Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1896-07-10
THE FIRST GUN.
HON. FRANK BURKITT OPENS
CAMPAIGN IN ARKANSAS.
Finance, TT ansportation and Land the
Thsee Great Distinctive Principles Of
the Peoples Party--History OF Political
PARTIES

The following are extracts taken
from the speech of Hon. Frank Burkitt,
ex-candidate Of the peoples party for
governor of Mississippi in 1895. The
speech was delivered at Hardy, Ark,
May 30. 1896.
Fellow Citizens: When four thou
sand men own more than half the
property Of a nation of seventy mil
lions; when two men are the proprie-
tors of 100000 acres of land, when
corporations and foreign syndicates
have been given or permitted to grab
land enough in this country If in a
body to make four such states as Ar
kansas; when fifty-two per cent Of our
entire population are tenants; when of
2.277 heads Of families in ward in the
city Of New York only 10 own their
homes unencumbered; when heartless
millionaires like Pullman exercise the
power to reduce arbitrarily the wages
of their employees three times in one
year, at the same time declaring the
usual dividends. when federal judges
at the bidding of corporations enjoin
men from doing what they never con-
templated, and imprison them for fail
ure or refusal to commit the crime
charged; when the same tools of plu-
tocracy attempt to compel workingmen
to submit to the exaction Of railway
magnates or be punished for refusing
to work; when the President of the
United States will at the behest Of
soulless corporations invade a sover-
eign state over the protest Of gov
ernor and in defiance of the constitu-
ton and law of the land when SER
vile congress farms out the right to
Issue, expand and contract the cur
rency of a great nation at will and
pleasure of 1856 national bankers;
when an incompetent and corrupt Sec
rotary. of the treasury dickers in secret
with the old clients and partners of the
president in the sale of bonds at a
price that enables the purchasers to
reap a profit of millions of dollars;
when a supreme court solemnly de-
clares that the rich and powerful may
escape taxation, while the products of
farm, mine and factory do not yield
sufficient profit to the producers to de-
Gently feed, clothe and educate their
children; when soup houses are re-
garded as necessary institutions in our
cities, when the highways of This, the
greatest nation on earth, are thronged
by 100000 human beings, who, like
the Son Of Man, are houseless and
homeless, with not where to lay their
heads, l assume that you will agree
with me that there is something wrong
in this country.
To right the wrongs from which peo-
pie suffer, after earnest, prayerful ef-
forts to induce the democratic and re-
publican party leaders to cease to fos-
ter monopoly and adopt as policy
"the greatest good to the greatest num-
ber," many good and true men, more
patriotic than partisan, feeling that
nothing would be done by either of the
old parties TO restore to the country
much needed prosperity, resolved upon
the organization of new party which
would embody in it's declaration of
principles the republicanism of Jeffer-
son and Lincoln and the democracy of
Jackson and Calhoun, and they christ
ened it with the identical name which
Jackson's party assumed in 1S2S-The
Peoples Party.
We hear democratic speakers often
boast that Thomas Jefferson was the
founder of the democratic party. Per-
NIT me to say, for the benefit of the
young men of the country, that
Thomas Jefferson died years before
there ever was party organized in
America bearing the name of demo-
crat. 1t is true that Jefferson laid
down certain great and fundamental
principles of government, which were
afterwards adopted by the democratic
party under the leadership of Andrew
Jackson, but in truth and fact Jeffer-
sons party was called the republican
Abraham Lincoln and his followers
claimed-and with more reason and
greater consistency than the modern
be the disciples of JEFF
ferson. A resume of political parties
in the earlier days Of the republic dis
closes the interesting fact that the peo-
pies party Of today was organized
under precisely the same conditions,
and for precisely the same purposes,
that called the democratic party into
existence, as 1 have already stated,
years after the demise of the author
Of the first declaration Of American in
dependence. So If principles rather
than name can properly Tx political
status, the middle-of-t he-road populist
Is the truest democrat in the land, if
Jefferson and Jackson were democrats,
and judged by the same standard the
honest populist is the purest repub-
lican in America today, if Lincoln was
a republican.
In the earliest days of the republic
here were Shylocks as now, and the
greed of the money devil was
Utmost as arrogant and aggressive IN
Ter the administration of Washington
Is of Grover Cleveland. Always TAX
ng advantage of the misfortune of
Mankind the money leeches seek to