Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1891-05-21
PUBLIC OPINION.

-tlooolOhuoCIlS vi COmJOSc
of friends of Gen. Benjamin Frankli
Butler, offer a meeting place for me
!. of all sorts of distinction and opinion
!. The only rule of this tolerant assembling
seems to be that the speakers shall b
interesting and shall say what the,
: mean. At the dinner given on Frida,
D in celebration of the anniversary of thu
S capture of New Orleans, the Hon. VIM
d A. PETER, successor to Mr.. Ingalls, as
e Senator in Congress from Kansas, was
the figure which most attracted the
!, curiosity of the club. SIN the reception
: room," says the Boston Herald, '.all eye:
were turned instinctively upon Senator
PETER from Kansas. He was the most
distinguished guest present from abroad
He is tall man, spare of flesh, some,
what haggard of features, and wears a
! beard which reaches below his stomach.
His dress was not unlike that which is
! affected by the residents of the effete
civilization of the East; the only notice
able and distinguishing feature of his
apparel was the absence of cravat.
That was his only concession in dress to
the Granger sentiment"
i Mr.. Peffer'S wealth of beard and his
remuneration Of cravats are well known.
Of his intellectual quality his utterances
i since his election have not given high
idea, and there have been signs that he
1 is suffering from that enlargement of
the faculty of self admiration which is
common among persons boosted into
sudden greatness. His speech at the
Butler Club dinner showed that he is
man of fair ability, though not of such
transcendent intellect as to justify his
appearing cravatless in Boston. He
talked about the achievements and
plans of the Farmers Alliance. 1t was
movement of the people, he said, and
not of demagogues, and yet he appeared
as somewhat of demagogue in this
account of his own swift slide into
fame:
"This Alliance movement began
among the farmers, and not among the
lawyers. 1t began among the toilers,
and not among the bankers and among
the merchants. 1t begins with the men
who do the work; the men whose sweat
is crystallized into gold. Hence it is
that when our Legislature came to-
gether, and there were ninety three
Alliance men there, every one of them
voted for the man that is talking to
you now"
He kindly explained for the benefit
of the guests at this dinner in honor of
one of the most eminent of American
lawyers, that even lawyers were allowed |
to vote: 1--WE do not prevent lawyer
from voting; we do not prevent any
body" Mr.. Peffer's hearers must have |
got the notion from his remarks about |
toilers and lawyers that he belonged to
the former, and was in the habit of |
crystallizing perspiration into gold
Yet Mr.. PETER has been a lawyer, we
believe, but at the time the men who
do the work elected him Senator he was
crystallizing porspiration as writer for
a Topeka newspaper of strong Repub
lican antecedents. His farming is done
with the pen, and it may be thought,
therefore, that his description of the
Alliance movement, with its implied
contempt for bankers and merchants
and lawyers, shows him to be no less
favored in cheek than in beard.
In dealing with the rate of interest
paid by the Kansas farmers, the crystal
lized sweat statesman was painfully un-
certain. "Are we to be blamed" he
said, "for asking for scaling of our in
terest? We are paying as high as 100
per cent. for the use of money, and we
are getting tired of it, and that is what
the rebellion means" A little later he
said that "the average rate of interest
which Kansas farmers are paying to-day
on their farms on long time is 10 per
cent. The report issued by Superin-
tendent Porter of the Census Bureau
shows that our farmers are paying from
10 to 40 per cent. for the use of money"
Ten per cent. in State in which there
is so great demand for capital as there
is in Kansas, doesn't seem to be high
enough to Justify rebellion, but the
Kansas farmers ought to be able to
borrow money cheaper. Unfortunately
their rebellion resulted in the election
of an Alliance House of Representatives
which did its best to frighten capital
and make borrowing at low rates more
difficult.
Mr.. PETER was frank enough to admit
the true cause of the embarrassments
of the Kansas farmers: ave have un-
dertaken to do more than we can
accomplish" He denied that the ALI
ance in his State is in favor of
"We are not repudiators. We expect
to pay, if our creditors will only be pa
tient with us; VIC expect to pay every
dollar of the debt we owe, according to
the letter and the spirit of the contract.
But at this particular time we are not
able to pay, and in that respect we are
not different from some of your own
people who are represented by large
there"
ave are not Anarchists" continued
the speaker ave do not want to tear
down anything except the bad and vi
cious systems of legislation. We want
to create, not tear in sunder." Yes, and
one of the things which they want to
create is fiat money to pay off debts. In
the closing passages of his speech Mr..
PETER defined the Alliance and predicted
its Bellamyfication:
ait is movement of the people, for
the people, and by the people. So that
while the Alliance is at the bottom of it,
thn, h. sv,,N ,N,- NEl