The Houma courier. (Houma, La.) 1878-1939, 1896-11-14
SAM JONES' LETTER.
The Evangelist Is Not Looking for
the Millennium Right Away.
What He Anticipates After the Third Of
November-Says Much of the Pres
emit Trouble Is Located n
the Mouth.

There remains up to this hour uncer-
tainty as to who shall be elected, McKin-
ley OF Bryan If Mckinley is elected
and republicanism triumphs we shall
still have the same problems to deal
with with which we have been dealing
in the commercial, financial and agri-
cultural world for the past hundred
years. If Bryan is elected and free sill
yer triumphs we win just add one more
III to the many ills which now af1ict ms.
I have very little confidence in the pol
ticians' righting matters. National
prosperity cannot be superinduced by
the victory Of any candidate or the de-
feat Of any other candidate. Corn win
remain 10 and is cents a bushel in the
west as long as we produce more corn
than the country needs. The same is
true of wheat, cotton, cloth, apples, en-
gines. iron and everything.
j I have listened to arguments and read
specehs pro and con upon the issues be-
fore us. Mr.. Harrison with his over
whelming republican congress eight
years ago promised to do and tried to
do the very thing Mr.. Mckinley and the
republican party are now promising to
do. Mr.. Mckinley win as signally fail,
in my Judgment, as Mr.. Harrison and
his gang did. Really the democrats and
republicans have been alternately saw
ing the country and bringing p~rosperi-
ty ever since / have been a voter, and it
IS not saved much yet, and prosperity
seems to be only a word without the
possibility of application to the present
state of things. If the real trouble so
far as we meet it was located rightly I
would locate it in the mouth. Most
every fellow is mounting around. a
man who raised this year 1000 bushels
of corn, as many fat cattle and hogs as
he needed, and everything else in
abundance, and the sale of chickens and
eggs and butter from his farm bought
all the necessities for his family-when
that man growls 1 think the trouble is
rightly located in his mouth. Some of
our troubles may be rightly located in
our muscles. A fellow who only works
three months in the year and then lays
his misfortune to the decentralization of
silver ought to be indicted for va
grancy. And some of it can be located
in the head. The little lawyer who neg
lects his Office and runs around making
political speeches; the little doctor who
lays down his pills and powders and
runs for some little Office when be, Of.
Hce and all, could be put in a pill box;
when the merchant becomes more in
terested in politics than he is in his
business, I can very readily see how the
trouble of this class can be located
above their eyes if there be space at all
above their eyes.
I am no prophet nor the son Of a
prophet. We have but one lamp by
which we can guide our feet, said Pat
rick Henry, and that is the lamp of ex-
perience, and experience has taught
this country that the incoming of one
administration and the outgoing of
another has never been a potent factor
to restore confidence, create demand,
hush mouths and quicken industry.
The devil is in the people. The talk
much-and-do-little is in the people. Two
democratic parties, and two repub-
1ican parties, and two prohibition part
les, and two Salvation Armies, and six
different kinds of Methodists, three or
four kinds of Baptists, in spite of the
truth taught us that Gin unity there is
strength" and how pleasant it is for
brethren to dwell together in unity
Thetruth of the business is there are not
enough Offices to run for. If the parties
were lessened in number; the more we
split up the more candidates we can
run and the more politicians would lie
to the people. We cannot begin at the
top and work down. We must begin
at the mud-sills, at the foundation and
work up. Our boys must be taught to
think right. They must be taught po-
1itieal economy. integrity, honesty and
industry. When we have the right sort
of voters we will have the right sort Of
officials and the right sort Of govern
ment. ANY government is as good as
the people who create it and maintain
it. And times are what the people
the times.
The silverites say the gold bugs are
in with Wall and Lombard Streets
monumental conspiracy TO rob the peo-
PIE Inc gOld DugS say a silver looms
are not only fools but ~rascals, that
they would depreciate the currency Of
our country and pay their debts so cents
the dollar if they could. If half one
party says about the other is true
there ought to be, a wholesale hanging,
and If you hung many of them on any
given day the devil would close the
doors when he saw them coming, feel
ing that pandemonium would not be
safe il that crowd rushed In on him.
This country is not going to the devil
or the dogs, I don't care who is elected.
I believe that Gods hand is on this ma
American people-the most
civilized. the most progressive, the most
intelligent, the most thrifty nation on
the face of the earth, with the great
est resources and opportunities of any
II this nation should fail from
any cause, then humanity itself is a
failure, its development a dream and its
triumph an impossibility. Whatever
be the mistakes of one administra-
ton they can be corrected in the next.
1 believe in the sober after-thought of
the people. I believe in the wisdom
Of the masses. Il believe in the concur
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