The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1892-09-06


riches dishonest officials, and bank
rupts honest merchants. We demand
that all custom house taxation should
be only for revenue.
Reform is necessary in the scale of
public xpense-F'ederal, State and
municipal Our federal taxation has
swollen from sixty millions gold, IN
1860, to seven hundred and thirty mil
lions currency, in 1890; or, in one dec
ade from less than five dollars per head
to more than eighteen dollars per head.
Since the peace, the people have paid
to their tax gatherers more than thrice
the sum of the national debt and more
than twice that sum for the Federal
Government alone. We demand a
rigorous frugality in every department
and from every officer of the govern
ment
Reform is necessary to put stop to
the prOfigate waste of public lands,
and their diversion from actual settlers,
by the party in power, which has
squandered 200, 900, 600 of acres upon
railroads alone, and, out of more than
thrice that aggregate, has disposed of
less than sixth directly to tillers of
the soil.
Reform il necessary to correct the
and the errors of our treaties and our
diplomacy which have stripped our
fellow citizens of foreign birth and
kindred race, re-crossing the Atlantic,
of the shield of American citizenship.
and have exposed our brethren of the
Pacific coast to the incursions of a race
not sprung from the same great patent
stock, and in fact now, by law, denied
citizenship through naturalization, as
being neither accustomed to the ira
ditiOrs Of progressive citizenship nor
exercised in liberty under equal laws
We denounce the policy which thus
discards the iberty-lOving German
and tOlerates revival Of cOOlie trade
in MOngOli&n women, imported for i'm
moral purposes, and MOngOlian men,
held to perfor N servile labor contracts,
and demand such modification of the
treaty with the Chinese Empire, or
such legislation within constitutional
limitations, as shall prevent further
importation or immigration of the
MOngOlian race.
Reform is necessary and can never
be effected but by making it the con
trolling issue of the elections, and lift
ing it above the two false issues with
which the office holding class and the
party in power seek to smother it.
l. The false issue with which they
would enkindle sectarian strife in re-
spect to the public schools of which
the establishment and support belongs
exclusively to the several States, and
which the Democratic party has
cherished from their foundation, t,ild
is resolved to maintain, without preiu-
dice or preference for any class, sect,
or creed, and without largesses from
the treasury to any.
2. The false issue by which they seek
to light anew the dying embers of sec
tional hate between kindred peoples
once estranged, but now reunited in
one indivisible Republic and com
mon destiny.
Reform is necessary in the civil ser
vice Experience proves that efficient,
economical conduct of the govern
mental business is not possible if its
civil service be subject to change at
every election, be prize fought for at
the ballot-box, be brief reward Of
party zeal, instead Of posts of honor
assigned for proved competency, and
held for fidelity in the public employ;
that the dispensing of patronage should
neither be a tax upon the time of all
our public men, nor the instrument of
their ambition. Here, again, promises,
falsified in the performance, attest that
the party in power can work out no
practical or salutary reform.
Reform is necessary, even more, in
the higher grades of the public service.
President, Vice-President, Judges,
Senators, Representatives, Cabinet
officers-these, and all other in autor-
ity-are the peoples servants. Their
offices are not a private peTquisite;
they are public trust. When the an
nals--of this Republic show the disgrace
and censure of a Vice-President; a
late Speaker of the House of Represen-
tatives marketing his rulings as a pre-
siding officer; three Senators profiting
secretly by their votes as law makers;
five chairmen of the leading commit
tees of the late House of Representa-
tives exposed in jobbery, late Secre-
tary of the Treasury forcing balances
in the public accounts "a late Attorney
Geoeral misappropriating public funds;
a Secretary of the Navy enriched, or
enriching friends, by percentages
levied off the profits of the contractors
with his departments; an Ambassador
to England concerned in dishonOrable
speculation; the Presidents private
secretary barely escaping conviction
upon trial for guilty completely in
frauds upon the revenue; Secretary
of War impeached for high crimes and
misdemeanors- demonstration is
complete, that the first step in reform
must be the peoples choice of honest
men from another party, lest the dis
ease of one political organization infect
the body polite, and lest by making
no change of men or parties we get
no change of measures and no real re-
form.
All these abuses, wrongs and crimes
the product of sixteen years ascend
ency Of the Republican party create
necessity for reform, confessed by