Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1892-03-21
GO TO THE CITIES, CRY ALOUD,
Turn Texas Loose-And the Battle-Cry Painted
On Blue Ribbons, Haunted
Without Shame on Texas SeTl-Liks =
Roman Consul, Drawn by White
Horses He Rode, While the Peo-
pie Walked Like Slaves.
Hon. a. w. rerrelps speech.

ton, and in criticism of Judge Clark's can
didacy. He was heartily applauded ut
every one of the many telling points of his
address, which was in full as follows:
FELLOW CITIZENs-Now when agricul-
tural people are busy preparing for their
crops, and before the trees have fairly
budded, campaign for governor has been
opened by speech-making In our cities, and
the daily press, which should have rebuked
this indecent haste, is rendering aid both
to the candidate and his methods. New
York ring-masterS are initiated in Texas
and while your legislature and governor
are confined at the capital, both are being
abused by a political Messiah, who accord
ing to his own testimony. has been appealed
to by multitudeS for the salvation OF IeXaS.
Never before has n canvass opened so
soon. The support given by the great daily
papers of the state to this candidate for
governor. who is now roaming from one
city to another, is their business, not mine,
nor am here to arraign their motives, or
question the influences that move them
When received your written request to
address you on this condition of affairs / at
first hesitated. for l will not ask nor do
expect any Office in this canvass; but the
times are out of joint, and your request TO
speak after your uniform support given me
in every aspiration for more than quarter
of a century, came to me with the force or
a command. If some rays of light can now
be shed on a conspiracy of the money power
to capture the political machinery
of the state and place under the heels of
corporate power, the reflection that good
has been done will be an ample reward.
FINANCIAL CRISIS.
The people of every Southern state are
passing through a financial crisis; the
times are suspicious for political quackS
and nostrums. Let US therefore pause for
a moment and explore the situation. Be-
fore your legislature of the past year had
considered a single law, the world was
startled by the news that the strongest
banking house of England, operated by
Barring brothers, was threatened with
bankruptcy. English capital had invested
in the worthless securities < the Argentine
Republic and South American states, to the
extent of over $500, 600, 900, and was floating
on a bubble. If the Barring brothers
failed, universal bankruptcy would follow.
and So for the first time in the history OF
the world, the Bank of England, without
waiting for the action of parliament, or its
stockholders, came to the rescue of private
bankers and guaranteed the payment OF
their debts for over $3.50, O00, 900. But its
guarantee was limited. The news of this
danger fell like an electric shock on ting
financial circles of the world. Capital
grew timid. and British gold was ordered
home from America. That gold had been
buying up American industries. The coal
fields OF Pennsylvania, and its iron forges-'
the paper mills, nail factories, cotton
mills-and all our industries were being
rapidly bought up by English money and
consolidated in trusts. You will remember
how it was published that even the slaugh-
ter house monopoly OF Chicago and the
mills of Minneapolis and St. Paul were
about to pass 20 English hands. All this
suddenly ceased and why! Financial conf
dence was rudely shakened by the threat
ened failure of the Earrings and
England needed all her capital. Her
United States securities, railway bonds and
stocks, mortgages, and the like, were
thrown on the New York market and con-
verted into gold, until over seventy mil
lion, not in checks, but hard gold, was
drained in a few months from our great
money centers and returned to Great Brit
am. Now, mark you, the New York pa
pers announced that foreign loan companies
had ceased their loans and even In Texas
no county record will show one single large
loan of money from the hour when the fall-
ure of Barring brothers was announced and
that drain of gold began. Our own banks
began to strengthen their reserves. call IN
their loans, and prepare for crash. All
this was weeks before any important law
was passed by the legislature.
MONEY PRovERBIALLY TINiID,
refused to circulate-confidence shaken
and though we escaped crash, trade was
paralyzed, speculation ceased, and the
debtor class began to suffer with financial
grippe"
PEOPLE USPREPARED.
Never in our history did a threatened
crisis find the American people so UMPIRE
pared, for wild speculations were on foot
everywhere Every city was booming, short
cuts to fortune by constructing belt lines,
electric roads, and the like, tempted the
people of every city in Texas. Farm lanes
were cut up in town lots and parks and
pleasure grounds were laid of where the
plow should have been cultivating grain.
Thus imprudent debts oppressed the Specu-
lative classes in cities and towns. ana when
PAYDAY came, the banks though gorged
with money, refused to lend Then our
specializing friends thought some
body had blundered." No gentle
man who wanted to get rich on other
peoples money ever dreamed that ne him
self was the blunderer. Youmay talk about
hard times, and the stagnatiOn Of business,
caused by statute law; but the curse that
follows wild speculation and inflated credit,
when the day of settlement finds people
unprepared and in debt, after the Ouooio
has burst, is a curse Of our own creation,
which has its root in the avarice OF man,
more than in written laws. In this crisis even
the blessing of full harvest was delusiTe,
for we had made 100000 bales of cotton
more than the spindles of the world could
spin, and cotton fell to 81 cents for the
| first time in forty years. When in trouble,
we love to blame every DOdy Out ourselves.
A sCAPEGoAT FOUND.
A scapegoat was needed for the sins Of
| our speculative Israel. The Texas legisla-
| ture. and our railway commission, would
| lust i'll the bill They had long pestered
| the railway magicians of Wall street, and
| Texas. who had once made that class rich
with her vast domain, was now in the en-
brace of protecting laws TO guard her peo-
pie from their plundering. Oh! If she
| could only be released once again TO pay
/ tribute in freight rates to those kings OF the
! highway, with no power to curb their
! aTaricei And SO they whispered to their
! chosen lobbyist and attorney, ''The people
| are plowing; go forth to the cities, and cry
! aloud: Turn Texas loose" He obeyed,
| and in cities loaded with debt, little army
| of unfortunates printed this battle cry on
| blue ribbons and without shame, faunted
| them on Texas soil, in the sunlight Of
| heaven. If we can believe the press, in
| one city their champion, like Roman COT
! sui. returning in triumph, was conveyed in
| a chariot drawn by white horses, while
| ex-railway presidents, bank officers and
| real estate spectators, like Gallo slaves,
| walked on foot behind him. He who had
posed in the newspapers two years ago as