The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1878-09-05

! illiterate white voters would be
seduced by the "eIghty" acres aud q
mule profered by Kearney's people.
Those who call themselves ''horny
handed sons of toll 8" evidently have
more good sense than Northern and
Western newspapers imagined. Wash
Jones has fewest followers furthest
West and finds them, among white
people, only in towns. Practical, IN
dustrous working men are impelled
by their necessities to think. Hard
hands are always significant of hard
heads. We wot of a city recorder
who was accustomed to determine
''the guilt or innocence of the prisoner
at the baI" by feeling his hands. If
toughened by toll, "big drunk" or
''vagrancy" was condoned; but tender
palms condemned, while this wise
judicial officer served the city, many a
ward politician and noisy street bum
mer to the woTk-house. This Judge,
alone of living men a master of the
gipsy's art of palmistry, applied it to
wise and honest and useful purposes.
When Kearney comes South the horny
handed sons of toll, whose woes he
pirates about, will have the tough
ness of his palms tested and those
of his private secretary who steals
speeches for the rousing, roar
lag, ranting Kearney. Working men
have heard of ''flush times" in Missis-
sippi, of the pretty paper money of the
Texas Republic, of Laws Mississippi |
scheme and French ossignats. They
have dim memories perhaps of Confed
crate ''fat" currency. The more one
earned the less he could buy. In truth
common sense recurs to Gods decree,
which fiat money philosophers and !
loafers would evade, that man was
made to toll, and he is an idiot, when |
labor ia unavoidable, to ask for it any
thing less valuable than silver and |
gold. If paper money could supplant |
the necessity for toll, making people |
rich who meyer toiled, then we might |
approve the philosophy of the fiat"
money philosophers. But the violation
of public faith and pollution of public
morals involved in the lawless compul-
sorry redemption of bonds not due, and |
the destruction of the value of paper |
by declaring it to be redemptionless,
are such palpable absurdities that hon.
est ignorance, however illiterate, stands
aloof or openly condemns.
Not long ago it was supposed |
that the solid South would
support the Greenbackers. Hon
est Northern newspapers, educated
in the belief that the South hated the
Union, constantly asserted that the
solid South would vote with the repu-
diators of the Federal debt. While
the South pays twO-thirds of Federal
taxation Qhe tariff and navigation acts
and fishing bounties refunding moth
ing to the South) the South asserts a
degree of respect for dictates of COM
mon honesty of which our accusers
know nothing, and the South can
never be induced to repudiate the pub
lie debt by this cowardly indirection
involved in this forced substitution of
fiat moonshine for honest obligations
to pay honest money.
But the Greenback party in Texas,
since it was overwhelmed by the ac-
cession of the negroes and Davis to
its voting force, can accomplish, as
Davis sees, but one purpose. He con-
fesses that he disapproyes the distinc-
tive policy of the party he serves, but
will not deny that he expects, by Civ
ing strength to these paper lunatics,
to excite everywhere North sense of
insecurity. Kearney means the de-
struction of property values and rights.
1t signifies nothing whether accom-
plished through the ballot or by the
bayonet. The result is the same, and
the necessity for Grant and the bayo-
net, and for strong government
to repress Southern reputation,
more terrible than Southern secession,
would be deemed imperative every
where if the South embarked in this
wild crusade in this paper man.of-war.
Greenbackers may say what they will
of 1t. but practically they do say, while
Kearney and Brick. PomeroY rave and
roar and lead the way, that 'sthe third
tern" is an absolute necessity. Moth
ing else, We are told even now on every
hand, can save the country from Kear-
ney and the ''solid South.n 1t is only
fortunate that pro hae riee the South is
by no means solid. The need for the
man on horseback has not yet arisen, and
the iron hoof of despotism is not re-
quired to manage Davis and the blacks.
Davis would have the North believe
differently, but Davis is no more to be
trusted than his pals, Kearney and
Brick Pomeroy, and the true people of
the South are not only patriotic but
honest.
1 4. q