The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1892-04-19
AWAKE AT LAST.

1t looks like some of the editors and
politicians have been asleep for five
years. We see evidences of this every
day. They don't seem to realize that
a revolution has been going on; that
that sentiment has been reversed.
Most of their time has been put in ridi-
culing the voice of the people as re-
fected through reform papers and
speakers. Old leaders imagine that
they are leaders still. The fact of the
business is that the people are leading
themselves. Reform papers and orators
have been accused time and again of
leading the people away from the old
regime. There eve was a greater
mistake. The reform papers and ora
tors have been putting on the brakes
all the time.
We do not entirely endorse the
editorial below, clipped from the At
lanta Constitution, but it is very good,
and shows that one poor mortal has
seen the first glimmer of light in the
east:
The editors and politicians who &C
eept the gossip of their small circles in
cities and to Wns as rejecting the senti
ment Of the country at large run the
risk of making a serious mistake.
For some time past a campaign of
education has been in progress among
the masses. 1t matters not how it
started Oh who started 1.-THE fact Is
all that need concern us now. The
campaign was originally intended to
instruct the people in certain economic
questions, but the result of hat in
struction has been to fire the popular
heart and precipitate a crusade of the
masses against the classes.
Whether you find the tOiIers and pro
ducers of the country leagued together
in labor societies, in a third party, or
in the great body of the democracy you
will find them animated by the same
spirit, and demanding the redress of
substantially the same grievances
If these legIOns and hosts of voters
have not reached the point where there
IS unity OF action, they have certainly
reached the point where there is unity
of thought
Now, what mysterious power or
agency has brought these millions of
citizens together? How is it that the
masses Of the far South and the masses
of the far Northwest think in concert,
express the same ideas, denOunce the
same evils and demand the same re-
forms? This tremendous epoch in our
social and political history is not the
work of party leaders; it is here in
spite Of them. Nor is it the result of
dambOyant stump Oratory, for there
has been very little Of it thus far.
There is only n explanation Of this
rapid spread Of the facts, thoughts and
opinions which are now clamOring to
be heard. The press has been utilized
to the utmost by the refOrmers-by the
people themselveS-and it has already
wrought a revolution in American
thought. The flood of cheap reform
papers, pamphlets and books seen in
the early stages of the French revOlu
ton has been paralelled here within the
papers circulate hundreds of thousands
of copies. Pamphlets and tracts on
economic subjects deluge the land at
one or two cents each. Novels dealing
with the labor question are sold every
where. Eloquent and fiery books like
1.-THE Coming Climax" retail at only
fifty cents, half the usual price of such
volumes. One publishing house in the
North advertises over two hundred
popular works On the economic ques-
tions of the hour.
One thing is evident-all these pub
LEGATIONS would not be in the market if
they did not find readers and plenty of
them. They are read and passed from
hand to hand on the prairies of Ne
braska and Texas, from farm house to
farm house in the South Atlantic States,
and from cottage to cottage among the
workingmen of our cities.
But the dignified party leader, the
complacent party journalist and the
well to do business man will say that
they have never seen these printed
sheets and boOks-never even heard of
them. All the worse for you then
You ARE bfindly drifting to the point
where you and the people will part
company. You have planned your
work under the conditions of the past.
and consciously or unconsciously YOU
are on theside of the privileged classes.
The peOple-yOur old followers-have
emerged from their quiet campaign of
education with the determination to
? take control of the government and
reform the whole unjust and dishonest
business of our financial and tariff sys
TENS. When the people are in this
mood what is to prevent them from
having their own way thrOugh'the law.