The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1895-08-16
The rloney Question to the Front.

hC tOuCy UASSthOh ~ NhS
There has been good deal of ink ex
pended by some of the Peoples party
brethren about keeping the money ques-
ton at the front, settling the money ques-
ton before touching anything else and
then taking up some other question. The
most of this talk is or was entirely idle.
Questions of paramount Importance are
not placed at the front or kept at the
front by individuals or parties. The ex-
igencies of the question and conditions in
public affairs force the momentous ques-
ton or questions involved to the front and
keep them there. There has never been
the slightest danger of the money ques-
ton being relegated to the rear since the
Peoples party was organized. The money
question it might be said brought the
Peoples party into being.
The free coinage part of the money
question made its appearance on the
political stage in 1875, as soon as the fact
became public that John Sherman had
succeeded. in shaking the demonetizing
act through congress i'll 1873.
That question as part of the financial
question has been demanding a hearing
every year since. The old parties in the
hands of the money power have used
every means in their power to keep it
away from the front.
The battles of the war were fought over
again and again, till at last their very
echo died away, and the people became
disguised. Then these two old subsidized
parties got up tariff and anti. tariff. They
battled away at this through two Presi-
dental campaigns, and the people became
tired and disguised with this sham. Then
the long denied money question was at
the front When the old sham issues
were exploded and their emptiness ex-
posed to public view, the great central
question of the reform movement could
no longer be retired, but this question was
not alone 1t had all the other elements
of the reform movement, enunciated i'll
one form or other in the Omaha platform
of the Peoples party as its allies and
supports. The money question was at
the front without any forcing or danger
of being retired Conditions had placed
it there and it was not in the power of
man to remove it from that natural posi-
ton. The anxiety of some of the reform
papers for RELOCATING all other questions to
the rear, of dropping other questions for
the time being is idle if not absolutely
vicious. All the principles enumerated in
the first national platform of the Peoples
party are inseparably linked together.
No one can be dropped or retired without
injuring the others, and it is bad counsel
that asks to retire or neglect single one
of them. They should be kept together
and in their natural order till all are won.
To drop all for the silver question and
when it is settled take cup another involves
nothing less than the destruction of the
Peoples party. 1t would require thous-
and years to achieve the needed reforms
to insure the stability of popular govern
meut, by such policy. If the battle for
free coinage is fought alone and every
other question abandoned, and the battle
is successful, the cry would be raised, the
Peoples party has served its purpose, its
mission is ended, let us go back to our
old parties, the parties ofloves and fishes,
the old parties of Egyptian bondage,
when the people can live in quiet on leaks
and make bricks without straw.
If the question of free silver alone
should constitute the one plank of the
party as some of our friends advise, and
the next Presidential battle should be lost
on that field, straightway the voice would
resound throughout the land of the two
old corporation parties public senti-
ment is against the policy of the Peoples
party. The one lone plank in its platform,
free coinage, is rejected by the people, let
us go back to our old partiee." Let the
result of this one plank policy be what it
may it means dissolution of the Peoples
party. A new party of reform would
have to be organized, and built up through
years of painful labor.
Keep the principles of the Peoples
party as embodied in the first National
platform of the party-albeit more or less
crudely-together, educate the people and
party on all of those economic measures,
elucidste them, explain how essential
every one is to the support of all the
others, and have all thoroughly compre-
hended by the masses, then neither re-
pulse or victory will have any effect upon
the cohesiveness of the party having all
these grand principles in view, but it will
march on from victory to victory, from
triumph to conquest, each reform taking
its natural place as successor to its VIC
torious forerunner. No new party will,
under such policy, be needed to take
charge of each isolated principle, but the
Peoples party be the great evolutionary
party, the hope and deliverer of the peo-
pie from the chains of slavery the money
power is forging upon them.
He is GOldbug.