The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-09-04
MR.. c.. A. POWER WRITES AN AD'
DRESS AND GIVES SOME
TRUTHS.
Why Load the Peoples Party Plat
: form With a Thousand and
One Minor Issues.
usuaPATlON BY THE EXECUTIVE
AND JUDICIARY SHOULD
BE CURBED.
An Active Working Organization
Should Supplement the Ma
tiOnal Committee.

Mr.. c. A. Power, of Terre Haute, 1nd.,
was the organizer of the Cincinnati con-
ference of 1891, which may properly be
styled the launching place of the nation
al Peoples party, as it led directly TO the
calling of the St. Louis and then to the
Omaha CT ,ventions. The following let
ter from Mr.. Power, addressed to the
Populists of the country, will command
attention:
THE ADDRESS.
Terre Haute, Ind, Aug. II.
To the Rocky Mountain News.
NV brethren of the POpullSt falth,
events and movements within the lines
of the old parties are transpiring that In
dicate the discomfort and impatlence
with present conditions, that ought to at
once infuse new life into our movement,
which, if wisely directed, cannot fail to
make the primary principles" and pur-
poses of the Peoples party the law OF a
redeemed people.
NV soul is in travail and distress for
want of language with which l might
make our people understand their peril
and the present opportunity for con-
solidation Of the elements of reform nee
essary to victory next year. The Peoples
party, as organized at the CINCINNATI
conference in May, 1891, is my child, and
l do not propose to see 1t strangled 10
death in its infancy, and its purpose or
monetary reform, without protest. l saw
in the faces of the Kansas and other
Western people in the campaign OF 80,
that they wanted to come together, and
then and there conceived the idea of go
ing to Ocala, in December of that year,
drafting a call and securing signatures
from our friends there from all parts OF
tie union desiring conference, which
was successfully held, to place the Peo-
pies party on it's feet. pardon the per-
sonal pronouns necessarily used to en-
phasize this article.) Within the last
four years organized plutocracy, con-
trolling the old parties, has moved stead
lily forward in it's purpose of crushing
the masses of the American people into
bond and industrial slavery.
We are now at the parting of the
ways" and face to face with the proc
lem, Who is the sovereign in this coun-
try-the citizen or the dollar? with the
entire machinery of government, in
cluding the federal courts, on the side of
the dollar.
In this emergency what shall we do?--
drift with the tide, without an effort to
reform our lines, or take on an addi-
tional load of political hodge podge,"
made up of Prohibition, Socialism, Sim
gle Tax and Coxeyism, and plunge blind
ly into the sea of absolute destruction at
the next election?
THE OMAHA PLATFORM.
That the principles for which we stand
as a party, proclaimed at Omaha, are
growing among the people, there can be
no doubt; but the party organization,
through it's committees, as a factor in the
movement at present is without life and
the means to revive our work, and all
this because of the unfortunate mistake
of few of our leading papers being be-
trayed into a conspiracy and attack upon
our national committee, which has for
the time crippled it's work and influence,
as the administrative agency elected at
Cincinnati and Omaha to stand officially
before the people as it's representative
and supervising directory of organiza-
tion until the next national convention.
1t has sOrely grieved many of the
friends of our own Nonconformist here
in the central states to have seen in
months past several articles harshly
injury of our cause. Our friends con-
ducting the Nonconformist must surely
have been imposed upon by some secret
enemy at the St. Louis and Kansas City
conferences last winter, or they never
could have made the mistake of assisting
our enemies in recent attacks upon our
national executive committee. But it
Is not yet too late to correct past mis-
takes. Some of us have seen great ar
mics temporarily thrown into confusion
and apparently destroyed as an opposing
force by mistakes at a critical moment,
but where the head and heart is right
mistakes are quickly corrected and
forces lined up for a new movement to
victory.
TEMPORARY CONFUSION.
The Peoples party is now in a condi-
tion of temporary confusion (the result of
conspiracy for want of the proper sup
port of its national and state committees
with means that would enable them to
take the field and actively push our work
on lines insuring recruits from the only
elements that will save us from annihila-
tion next year. Should every handful of
voters with an "ism or a schism" be per-
mitted to inject their impracticable prop
ositions into planks of the Peoples par
ty platform, imagining that each and
every plank represents a great issue?'
Now, my brethren, let's do little of
the profoundest thinking of our lives
Since meeting in convention in Omaha
events have occurred that have mate
rally changed the situation before the
people, as we then faced it. Now, i'll
stead of government by the people and
for the people, we find Caesarism full
blown in the person of Grover Cleveland
governing the American people. A con-
stitutional despot, aided and assisted by
the congress and federal courts in fas-
tening the gold standard of European
monarchy, with its attendant bond and
Industrial slavery upon our toilina
(CONTINUED ON THIRD PAGE.)