Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1891-04-08
THE THIRD PARTY.
POSITION OF THE FARMERS WITH
REFERENCE TO 1T.
Views Of q Very Distinguished South.
side Democrat-COnditIOn OF
the Agrlculturists.
To the Editor of the Dispatch I:

| To the Editor of the Dispatch
That there is a widespread discomfort
throughout the country among the great
body of the people cannot be denied, and
that there is just cause for this discomfort,
most candid and impartial minds will ad-
nit. This discomfort comes from no par
ticular section of country-it is as broad as
this mighty Union. Its mutterings are
heard on the distant shores of the Pacific;
| it is waited on the wings of the wind across
the great and fertile prailies of the West;
it comes ebbing up like mighty tidal
wave from the broad savanpahs of the
sunny South, while the rocks and hills of
New England echo back the sound.
"When the people complain" said Mira
beau, "the people are always right" MIR.
Froude says 1.-THE endurance of the in
equalities Of life by the poor is the marvel
of human society. Arlstocracies and privi
legged classes struggle for wealth and power
wealth, in many instances, which they
waste in vulgar and ostentatious luxury;
and power which they often abuse for their
own interest, while the great body Of the
people are struggling under oppressive
wrongs to live and think as men.
AS ABE PUT IT.
Abraham Lincoln, man whom the i'm
partial historian will hand down to future
ages and generations as one of the most
remarkable men of his age-the great
representative of the s'plain people"-once
said to his friend, Governor Oglesby {:
"Dick. put your ear to the ground and see
which way the people are going; the peo-
pie are always right" Not only do the
people not complain without cause, but
that cause sooner or later will find a
remedy. The abuse of power is danger
ous experiment to be INDUCED either by
nations or individuals. History is full of
examples where retributive justice has
come sooner or later. "There is Divinity
that shapes our ends, rough hew them as
we may There is God who holds in
His hands the eternal scales of justice; with
Him Thousand years are as day; He is
in no hurry; he can afford to wait; like
Homer's gods He makes step and ages
pass away.
Mirabeau once said "Cornelia scattered
the ashes of her murdered sons to the wind
and they produced Caius Marius."
The horrors of the French revolution, it
has been said, were only an expiatory
atonement for the murders of St. Bar
tholomew, which took place nearly two
centuries before.
That the country has grown with mar
vellous rapidity in wealth during the past
two decades we all admit. During that
time many fortunes have been amassed
which far exceed the oldest hereditary
estates in Europe. English noblemen who
trace their hereditary estates back to the
Norman Conquest are poor when compared
with our mlllionsires. But how is this
great wealth distributed? Are all classes
equally prosperous9 If such were the
fact there would be no just cause of COM
plaint While wealth does not necessarily
bring happiness competency is necessary
to contentment. Poverty is the fruitful
source of ignorance, crime. and misery.
1RELAND's DIscoNTENT.
William Pitt, during his premiership,
said that Ireland's discomfort was the re-
suit of Ireland's poverty. When the peo.
pie are prosperous they are happy and con-
tented. But when we see $4,000 people
o ming ope-half of this great country;
when We see 25O 900 people owning 80 per
cent. of the wealth of e5, 600, 900 and the 20 90
per cent. distributed among Ga, $50, 600
bearing the burdens OF taxation, and the
great body of the people growing poorer
day by day and their labor going to swell
the bloated wealth of the privileged few, is
it any wonder that they should be discon.
tented and dissatisfied History is but
philosophy teaching by example. When
imperial Rome in the zenith of her power
and glory, her eagles extending from the
pillars of Hercules to the banks Of the Iu-
dus, numbering 120, 900, 900 of souls, and
owning every foot of land in the civilized
worldly system of partial legislation,
less than 800 men owned every foot of
her territorv-it needed not the prophetic
vision OF Hebrew prophet to tell the peo-
pie that the day was coming when some
Gibbon was to rise and write her ssdecline
and fall"
THE PEOPLE NOT IGNORANT.
The great Scotch divine, DR.. Chalmers,
said years ago that the great body of the
people might be illiterate, but they we're
not ignorant. The people are not blind te
the state of things that exists, but for want
of organization they have been unable to
devise a remedy The strikes that for years
have been taking place on railroads asd in
manufactures are evidences that these
people feel that they are wronged and op-
pressed. While these people to great
extent have had my sympathy (though
have never sympathized with them in the
destruction of property and other lawless
acts), have felt satisfied they could &C.
complain no permanent relief for the
wrongs they suffered, simply from the fact
that they had no conservative basis upon
which to rest; they were not fixtures of the
oil-owpers and occupiers of the land
Many of them without local habitation
aud like the ''birds of the air" vibrating
between the eternal SHOWS of the North anG
ths everglades of the South. But when thu
, farmers who have equal cause of complaint
5 made up their minds to remedy some o
= the wrongs they have endured for mor'
than quarter of century. felt that thei
conservatism and good seDse would exer
else wholesome influence on the futur'