The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1891-11-06
1T rs IN THE AIR.
The Peoples Party Has Governor
OrepOn's Chief Executive.

The Peoples Party Has Governor
Oregon's Chief Executive.
Hon. Sylvester Pennoyer, the gov
ernor of the state of Oregon, elected
as Democrat has written an article
for the press of which the following is
an extract:
s'The wonderful shaking of dry
bones, and the more wonderful appear
ance of that exceeding great army
which the prophet of the Almighty
beheld about twenty-five centuries
ago, after the soft breath of the four
winds had passed. over the open valley
which lay at his feet. have almost
been rivaHed by the sudden appearance
of a new party within the national
political arena; with this difference
however-that the shaking of dry
bones did not precede, but will follow,
its advent.
The existing parties themselves are
responsible for the formation of this
new political organization. For the
last quarter of a century the natural
evolutions Of national life, as well as
the legitimate results of pernicious
legislation, pave propelled new ques-
lions of paramount interest into prom
inence and yet neither party has had
the courage to voice the public con-
science upon such questions, while
both parties, with ears deaf to the
popular demand, have been laborious-
ly engaged in their old and tiresome
game of battledoor and shuttlecock
upon the tariff.
There has been a popular demand
for an income tax, heretofore almost
unwrltten and unspoken, and yet as
widespread as the national limits and
as universally entertained among the
masses Of the people as is the demand
for right, for the reason that there is
not one single citizen of this republic
whose sense of justice does not impel
him to declare that the wealth of the
country, now entirely exempted from
taxation by the federal government
should bear it's just proportion of the
public burden. Aad there has been
equally as strong protest against the
fragrant injustice of our financial
policy by which favored class, en-
riched at the peoples expense by the
operation of statute laws, has been al
lowed, unrestricted by law, to use its
ill-gotten wealth to still further fatten
upon the public. Both the demand
and the protest have been entirely I'M
needed by the present political parties,
and hence the new organization.
There have been. are now, several
other governmental abuses and derelic-
lions for which the two old parties are
responsible. Among them are the
granting to private corporations the
loan of millions of money and vast
empires of land for the building of
railroads, which, when built are per-
mitted to- exact excessive charges from
the people,; the usurpation of Coy
ernmental function by private corpor-
alton in the transmission of intelli-
gence without restrictions of law upon
its charges against the government
itself, as well as against the people;
the. usurped interference by the fed
eral judiciary within the states with
their laws and tribunals; the de-
graduation of one of the precious
metals and the denial of it's free coin
age by congress, thus imposing an
unexpected hardship upon the states,
to which under the constitution is de-
MED the privilege while they are re-
stricted, at the same time, to the use
of gold and silver as legal tender, but
far above any of these in Importance
are the entire exemption of a part of
the wealth of the country, as such,
from federal taxation. which can be
remedied by the imposition of grad
uated income tax, and the faulty and
almost criminal financial policy of the
government, through which the wealth
of our people has been transferred
from the pockets OF the many to the
vaults of the few, and the federal
treasury controlled and used in the
interest ,of ebondholders and stock
jobbers. The present financial system
Of the government is the worst of ex-
listing national abuses. and to remedy
this is justly the rallying CRY of the
new political party.