Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1894-06-20
ALLEN SKINS HIGGINS.
The Delaware Ounce Gets What He
Didn't Bargain For

-
in the lions mouth, and ever since he
has been wishing that he had stayed
at a safe distance. In a moment of
foolish bravado, he attacked Senator
Alien and this is what he got in re-
ply:
Last summer during the extrao rdi-
nary session, heard the senator from
Delaware declare that value could not
be created by law, and heard him in
Weigh ferociously against the Populist
party as socialist party, as possess
ing all the isms and heresies and bad
things that a political party could
possess; that Populists were long
haired and wild-eyed and would run
TO destruction unless they were
changed in some form. Now, then,
it is little bit singular that senate
who stand in this chamber from day
to day and denounce paternalism and
put it all on the Populist party Il sup
| pose because there are only few OF us
herei will stand here and advocate the
most notorious act of paternallsm of
which this country can be guilty
| What is it but paternalism
for a government by legal en-
actment to put its hand into the
pocket of one citizen, like a pick
pocket, take his money by force of
law and put it in the pocket of an
other! What is that if it is not pater-
nalism? You want TO build up colos-
sal private fortunes, as you have done,
at the expense of the farming and in
dustrial interests of the nation. When
there is any likelihood of the country
coming to its senses and preventing
you from carrying this rdpine and rob-
berry further, then howl goes up over
the land that the industries of the
country are beiIN assaulted and brought
to ruin by the action of the democratic
party. But that is paternalism. Is it
not paternalism when you say that
under the constitution of this country
you have the POWER to confiscate the
property of the citizen, when YOU
stand here and admit and assert that
under the constitution of this country
you have the power to confiscate nv
property, every dollar of it and trans
fer that property by legal enactment
into the hands of some other man.
That is not paternalism; oh no, of
course not. The wildest-eyed, the
longest-haired Populist of the west
Hraa aI ~
kind. He believes in working honest
ly for his livelihood, living under
honest laws with equal opportunities.
II 1T be true, If that is the position
which the senator from Delaware
takes saJ it is funny position, in
deed; it provokoG u good deal of mirth
if it be true that you can not lepis-
late value into thing, then of what
earthly account is protective tariff?
Why have it? Why protect if you can
not give value? The senator from
Delaware stood in this chamber last
summer, in discussing the silver ques-
tioD, when he wanted to put the
knife hilt-deep into every man and
every industry in my section of the
country, and did it cold bloodedly and
without any conjunction of spirit or
conscience whatever, and said YOU
could not create value by legislation.
When you wanted to drive the knife
into the agriculturist of the west and
the laborer of the west, you told the
country that you could not create
value by legislation, kind of legerde-
main sort of reasoning, a good deal
like the thimble-rigging game, now
you see it and now you do not see it.
You see it when 1t comes to your own
interests. When it comes home to YOU
to affect your own people, then you
admit that congress can create value
in property by legislation; but when
1t affects your interests otherwise.
you stand IN this chamber and denv
It, If your position was right last
summer, that congress can not, by
legislation, create value, 1 ask YOU in
Gods name why are you standing
here now and asking for a protective
tariff? OF what earthly value is it? 1t
is because that kind of tariff does
put value into the pockets of some
men and take it out of the pockets of
others; 1T is because it is a legalized
system of larceny. Larceny is larceny,
give 1T whitever name you see fit. The
law that puts its hand into my pocket
and takes my money out and gives it
to you, sir without compensation, is,
iu>the domain of morals, just as much
guilty of larceny as the thief who
puts his hand in my pocket and takes
nv money out and puts it into his own
pocket. That is all l desire to say.
Higgins evidently thought that it
was a good thing that Allen did not
desire to say anything more He
didn't want any more of that kind of
talk.
United States soldiers are now