Mississippi leader. (Jackson, Miss.) 1892-1895, 1892-08-18
THE DAMASCUS RALLY.
A Copiah "Red Neck" who Was There
Tells what Was Said and Done.

toptah "Hed Neck VINO WIS Ahere
Tell. what Was Said and Done.
Editor Mississippi Leader;
The great day at Damascus has come
and gone. / sat at the potentous feet of
Private John Allen, and heard him pour
ont his nonsense for one hour and ahalf
| must say that was not mistaken in
the Private. Ihad sized him up long
before heard him. There is nothing
in his speeches but lot of funny an
ecdotes. ! have great sympathy for
the men whose votes such stuff can
catch. And above all the men of sense
that believe that such stuff can catch
the average farmer Of to-day who reads
reform literature.
The Hon. George S. Dodds made a
speech in advocacy OF his candidacy, of
about ID or 20 minutes. In that length
of time he said more solid things than
the Private John Allen said In his
whole speech. That awful nightmare
which disturbs all the Democratic
speakers, Is the Force bill. l do won
der if they are sincere in what they
say in regard to the Force bill-do they
honestly believe it! We know that
men can believe any thing they want
to believe Who defeated the Force
bill! A Republican Senate. Who passed
the Silver billY A Republican Senate.
Now what did the Democrats do In the
lower house Of Congress with a major
ity of 148, with the Alliance and the
free silver Republicans to help them!
Did they tackle the McKinly tariff billi
Did they pass the free coinage silver
bill? To use one OF Private John Al
| lens anecdotes, there we're too many
of the Democrats riding Private Johns
mustang setter, the plutocracy Of the
Eastern States II You Western and
Southern Democrats vote for the bill
then you will fail in electing your Pres
ident because you will drive the East
ern Democrats off.
! Now they tell us, oh the tariff Is the
mother Of all the evils that we have to
dread. Will they please tell US how we
will be benefited by anything they can
do, or in other words will do, with the
same Eastern Democrats and Louisiana
with her 2per cent. bounty on sugar !
Can it be possible that any farmer Of
good sense or laboring man can be
made to believe such stuff? | can't
believe it nor will until | see how they
vote next November.
The last speech was from the silver
tongued orator, Hon. Charles Edwin
Hooker, who said it was purely acct
dental that he was there. He, too, sang
the old old song of the Force bill, with
all of it's horrors. Then he told us
about the unconstitutionality of the
sub Treasury bill-that the govern
ment had no power to loan money
to individuals, the next thing on
docket was Gen. James B. Weaver s
political record. The Colonel stated
that Gen. Weaver had been every thing
forgetting to tell that their nominee
for President had been a green
hacker right side by side with Gen.
Weaver. He had Weaver's speeches
before Congress, showing Weaver's
hatred toward the South. l never
heard a greater effort to stir up sec
tional feelings. Oh, how did want Ii
or 20 minutes to expose such demaguery
in its true light. The very thing they
claim Is most dangerous Of all is the
Force bill. Then to want to perpetu-
ate solid South against q solid North.
l claim that the Peoples party is the
only national party; that it is the only
party that can bury sectionalism with
the North and South.
would guess that there were some
where about $500 persons on the
grounds. Over half of the crowd from
the county belonged to the Peoples
party. / heard d. M. Miller say the
excursion train from the South had $50
persons. l never heard how many
came down the road. saw persons
from Port Gibson and Westville. Every
body and their wives, children, clerks
and negroes from all the railroad towns
were there. There we're, l suppose,
about half enough provisions on the
ground to feed the people. Ii the vot-
ing on the Democratic side should turn
out to be as short in November as their
feeding was on this big day, the votes
will not go half way round which l
candidly believe will be the case. A
word of caution. We have some among
us who know very little about politi-
cal tactics. Let me say to such that
whenever they hear the opposition
pitching into men that belong to the
Peoples party they may know that the
opposition believe such men to be a
power in the Peoples party, and are
only firing on them to try to make their
own friends lose confidence in them.
l could cite case where Democrat
confessed as much when he was called
to taw by Peoples party man for
slandering him.
| There was no invitation to any one
to speak from the Peoples party on the
day of the speaking, so we heard moth
ing only from the Democratic side.
There were very few Of the Peoples
party out, and Damascus is the strong
hold of the P. P.
| Fan prAy