The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1893-03-22
ARp'S REGULAR CHAT.
He Thinks Everything Is Looking Lovely
Now.
atlanta Constitution.

The spring is fairly upon us, ana IL Is
really the birth of new year. The sweet
odor of violets is in the air and the alder
tags are blooming in the glades. The
robins are bobbing around and the set
ting hen comes clucking from her nest.
Fire is on the mountains, and the busy
farmers are burning brush and cleaning
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 reckon it is so all
over the cotton belt. The poet says
ssWhatever is right" and 80 we have to
be reconciled and let the farmers do just
as they please and take the consequences.
In fact, it is risky and impertinent to
advise a man about his business. But
editors will do it, and heard farmer
tell one not long ago that he could run
better newspaper if he would give it
more attention and give the farmers less
advice. Well, it stands to reason that q
man who has been farming all his life
knows more about it than town raised
editor who never farmed day.
The farmers are in earnest now. Poll
ties has settled down in the old ruts.
The Ocala platform is dead and buried,
and all the vain hopes that inapired it
have vanished away. Just as the "forty
acres and mule" played out with the
darkey, 80 have all the expectations of
some big thing from the government
played out with the peoples party. 1t
was delusion and snare, and nobody
but few politicians profted by it. 1t is
at last al admitted fact that the farmers
must depend on themselves and not on
the government. Paternalism is the
curse of state or q nation, and am
glad to see that Mr.. Cleveland is going to
put his foot down upon it. Protection
for protection's sake must 60. We want
no more infant industries. They must
start full grown and compete with the
world. This pension outrage must be re.
formed, for it grows bigger as the years
roll op. 1t is the politicians hobby, aud
he rides on it into Office. Over eight
hundred thousand are now on the rolls,
and not one fourth Of them ever saw
battlefield. 1t is nothing but paternal-
ism, and it has COTTON TO be an epidemic.
Most everybody wants some help from
the government, aud if they can'tgetit it
one way they will another. Our revolu-
tionary fathers, who were wounded and
disabled, drew pensions, but, in courue of
sime. they died, and the pension stopped,
but now the pension keeps running on
and spreading out to widows and chill
dren and grandchildren, and most of
them are to foreigners who fought for the
money that was in it and nothing else.
just go into the national cemetery, at
Chattanooga, and see the names on the
headstones, and you can't pronounce half
of them without corkscrew. For the
honest patriotic soldier, we have the pro.
foundest resi- ct, but ne rebels know
something about the foreign hirelings we
had to fight the last two years of the
war.
Paternalism is run mad-o 1e hundred
and eighty millions of pensions is more
than the government can stand. The
nation has put Mr.. Cleveland there to re.
form, and we believe he will do it. The
salaries of the Government officials are
too large. Millions could be saved by
healthy reduction, aud then there would
not be 80 many Office seekers. How is it
that our Governor and our Supreme
Court Judges get only about half as
much as a United States Marshal or
CLERK of United States District Court ?
How is it that little postof6ce like Car.
tersville pays 81 900, when there are ten
men and twenty women who would take
it for $1,000.
Let us get back to the economy of our
fathers, and then the duties on the nee
essaries of life can be taken off, and the
common people can get their shoes and
blankets cheaper. Washington is called
the father of his country, and now we
want Mr.. Cleveland to father the coun.
try some, too, besides lutte Ruth, and
take the burdens off the people. That is
all the paternalism we ask fora clean
and honest administration. Kill the
monopolies and the trusts. Let Hawaii
alone and the Nicaragua canal and
everything else that calls for more money
aud more taxes. Don't fret 80 much
about the money or the scutle between
gold and silver, it is doing very we'll. l
once was young and now l am old, but I
have never eeen the time that there
wasn't enough money in town to pay for
everything the people had to sell. I
farmed for eleven years, and my corn
brought me fifty cents bushel for every
crop. It isn't the kind of money, whether
gold or silver or paper, that concerns us,
but it is the solvency aud honesty of the
banks, for 95 per cent. of all the business
is done by checks and deposits. There
are enough dollars and dimes to do all
the rest. Who ever sees piece of gold
coin? Who ever looks at national
bank bill to see what bank issued it?
They are all good, from Maine to Cali
fornia. In my opinion, the world has no
better currency, and dread to see the
day when any man or set of men can
issue their own bills and 'oist them upon
the country-we have tried that and suf
fered. Let we'll enough alone. What
old Georgian does not recall the failures
of Georgia banks in the ante-bellum
days-not only the wild cat banks that
were intended to fail, but good banks