The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1894-08-28
RINGS AND CL1oUEs.
Sam Jones Expresses His Convictions
About Them.

S1A6S OA0 C44qu6S. may nOG De
q cit in my judgment, but am honest
In my convictions. Imay be mistaken
in my facts, but I am loyal to truth.
l believe there is a close kinship in
spirit and in method. In all the dom
mating influences in this country, from
the ward politician up to the highest
ecclesiastical conventions and associa-
tions.
have been a member of the North
Georgia conference for twenty-one
years of my life. believe I have seen
influences Of rings and cliques over
my conference. I would not say that
large body of the devout men who
preach the gospel of Christ on hard
circuits and stations belong to those
rings and cliques, but 1 do honestly be.
lieve that there are schemers and wire
pullers and Office seekers in the Meth
odist church as truly as that they are
found anywhere in the world, from
Tammany New York to the rum saloon.
l will not say that their schemes are
Infamous or their tricks carry with
them the rascality of the ward heeler,
but a ring is ring and clique is a
clique, and the last one of them from
ecclesiastical bodies down a curse to
humanity and a blight to the world.
The politicians of Atlanta to- day know
who will be the mayor in the coming
election, unless by some peculiar up
rising their tricks are defeated and
their schemes overthrown, and yet
when you talk Of rings and cliques in
the city, the same fellows that pull the
wires and work the schemes and prac-
tice their damnable infamies will throw
up their hands in holy horror and cry:
''Listen to the vaporings of that fool
or the infamous tongue of that black
guard"
Atlanta, Ga, so it is charged, is pay
ing sixty odd thousand dollars to light
up that city with electric lights, when
others protest that it could have been
done for less than ten thousand dollars
per annum.
If you want a street opened up
through suburban property, run for
councilman and be elected if you want
to pave all the streets of a city at an
enormous profit, get into the swim with
the ring, and in ten short years count
yourself millionaire; if you want to
forward a friend as a teacher in the
public school, get on the school board;
if you have private ends you would
further in public roads, get on the board
of county commissioners, In o.her
words, if you want oranges, move to
Florida; if you want fruit, move to Cali
fornia; if you want gold, move to Col
orado; if you want silver, go to Col
orado; if you wantSblooded horses, go
to Kentucky; if you want a job, go
among the jobbers. Christ found the
gang in the temple, and with a whip
ping scourage drove them forth and
said my Fathers house, instead of
being a house of prayer, has become a
den of thieves" Property is protec-
tion, official position is advantageous,
rings do rule, cliques do charter, and
rascals do revel. Labor never organ
lied until capital made ring. POpu-
lists theories would never be popular
theories among mankind if the older
parties had been pure and trustworthy.
believe there would have been no Pro
testant church to day if Catholicism
had remained pure and consecrated-
believe there would have been no
Methodist church to day if the Episco-
pal church had lived up to it's doctrines
and principles. l believe there would
have been no Populist party to day but
for the infamies of the Democratic and
Republican parties. believe there
would have been no prohibition to day
but for the fact that the brewers own
the Republican party, and the dlstlllers
and saloons the Democratic party.
believe that the Democratic or Repub,
Iican parties, either, would go into CO.
partnership with anything in the uni
verse to day that would promise sue
cess to their party and defeat to the
other, could not let this article go
to the public without saying that there
are many true men-true to God ana
true to the right-in the ranks OF the
Republican, Democratic and Populist
parties, and I believe if they were to
look honestly into the tricks and ras-
caIitv practiced by the rings and cliques
in their parties, they would desert their
narties like rats will leave a sinking
ship. When preach to man to for
sake sin and the devil, have a divine
- T ,ov, yooint them who