Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1894-11-01
RosLYN, S. ID. Der. ~, "a.
EDITOR REPORTER:

County Aud1tor.
RosLYN, S. ID. Der. ~, "a.
EDITOR REPORTER:
In passing up Main Street in
Webster the other day, my ear
caught the familiar sound Of a pop
ulist fog-horn in full blast. | stop
ped to investigate, and sure enough,
there was one of those political wind
mills-a fellow with about a thimble
full of brains and a bedtick full of
imaginary wisdom, spreading light
celestial from a populistic standpoint.
He knew all about it, for | heard
him say so. He had been in almost
all the parties, first, a granger, then
par
ty-independent, lastly and least of
all, a calamity-howling populist.
Notwithstanding my %proverbial
modesty, | ventured a remark that
reused him to at least one octave
higher and gave nae an opportunity
to take an inventory of his stock in
trade, and | found each and every
bundle marked Kelley. He even
had Kelley's jackknife story, which
runs like this: Kelley takes his
jackknife from his pocket and holds
it up to the audience and says 'here
is a jackknife. There are two men
manufacturing them; one in Pitts
burg, the other in England, both sell
ling their goods in the United States
for IS cents under free trade, and
everybody getting rich. Then the
Republican party puts a tariff of rs
cents on this jackknife of the English
mans, so he has to sell it for so cents
to make his living and the Pittsburg
man has to raise the price of his rs
cent knife to so cents in order to
give the E~nglishman a chance to sell
his, and everybody gets poor. Great
applause.
Kelley is doing wrong in mislead-
ing the people for have heard since
that there is at least two men in the
U. S. that are making jackknives; so
we have home competition.
Then he leads them to believe that
if he is elected, he will not run the
government by tariff but run it by
steam as it is much cheaper. He
will put a pulley on the populist plat
form and make a merry-go-round of
it and all the pops a have a free
ride. That will certainly be popu-
listic heaven. Free trade, free ride
and Free soup houses.
Kelley makes some believe that
the Mckinley tariff, the thing the
Republican party runs the govern
ment with, eats up all that the farm
ers raise; a populist told me the
other day that he wished some man
would shoot the damned thing and
thought Kelley meant to do it. They
have an idea it is something like the
mastodon. Then he said Kelley
was going to blacken Gov. Sheldon's
reputation. / think he would look
better blacking his boots. Trying
to injure another man will never
build up ones own reputation but
then 1T is in accordance with the
popalist doctrine la Kelley.
Theirs is to destroy not to build up.
| asked my populist windmill
what they would do if they should
be defeated and he said, 1--WE will
change our name as we have done
many times before, and take in all
the defeated candidates from the
other parties.
Just n word to my fellow farm
ers. Don't be foslish enough to
vote the anarchist ticket. | don't
mean to say that every populist is an
anarchist, but / do say that every
anarchist is a populist. The populist
is a mild form Of anarchist. They
stand in the same relation to the an
archist as the ~varioloid stands to the
smallpox, the gentle zephyr to the
hurricane, the blessom to the apple.
All they lack is power. Look at Gov.
Altgeld. TIE first work he did as
governor of Illinois was to pardas
Bhe Haymarket murderers and there
by set a premium on murder and an
afchy- Stand by the old Republican
party, the party that gave you the
very land you live on in the passing
OF the Homestead Bill; the party
that has made more Americas citi-
zens out of foreigners than aJ the
other parties combined.
FRED ii. Russell.