The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1890-09-12
The Picnic Speeches.

The REGISTER is very loath to criti-
else gentlemen who come here, upon
invitation to address our people. And
vet when these gentlemen so far trans
gress all the rules of propriety as to
make violent partiZan harangues Oil
an occasion which is intended to be
purely social, not political. and entire
ly non-partizan, and when they so far
forget decency as to deliberately insult
a large proportion of their audience,
this paper feels that it is only perform
ing a public duty i'm characterizing
them and their speeches as they de-
serve.
Rev. VIII. Utley, of Parsons, and
Mr.. G.. A. Powers of Indiana, were the
orators at the +. M. d. A. picnic last
Saturday.
We do not hesitate to say that no
Allen county audience ever before list
ened to two such unpatriotic, senseless
and lying speeches. Mr.. Utley based
his speech on two propositions: First,
We are hard up; Second, There is
privileged class. In the line of his
first proposition he declared there
were never so many closed school
houses and churches, never so small
percentage of children on the school
rolls, never SO many deserted commun
ion tables in Allen county as there are
to-day. And the reason for all these
things he declared, was that the peo-
pie here are too poor to support teach
ers and preachers, too poor to buy
their children school books, and too
poor to dress decently enough to go to
church! There are 12,513 people in
Allen county and every one of them
who is old enough to talk could go
upon the witness stand and swear that
Mr.. Utley is liar. There was not a
farmer on the grounds that day who
did not know that there is not school
house nor a church I'm Allen county
closed because the people are too poor
to support it. And there was not
farmer there who did not know that
Mr.. Utley lied when he said "You do
not take your wives to church because
you are too ragged" For solid hour
Mr.. Utley stood up there before men
who were as well dressed as he was
and said to them in substances: "You
are ragged and starved. Other men
get rich, but you, poor dolts that you
are, haven't sense enough to make q
living" Boil the first half of his
speech down and that is all you have
left. The fact that it is not true does
not make it any less an insult to the
men to whom it was addressed. The
last half of the speech was anarchism.
1t was the first step in the line of ar
gument, the last step of which was
taken by the Chicago anarchists in
May 1885. 1t was a direct appeal to
class prejudice. 1t said to the renter
"The 500 you pay for the use of your
farm is blOod-money. 1t goes to man
who has no right to it and who sits i'm
Injury that you pay for i'm hard labor"
We have neither the time nor the pa
thence to follow out the speech in de-
tail. But the whole intent of it was to
make those who heard it disconnected,
to make them believe that every body
else was robbing them and that the
government of the United States was
on the side of the robbers. 1t was
false, wicked and unpatriotic.
Mr.. Powers speech started out In the
sameline, and we didn't have the pa
thence to listen to all of it. We heard
enough of it, however, TO learn that he
evidently mistoOk the gathering for
Peoples party political meeting. He
talked about what "wen must do in
November, and about "our newspa-
pers" and 'our literature.n "If the
Republicans get us to fighting over
such little side issues as the tariff and
prohibition, he said "they have got
us beaten" We stayed 1oug enough
also to hear him say "This IL robber
Government" and, "at the rate things
are going we will not be free people
much longer" Taken as a whole the
speech was only less harmful than Mr..
Utley's because it was crazier and
more palpably false. Neither of the
orators suggested a single remedy for
the ills they so darkly pictured. They
had no ''way out" and the whole and
only effect of their speeches, if they