Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1891-12-29
Thinning RECOGNITION.
form DEMANDS WILL SOON GET
A HEARING.
When That Ia Gained There viii, BE No
Doubt About the Result Through the
Countrywide People Will Win.

Countrywide People Will Win.
lCopyrght. 1891, by Reform Press News Asso-
citation, New York;
Slowly but surely the demands and
reform suggested in the platform of the
( people are winning adherents from those
who take the care to consider the sub
ject Nothing may be expected from
that class of people who dismiss the
whole matter with words of abuse and
airs Of assumed infallible knowledge.
The latter class is largely in control of
the policy of the great engines Of intelli-
gence-the great papers-in this country.
and SO far their abuse has had a strong
and quite effective tendency toward in
fuencing people, city people in particu
lar, to believe the demands are wild
and visionary" But now and then some
editor more brave and independent than
his contemporaries boldly comes forward
and tells the truth, and gives his infu-
ence in aiding to wake the city people as
well as the country people up.
The New York Times, The World and
the Atlanta Constitution all have said
that the reformatory demands have not
had fair discussion at the hands of
those editors and papers who have set
their faces against the proposed reforms.
The truth is most of these opposition
papers do not dare to enter into a fair
discussion of what has been proposed by
the Alliance and other reform organiza-
TONS Their whole line of fight has been
confined to abuse and misrepresentation,
and 70 efforts to make it appear that the
organizations proposing and urging the
reforms are breaking and going all to
smash.
But the eye Of intelligence cannot
much longer be prevented from seeing
through the mist of lying and vilifica-
ton spread ont by plutocratic hench-
men and Journals. Thinking men are
putting strong and telling thoughts be-
fore the people through the magazines
of the country, and most of these are
emphatic presentations of what is briefly
and pointedly presented by the following
editorial in the Atlanta Constitution:
1T is all very well to look on the
bright side, and take an optimistic view
of the future, bat the situation promises
no change for the better.
LAS the New York World puts it, the
middle class is struggling vainly against
its fate. Under the present system it is
doomed to death. The pathetic appeals
of the farmers for justice and equity,
the protest of the laboring classes against
the tyranny of capital and the revolt of
every section OF the republic against the
domination Of Wall street show the
threatening nature of the oppression
fastened upon Us by plutocratic rule.
Heretofore the great middle class
has been the hope and mainstay Of our
country. From its ranks have come the
men whose ability, patriotism and clean
methods have given tone TO our society
and strength to our government. The
prosperity of this class was at one time
such potential factor of our civiliza-
zion that Charles Dickens, on his first
visit tc the United States looked about
in vair for beggars and tramps. He
found everybody well fed, well dressed
and comfortably housed.
within the past thirty years new
power has grown up among us, and for
want of better name it is called plu-
tocracy. This power controls our legis-
lation and shapes the destinies of politi-
cal parties. 1t absolutely owns the gov
ernment and inanipulates our financial
system in the interest of Il favored few.
Slowly but surely the middle class is dis
appearing, and we are approaching the