The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-07-31
A FALSE PRETENCE.
INVOKING THE GHOST OF 1776-
LIES ANSWERED.

- NAOOOS AAVO W AlOA 1lCS
was Injected, to paralyze the honest
Democrats of Minnesota with Repub-
llcan lies, falls back on it's magma
ton and calls up from the dead a be-
ing OF the past age to confirm it's hire
ling and pernicious doctrines. We
quote their screed, with interiectional
comments:
Poor Richard, the identical wise old
| man who gave the farmers of a CEN
fury ago such sensible counsel, materi-
allied the other day before meeting
OF farmers who had met to discuss the
POLITICAL questions of the day, and es-
pecially the decline In the prices Of
their products as compared with those
OF the decade following the war. The
CANDIDATE for the Legislature had des-
canted on the wrongs of the farmer
ana the oppression of the corpora
lions, and possible candidate for
congressional honors had assured
them that some mystical power of sill
yer had dragged produce values down
with 1t. The kerosene had burned
low In the lamps, and the smoke Of
pipes had obscured the air, when from
somewhere out of empty space. into
the gloom there came onto the rOS-
| trum venerable man, with gray locks
hanging down his shoulders, clad In
| the doublet and hose, the low shoes
| with silver buckles of the fathers Of
the Revolution.
Into tho silence of the awed and
| staring crowd came the quavering
voice OF age saying: my children,
you differ little from your sires and
grandsires. AS you have been talked
to tonight, and as you talk. your an
| cestors talked and were talked to when
| trod the earth. Taxes then were too
high, money was too scarce, the usur-
er fattened on US, and the demagogue
pandered to US and flattered US just as
he has here tonight. Why do you
make such a surrender of your COM
mon sense and your judgments? Why
40 you not think, ms tead Of parroting
the thoughts of others whose motives
you do not knOw?'
We recognize the voice. but it is not
the voice of Ben Franklin's Poor Rich
ard, but of one of Joe Wheelock's Tory
ancestors. who after doing all they
could to prevent the establishment Of
this nation were exiled, for their coun-
try's good, to Nova Scotia; whence, in
later years, some Of their descendants
come limping back to shelter them
selves under the vast charity and
short memory Of the great Republic.
Go back and read the articles these
venerable traitors wrote and the
| speeches they made, and Piles per-
Torrance, just quoted, is literal re-
production Of them.
"Taxes," sneers this humbug from
the grave, "were too high" OF course
they were. Our whole government
was an armed protest against high
taxes. It was for this the patriots
threw the taxed tea into Boston har-
Dor and pledged themselves not to
drink any of the tempting beverage,
SO long as the English Parliament i'm
posed duties on it. And the Tories,-
Joe's ancestors,-usedt to preach some
thing like this: -
"Why are you raising such howl
against little taxation? Why do you
listen to these demagogues-Patrick
Henry, and John Adams, and Tom
| Jefferson and George Washington?
Why do you make such surrender of
your judgments? Money is scarce they
tell you. OF course. The miserable
devils have not got enough to buy
shoes for the troops encamped at Val
| ley Forge. And that rebel Washing
ton has just written your demagogue
Continental Congress, that that he
had not enough whiskey left to
| give each of his ragged cohorts a
glass all around. Who are making all
this uproar? The lower classes. The
rich and aristocratic are devoted to
the mother country; they have moth
ing to complain of. They want no
change. But the mob-the conoSlle-
the ragamuffins-a horde of farmers
and hunters in homespun-they, for
sooth, want to set up a republic. They
are cranks. They have wheels in their
heads. But we are glad to know that
George III has sent over General
Cleveland and Major Olney, with
troops, to shoot them down; and has
issued orders that the soldiers must
not fire blank cartridges but kill all
they can. We will soon end their re-
public, and their ridiculous, cranky no.
tions, about liberty and fair play and
all men being equal, and lot more
such stuff, which they put forth in
Philadelphia, in their little brick
court house, and called it a "Declara-
tion of Independent
Now that is the way Piles ghost
talked in 1776, and he hasn't got the
twang of it off his tongue yet, even
after one hundred years of graveyard
slumber In Nova Scotia. He thinks it
is the same fight he was engaged in
then-and he is right. It is battle
to determine whether that Declara-
tion Of Independence really meant
what it said; or whether it is, as Mr.
Choate, the Boston lawyer said, few
years ago,-''a string of glittering gen.
eralities." And this Choate was, we
believe, the father of that other
Choate, who, the other day, secured
that Supreme Court decision to pre-
vent rich men from paying their taxes,
and was paid 100000 for his services.
But the ghostly, ancestral Wheelock
continues:
Is money scarce? For whom? Is
there any one of you who, having pro-
duced something, cannot get money
for it? II money were plenty as the
sands of the sea, could you get 1t for
nothing? If you could, would you?
But the scarcity makes the prices Of
your product low, you say. Are you
4 &c III ~ nh, ~
you now produce more bushels Of
wheat with less labor than did the