Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1891-01-15
.BEAUMONT'S POWERFUL SPEECH.
Continuation of the address Delivered By
Ralph Beaumont at Canton, Octo-
ber is, 1890.

= or 10, 10SV. tFfHs
4 Detailed Explanation of Some of the
Principles of the Knights of Labor
Organization.
| NUMBER TX.
| At the close Of the war, after 1 came
home, they began to twit me with the re-
mark, Beaumont, you soldiers would
never have been able to whip the rebs if
the bondholders had not bought bonds of
the government during the war" I was
liberal and patriotic at that time, and was
willing to admit that that cussed bond had
done half of the fighting; but when the
panic of 1878 struck me began to look
around for the BILLY Patterson" that had
struck me and did not have far to look
to find out that the story the bondholders
| bought the bonds that enabled the gov
ernment to carry on the war was lie.
Fellow soldiers, if you do what I did in
1875-and you can do it today as well as
I did in l875-and you can do it today as
well as did it then-examine the secre
tary of the treasurys report issued June,
1865, less than ninety days after Lees
surrender, and you will find that the to-
tai amount of 20 bonds that had been
purchased up to that date did not exceed
1925, 900, 900! Now fellow soldier, that
was not the cost of the war, because we
have outstanding today $3.50, 900, 900.
The government made the money to carry
on the war. 1 think hear one of
the ''hard money fellows say, 'How did
they get it out?" Why, we soldiers
fought it out. The government made
over 81 900, ,O00, 900 Of money to carry on
the war. Why, during the last twelve
months of the war the government issued
$3.50, 900, 900 of 2-30 bonds. You soldiers
remember getting your pay in them at the
close of the war, with six little coupons
on the end of each one, and every six
months you could cut the coupon off and
get your interest, and at the end Of three
years, when the last one was gone, it left
the simple stub of a greenback to do
business with. The government made
other denominations of money-the Zone
year Certificates g and others that might
mention. - -
/ THE PANIC OF 1878.
| When the panic Of 1878 came there was
only S346, 600, 900 of this money left; and
all Of the Nations industries were paral-
lied. Instead of getting three dollars a
day only got dollar and half day.
L was not able to meet the one hundred
dollar annual payment. I could not
meet the interest had a thousand dol
lars in the house and wanted to get it
out. took that house in 1874 to every
real estate agent in my city, and there
was not one who could sell it for me. In
1875 one of them took hold of it. He
was the only real estate agent in the
county that was doing any business that
year. He was the sheriff He sold the
house. What do you suppose he got for
it? Two thousand dollars, what 1 paid
for it? No. He got $1,000. What do
you suppose he did with it-gave it to
me? No. He gave it to the other fellow
who had better deed than did, in the
form of a mortgage. learned something
in that real estate transaction. The next
house buy, 1 will take the mortgage
and'let the other fellow have the deed.
Then there were lot of fellows like
me who did not have any work to do,
and we used to go about preaching to the
people. Iwould roll a dry goods box out
into the street in the middle of the after
noon, and commence to talk to the peo-
pie; and in any ordinary sized town 1
would collect a crowd of several hundred
workmen, idle and out Of employment,
and on the outside of the crowd would be
a lot of politicians that belonged to the
democratic and republican parties-the
same kind of chaps who are now sneak
ing around telling you farmers and
Knights OF Labor that "your organiza-
ton is all right, but keep 1t out Of politics. :"
And used to point to the idle men and
then single out one of the politicians and
ask him swhat is the matter with these
men that they were not at work?" and
he would whine out s'why, they had got
an overproduction, and there the poor
fellows were with their knees sticking
out of their pants, their elbows sticking
out through their coat sleeves, and their
toes wiggling out through their boots.
When you see man in that condition,
you can make up your mind that he is
not bothered with an ''overproduction''
of good boots and shoes every time! 1
used to hurl it back at them and tell them
that that was not what allied the men:
that it was because they did not have any
money: that if they had money they
would buy better clothes :,
THEY VOTED FOR COOPER.
| Well, we preached until we got 81, 900
men to kick and say they voted for old
| or I'M