The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-04-28

ties is transacted by means OF ex-
change, without any money changing
hands.
No, I don't know of Grover Cleve-
land borrowing money from private
banks-I thought I had heard that he
had deposited the government money
with private banks without interest.
Did he borrow of the same banks where
he had the money deposited?
Yes, [ am aware that paper money
well backed" is more convenient than
silver, not so easily counterfeited and
not liable to the sweating process, and
l explained in a communication which
1 sent you last week, how I thought
we might have a paper currency,
founded on land mortgages, without
the necessity of having eighty-fOur
thousand tons of silver dollars (O piled
away in the Treasury vaults. So Lu-
cius is mistaken in saying I didn't
know that. And his saying that the
aluminium story is a "cunningly-de-
vised fable" is not argument, and does
not alter the facts.
Neither do l believe that it was the
intention of either the St. Louis or
Ocala conventions to rule all men out
of the Alliance who do not believe in
the wisdom of every plank in their
platforms, and in this free country,
every man is supposed to have a right
to express his opinion. I think the
order is doing a great deal of good, and
my only object in writing is to possibly
assist in promoting the candid study
of these questions, so that, if they are
not practicable, and will not be bene-
fetal to the farmers, they may be
dropped, and the better and more
feasible mean to produce the same
end adopted.
But I heartily agree with "Luciu5"
that an Allianceman should be an
Allianceman before he is a Democrat,
and if so many leading men in Demo
cratic States proclaim 81 loudly that
they are Democrats before they are
AIliancemen, what effect will it have
in States overwhelmingly Republican,
when they are nov trying to organize
and build up the Alliance as a non
partisan organization?
The desirability of a Postal Telegraph
and the duty Of the government to
establish it seems 81 plain that there
appears to me- hardly a chance for ar
gument. One of the first acts of u
government was to establish a Postal
system, as it is of every civilized Ia
ton, and the advances and improve
ment of Jul system r such that every
citizen is or should be proud of them.
They have taken all practicable means
to increase the speed in the delivery of
letters, and only the conservatism
which is slow to adopt anything new,
can excuse them for not adopting both
the telegraph and telephone Al soon
as they were invented. They have de-
clared roads to be mail routs and made
it unlawful for any person to carry a
letter for hire, without a United States
stamp on it. There was a time-I do
not know if it is the law now or not
when any express company was not
allowed to carry a letter without a
postage stamp on it, but you could go
to the telegraph office and send the
same message without a stamp. Was
that even handed justice? If the gov
eminent can control the carriage of
1Uritten communications for hire, why
not all communications? And who
will object to it, except the owners of
the telegraphs, and probably of the
railroads, who receive much money
from the telegraph companies. No
one can doubt it would be a great bene-
fit to the people, especially of the
South, where the rates are two to four
times as high as at the North. They
charge 40 cents for 10 words from here
to Raleigh, while you can send the
same from Boston to Chicago for 10
cents-or could don't know how it
is since the B. & o. was swallowed up
by the Western Union. But there is |
no doubt but it would pay expenses
and more too if run by the govern
mentkat 10 cents for any distance less
than 1000 miles.
It has been favored by many promi-
nent men of both the old parties, and
if the Alliance and labor unions would
push it, l think it would be one of the
easiest of their reforms to accomplish.
B. J. N.
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