The western sentinel., 1894-02-15
REV. FRANK DI XON
DISCUSSES "TBE COLLAPSE OF
THE PEOPLES PARTY"
4 Great Mistake in Trying the Party
to the Silver Miner Cause .
Too Many Cranks.

| it wOuld't mend matters not to con-
fess it. And why is it that the Peo-
pies party has collapsed?
| hailed its rise as promise of re-
dcmption for the common people from
industrial oppression. And this
promise remains, though the party is
dead The party announced policy
of such high mora; order that men
who had worshipped at the filthy
| ShTIneS Of the ancient parties had not
| moral force left within them to en-
brace the policy. They needed to be
educated. The Peoples party has
made success possible for the cause OF
| the people in the future.
/ GREAT MEN NEEDED.
| The career OF tile Peoples party
| confirmed. too, the truth that great
principles, to be victorious, must be
| embodied in great men. Christianity
| as IL religious policy would have found
| defeat inevitable, had it not been en-
| bodied in Jesus Christ. The Peoples
| party had no great leaders. The lead
ers who captured the movement in
| the beginning were men in whom the
country had no faith. Their defeat
| was inevitable. Their election would
! have been disastrous to the peoples
cause.
The c0untry-Telt that these men be-
IlieVed first OF all in her own election,
and would have ruh on any platform,
approved Of heaven or hell, to get
| there. The nomination of General
| Weaver was politically q StupeHdOuS
| blunder. 1t meant the casting away
| of the Southern States. The preju-
diceS OF people must not be needlesSly
| provoked. IF their suhrageS are to be
won There was no need of reopen
iug the issues OF the late war, and 1t
took no prophet to foresee that such
result would follow the nomination OF
a man like Weaver. The Southern
States are today in political chaos.
They would gladly have Joined the
Popuist movement had not that
movement been so eager to secure
votes that it allied itself, wherever it
could in the South, With the Republi-
car or negro forces. The South is to-
day without political allegiance.
THE SILVER BLUNDER.
To complete the doom of the PeO-
pies party, and-sOothe the grief of its
friends who mOurned the death or the
movement, as we'll as demonstrate
finally and trium phantly their inca
| pacity, the leaders of the party en-
| braced the cause of silver miners
against the people, and struggled
with an energy worthy OF better
| cause to force the taxpayers and ousl-
| ness men of the United States to pay
| 81 for 90 cents worth OF silver. Inc
| Colorado miners wanted the regular
old fashioned protection in which the
Republican party had anchored its
| faith, and the Peoples party, belIev-
| ing that votes lay in that direction,
| ran over itself in the effort to get
! there. 1t broke it's neck. ANY party
! that Identifies itself with the free
| coinage of silver simply invites itself
| to its own funeral
| The Peoples party seemed willing
| to welcome into its fellowship every
| lnan WHO had d wildcat scheme of
! finance. 1t gradually gathered into
! its ranks probably the choicest collec-
| tion of cranks ever found in any one
| party III this country. The people
| have felt the heavy oppression of the
| present national system of finance,
| and were ready to rebel against it,
! but they were fri5 htened by the wild
rawlings of Populists, and determined
| to die of gangrene rather than endure
! the surgery of party whose saneSt
| utterance on finance suggested the
| madhOuSo.
| VISIONARY FINANCE.
Probably noUnlng mas injured the
| cause Ct financial reform, and delayed
remedial action, as have the ill-con-
| sidered and impossible schemes SO
! wildly urged by the Populists. The
country has rightly guessed that the
| leaders of the party were ut bottom
believers in fiat money, men who
| thought that the only reason why
there was poor man in the land was
| simply because the government was
manipulated by men too mean to set
the machinery to work and print
greenbacks; men who believed that
The sovereign remedy for poverty and
human evils was greenDackS, made
money by act of Congress, resting
upon no basis of value under heaven
save the cheek Of the administration.
The American people were not born
asses, and it makes them mad to be
taken for such; hence their rebuke TO
the party that made that fatal
mistake. The financial insanity OF
the Peoples party wrecked it.
The party of the future that has
the courage to advocate the demone-
tization of both gold and silver, with
cut proposing thing SO absurd as fat
money, will win eventually the sup
port of the people. The day has passed
when a medium of exchange was a
necessity. The exchange itself is the
thing desired now. Before transpor
tation facilities had multiplied, money
had mission. To-day it is useless
possible.
CERTIFICATES INSTEAD OF MONEY
What is needed today is not money
in the former sense but direct Ger
tificate of value from the Government
whenever exchange is desired. When
ever the exchange is effected the Ger
tificate should be destroyed. VIII,
should man who has a certain
amount of gold whose value is deter
mined by the demand for it, have al
advantage over me because my proper
ty happens to be in the form of cattle
for which there is really greater de
mand? The fellow with the gold, b
creating an artificial scarcity, knowin
that I must have gold with which t
convert my cattle into other forms @
usablc wealth, increases the value O
his property and correspondent
diminishes the value of mine. /
reality he transfers part of the valu
of my cattle to his gold; and does
without a stroke of honest labol
without adding one penny to til
worlds wealth.
THE GOVERNMENT AS SOLE BANKEI
What will presently be demande
of the government, iS that, III became