Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1895-08-09

political arena is the only place where the vexet
questions of to-day and tomorrow can be salts
factorily settled They despair of obtaining
relief from the Democratic or Republican par
ties, for they have been "weighed in the bal
ance and found wanting"; they knew that the
Republican party controlled legislation up to the
Inauguration of the present administration, and
under their regime industry starved and avar.
icious idleness waxed prosperous; under Their
regime the millionaire and tramp came into
prominence, and the wealth of the country pass
ed into the hands of few non-producers. The
Democratic party, reading the signs of the
times, promulgated platform that meant "all
things to all men, and, on the tidal wave of ma
ton poverty, dleness and discomfort, swept into
power, and their time since has been occupied
in determining not how best to fulfill their
promises, but how best to avoid them.
Cleveland and Sherman, the two great mon
ey-changers of our national policy, represent
ing parties that have pretended for thirty years
to be widely separated, have conspired to de-
nonetize silver, and have joined hands like
brothers on the financial question. Secretary
Carlisle, on the stump, voices the wishes of the
Demo- Republican leaders dictated by the gold
standard European money-loaners, and he is
trying hard to convince the people that when
he told them on February III, 1878, that the
conspiracy which was formed here and in Eu-
rope to demonetize silver and destroy one-half
of our metallic money is the most gigantic
crime of this or any other age" he meant moth
ing. Said Carlisle then: "The consummation of
such scheme would entail upon the human
race more misery than all the wars, pestilence
and famines that have ever occurred in the his
tory of the world" Yet to-day he advocates
the bringing of all this misery upon the peo-
pie and the ultimate payments of Our debts in
gold, when he must know that our entire gold
supply falls short of suficiency in paying the
interest upon our indebtedness. Such treachery
is almost beyond comprehension, but it is fore
ing the debtor class to think
To deny existent conditions is all admission
parties that are responsible for these conditions
is the height of human folly. Parties seldom
reform themselves, and the history of the world
shows that no relief i'll reform has ever yet
come to the people from an old organization,
political, religious or otherwise. The Demo-
cratic and Republican parties were organized in
the past, to deal with the problems of the past.
They can progress no further, because new
problems are being presented, and reacting in
huences are becoming dominant. Evolution is
impossible, because evolution stands for the
sum total Of the forces that produce growth
and development. An organization or party
cannot evolve beyond its standard of right, and
that limit or standard reached, evolution ceases
and dissolution begins.
Aside from this, little investigation of the
profits cleared in the last bond issue by the
Morgan Belmont syndicate will convince the
most incredulous that it is to the financial in
terest of the Clevelands, Carlises, Shermans,
Reeds and other party leaders NOT to change
hence the necessity and the mission of the Peo-
ple's party becomes manifest, and the survival
of reform organization depends not upon its
successes and defeats, but upon the causes
which brought it into existence and the princi-
Piles which it advocates. We can readily per-
ceive that there is something more in Popufism
than the mere scramble for Office, though un-
fortunately political knaves who had no chance
of obtaining recognition among their own fol-
lowing drifted into the ranks of Populism, and