The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1895-05-15
BILL ARP'S LETTER.
Arp Receives Quantity of Political LIZ
erature Every Day.
Atlanta Constitution.

us with strange bed fellows so does
politics. First thing know [ will be
sleeping three in a bed with old re-
publicans. But I won't sleep in the
middle. I've toted my democratic
habits too long to be smothered now
under blanket with Sibley on one
side and Don Cameron on the other.
And there's Ingalls,, too, would be
slipping around and want room, and
maybe Mrs. Lease is a silver bug-I
don't know. I don't want so many
folks using my tooth brush. If every
body is going to make run on silver,
it, bad sign. I am afraid we can't
reform and purify the democratic party
taking in so many furriners-so many
old stays who have always been side
wiping around hunting the orthogra-
ply Of little Office. I like the way
that Uncle Simon Peter Richardson
purified his Church. He was telling
what glorious revival they had over
in South Carolina where he had been
preaching. "How many converts did
you take in. Uncle Simon?" said I.
''Take in, did you say? Take in
why, my friend, we never took in nary
one, but we turned II out. Oh, it was
glorious revival
Well, we are getting big lot Of lit
erature now by every mail, and every
bit Of it is alike about one thing-it all
wants an honest dollar. The goldbugs
want it and so do the silver bugs and
the bimetallic bugs, but how to get it
is the question. [ never saw 80 much
interest manifested in any political
question as there is now on the subject
Of silver and gold. 1t has overshad-
owed everything else. Even the north
ern press has stopped abusing us for a
little while and there hasn't been
lynching in Georgia for month or
two. The people are too busy study
ing silver. But we will have plenty
of time to settle this thing down. 1t
will be two years and more before any
change can be made, and so the old
ship must rock along on the billows,
storm or no storm. Everybod y is pre-
dieting better times and say they feel
it in the air; and so maybe by the
time another crop is made there will
be a change for the better. If there
isn't, the republicans will haveto walk
plank in 1896 and the silver party
will take possession and run the ma
chine. We old-time democrats can
afford to go slow and watch and wait.
I'm not going to commit myself to any
new party just because it has got a
silver lining. Democracy is mighty
sick, I know, but it is not dead. If a
man s wife is sick it doesn't become
him to pick out another before she is
dead and buried. I'm afraid to mix
up too intimately with these republi-
cans anyway. We can't even trust a
democrat nowadays, and SO we are be-
tween Scylla and Charybdis. We boys
used to play game called bull pen.
Two boys went behind a tree and Jug
gled and then walked all round the
ring with their right hands in their
bosom. One of them had the ball,
but we boys in the pen didn't know
which one, and so we had to watch
both, and the first thing we knew while
we had an eye ON one, the other feller
plugged US. just so, We the people
are in the pen and don't know who has
got the ball. I've been reading very
| scholarly pamphlet, written by Colonel
Ben Green, of Dalton, on the silver
question, and it alarmed and depress-
ed me more than Coins book. Col.
Green is now nearly four score years,
and this warning is like farewell ad-
dress from patriot to his people. l
knew his gifted father, General Duff
Green, away back in the ffties-a pro-
found scholar and a statesman. The
son who writes this treatise has had
good training from his youth, and
what he writes now he believes to be
| true. He is too old to practice deceit:
Sincerity is the strongest imminent of
age. If Mr.. Green's argument is
founded on facts, and it seems to be,
the money kings have got not only the
government by the leg but nations and
Kingdoms are in their power. They
combine to depress values when they
wish to buy and to initiate when they
wish to sell. The Rothschilds made
eight millions off Of our government
in few days and we the people have
it to pay. New York banks are our
dictators. Sir Edmund Burke said,
"The treasury is the State" and tits.
It is the Church, too. Money rules
the world. Cotton used to be king
because it commanded money, and
money was king. Is it not humiliat-
ing to realize that man like Roths-
child can sit in his Office and dictate
terms to the United States and make
eight millions in few days. Govern
ments can stand that but individuals
can't. 1t is the debtor class in this
country who are now between the up
per and the neither mill stones. Their
property won't pay their debts at pres
ent prices.
But we still live and are out of Jail,
thank the good Lord for his metcies.
We still have hope Of the future, and
hope is a good invention, as the school
boy said in his composition. This
delightful spring weather cant be
cornered by bulls nor bears. The
flowers are ours and so are the songs
of the birds and the balmy air. The
old Persian philosopher had but one
maxim to live by-"Even this shall
pass away" If fortune was good this
maxim kept him from being overjoyed.
If it.was bad it kept him from despair,
and so in a year or two this trouble
about the money will all be settled
and we will look back and wonder that
we became so excited over it. In the
meantime it becomes us all to be toler-
ant of opinion and to have respect to
those who differ with US. They are
good men in all parties and good wo-
men in all Churches. When they are
sincere in their faith they are entitled
to our respect. Then let the yankees
throw flowers on their soldiers graves
and we will throw flowers on ours and
shake hands and be a. peace.
BILL ARP.