Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-07-23


can fix a definite meaning to this farrago Of
words. 1t declares that nobody ought to
hold more land than he has right to,
which may be construed as signifying
that nobody ought to hold land
without title; and it might
be thought unnecessary to solemnly ex-
press an opinion SO entirely consonant
with the existing practice and legislation.
Nobody does hold more land than he has a
right to now, for all land is held under
some colorado title. The Greenbackers
have not intimated what constitutes the
quantity of land anyone may rightfGlly
hold, and no doubt this omission saves
them many awkward controversies, but it
is hardly sufficient to justify the praises
which self-styled land reformers have law
ished upon the silly sentence. The planks
in the platform which principally appeal to
the communistic sentiment are, however,
those which propose that the Government
should turn pawnbroker, and lend money
to everybody, and that it should contiscate
the property of the 4" HAYES" to furnish
outfits for the "Haye Nots." According
to this most sane and statesmanlike resolu-
ton, the Government is to furnish the
"means for INDECENT families to go upon
"the public lands and build houses, to
't stock and cultivate their farms, and also
&c to furnish means to laboring operatives
"to establish cooperative industrial
enterprises" This is very like the
propositions which found favor in
the eyes of the populace in the
old Greek republics, and which led to the
social wars which finally destroyed the
power and civilization of the Greeks, and
degraded them to vassalage. More pesti-
lent and imbecile theories it would be in
possible to conceive of, but for all that
they will find approval among certain
kind of people, who are too sluggish of
mind to realize that governments which
confiscate the property of one class of citi-
zens for the benefit of another class, or
which undertake to supply the place of a
parent to the whole community, must in the
very nature of the case become mere
organized machines for robbery, and must
destroy themselves by their tyranny and
injustice. There is not and never has
been more than one way by which men can
prosper in this world, and that is by doing
their own work Whoever leans upon
others, whoever expects the Government
to take care of him, is unworthy of free
dom and incapable of exercising the rights
and performing the duties of citizenship
intelligently. AS to the financial PROPOSE.
lions of the Greenbackers, they are in
character. The demand for national cur
rency of paper alone, based upon moth
ing, and to be inflated whenever
the most stupid people raised howl that
"the volume of the currency" needed
expansion to meet " the demands of trade, "
is as Communistic as all the rest, and the
whole platform is illustrative of that class
of minds which are incapable of learning
anything from experience, which prefer
ignorance to wisdom, which imagine that
natural laws can be suspended OF amended
to suit particular whims or fancies, and
VIII oh always begin by hcpelessly mud
ding themselves with the delusion that
every idea advanced by educated men is
therefore to be suspected and challenged.
The Greenbackers will doubtless attract
some votes. There has been the flavor of
Communism in the Democracy, or its off
shoots, these twenty years, and there is a
kind OF Democrat who has an affinity for
Greenbackism. We shall not object to the
weakening OF the Democratic vote in this
way, but we are satisfied that this is the
only result that will flow from the Green
back movement, either here or elsewhere.