People's voice. [volume] (Wellington, Sumner County, Kansas) 1890-1917, 1895-02-14
MIDDLE CLASS PARTY,
VERY POOR AND VERY RICH
ARE NOT POPULISTS'
George F. Washburn Gives Some Sound
Advice on the Question OF Rotten and
Useless Planks for the Platform
Finance Must Lead.

discussed and created so much appre-
hension, that it may be in order to
review its results and take account OF
stock.
Two bodies were in session at the
same time, with different officers; one
consisting Of some 200 persons at
tracted by the call, the other, the Ma
tional committee, acting in IFS official
capacity, and far more conservative in
character and expression than the con-
ference.
Nearly everybody who attended ex-
pected to find a strong silver repre-
sentation, which after all the appre-
hension, failed to show up. Out Of the
300 people assembled, there were not
a half dozen rabid silverites, and it
was apparent to close observers that
the danger to our movement does not
lie in an attempt to make silver the
dominant issue, but rather in marked
tendency to extend the platform al
most indefinitely. Were all the schemes
proposed at the conference crystalized
into planks, they would make a plat
form longer than the moral law.
This gathering at St. Louis made
perfectly clear that two distinct ele-
ments make up the Populist party; one
in the great cities leaning toward
populistic socialism, the other in the
agricultural districts showing n
marked tendency toward greater con-
servatism. What are the conclusions
to be drawn and the lessons to be
learned from this fact? Experienced
political leaders agree that Just in
proportion as 4 national platform is
heightened, the vote will be short.
ened. There are not enough voters in
the land, united on extreme socialistic
views, to win on an India rubber
platform.
Ever since the commencement of the
greenback movement the work of edu.
cation on the financial issue has gone
steadily forward among the people.
Were vote taken to-day on the ques-
ton whether the government or the
corporations should issue the money of
the people 65 per cent of the voters
would declare in favor of the former.
The people are ready now if ever to
grapple with the money power and
destroy it if they are but wisely gem
eraled. From the inception of our
movement, the money question has
been the issue, is now, and must be
until it is settled right.
We can not escape it if we would
and should not if we could. There
fore let US not handicap ourselves in
this race for life, by attempting to
carry something not half so well I'M
derstood, nor half so popular with the
people
But some one says in alarm, DO You
mean to make silver the issue?" No.
1t would be as unwise to do that as to
extend the platform. The money
question includes the silver question,
as the greater includes the less, but it
is higher, deeper and far more vital
than that.
When lsay money question, I mean
the financial planks OF the Omaha
platform, taken as whole. They de-
clare:
!. That the government shall issue
the money of the nation, whether
gold, silver or paper, and not farm it
out to private corporations for private
profit.
.. For an increased currency that
shall be safe, sound and flexible, and a
legal tender for all debts, public and
private.
3. For the abolition of all banks, as
banks Of issue.
4. For the unlimited coinage o. gold
and silver at the option of 16 to !.
5. Fer the establishment of postal
savings banks by the government
And another plank might be added,
demanding the regulation of usury, or
excessive interest, which is one of the
important features of the question.
These measures constitute the money
question as a whole, and our move
ment for the next two years should be
focused on them, and it must be # we
are to win in lo06.
We can please the bankers by ex-
tending our platform. They fear only
the awakened intelligence and aroused
indignation of the people on the money
question; therefore, we should focus
our agitation on this question, especi-
ally at this time, and place nothing in
our platform not equally strong in all
the states, simply because some states
or faction desires it.
For the first time in our history as a
party, the government and the pluto
cratic press admit that the currency
question is the issue, squarely and
fairly before the people. This being
true, it would be nothing short of
lunacy for US not to face it. 1t is the
i