
for engraving our national bonds on
plates of gold, or printing our postage
stamps on tags of silver.
"When silver was demonetized it fell
one-half in value; gold similarly treat-
ed would shrink in the same way.
There is little intrinsic usefulness in
either. Civilization could endure with-
out both of them; it could scarcely
live without iron or copper.
"In our civil government, paper
money, without bankers, saved the na-
tion, and its life can be maintained in
time of peace by greenbacks.
"It is a crime to compel 80,000,000 of
free people to depend for the first es-
sential of human society upon a few
thousand bankers, who make the peo-
ple pay heavily for doing what the
people are abundantly able to do for
themselves. The banker's note is re-
deemable in greenbacks. Why not de-
stroy the bank notes and issue the su -
perior pa pen*—the greenbacks?
"The world is today trying to solve
the problem; shall wealth or manhood
rule humanity?
"A great Republic based on the
theory of 'equal rights to all and spec
ial privileges to none,' and which by
its Constitution prohibits monarchy
and aristocracy, needs a political party
that is devoted to liberty and nothing
else.
"'Of what avail
Is flag or sail.
Or land or life,
If freedom flail?"
"Can we reach the ends we have in
view through the Democratic party?
"Suppose that the old Whig party,
instead of decently dying in 1856,when
it had outlived its function, had ling-
ered superfluous on the stage, and the
people of the United States had tried
to use it as an Instrumentality to des-
troy slavery; could they possibly have
succeeded?
No; they would have found one-half
of its membership favorable to slav-
ery and one-half opposed to it; and
instead of reform we should have had
continuous internecine warfare.
"Slavery was destroyed by a party,
every member of which was opposed to
slavery.
"Plutocracy will never be over-
thrown by the Democratic party, with
its head in Wall street and its tail in
the Mississsippi Valley.
"We must have a party dreadfully
In earnest, and in which there is not
a single plutocrat. If ten horses are
hitched to the front of a cart, and ten
horses equally strong are fastened to
the rear end, will not the cart stand
still?
Regret it as we may, plutocracy is
as much of a sectional problemmfwyp
as much of a sectional question today
as slavery was in 1856. It is the bat-
tle of the money-lending region against
the money-borrowing region; the sec-
tion where the dollar is bigger than
the man against the section where th3
man in infinitely bigger than the dol-
lar. It is Threadneedle street against
the spirit of 1776. Its roots reach
down to the issue of Monarchy versus
Republic; nay, they go even deeper. It
is the forward movement of God for
the blessing of his children, against
the troglodyte in his cavern, cracking
the leg bones of his victim to extract
the marrow for his cannibalistic feast.
"The famines, the suffering, the
strikes, the poverty, the wretchedness,
the suicides of the multitude, are all
cannibalistic, but the banqueters are
better dressed than their predecessors
of the caverns. They do not beat their
victims' brains uot with clubs—they
crush them with laws and combina-
tions, or petrify them with false state-
ments and false arguments.
"This is a new country, based on a
new idea—the sovereignty of the com-
mon people. Europe furnished us with
our settlers and now it is overwhelm-
ing us with its ideas. Aristocracy to-
day rules to greater part of Europe
and America.
"Our government is a Republic, and
yet our rulers have stood silently by
while ia monarchy has trampled the
life out of our fellow Republics ia
South Africa.
"Give the People's party power and
we will put a stop to this state of
things. War is an evil, but national de-
gradation is a greater evil.
"Better the eagle on the mountain
top, nigh furnished in the fellowship
of storms,' than the beastly reptiles ai
the swamp, bloated with filth and
sleeping away its wretched existence.
"Abraham Lincoln spoke of 'keeping
the jewel of liberty in the family of
freedom,' but we have no 'family of
freedom.' Everywhere the tendency is
toward despotism,
" If this nation is to live as a free Re-
public it needs the People's party, with
its heroic breed of statesmen, who aim
at something higher than a squabble
for uetty offices.
"'Tis not in mortals to command suc-
cess;
But we'll do more—we'll deserve it'
"IGNATIUS DONNELLY."
The Bayonet gives the Socialists a
home thrust in the following para-
graph:
"Suppose a man who wanted to go to
China was offered a seat in the convey-
ance of a man who wanted to go only
to California and should refuse the seat
with scorn and abuse and start to
walk, just because the man who was
going to California refused to agree
that he would continue to China, what
would you think of him any way? In
what respect does this . would-go-to-
China man differ from the Socialist
who refuses to ride in the Populist
coach? Is not the coach going in
his direction? Does not the Populist
party favor dierct legislation." Was
not the plank on the initiative and
referendum given the first place—the
place of honor in the national platform
made at Cincinnati in May last? Does
not every intelligent Socialist admit
that direct legislation is the first step
toward all reform; that nothing of im
portance can be done until we get it?!
FENCE!
strongest
made. Boil- ■
strong. Chicken. -
tight. Sold to the Farmer at Wholesale.
l*rleei. Fnllr Warranted. Catalog Free.
COILED SPRING FENCE CO?
BOX 60. Tfiaeheater, Indiana, V. & *~
DIFPERENCE IN DISTANCE AND
TIME TO EL PASO FROM FT.
WOTRH.
Via Houston the distance is 1119 miles;
and the trip requires 48y2 hours. Via
the T. ■& P. Ry. the distance is only
614 miles, and the time for trip is only
23 hours.
FROM DALLAS.
Via Houston, 1097 miles, 47 hour®. Via
T. & P. Ry. 646, 25 hours.
Before deciding on route to El Paso„
consider what it is to save 22 to 25
hours of EXTRA TRAVEL this warm
weather. E. P. TURNER, G. P. A.
Dalits, Te>ns.
H. & T. C. R. R. SPECIAL RATES
El Paso, on account Texas State
Teachers' Assn,—For this occasion all
agent wisll sell round trip tickets to.
El Paso for train No. 2, June 23, for
$5. Single round trip tickets, limit Ju-
ly 13th. Tickets will be good for side
trip to Galveston and stop over at San
Antonio. For the accommodation of
the purchasers of the $5 tickets, there
will be a side trip excursion £3 Mex-
ico from Spofford Junction to Monter-
ey, Mexico and return, iit $5.50 for the
round trip, limit ten days. Passengers
making side trip from Spofford should
deposit tickets with agent of Sou. Pac.
at Spofford.
El Paso—In addition to the above,
for same occasion, agents will sell
round trip tickets June 22d, 23d, and
24th, limit July 1, at rate of $10 for
round trip. The final limit for the
$10 tickets will be extended to Aug. 6,
if tickets are deposited with Mr. T. E.
Hunt, Agt. G. H. & S. A. Ry at El
Paso. Holders of $10 tickets can make
side trip from Spofford to Monterey on
same dates and conditions as holders
of $5 tickets. Stop over will be per-
mitted on $10 tickets on return trip at
points west of and including Spofford
provided tickets are deposited with
agents at point stop is made. The-
Mexican Central Railway have author-
ized several very interesting side trips,
st very low rates. See nearest agent
for them.
Summer normals will be held at
many places along the line of the H.
& T. C. Ry. between July 7 and August
4. for both white and colored teachers,
for which a rate of one and one-third'
fares will be made on the certificate
plan. . S. F. B. Morse, P. T. M.
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Park, Milton. Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 20, No. 25, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 21, 1900, newspaper, June 21, 1900; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth185856/m1/2/: accessed May 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .