Mexico weekly ledger., 1891-11-26
The Third Party Manifesto.

From the Kansas City Star.
The manifesto issued by the Third
Party convention at Indianapolis
has an ancient and familiar sound.
There is not note in it that has
not been played before. There has
never been a Presidential campaign
not preceded by the solemn an
nouncement that the days of the
''two old parties were numbered; !;
that ''the people," always somehow
in a minority, had decided that the
majority were not 1.-THE people," but
the rather an aggregation OF COVER
ing slaves, ruled by corruption and
doomed to destruction.
This assumption that a majority
of the voters of the United States,
gathered in the Democratic and he
publican parties, are base, corrupt,
vile and unfit to exercise the right
Of sufferage is set forth in the most
pronounced terms. This majority,
we are informed, furnishes forth de-
bauched juries, rotten judges, cor
rupt legislatures and moreover sus-
tains daily newspaper press so in
describably vile that the English
language may be said to falter aud
shrink back from an attempt to set
forth its depravity.
This sort Of talk, to be plain
about it, is the baldest sort of politi-
cal cant. Nobody not even its au-
thor, believes it. The assertion that
''every honest man. in the country
is in sympathy with the Third party
movement is silly. Each and every
one of three gentlemen who signs
his name to this manifesto knows
that his Republican or Democratic
neighbor is as 'shonest' as himself,
and is as free from the influence Of
aggregated capital as himself, and
is as much attached to the institu-
tions Of the country as himself. A
manifesto that starts out with the
declaration that majority of the
citizens of the United States are the
purchased tools Of capitalists; or the
stupid victims of a lying press, or
whimpering idiots incapable of ex-
ercising the rights Of free men, is,
to sum up briefly and plainly, nom
sense or something worse.
The producing classes to whom
this manifesto is particularly ad
dressed (non-producers being de-
scribed as; for the most part, GRIM
inals VINO have so far evaded the
penitentiary), have their remedy,
but it is not to be found in windy
manifestoes. If there is a burden
some sensible and practicable means
should be found to lift it. There is
burden which every citizen with
out regard to party knows and feels.
It is direct and indirect taxation.
With that burden lightened all 9TH
er grievances would seem light.
The citizen then, has no occasion to
start out with the admission that
he has been hitherto a knave or a
fool, or both, and that his folly or
guilt has just been revealed to him
by few gentlemen assembled at
Indianapolis; but he should set him.
self to work through the most avail
able and powerful agencies for the
reform of the tariff, for one thing,
and the readiustment of local taxa
tion for another. These two pur-
poses, which carry with them of
necessity the choice of honest and
faithful public servants, from the
duty and the privilege of the hour,
and, every citizen should fully real
ize the truth.
In spite of this Indianapolis man.
ifesto the 1.-TWO old parties" will con-
tinue to esist. as heretofore, and, as
the Indianapolis manifesto assures
the country that "God does not in-
tend the Republic shall perish" the
American citizen may still continue
| to hopo.