The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1892-04-12
THE NEW
Bits Of History Showing that Other
Babes Have Been Born.

Bits of History Showing that Other
Babes Have Been Born.
The shades of night were falling fast.
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth. who bore, mid snow and ice.
banner with this strange device,
Excelsior"
A writer in the Murfreesboro Inde9.
in it's last issue, speaks fearingly and
mOckingly of the political babe which
was recently born in the city Of ST.
Louis. The writer is an Allianceman.
His communication was predicated
upon lecture delivered in secret ses
sion before his Alliance. We leave
him to the consideration of his solemn
pledges. The position of a lecturer ID
not an enviable one. He has great
labor 10 perform. He has to combat
ignorance, stimulate sluggish indiffer-
ence. awaken thought and awaken a
manly independence. Connected with
his Office is no salary. 1t is hard to
bear the abuse of brethren, much
harder to have his private lectures
spread upon the pages of the partisan
press. It becomes harder still to bear,
when the reporter has to call in legal
advice to assist him in the presentation
of his case.
Now let us talk a little about this
baby. The quoted writer dubs it ille-
ultimate, the offspring Of sailors,
weavers, mechanics, miners, farmers
or Alliancemen," and l suppose he
might have added of other persons of
low degree. He, in language chaste
and beautiful, cautions all and sundry
against the adoption of the abortion
and advises it to be left to the pitiless
mercy of serene contempt. Perhaps a
foU hits Of history might furnish this
good brother crumbs of comfort. A
few extracts about other stockings"
born in times of revolution and danger,
will perhaps give HIM interesting read
ing. Well, as l am no historian I will
read him from the register of history
only a few births, similar to this
"suckling."
In the English revolution a little
babe was born, which kings and lords
and divine policyholders nicknamed
Puritanism and crop ears. Hudibras
is quite witty about its Outlandish
pranks, its strange, ugly features, its
uncouth prattlings. Statesmen ad,
vised it's strangulation, Kings, like
Herod of old, sought it's death wen in
the cradle. And yet it survives king
ly vengeance, the onslaught of battle,
storm and siege and a political revolu-
ton. 1t grew and fourished and in
due time became a man and the father
of such nObodies as John Milton, Ham
den, Monk, Ireton and Oliver Crom-
well. The "suckling" beheaded
Charles l. and exiled James II, of Eng
land. Macauley, the brilliant, has
written its epitaph in language a trif1e
more sonorous and sublime than that
employed by the writer who predicts
the death of the st. Louis sucking"
The gifted essayist writes that its birth
was England's salvation. In 1892 yet
another of these political abortions was
born in Paris, Many awful scenes pre-.
ceded and foretold It's birth. The wise
and courtly savans nicknamed it Jaco-
bin. The aristocrats and p1ut6crats
called the grimy little fellow Sans C6Q.
ottism. And yet the baby lived even
in the maelstrom Of a seething civil
war, waxed rapidly strong. Even
when in swaddling clothes it pro-
nounced the doom of Bourbonism and
changed the land of it's nativity from
despotism to republicanism. There
was another of these little fellows born
way back in the dim and misty past,
which even when in it's cradle throttled
a mighty big snake that had craWled
to take q peep at its opening eyes, and
lived to do 4 good thing to purify the
atmosphere of it's native land. It
cleaned out the augean stables Of politi-
cal corruption.
A great many little ones are killed
by kindness, pampering and overfeed-
ing. The child of royal birth, clad in
siIken robes, is often a weakling, while
that of the peasant often thrives and
grows fat on coarse fare and rough
treatment. The Inder reporter says
this baby is the offspring Of sailors,
weavers, miners, farmers and sich like
gentry, and therefore illegitimate. Jay
Gould was not at its baptismal fount,
and therefore it has not received the
f Blame did not 0tc oficiste p at its birth, and
needing the covering Of his reciprocity
blanket, lined on one side with soft fur
for manufactured babes and on the
other with coarse hair for the ilegiti-