The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1878-08-29
For the Advance.
A Appeal to the Business Men and
the W0rkingmen of Ohio.
BY J. H. RANDALL

parts of the State. They have pu, forth q
clear and concise platform of principles,
md you are now asked to rally and nse the /
ballot in the interest and for the benefit Of /
the energetic men of the country who earn
their bread in the sweat of their faces
The majority of yon know the depres-
sion of business and idieness that prevails |
that wrong has been done
against the many in the interest of the few
and that there cannot come out of earth or
heaven blow aimed at the destruction of
general prosperity that levels all enterprise
and the producing forces in the dust so
quickly and .hopelessly as wrong done to the
toiling millions.
Doubleday in his " History of Finances"
says: General comfort is the only securi
ty for general morality. Take away tina.
comfort steep people in pauperism and
difficulty, and from that hour, in the exact
ratio of destruction, will offences against
property and general morality spring and
flourish" 1t is the founded and interest.
bearing debt of country that calls into ex-
istence and supports an idle and profit
gate aristocracy, and makes necessary
centralized or monarchcial form of govern
ment. Against this system the forces of
National Greenback Labor party are array
ed.
The Republican party inaugurated this
principle and is pledged to carry out this
policy. II sneers at Labor and labors' de-
mands, and asserts that it is the perogatiye
of property holders, moneyed men, to make
the laws no matter how much they rob the
toilers through an unjust distribution of
the products.
The Democratic party has ample oppor-
tunity to be nseful in the peoples cause,
but would not; it abuse the men in enforced
idleness, teaches us that American labor
must not be rated above the status of Eu-
ropean labor, and in no two States does it
declare the same doctrines 1t never utter
ed word for fifteen long years against the
rotton labor-and-industry -robbing ,institu-
tion-the National Banking System. II is
full of sophism to induce the people to
seat its diseased carcass in the councils of
the nation. And when given the highest
seat in the government by the votes of the
people, it dare not take the
responsibility, and to day it has no posi-
tive doctrintne. 1t howled Thomas Ewing
down and denounced his pleadings for the
greenback heresy, 1t hi-sed the idea of
reconciliation of silver until black in the
face, and last winter, instead of giving Us a
pronounced greenbacker, such as would
have proved Ohio Democratic Gaeenback-
ism honest, by sending Ewing to the Sen
ate, it elected man whose position is en-
tirely indefnate on the most vital issues of
our times.
Criminals are sold by the State and
bought by the speculntor in labor. The
product of their labor is put in the market
side by side with the product of honest free
men, thus compelling the manufacturing
employer to gauge the wages of his men SO
low as to compel them to liev upon worse
than States prison fair. Corporations EN-
ploy men, and instead of paying them a
legal tender such as should be provided
and mentained as fundamental institu-
| tion for the protection of the non- proper
ty holding, they pay them in checks and
scrip, and stock holders with old refuse
and adulterated goods that they dole out
at swindling, laborrobbing prices. These
things have long been in practice, and
neither of the old parties have entered a
protest against their existence, and iti
time the victims and their friends united
for the use of that legitimate instrument
for righting their wrongs-the ballot.
All men of both old parties who are
still imbued with the spirit of'76; all who
believe that the will of the people should
be respected and that it is possible to Sc
cure a just system of legislation; all who
desire to see Shylockism, corporation cred
it devices, note shaving and high interest
the institutions of monarchy that keep the
poor man poor and make the rich mar
richer, superseded, and the republic perpet
uated on basis, of a fair chance for all
equal rights before the law, special privil
eges to none, will rally together, enlist and
fight henceforth within the lines of the par
ty that defines itself as the aggressive enc
my of monopoly and the defender of labor
Once united, victory is certain.
Those of us already banded together ir
party appeal to you in the name of God
and our common humanity. We appeal
to you in the name of millions of idle
men who have been made tramps, whose
wives and children are at the mercy of the
cold charity of the world, and they them.
selves robbed of the opportunity of finding
market for their labor, and thus slowly
but surely being deprived of the right to
life, one of the fundamental rights ofeyery
human being
We appeal to you in behalf of an un.
taxed bondrldden, debt burdened and tax.
oppressed people, whose wills have been
disregarded and whose interests have been
betrayed by the devil-begotten, hell born
| pollcy OF nnance now Delng carried oul
by men elected from the ranks of both par
ties.
We appeal to you in the name of virtue
and that higher civilization and morality
that the race has been striving to attain
and whose march has been obstructed by
Che life blasting, and government and So
| ciety demoralizinp effects of poyerty and
crime growing out Of unwise and vicious
legislation.
We appeal to you In behalf of those who
have, after long and frugal life beer
thrown upon the shoals of bankruptcy, a nc
of those whose destiny is in the same di,
rectioD, but who are to-day hoping against
hope for relief.
We appeal to you in behalf of the LONE
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