Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1888-05-23
Tariff Talk.

land had the courage and manhood to
stand out in front of his party and chal-
LANCE the republican hosts for a dis
cussion of the tariff question, 1 have
watched with considerable interest, to
see if the masses of his party would
sustain him. at first there seemed to
be desire on the part of the leaders to
fly from the contest; but there comes
from all quarters evidences that the re-
publicans did not intend to let the dem
ocrats make any cowardly retreat from
the position in which Mr.. CleYeland had
placed them and now there is an abund-
ance of evidence that the masses of the
democratic party is going to hold their
leaders in line and compel them to fight
it out, let victory come to whoever it
may.
l believe that now at last they have
a chance to lay hands OH this roDber
that has been robbing them OF the
products of their labor, that they are
going to choke the life out of it, and
that after next November, this sneak
ing coyote will be limp and lifeless
corpse, for L believe that when the good
men in the party get after him, there
will be no letting up.
When the long parliament in England
began, they did not think they would
end by cutting off the head of Charles
the First. When the colonies began to
send petitions to England, they did not
think they would end by declaring their
independence. When the republican
party began by opposing the extension
of slavery in the territories, they did
not think it would end by freeing the
negro, yet it did. And so l believe this
old moss-covered fraud is going to have
the moss stripped off and that he will
be exposed in all his rotten deformity.
And so from these thoughts 1 take
courage and rejoice that this barnacle
that has fastened itself on the laboring
and producing classes is about to be
scraped off and we will be relieved of
at least one parasite that is sucking our
substance, and so we welcome the bat
tie and may it be hearty and hot, for in
the discussion of this question that is
sure to come, the farmer may get to see
what heavy burden this protective
system has put upon him; he may be
awakened to the fact that while he has
been selling the products of his labor in
the cheapest market he has been buying
in the dearest; that he has been robbing
his family, clothing them with rags,
driving them into the fields to work
when they ought to be in school, max
ing his wife slave and a drudge, with
out one ray of hope of ever being re-
lieved from this grind of excessive toll
until she finds rest in her grave; max
ing himself slave of slaves, trying by
long hours of toll to get money to pay
his constantly increasing debts that are
sure at last to everwhelm him unless he
loes something to stop their rising
tide.
He cannot stop this rising tide of in
iebtedness by following the brass bands
and big professions; he cannot stop it
by sending such jackIeg lawyers as T.
4. McNeal aud g. /. Long to legislate
sor him, men who imagine because
hey can pick flaw IN an indictment
hey are great statesmen.
The farmer will have to learn that
brOadclOth and fine linen does not make
a statesman. The ability to turn seri-
Gus matters into redicule does not make
one; showing ones self ready to do the
dirty work for railroad and bank cor
porations does not make one, and yet
these are the kind of statesmen that
have thrust themselves forward and
have been run into Office by the farmers.
Is it any wonder that they are, as
lass, impoverished?
No. thu wonder is that they have held
nut so long and that they are still able
to be silent partners with the mortgage
companies.
sometimes fear that the farmer Will
not be able TO cast aside his love for his
party long enough to free himself from
The grasp of these monopolies, for they
seem to have fastened themselves about
ms neck with a tighter grip than the
tabled ''Old Man of the Sea-
But as said in the beginning. my
hope is in the coming struggle, that the
noise and din of the conflict may awak
en- him to sense of his situation. and,
ii it shonld, know well he viii sweep
from place and power, all these politi-
cal montebanks that have been passing
themselves OF for statesmen.
A FREE TRADER.