The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1892-07-23
mo. 81.

sing of Almighty God puts forth
| in the name and on behalf OF the
people of this country the follow
ing preamble and declaration OF
principles:
The conditions which surround
us best justify our cooperation.
We meet in the midst of a nation
brought to the verge of moral
political and material ruin. Cor
ruption dominates the ballot box,
the Legislatures, the Congress, and
touches even the ermine of the
bench. The people are demoralized;
most of the States have been COM
PEELED to isolate the voters at the
polling places to prevent universal
intimidation or bribery. The news
papers are largely subsidized or
muzsled, public opinion silenced,
business FRUSTRATED, our homes COW
erd with mortgages, labor impover-
ished, and the land concentrating
in the hands of capitalists.
The urban workmen are denied
the right of organization for self
protection; imported, pauperized
labor beats down their wages;
hireling standing army, unrecogni-
zed by our laws is established to
shoot them down, and they are rap
idly degenerating into European
conditions. The fruits of the toll
of millions are boldly stolen to
build up colossal fortunes for
few, unprecedented in the history
of mankind, and the posessors of
these, in turn, despise the republic
and endanger liberty. From the
same prolific womb of government
al injustice we become the two
great classes = tramps and Million
aires.
"The national power to create
money is appropriated to enrich
bondholders; a vast public debt,
payable in legal tender currency,
has been funded into gold-bearipg
bonds, thereby adding millions to
the burdens of the people.
Silver, which has been accepted
as coin since the dawn of history,
has been demonetized to add to the
purchasing power of gold by de-
creasing the value of all forms of
property, as well as human labor,
and the supply of currency is pur-
posely abridged to fatten Insurer
bankers, by the slave industry.
! A vast conspiracy against man.
kind has been organized in two
continents and it is rapidly taking
possession of the world. IF not
overthrown at once it forebodes
terrible social commissions, the de-
structlon of civilization and the es-
adjustment of absolute depotism.
We have Witnessed for more than
a quarter of a century the strug-
giles of the two great political par
ties for power and plumber, while
grevious wrongs have been inflict-
ed upon the suffering people. We
charge that the controlling infiu-
ences dominating both these par
ties have permitted the existing
dreadful conditions to develop
without serious effort to prevent
or restrain them. Neither do they
now promise us any subtantial re-
form. They have agreed togeth-
er to ignore every issue in the
campaign but one. They propose
to drown the outcries of plumber
ed people with the uproar of q
sham battle over the tariff, SO that
capitalists, corporations, national
banks, rings, trusts, watered stock.
the demonstration of silver and
the oppression of the usurers may
all be lost sight Of. They propose
to sacrifice our homes, wives and
children on the altar of mammon;
Ito destroy the multitude in order
ID secure corruption funds from
tBe millionaires.
tAssembled at the anniversary of
the birthday of the nation, filed
with the spirit OF the grand gener-
Iation which established our indie
pendence, we seek to restore the
government of the republic to the
hands of the plain people" with
whose class it originated.
We assert our purpose to be
identical with the purposes of the
national constitution, to form a
more perfect union; to establish
justice, insure domestic tranquil
II y, provide for the common de-