Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1893-03-16
ARP,S REGULAR CHAT.
He Thinks Everything is Looking
Lovely Now.
ATLANTA Constitution, March l2.l

Inc spring Is 1alrly upon US, dhu ~ Il
really the birth of a new year. The
sweet odor of violets is in the air aud the
alder tags are blooming in the glades'
The robins are bobbing around and the
setting hen comes clucking from hel
nest. Fire is on the mountains, and the
busy farmers are burning brush and
clearing up the fence rows, or hauling
guano to make the biggest crop of cotton
the world ever saw. That is what they
told me in North Carolina, and I reckon
it is so all over the cotton belt. The poet
say. "Whatever is right" and so we will
have to be reconcilcd and let the farm.
ers do just as they please and take the
consequences. In fact, it is risky and
impertinent to advise man about his
business. But editors will do it, and
heard farmer tell one not long ago that
lie could run better newspaper if he
would give it more attention and give the
farmers less advice. Well, it stands to
reason that a man who has been farming
all his life knows more about it than a
town-raised editor who never farmed a
day.
The farmers are in earnest now. Poll
tics has settled down in the old ruts.
The Ocala platform is dead and buried.
and all the vain hopes that inspired ii
have vanished away. Just as the forty
acres and mule" played out with the
darkey, so have all the expectations Of
some big thing from the government
played out with the Peoples Party. II
was delusion and snare, and nobody
but a few politicians profited by it. II
is at last an admitted fact that the farm.
ers must depend on themselves and moi
on the government Paternalism is the
curse of State or a nation. and am
glad to see that Mr.. Cleveland is going t.
put his foot down apon it. Protection
for projections sake must so. We want
no more infant industries. They must
start full grown and compete with the
world. This pension outrage must be
reformed, for it grows bigger as the years
roll on. 1t is the politicians hobby, and
he rides on it into Office. Over eigh,
hundred thousand are now on the rolls
and not one-fourth of them ever saw q
battlefield. is nothing but paternal-
ism. and it has gotten 10 be an epidemic
Most everybody wants some help from
the government, and if they can't get II
one way they will another. Our revolu'
tionary fathers, who were wounded ano
disabled, drew pensions, but, in course
Of time, they died and the pension stop
ped, but now the pension keeps running
on and spreading out to widows and chill
dren and grandchildren, and most o!
them are to foreigners who fought fol
the money that was in it and nothing
else. Just go into the national cemetery
at Chattanooga, and see the names or
the headstones, and you can't pronounce
half of them without corkscrew. For the
honest, patriotic soldier we have the pro
foundest respect, but we rebels kno"
something about the foreign hirelings We
had to fight the last two years of the
war.
Paternalism is run mad. One hundred
and eighty millions Of pensions is NOR
than the government can stand. The
nation has put Mr. Cleveland there &c
reform. and we believe he will do IL. Inc
salaries of the government officials are
too large. Millions could be saved by
healthy reduction. and then there wonio
not be so many ofice-seekers. How is il
that our Governor and our Supreme Court
Judges get only about half AS much as
United States Marshal or Clerk of
United States District Court? How is i
that a little post Office like CarterSvilit
paws $1,000, when there are ten men ant
twenty women who would take 1t fol
81 900?
Let US get back to the economy OF oui
fathers, and then the duties on the neces
saries of life can be taken off, ard th'
common people can get their shoes ant
blankets cheaper. Washington is callet
the father of his coun.-y, and now W.
want Mr.. Cleveland to f...he1 the coun
,ry some. too, besides little kith, ant
take the burdens off the people. That L
all the patcrnalism we ask fora clear
and honest administration. Kill th'
monopolies and the trusts. Let Hawa,
alone and the Nicaragua canal and every
thing else that calls for more money ant
more taxes Don't fret so much aoou
the money or the SC ae between golt
and silver; it is dong very we'll. / once
was young and now am old, but l hav'
never seen the time that there WASH
enough money in town to pay for every
thing the people had to sell. farme'
for eleven years, and my corn brouSh
me 80 cents bushel for every crop. l
isn't the kind of money, whether gold o
silver or paper. that concerns US, but
is the solvency and honesty of the banks
for 95 per cent of all the business Is don
by checks and deposits. There ar
enough dollars and dimes to do all tn
rest. Who ever sees a piece OF sol'
coin? Who ever looks at national banl
bill to see what bank issued 1t? The
are all good, from Maine to California
In my opinion, the world has no bette
currency, and / dread to see the da
when any man or set of men can issu
their own bills and foist them upon tn
country-we have tried that and suffered
Let well enough alone. What old Geo1
cian does not recall the failures Of Geor
gia banks in the anet-bellum days-ro
only the wildcat banks that werelntende
to fail, but good banks that failed throug
! great financial revulSions? There wer
failures at Macon, and Columbus, an
st. Mary's, and Rome, and Ringgold, an
Atlanta, and many of us have got relic
hid away that We sometimes look at an
(! lament. l know one man who has
package of $1,000 of Ringgold none
that broke before the war. 1t is tn
common people who suffer from spuriou
money; the smart, swrewd traders sc
rid of theirs before the collapse comes.
Now let us all GO slow. Mr.. Clcve
lands election does not mean bonanz
to anybody, but it does mean honesty Q
administration If II is possible for hiI