Mexico weekly ledger. (Mexico, Mo.) 1855-1956, 1892-05-12
MEXICO, MISSOURI, THURSDAY, NAY -, 1892

l y
into the finest buggy in the State
Chad there been: buggies then)
and rode alone with any man on
earth except a near relative until II
O'Clock at night2 No, | don't think
you would. Did You spend half of
your time hunting up some girl or
hired help who had left you? Was
your principal talk on the very i'm
portant subject of hired help and
how to treat, please and keep them,
or, to come down to the truth of it.,
didn't you do most of the work in
the house yourself and chubby" do
the same out doors in town and in
the country. You made your own
soft soap and he sheared his own
sheep and fought green-heads by
day and plowed his patch of corn
by night or before breakfast and
after supper; and that cradle-blade
that you stuck into the golden
grain at dewy morn, as you led the
crowd, you called it your "sweet
Betsy" as the merry harvest song
and shout went round. Do you re-
member all that? You hadn't
mortgaged your farm then, or you
of the city your home to buy areap-
er, a carriage, piano, or silks or
diamonds. You had not heard of a
government pension then, nor had
the party been born that would pen
sion everything from a son of a
veteran on land to powder monkey
on the sea; and that has opened up
a fiood-gate through which millions
of your money pours out annually to
feed men whose bodies bear no
marks of musket shot or shell or
saber stroke, whose sinewy arm
daily weilds the sledge or drives the
drill or binds the ripened grain and
feeds it to the thresher. All honor
and commiseration for the soldier
who fought and fell bleeding for the
Union. If he lives, he deserves a
pension and as gladly do we give it
to him as he does his generous con-
tribution to our Confederate Home
at Higginsville.
Had any of you ever seen or
heard of a tramp before the war,
that vast army of which has invaded
our Western homes like the frogs
and lice of Egypt, since this bond
making, tariff-taking rich mans
party came into power? Did a
one of them come off the farm?
No; they came from the loom
rooms, machine-shops and foun-
dries of these protected Eastern
monoplies, which the more they are
protected the less they protect and
pay their over-worked employees.
To-day the very ground cries out
and tells us that non-taxable bonds,
non-tax-paying citizens in town and
country, pensions upon pensions,
land grabs and gifts and, more than
all, a. strained and over-burdened
credit has caused our trouble. Many,
if not all, forsook their frugal habits
before they could afford it. Should
the privations of those early times
be brought back to you and to me?
By no means, if we are able to live
without them. If not able, we
should not blame the Democratic
party who, but for a short term, has
had to do with controlling the nation
and relieving our burdens. To-day
there is many man riding in a
carriage, dressed in broadcloth, with
brussels carpets on his floor, lace
curtains at his windows, diamonds
flashing from a necklace: or pearls
around the beautiful neck of his
daughter, who owes for every dol
lar of it. The pretty little miss
turns up her Grecian nose at any
thing short of a four dollar kid boot
for her little feet when her mother
or grandmother wore whole-stock
Hemlock OR oak-tanned calf. But
I must not invade the realm of
domestic economy, but there, right
there, is where the trouble lies. /
could not do it justice on ream OF
paper. But in short, for certain
and speedy relief, vote the Demo-
cratic ticket, live within your in
come; vote for men of principle and
ability; vote for that party which
has given you the only reduction
in state taxes since the war, for that
party which gave the government
her glory and her credit among the
nations of the earth. If it is to make
and save money that we live for,
practice the same rigid economy in
the future that we did fifty years
ago and we can soon all own farms
and homes and there will not be one
mortgage recorded where we have
dozen now. What we have said
of extravaganza and the need of
common sense and economy applies
as well to the town man or woman
as it does to the country and, per-
haps, more so. Less politics and
more patriotism, less tattling and
more toiling, fewer parties and more
principles. Do your duty at home
and at the polls and the Democratic
party and Grover Cleveland will de-