Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1891-07-13
SENATOR PETERS oHIMERAs.

SENATOR PEFFER'S CHImERAS'
Senator PETER in his .Noundsville
speech presented In glowing terms the
ills with which the farmers Of the land
are afflicted. His list of grievances is
| long, and, while in the heat Of the mo-
ment, he may have colored them some
what too highly, certain it is that these
ills exist and are piling up with such
alarming rapidity that something mnst
shortly be done to correct them, or our
boasted democracy will be sup
planted by as complete and
thorough plutocracy as ever
the world saw. So far Senator PETER
is right and it is this condition that has
given rise to the new political organiza-
ton, whose object it is to correct these
evils, but which has but very dim and
hazy idea how to go about it. Senator
PETER is leading light of the Peoples
Party and the remedies he suggests
show that the new party leaders are as
much at sea as blind man in crowd.
He recognizes the fact that the farm
ers are in debt, that they are getting
deeper in debt every year. They have
no money. And the Senator cries out
to the government "Give US more
money! He thinks that If the govern
ment were to set its minis to work on
double turn and flood the channels OF
trade with money, that the ills COM
planned OF would be relieved. But
would they? What has caused the
wealth created by the farmer, and
rightfully his, to drift into
the pockets Of monopolists and
money kings? 1t has not been the
lack Of sufficient circulating medium,
surely. 1t is due to totally different
causes, and these causes will remain so
long as our present policy OF levying
taxes on the masses Of the people to
give in bounties to q few monopolists
remains, even though the country be lit
orally flooded with money. Free coinage,
at best, would afrord DuJ temporary re-
lief. The farmers would still go on pay
ing the same burdensome taxes on their
neceSsaries OF life; they would get no
more in proportion for their products
than they are getting now and they
would continue, as now, to be practical
ly the tenants of the rich money-lenders
of the east who hold their mortgages at
exorbitant rates of interest. The sub
treasury scheme, by which some
visionary Farmers Alliance men hope to
solve the interest problem, would mean
the humiliation OF Democratic govern
ment. It would make the government
the dispenser of wealth, take from the
masses of the people what freedom they
have and carry the present paternalism
urged by the Republican party, to its
ultimate conclusion. "Give the govern
ment back to the people," cries Senator
PETER, and in the same breath he ad-
vocates monstrous plan that would re-
move it farther away from the people,
and makes them dependent entirely on
the government at Washington.
Would it not be better to reduce taxa
ton to the necessities of the govern
ment, to stop giving unearned bounties,
that come from the peoples pockets, to
corporate monopolieS which through
the aid Of the government now own
about nine-tenths of the country's
wealth and are able to buy the presi-
Dental chair and to control the govern
ment against the will of large majority
of the people?
Senator PETER makes no distinction
between the Republican party, which is
solely responsible for the evils he COM
plains of, and the Democratic party,
which is striving to correct them, and
to comnly with Senator PEFFER's de-
mand to ''give the government back to
the people," Paternalism and central
ization are the acknowledged cardinal
principles of the Republican party, as
freedom and the placing OF the govern.
meat in the hands of the people, are OF
the Democratic party. The same evil:
which the Farmers Alliance aims in a
confused way to remedy, the Demo
cratic party is combating intelligently
and systematically. The Peoples party
Is striving against the ills which Repub-
lican rule has brought upon the
country. Why not join forces with the
Democracy, the real Peoples party, a:
opposed to the party Of Monopoly, ant
crush them out? The Peoples part,
and the Democracy are striving for The
same end, but the one is in the dark
while the other sees its way clear.