The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1891-07-10
SENATOR PETER IN NEW YORK.

SeNATOH PETER IN NEW YORK;
His Ringing Warning from the Common
People to the Plutoer.cy.
The war has been carried into the
enemy's camp at last Senator PETER,
in great speech in Cooper Union last
week. opened the campaign of the peo-
pie against the money power in New
York city. If his message is heard and
needed by the autocrats of Wall street,
their interests will suffer far less than
viii be the case if they continue to defy
the demands of the farmers and laborers
Of the country. Here are some of the
things he said. They are worth reading:
l come to you in direct lineage from
that western orator who brought warn
ing thirty odd years ago, to give you the
message that power greater than the
slave power threatens the country, and
that you must destroy that power or it
will destroy you. It has come to this,
Whenever the men of Wall street die
tate policy that policy is adopted;
whenever those men oppose policy that
policy is defeated. More than twenty
years ago new custom was adopted in
this country, namely, whenever the men
Of Wall street need more money they
ask their partner at Washington to come
over and help them, and he comes. Last
year the secretary of the treasury re-
ports somewhere near $100, 900 900 of the
peoples money paid over to Wall street,
advanced in the way of interest. I saw
in the national treasury at Washington
the other day great piles of bonds
stamped Interest prepaid to July 1.
1884,
Now, in contrast to that pretemse,
submit the millions of suffering farmers
of this country. When the farmers ask
the government for money for their &C.
tual needs they cannot get it, while men
who are fourishing in wealth can get it
whenever they want it. That condition
of things must be changed. We propose
to take away no mans property. We
propose to protect all mems property.
There is need of several things. One
is more money, another is cheaper money.
I don't mean money that is not good for
anything. We want good money. I
don't care what kind, but an abundance
of it. We want it at lower rates of in
terest than we are now paying. Bond
holders can get money at 2 per cent, but
the farmer cannot get it for less than 10.
We are going to equalize that thing if
we have to revolutionize the whole coun-
try.
Instead of calling US regulators and
giving you warning. We mean to make
our own money and plenty of it. That
is just what we did during the war, and
we can do it again. We shall not de-
stroy the money of the rich. We shall
not touch dollar of it. We simply pro-
pose to make more money for ourselves.
Are not the farmers lands as good as the
national banks bonds? Why not give
the farmer a little per cent. money
from the national treasury as you do the
banks? These are not threats; they are
only warnings.
One-half the homes of this country
are mortgaged for more than they are
worth. If the whole state Of Kansas was
put up at auction at thirty days notice
it would not bring enough to pay her in
debtedness. make the same assertion
regarding every agricultural state in the
country. We are not starving in Kan
sas. We propose to pay our debts, but
we can't pay 10 per cent. debt out of
2 per cent. business. The farms are
worth a little more than the debts upon
them, but the railroads of the state owe
four or five times their value.
The time is coming when the people
will begin to build railroads. Some day
those railroads will either be put in the
hands of the people [great applause] or
else the people will build roads of their
own. How are they going to do it? How
did we carry on the war and get money
to do it? We are coming to it very fast
and it will be impossible to avoid it.
These changes are upon US. No power
but the Almighty can prevent them, and
he is with us. It is of no use to daily
any longer with the old parties. They
must be converted or destroyed. We
are going to have new men and new
measures.