The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1896-09-10
The Two TornadOes.
BY WOLCOTT CALKINS.

precursor in nature OF more serious dis
aster in the public affairs of this nation.
Another tornado has come, and the extent
and severity of neither of them can be
realized at the East. You must stand in
Lafayette Square and count the church
buildings on all sides of it in ruins, the
iron fence Frustrated on one side, the
residences unroofed and the trees uproot-
ed or stripped of their branches. You
must see the complete sweep made of all
the buildings in vast sections of East st.
Louis. You must hear witnesses tell of
the sudden and aw full darkening and rush
ing wind and of the killing of men before
their eyes.
And you must be in the West, also, to
get any impression of the new tornado
that is sweeping over these States. Re-
semblances crowd upon me as / attempt
the comparison. Its suddenness. Two
weeks before the Chicago convention your
conservative papers were insisting that if
it could be postponed honest money would
win. Exactly two weeks before the con-
vention a Methodist minister in st. Louis
was one of two orators at a college Com
mencement The other was William J.
Bryan. The conversation between them
was reported to me yesterday.
'Mr. Bryan, have you any hope OF a
majority for free silver?'
"a week ago | had not the slightest. 1t
begins to look more favorable. We shall
make a desperate fight and may win by a
bare majority.''
Like the atmospheric currents the causes
of this political tornado have long been
gathering, but they have been invisible
and mysterious. The storm has burst in
all its fury with little warning. High and
low are laid in the dust together by both
tornadoes. There was power house in
the track of the storm Three men were
killed by the instant fall of its two lofty
chimneys One is rebuilt and smoking
they are laying the last bricks on the sum
nit of the other as | write. And hard by
are tenements of the poor in scattered
rubbish; they will be the last to be re-
placed. And the silver whirlwind has
struck the President of the United States,
the Supreme Court, the national credit,
the banks and all the great enterprises Of
the country. 1t is worse than the wind
storm, which left out of its track the
loftiest buildings of st. Louis. Strong
men have trembled while they were tell
ing me that they looked out upon it's fury
from their offices in the fifteenth story,
and knew not what minute the colossal
structure would be prostrated Our great
est political and financial interests lie eX-
actly in the track OF the new tornado.
But the farmers and the working men
will be the worst sufferers and the last to
recover.
| have just come from the motley crowd
of Populsts at their headquarters. They
are vociferating in little groups, and you
can easily gain access to the center and
aSl- tha,p Questions What thair
grievances?
''The gold bugs of the East. They We
got US by the throat. They are running
US. They are lording it over our great
States of the West. Do you suppose we
are going to be trodden down by syndi-
Gates in New York and Boston?' OF
course not, but you want to know what
they have done that they should be hated
SO tiercely.
Done! Why they've got mortgages on
all our farms and railroads and public
buildings and schoolhouses and meeting
houses. We can't worship God; nor teach
our children to spell, nor harvest our
corn, nor eat our miserable pittance with
out having their greedy eyes upon us.
Do you suppose we're going to stand
that?''
You take look at their excited faces
and clenched fists and don't think they
are going to stand it, but express some
wonder what they are going to do about
it.
''We're going to pay them off in silver
dollars. When we borrowed the money
bushel of wheat would pay dollar of the
debt They shall never get two bushels
for one. Wen be fair but We re bound
to be free. Now's our chance"
You keep pressing your questions. Their
borrowed money-has it not stocked their
farms and broken more acres, so that they
raise twice as much wheat as beforeo Does
not one bushel pay for a days work and
buy as much clothing and coffee and agri-
cultural machinery as ever? After all, are
not they better off than when they pre-
empted the homestead without dollar to
begin work with? You get wild and con-
fticting replies until you come to your last
word: My friends, you have your griev-
ances. But are you taking the right way
to end them? The atrocious crime Of the
gold bugs was to lend you their money.
They will never do it again.
That sobers them. | have never known
it to fail. | have seen a crowd of these
excited Populists pause and look at one
another thoughtfully at this rejoinder.
Some of them have the candor to admit
that the demolshing of credit by repudi-
alton is not only inevitable, but is the
best thing they are aiming at; that it will
be the salvation of the farmers to be I'M
able ever to borrow another dollar. 9th
ers have Utopian schemes for borrowing
of the national Government. But they
are all facing the end of the Western
mortgage system.
This clearly defined track is the most
marvellous resemblance of the two lorna
does. From an elevated point you can
trace the exact furrow the wind storm
plowed from the southern edge of the city
across the river to East st. Louis. And
the political storm is blowing one furrow.
These Populists have started dozen, like
the graduated income tax, Government
ownership of telegraphs and railroads and
granger legislation. You don't hear any
vociteration about these issues. You hear
no more about bimetallism. The silver
storm alone is bowling wherever | have
been in Illinois, in Missouri and in Kansas.
Torladoes hustle men out of their places
very swiftly sometimes. On that awful
evening in May a barber was in the midst
of his work. He had prepared the face of
his client, and stepped to the other side
of the room to put an edge upon his razor.
When he returned his man had disappear
ed and a goat was sitting in the chairl
Who will be in places of honor and re-