The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1884-08-20
BUFFERS MESSAGE.
Synopsis Of the Massachusetts States
mans Call to Arms.
He Discusses Goth the Old Parties and
Concludes They Are No Good.

Appeals to the Laboring Man to Use the
Power He Has, and Lays Out a
Plan for the Cam
palgn.
LOWELL, Mass, Aug. 20.-Ben Buffers adj
dress, a most voluminous document, has
been made public an compliance with oft
repeated and anxious inquiries" writes the
general Il hasten TO give account of my
stewardship Of the political interests with
which | was charged. They were four:
First-HostIlity TO all monopolies in COM
merce, industries, and lands. Second-The
preservation of the national legaltender
currency of the people, cOnstitutionally
all men and women who labor in the
production of wealth to be protected against
the encroachments of those who absorb and
consume without producing Fourth-The
necessity for reform and correction of abuses
in government, so that its pressure ON the
people would he made light as possible; its
administration effective, to guard the rights
of American citizens at home and abroad; TO
make public servants, individual or incorpor
ate, subservent to the use and will of the
people only, SO as to restore the prosperity of
the country, with equalrights, equal burdens,
equal powers, and equal privileges of all
PEOPLE
The address then proceeds to give in sue
cinci order al! Of buffers actions, both in
con mittee and in the convention. All his
r. u,uUlolis III favor of labor were voted down.
- res oMtOn to sustain the legal tender cur
n y. the one ,ppoSed to monopolies; that
d dust the "sWo ping" of the land of the
peep by the aristocracy, and all Others
Presented, he says, suffered the same fate.
lie was granted the boon of thirty minutes
to l,re el his ideas. He warned the body of
its action He admits that the platform as
adopted cont ulis certain sweet phrases
toward the toreign-born citizen but he de
clares that a. a whole the work Is one OF eX-
eNIedtentS.
The country has had no experience for
quarter OF a century as to what the Dem0c-
r1cy wodld do II III power; but" he says,
t., farmer AMI tie laborng an do
nnuw that Democra ic house of representa-
tlVes has Just appropriated more money
raised by taxauon than any other
house of representatives has ever APP
propriated in time of peace. We
also know that the Democratic majority
would Lave free-trade tariff, containing all
the odlous features Of the present war tariff,
SO far as regards its monStruuS inequalities
by horizontal reduction of the tariff to
break down very many rising and struggling
Industries, and destruction of the homes of
our workingmen and the home markets of
the American producers"
On the Republican side he says I'VE
know the Republicans. The country
has had experience in Republican
party rule twenty-five years, and
know its results We therefore have no
need to look Mt its platform, for
by their fruits We shall know them"
The Republican party in its inception was
emphaticaly the party of the people. 1t had
in it substantially neither monopolists nor
capitalist 1t was as poor as was the conveu-
ton of delegates who framed the Declal alton
OF Independence. Taking out five men, the
rest could hardly pay their board bills
The Republican party was formed upon one
| grand and noble idea, to do for one class of
WORK ingmen what the Democratic party,
| even under jefferson and jackson, had failed
| to do Their Democracy dealt only with the
| white man. The Democracy of the Repub-
| liCan party dealt with the black man,
and aimed 10 give him freedom and equal
| rights. For that purpose and that alone,
was that party formed. 1t was the radical
| party, and so radical party of the people,
that the aristocTatic part of the Wing
| party, the old adverSarieS of the Democracy
| of the days of jackson, merged themselves in
| the Democracy without a drop of Demo
cratic blood, as they hoped in their veins, or
/
| classes IN their party, and such of them as
| quarter of century has spared, are found
| with the Democracy of to-day largely
| guiding its councils in the manner
We have seen" At this point the address
| treats Of the manner in which the Repub-
| lican party became the party of mOnOpolists.
| The necessity for money to carry on the war
| drew all the bankers and capitalists into the
| Republican party. He declares that the
Anti Monopolist can expect nothing from the
Republican party. Claiming to protect la
Dor, that party only protects capital The
| importation OF cheap lab r. the use of convict
labor, and the employment of women and
children, to the detriment of men, are pointed
| out with the generals characteristic EN-
phasis These are wrongs, he says, which
| faint the very life-blood of the people
The Republican party is arranged for
granting subsidies to railroads, for erecting
expensive public buildings, for spending
| millions in opening the mouth of the Mis-
sissippi, some of which are all right, but it
has never done one act for the workingman
Referring to the fact that the dominant
| party had Lrofessed to protect The labor of
the south in its rights and the laborers of the
north In his wages, he says: Il call the at
tention of such men TO the fact that that
| party has failed to do either Laboring men
are out Of employment and starving after a
quarter of a century of Republican rule.
| Nav, more. 1t is we'll known in Massachu-
sets and Rhode Island, and how far in other
parts of the north leave the good and just
| minded of those localities to speak, capital
has coerced the votes of the laboring men to
its own purposes by threats, intimidation,
and i'll some cases worse means. The negro
| of the south, also cannot go to the ballot
box for fear of the shotgun, and, if he does,
the ballot-box suffer puts in two votes to
| neutralize his one
ain the matter Of finance there is nothing to
hope for from either party The bankers
and capitalists Of both parties have united
for twenty years to control the financial
legislation of the nation. And now, with
money enough for all wants, with golden
fields, with ineXhaustble crops, with an
| overproduction of stock and provisions,
with plenty on every hand, because of the
present financial system 1.-THE producing
laborer goes about the street unimployed;
and the farmers wheat, which with his
| fathers was a measure of value, is a drug in
the market; and that which he raises to-day,
produced by the sweat of his face, is without
profit to his industry"
For these ills the Greenbackers offered a
remedy. Congress should make an mcontro-
vertibe bond at low rate of interest to be
issued by the government, so that any man
might invest IN it instead of placing his
money in savings banks and trust companies,
" Dc Oub Oh hibtllS SUoSh
and then lost when he called for it. The ad-
dress on this point closes as follows: Every
financier knows that it is the odd fifty mil
lions Withdrawn or put out that makes a re-
dundancy or scarcity of circulating medium
and is there man who dares say that such a
bond would not have prevented the panic
and desolation to business through which we
are now passing
THE time has come when the greenback is
sustained by the supreme court as "A consti
tutional currency against the opinions of the
paid attorneys ofevery tinancier of the coun
try The time will come if the people of this
country can get the clutch of monopoly of it.
currency off its throat when such system
of finance as have sketched will give free
dom TO the industrial and business interests
of the country from the terrible tiuctuation,
) from which the people now suffer"
He appeals to the laboring man to de
clare his Independence. He says: "You
| have the mower to make this government