People's party paper. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1891-1898, 1892-08-19

Synopsis Of Address by j. L.. Driscol,
Tuesday Evening, August 16.

TINS Club meets every Tuesday
evening at s O'clock, at No. 81 East
Alabama street, Atlanta, Ga.
The phrase, something better ,
may strike some readers as being new
in American politics, yet it is as old
as the government itself. Hamilton,
the father Of modern republication,
said in 1871, speaking of the consti-
tuition: " 1t Is a shiIly-shally thing,
and only good as a step to something
better" Had the apostle Of central
ization lived to the present time, he
would have seen his dream realized
American manhood shorn of It's proud
prerogatiye; youth stunted and
starved in the midst of plenty, and
helpless millions toiIing increasingly
that the pampered few could loll in
luxurious ease.
The idea of the early plutocrats
was, that money should rule; that
manhood was to be encouraged only
as it advanced the interests of the
moneyed classes; that the constitu-
ton, to use Hamilton's own words,
was only the 9 best thing that could
be extorted from a reluctant nation,
and that III the future the Federal
Government may triumph over the
State Governments and reduce them
to entire subordination." The dem
ocratlc idea, Of which Jefferson was
the exponent, was the very antithesis
of this. The people, accor ding to
this theory, We're best governed who
were least governed; manhood was
something infinitely superior to
money, and that the dream of the
statesman should be to benefit all
the people alike, granting "equal
rights to all, special privileges to
none. "
The great leader of the first great
third party, Thomas Jefferson, with
the honest yeomanry of the country
at his back, triumphed, and the eter-
nal principle Of justice, reigned SUI
preme until the war unhappily placed
the Hamiltonian idea in power.
What was the result, in the South
especially? Circumstances forced all
the white people into the democratic
party, in order to maintain white
supremacy. The democratic party
the grand old party Of LETTERS on
and Jackson; the party of oeQual
rights to all men and special privi-
leges to none became thoroughly
saturated with all the worst features
offederalism, whigism and knownoth-
ingism. The democratic party to-
day, in the South, furnishes as many
defenders of the National Bank rob
berry, of the tariff robbery, of the
manufacturing trusts and monopolies,
of the land robbery, and as many
apologists for the Pinkerton thug
element in expressing the poor man,
as the republican party, which is the
lineal descendant of federalism.
What is the consequence? The
people, who by their bravery tri-
umphed in war over the plutocrats
of England, and by their industry
created the fabulous wealth which is
the envy of the effete monarchies of
Europe, are forced into
-esNoT A REVOLT, BUT A REVOLUTION"
against the power and the encroach-
ments of modern plutocracy more
grinding and oppressive than the
power thrown off 116 years ago
more oppressive because it carries
with it the name of the people.
How are the people met by these
purse proud, plutocratic would-be
masters, when they ask to have their
burdens lightened ? Why, the dem
ocratic masses in the South are met
in the same spirit by their leaders
that the republican masses are met in
at the North by the republican lead
ers. Some, adopting the tone of the
naughty master, say: "Work more
and talk less" Others pooh pooh !
their demands as shams and absurdi-
ties. Others, again, make promises
which they deliberately break, and
laugh at your simplicity for believ-
inc them; while still others say with
a sarcastic leer, 90, you cannot legis-
late a man into affluence; if we give
YOU anarchists all you want, the lazy
and the ignorant would let it slip
through their hands, and they would
soon be as badly off as ever" But
the crowning piece of impudence is
when they tell you that you are
.about to turn the State over to
NEGRO DOMINATION.
1t requires very little effort to an
.swer these assassins of liberty. The
men who wrestcd the State from the
vultures who came to despoil it at
4he close of the war, are not going to
turn it over to a greedier set of vul-
lures in 1892. The government has
been legislating the masses of honest
toilers into poverty, and the pam
II