The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1893-07-22
The Present Crises.

me x10000t CE1S08s
The United States is on the eve
of the greatest congressional strug-
gle that has been witnessed since
the founding of our Government.
The emergency is far greater than
that of 1851. The cause of COM
plant is more general and affects
more people and of a greater intelli-
gence than that of our civil war.
Liberty and freedom has been the
foundation of our two great wars,
and now it threatens to irstigate a
third. In 1776, then only few de-
pendent colonies containing barely
3, 100000 of people, our forefathers
fought to free themselves from the
bondage of a despotic and aristo-
cratic Government; in 1861 we
fought to free a handful of ignor-
ant, uncongenial negroes who were
held as slaves in section of our
country, and the blood of the good
American people, on both sides,
spilled in that great war, has not
yet been attoned for by any acts
or benfits received of this emanci-
pated race, either socially, morally,
or otherwise. Liberty and freedom
has been our boast, and those very
states whose puritanical ideas
forced the issue in our civil wsr,
are to-day trying to force millions
more of intelligent white people
into industrial bondage than there
were of those whom they assisted
in freeing.
The contest to open in Congress
on the. 7th of next month affects
the whole people, and is a contest
for freedom again. Every produ-
Ger and laboring man in the United
States is effected by the present
emergency. The few plutocrats,
by the power of their money, are
trying to destroy one-half Of our
money of final redemption-the
peoples money-silver.
This will be a legislative battle
and the people will win it if their
representatives do not lose their in
tegrity; but there is growing SEN
timent among our people of mis-
trust in their public servants, and
should they misrepresent the senti-
ments of their constituents it may
precipitate bloodshed. Not that
there is any danger Of a civil war,
but few hot heads may take the
law in their own hands and punish
few traitors summary. Such
action as this would be just les
son that could not be melted out
by the process of law.
The people have already won
this battle at the ballot-box, and
now, should they lose it by the
faithlessness of few of their repre-
sentatives, who have been cor
rupted by gold or the patronage
of the President, they will have just
cause to commit some overt act,
and not only should the traitor be
punished, but those who corrupted
him. The dissolution of Govern
ment cannot for moment be
thought of, but its enemies must be
punished, and those who defeat the
will of the people, as expressed at
the ballot-box, are its worst ones.
The people of Idaho are for the
Union and the Constitution first,
last, and all the time, and they
stand ready to assist preserving
them by force of arms, if necessary,
and this present attempt of the
gold-bugs of this and foreign coun-
tries, to deprive us of the money of
our Constitution should be met
with the musket, if our majority at
the ballot-box fail us through the
perfdy of our public servants, but
under all circumstances the Union
must be kept insoluble.