Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1895-07-24
Gen. Paul Van Dervoort, Com.-in-

Chief, Omaha, Neb.:
My Dear Sir:-Your letter asking
my opinion and advice as to future
operations is received. l agree in the
main with your views and have not
changed an iota the advice l gave last
year. The Union is on the verge of a
black precipice, which any month may
widen and deepen to the extent of pre-
cipitating therein the liberties, the
lives, the happiness of all our people.
Paramount as is the issue of free coin
age as policy to bring back prosperity,
employment, the reopening of our de-
serted workshops, and a general resus-
citation of all our vast mechanical,
agricultural and commercial interests
all that is but mere cipher in COM
parison with the other terrible dangers
and calamities, which overhang the
people of this unhappy country. l do
not speak as an alarmist. but from the
experience of a long life, in which l
have seen and proclaimed by speech
and by writing during the past twenty
years, the steady, stealthy, insidious
creep of the combined power of monop-
oily, plutocracy, and party machinery
toward the accomplishment of the de-
struction of this republic, and the erec-
tion in its stead of an oligarchy and
afterwards an absolute despotism.
This is time to speak out plainly;
and to urge that the game of divid-
ing the people into factions, in order
the more easily to accomplish their
ruin and subjugation, should be
brought pre-eminently before the pub
lie gaze. Better far had it been, in
view of what now overhangs and
threatens us, that the fathers had sub
mitted to the injustice of taxation
without representation" and so have re-
mained the greatest of the English col
onies, trusting that justice would come
from great nation in time-than to
confront to-day the evils sure to be
precipitated upon us, if a stern, true,
unfiinching patriotism does not ami
mate the masses. The fathers foresaw
with prophetic vision the events which
time and vast population and the greed
and selfishness of man would bring
upon unborn generations. And they
foreshadowed it in the many warnings
which they bequeathed to their poster
ity-urging that eternal vigilance is
the price of liberty''-and that parti-
sanship would eventually destroy the
Union, unless it could be curbed and
guarded against by the inherent pa
triotism and sincerity of our citizens.
Therefore, see that your efforts are
especially wise in forming organiza-
tions in every hamlet and crossroads,
to become possibly the nucleus of
greater bodies, when the perilous days
dawn upon us. The republicans, for
years as the most efficient factor in
their campaigns, have formed ten
thousand clubs, drilled in companies,
regiments and brigades, marching at
the command of one man, who may
easily pervert their strength to traitor
Gus and destructive purposes. Their
efficiency is superb, their numbers
enormous, constant menace to the
safety of the Union, whenever the am
bilious leader shall give the signal that
the time has come to form their strong
government, with its immense stand
ing army, and the subversion of the
republic. The federal government is
not the thing which our forefathers
created. Its encroachments have been
startling and unceasing. To-day the
stride has been with thousand league
boots; and following close upon the
intrusion by Judge Goff into the inter-
nal affairs of state to enjoin the reg
istration of its voters preliminary to
the election and holding of conven-
ton to amend its constitution, under
legal steps taken by its legislature,
duly and fairly elected by the people,
we have the startling PRONUNCIATION
mot at all unknown to me for / have
declared its fruition for some years
pasD, that there were nine oligarchs in
this Union, who dominate and control
every inch of the territory of all the
states; and that their edicts are su-
preme, over and above the oppressed
will of the people through their repre-
sentatives in congress assembled. And
that not only must these absolute or
ders be obeyed, but that they have a
worthy co-adjator in the executive, to
supplement their deputy marshals,
Hessians who can be hired from the