The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 12, No. 13, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 30, 1893 Page: 1 of 16
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** Organize, Educate, Co-Operate."
Official Journal of the Farmers State Alliance of Texas.
"Liberty, Justice, Mquality.
Vol. XII, No. 13.
DALLAS, TEXAS, MARCH 80, 1893.
Whole No. 684.
VfiK
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18 OUK REPUBLIC IK DA1ÍGER1
Mr. J. H. Harris, in the official
journal of the Alabama Alliance,
makes the following presentation
oi the dangers that environ our re-
public:
Thackery, an able English writ
er, said years ago: "A republic
and an aristocracy won't amalga-
mate. A country muát be gov-
erned by the one principle or the
other. Give a republic or an aris-
tocracy ever so little chance, and
it works and plots and sneaks,
and bullies and sneers itself into
place, and you find democracy out
of doors." Meditating on this ut-
terance, we ask, is our republic in
danger ? We are not pessimists,
but we must confess there are indi-
cations not favorable to the perpet-
uation of our form of government;
"Xi. indications that we, as a republic,
are drifting afar, very far, from
the idea that Jackson, Jefferson,
Calhoun, Webster, and other great
men had of a republican form of
government. Let us see! In
1834 Gen. Jackson said: "The
ambition which leads me on, is an
anxious desire and a fixed deter-
mination to persuade my country
men, so far as I may, that it is not
in a splendid government support-
ed by powerful monopolies and
aristocratic establishments, that
they will find happiness or their
liberties protected; but in a plain
system, void of pomp, protecting
all and granting favors to none,
dispensing its blessings like the
dews of heaven, unseen and unfelt,
save in the freshness and beauty
they contribute to produce. It is
such a government that the genius
of our people requires, such a one
under which our states may re-
main for ages to come, united,
prosperous and free."
In 1892 there was issued a cir-
cular, known as the Hazard circu-
lar, and it was sent to every Amer-
ican banker. It read as follows:
"Slavery is likely to be abolished
by the war power, and chattel sla-
very will be destroyed. This, I
and my European friends are in
favor of, for slavery is but the
owning of labor, and carries with
it the care of the laborer: while the
European plan, led by England, is
'capital control of labor,' by con-
trolling wages. This can be done
by controlling the money. To ac-
complish this the bonds must be
used as a banking basis. We are
now waiting to get the secretary of
the treasury to make this recom-
mendation to congress. It will
not do to allow the greenback, as
it is caUed, to circulate as money
any length of time; but we can
control the bonds, and through
them the bank issue."
Following the Hazard circular,
was the famous Buell circular,sent
out by the bankers' association to
the banks, which contained the
following: "It is advisable to do
all in your power to sustain all
such daily and weekly newspapers,
especially the agricultural and re-
ligious press, as will oppose the
issuing of greenback paper money,
and that you will also withhold
patronage or favors from all who
will not oppose the government of
money. Let the government is-
sue the coin and the bankB issue
the paper money of the country,
for we can better protect each oth-
er. To repeal the law creating
national bank notes, or to restore
to circulation the government is-
sue of money, will be to provide
the people with money, and will,
therefore, seriously affect your in-
dividual profit as bankers and
lenders, bee your member of
congress at once, and engage him
to support your interests, that we
may control the legislation." We
would let the curtain fall just here,
and let the reader, after a little in-
vestigation of our national legisla-
tion, since the issuing of the two
circulars quoted, answer the ques-
tion as to the tendency of our gov-
ernment to yield to monopoly, to
the "money power." But to show
how detrimental Gen. Jackson
considered the money power to
our republic, we quote from a letter
of his, written to Dr. Gwyn, of
Mississippi, and published in the
Overland Monthly. Speaking of
the interest taken by the money
power of England at one time in
our elections, the old hero wrote:
"No American who has the feel-
ings of a free man but must unite
and frown down this foreign inter-
ference with our domestic con-
cerns, and I am happy to see the
union and firmness of the democ-
racy of the United States, which
shows, if beaten by perjury, cor-
ruption and fraud, stul we are not
conquered, and we will preserve
our liberties or die in defending
them. In Mississippi you must
hereafter guard against the corrupt
pipe players and money power or,
the purity of the elective franchise
is gone, and our republican sys-
tem of government with it." Jno.
C. Calhoun said, in the United
States senate: "Place the money
power in the hands of a combina-
tion of a few individuals, and they,
by expanding or contracting tne
currency, may raise or sink prices
at pleasure; and by purchasing
when at the greatest depression,
and selling when at the greatest
elevation, may command the
whole property and industry of a
community, and control its fiscal
operations. The banking system
concentrates and places this power
in the hands of those who control
it. Never was an engine invented
better calculated to place the des-
tiny of the many in the hands of
the few, or less favorable to that
equality and independence which
lies at the bottom of our free insti-
tutions."
Daniel Webster said, "Liberty
cannot long endure in any coun-
try where the tendency of legisla-
tion is to conoentrate wealth in the
hands of the few. When all our
money is made .payable in specie
on demand, it will prove tne most
certain means that can be used to
fertilise the rich man's field by the
sweat of the poor man's brow."
Jefferson said: "I sincerely be
lieve that banking institutions are
more dangerous to liberty than
standing armies. The power to
issue money should be taken from
the bankB and restored to the gov-
ernment where it belongs."
We might go on at length quot-
ing from eminent men, but we de-
sist.
But some one will Bay times
change and men with them. That
is true, but principles never change.
The same principles underlying
our form of government in the
days of those men, still live. Let
us note the utterances of men of
later date, and editorials from lead-
ing newspapers, and see if tnereis
any tendency toward centralisation,
toward a monied aristocracy in this
country. Chauncey M. Depew
says, "Fifty men in the United
States have it in their power, by
reason of the wealth they control,
to come together within twenty-
four hours, and arrive at an under-
standing by which every wheel of
trade can be blocked and every
electric key struck dumb. Those
fifty men can control the circula-
tion of the currency, and create a
Banic whenever they will." Mr.
tepew is quite a prominent repub-
lican, whom Gen. Stevenson quo-
ted often in his speeohes last lall,
as complimenting Mr. Cleveland
in the eulogistic terms.
The New York Tribune (repub-
lican) says: "The time is near at
hand when the banks will feel
themselves called upon to act
strongly. Meanwhile a very good
thing has been done. The ma-
chinery is now furnished by which,
in an emergency, the financial cor-
porations of the east can act to-
gether at a single day's notice,
with such power that no act of
congress can overcome or resist
their deoision." The same paper
says, "It is astonishing, yea, start-
ling, the extent to which faith pre-
vails in money circles in New
York that we ought to have a
king." The Tribune is Whitelaw
Reid's paper, and he was a candi-
date for vice-president as a repub-
lican nominee on the ticket with
Mr. Harrison.
Mr. James Buell, secretary of
the National Bankers Association
gives forth the following: "Wo
have arranged the program for
both parties, and are willing the
people should exercise their choice
of men." President Arthur in his
first message said: "The British
system of office-holding should be
adopted in this country, that the
tenure of office should be for life.
A statute which incorporate* its
general features, I should be bound
to give my approval." President
Arthur selected Judge Gresham as
a member of his cabinet, first as
postmaster general, and shortly
after as secretary of the treasury,
two of the most important offices
in the cabinet. Judge Gresham
was, and still is, a republican, and
during the dark, dreary and op-
pressive days of reconstruction,
when the south was passing
through a terrible ordesl, was one
of the staunch republicans who
stood by General Grant and the
republican party, and «trongly
urged the nomination of Grant for
a third term as president of the
United States. He was himself a
probable candidate of the republi-
can party for the presidency; to-
day he is the first man in Mr.
Cleveland's cabinet, an avowed re-
publican secretary of state in the
cabinet of a democratic (so called)
president.
Some will say, we know the re-
publican party is for centralization,
and is controlled by the money
power, why don't you give light
from some other source! Let us
see!
The New York World claims to
be a democratic sheet, and during
the presidential canvass was quo-
ted from as being sound in the
democratic faith. It claimed to
have done more than all others to
secure Mr. Cleveland's nomina-
tion. It said: "The American la-
borer must make up his mind
henceforth, not tebe better off than
the European laborer. Men must
be content to work for less wsges.
In this the workingman will be
nearer to that station in life to
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Park, Milton. The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 12, No. 13, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 30, 1893, newspaper, March 30, 1893; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth185510/m1/1/?q=food+rule+for+unt+students: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .