Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1891-07-21
"A LOW PLANE OF PARTY MORALITY.

Oy senator Peuer.I
It is no wonder Senator ingalls, said
that the publication of politics is an
iridescent dream; and 1T is no wonder
further, that when he was criticised for
his language, he replied by saying that he
stated fact and described a condition,
that he was not giving his own opinion Of
what ought to be. 1t has come to pass,
that men in private and in public position
will maintain deception and manufacture
falsehood in order to deceive the people
and keep them within the traces OF party
harness. If there has been more than
two of our public errors discarded by the
parties since the great war, there is no
record of the fact. When the people pro-
tested against the wholesale spoiation OF
the public lands in the interest of wealthy
corporations both Of the great parties re-
sponded by amending their platforms to
correspond to the public will; and again,
when the alien labor ntract law Of 1864
was discovered to have been passed, and
to be in opposition to public interests,
public clamor had the effect to change
party opinions upon that subject, and an
act was passed to prohibit importation OF
labor under contract. Those are the only
two instances in which our parties, after
having discovered error, abandoned it.
There are many other instances where
they have learned that they were leading
in wrong directions, but have been so
closely tied to the power of wealth, which
as Mr.. Henry Clews says, is moving the
interests Of the whole world, that they
are unable, and 1t seems unwilling, to
cut loose from the tie that binds them.
Latterly, they discovered errors in several
new directions, one relating to the tariff
on imported goods, another in relation to
the indebtedness of the people; but in
both these cases they absolutely refuse to
change their methods or their doctrine to
correspond to the needs and to the demands
of the people. Just now, the party press
is engaged in heated discussion OF the
debt question. Within the last two weeks
we have received great many copies Of
papers containing marked articles COM
menting upon the Cooper Union speech
delivered by the editor of this paper,
June %, on the money question. These
papers come from all sections Of the
Union, excepting the South, and 90 per
cent. OF them are criticisms OF the speech,
using assertion instead of argument,
vituperation instead of logic. Coming
closer home, our old neighbor, the Capital,
Is striking harder than any Of them. 1t
always goes hard with us to unfavorably
criticise anything which the Capital says
editorially. So long have our relations
with that paper been friendly, and so
many years were those relations very
close, that it is painful to witness its
laundering and its determination to write
for it's masters without regard for the
truth. Last summer, very regretfuly, We
charged that paper with willfully and
deliberately conspiring with Others to de-
ceive the people upon important matters,
and now, painful as the process is, we are
compelled, in justice to the people, to
repeat our charge and to again say that
the Capital not only does deliberately and
persistently insist upon deceiving the
people, but that with the same knowledge
and the same deliberate intent to deceive,
it wilfully and knowingly withholds from
the people important truths which they
ought to know and for which they are
seeking day by day, as they pray for their
daily bread. This sort Of language, as the
readers of the KANSAS FARMER very well
know, is not according to our custom, but
the time has come for blows. II men will
deliberately falsify records and misrepre-
sent conditions, regardless OF the interests
inai