Mississippi leader. (Jackson, Miss.) 1892-1895, 1892-06-02
HON. E BARKsDALE ON THE FORCE

ure, to the article of Hon. +. Barksdale
on first page. What Major Barksdale
says about the utterances of Alliance
men elsewhere is freely conceded. The
editor of the LEADER and nearly every
other Allianceman, we take it, are OPP
posed to'the Force bill on principle.
If we we're in Convention where an
anti-Force bill resolution was injected
into the platform, as in the Carolinas,
we would vote, without opposition, for
its adoption, as so much surplusage
put in to fill up. The real point of diff
ference therefore, between Major
Barksdale and those who agree with
him, and the LEADER and those who
agree with it, is simply whether the
Force bill is an impending danger
threatening the South which can only
be averted by her peoples remaining
solidly inside the Democratic party
and subordinating financial reform
and every other issue to this. That
is not the intention of the Carolina
Alliancemen Major Barksdale refers
to, as we show in another article.
In citing the action Of the Farmers
Alliance and Industrial Union at Ocala,
Major Barksdale fails to mention two
very important facts which help to
give better appreciation of that ac-
ton: ~ When the resolutions con-
demning the Force bill were adopted
at Ocala, the Force bill was unques-
tionably live issue, being then pend
ing before the Senate; and % that AL
liancemen from the Northwestern
States, many of them Republicans.
united actively with their Southern
Alliance brethren in condemning the
Infamous measure. In fact, it was
this open revolt of Republican Ali
ancemen and farmers in the Northwest
who are sick of sectionalism, that made
the first real impression ON Republi-
can leaders in Congress and caused
extremists like ingalls, to hesitate
and waver in their support of the Force
bill.
Major Barksdale says that the bill
was defeated "by a combination of the
Democrats with half dozen Republi-
can Senators who preferred free silver
coinage to the Force bill"
By the side of that statement we
place what Hon. H. M. Teller, of Colo
RADIO, one of these six Republican Sen
ators, said in a speech in the Senate on
the Goth of last April
Il have read the bill with care and
attention more than 20 times, and |
repeat now that if it we're presented to
me now, with the alternative of party
support or party dismissal, / should
not vote for the bill. But |
want to say here and now that my at
titude on that bill had no relation, no
connection, directly, remotely or other
wise, with the question of silver. There
is not member who stood with me on
the silver question who will not bear
me out when say that the statement
that we contracted with Senators on
the other side of the chamber for their
support of the free coinage bill on the
promise that we would vote against the
Force bill, is absolutely untrue and
without the slightest foundation.
If that story had not been repeated
dd ndusedm would not addswhat now
add only repeat what the late distin-
guished Senator from Kansas Mr..
Plumb, another of the six who voted
with the Democrats) did say in this
Senate, that the opponents of silver in
this chamber entered into negotiations
with Senators on the other side of the
chamber and proposed to them that if
they would side-track free coinage, the
others would side-track the elections
bill The late lamented Senator from
Kansas made that statement"
Here in Senator Plumbs statement
we have the true inwardness of the
Force bill agitation by the Republican
leaders. 1t is to divert attention from
other issues and prevent financial,
tariff and all other reforms by keeping
the minds of the people off of these
questions. Every Republican politi-
clan and monopolist in the country
from Mr.. Harrison down, with any po-
litical shrewdness, wants to keep the
South solidly Democratic, because they
believe a solid Democratic South
insures a solid Republican North and
their perpetuation in power. Unfor-
tunately we have in the South lot of
spit fires, sectional agitators and politi-
cal Office-holders who would be with
out job if real live issue were to
come along, who play into the Repub-
icans' hands and furnish capital for
their use at the North. If the Nation
al Republican Convention declares for
the Force bill, as predicted by Major
Barksdale, it will be simply to use it as
red flag to flaunt in the faces of the
sectional bulls of the South, and with
no real intention expectation of ever
passing it.
The people of both sections, fortu-
nately, are catching ON to the tricks of
the politicians. Even the negroes of
the South have learned something since
Reconstruction times. One of these is.
that the white men of the South, even
though they may differ and divide, are
going to rule this country politically,
at all hazards Another is, that it does
not matter whether the Democrats or
some other party elects the President,