Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1891-08-13
KANsAsIZING OHIO.
What an Old Soldier Writes Back From
Kansas to His Comrade in Ohio

Dear SIR and CODlTGde--As you will
soon be in the midst of hot political
campaign, and as you have a new and
unknown enemy in the field, led by
mongrel statesmen from the State OF
Kansas and Southern States, l thought
it might be not amiss to give you my
, impressions and observations of the
Farmers Alliance, which is advocating
revolution in our social, financial and
industrial systems. 1t is germane to
inquire, Upon what and how has this
organization builded itself?
A few years ago Kansas had won
derful and deceptive boom. Everything
and everybody doomed. Every city,
town and hamlet was swelled into
. metropolitan ideas. In ten minutes
time the average citizen could demon
strate beyond a reasonable doubt when
and how his particular town would be-
come a great center; consequently all
real estate sold at prices from l to 500
per cent. more than its real value. The
question of the time was how to get in
debt, not how to keep out of debt. The
Ipeople with recklessness which is be-
yond comprehension, voted upon them
selves bonded Indebtedness to build
railroads, court houses, jails, school
houses, water works, electric light plants,
and almost all kinds of public improve
ments that could be thought Of Private
corporations sprung into existence as if
by magic-a large number of them with
very little if any actual capital behind
them. Owners of real estate borrowed
money upon their holdings with little or
no thought of pay day; or if they did
think of it consoled themselves with the
idea that they would be able to dispose
of the mortgaged property before
maturity of the Indebtedness. Almost
every town of any size had its quota of
contractors who would borrow money,
build houses where none were actually
needed and trade or sell them.
| When a borrower negotiated loan,
instead of borrowing the smallest amount
he could get along with, he took all he
could get on the property offered as
security. Loan agents were thick in
this State, while loan brokers were as
busy as bees all over the Eastern States
hunting out and selling Kansas secur-
tiles to every person who had laid by
few hundred. dollars for rainy day.
When this booming business was at
high tide the State, in 1887, had com
plete crop failure. Then the tide turned,
and ever since that time it has been
running out as fast as it had run in
No people have abused their credit any
more than the people of Kansas, and yet
the most eff her Indebtedness will be
paid. In 1888 we had partial crop
failure, 1889 good crop and unfortu-
nately low prices, and in 1890 another
partial crop failure.
When the doomed value of all real
estate began to fall to its real value and
every honest debtor was pinching and
saving to pay the interest on his in
debtedness, the self-constituted reform
ers sprang from the by-ways and hedges
and commenced preaching new and un-
tried doctrines. They corraled the hard
worked and hard, pressed farmer in the
sbhool houses, eorked up the keyhole
and rammed him full of the vicious
doctrines, that they alone know how to
preach. These fellows who farm with
their mouths finally succeeded, under
the pressure of the times, in making the
majority of the average farmers believe
that the result of "busted" booms and
short crops must have been caused by
our social, financial and industrial sys-
TENS and tina tthe Republican party is,
and was, responsible for the existing
condition of things. These self consti-
tuted reformers grew strong and waxed
fat because of the reaction which re-
suited from "busted" booms and short
crops until they induced the people to
elect them to Office.
We have now had one round of
partial alliance rule, and the least that
can be said is-naught. The members
of the Legislature rode to the State
capital on passes Gust as all legislators
do), organized lodge of the alliance,
and therein they sweated, labored and
Matched a United States Senator, who
may be diamond in the rough"
The majority of the alliance legislators
were full with the notion that something
was radically wrong, and that they
could, by placing laws upon the Kansas
statute books, change the natural un-
written laws of commerce and finance
They imagined that they were gods
elect, and the wicked and unholy Re-
publicans were constantly on their trail
like bloodhounds with the sole object of
corrupting them beyond redemption
They seemed to think that any man who
had the password and the grip of the
alliance was pure and holy, but that any
fit subject for the penitentiary. Any
man who mildly begged leave to differ
with them was at once set down as a
"plutOcrat."
They started out intending to reform
everything and everybody, but did moth
ing but rehash alliance speeches, which |
did them such good service in the cam
paign. The average Kansas alliance |
man doesn't care muchabout tariff. He
howls just little about the "robber
tariff" He don't care much about free
coinage of silver, because he knows he
has no silver bullion to sell, but when it
comes to our banking system and his
sub-treasury scheme, that's his meat and
drink. What he does not know about
banking, government ownership of rail
roads, and sub-treasury business isn't
worth knowing. The sub treasury scheme
is what waited Judge PETER into the
senatorial chair.
According to then theory tits no trick
at all for the government to print "gobs"
of money and loan it to them in such
amor ITS, at such times, as they may
want it, at 2 per cent. per annum.
L = L