Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1896-04-29

Recently the silver men held a meet
Ing In Topeka, Kansas, and, judging
by the reported proceedings of the
meeting, they evidently think that not
only Kansas but the whole country
needs redeeming some more. We take
the following partial account of the
meeting from the Topeka Daily Co.
operator:
The silver meeting at Hamilton hall
last night shows the general trend of
thought with reference to the great
financial problem before the people,
when some of the leading republicans
and democrats announced from the ros-
trum that they were longer bound by
no party that did not represent their
views.
The audience numbered about 500
people. The meeting was presided over
by H. P. Coney, who threw the first
she'll of the evening by p vigorous at
tack upon the money changers and
their faithful ally, John Sherman.
THE money changers" he said, "of
Wall street, of Lombard and Thread
needle streets are speculating upon the
happiness of the people bought by the
blood of 100000 of our sons.
John Sherman talked of reading
men out of the party. I am a republi-
can, and how 1 rejoiced when found
there was one republican in our con-
gress, H. M. Teller of Colorado, who
told him he could not be read out nor
driven out of the party by a man who
got his inspiration from a democratic
source-from Grover Cleveland and the
White House.
John Sherman should have died
long years ago. He should have been
hung as a traitor, for TO my mind he
is a greater traitor than was jeff Davis.
Il speak my honest convictions when
say Jefferson Davis was a greater
patriot than John Sherman. One tried
to keep the manacles on four millions
of slaves, while the other has placed
the shackles upon seventy millions of
people now on earth and upon gener-
ations yet unborn"
Speaking about the republican party
Mr.. Coney said: That man falls far
short of his obligation to his fireside,
Of his obligation to his government.
when he fails to carry out his convic-
lions regardless Of any church or polit-
lcal party. We must be patriots first
and politicians afterward. If any par
ty or church fails to meet your conyic-
tions, be manly enough to say so, and
leave it. Be honest with yourself and
M 0cy onfI I<Nf col -
Albert Griffin, the main speaker of
the evening, was then introduced. and
said:
Il am not an anarchist, therefore I
believe we ought to have a govern
ment, and 1 think that government
should do its duty to the people. am
not an atheist, therefore l believe the
God who made this universe did not
intend that His people He placed here
should want for anything.
'All our ills are the result of the
violation Of some law. If we are sick.
the doctor tells us we have violated
some physical law. If we have ma
tional ills, it is because we have vio-
lated some political law.
I'm 1893. we had a lot of doctors
down at Washington who said all we
needed was to repeal the Sherman law.
and prosperity would be upon US. This
was dinged into the ears of our legis-
lators until they believed it and re-
pealed that law.
Everything still seems to be going
down. Instead of having business
building up and prosperous, we find
some of the oldest and soundest insti-
tutions having a desperate struggle to
keep from going to the wall. We find
the greatest railroads of the country
going into the hands of receivers, and
bankruptcy and financial chaos seems
to be the order.
Nor are the banking institutions
free from it. Bradstreet said in 1894
there were ninety-eight bank failures.
entailing a loss of SIS, S,G00, 900, and one
year later, in 1895, there were 149 such
failures with a loss of $4,000, 900.
I'm the light OF reason and common
sense, does it not seem that we should
discharge the doctors we have been
employing and get some others?
Il stand here to charge that the act
passed in 1873 demonetizing silver, was
engineered and put through by the
bankers of the world. I charge that
there has never been. a session of con-
gress since that time which would not
have repealed that law had it not
been for the influence exerted by the
bankers. I further charge that the
panic Of 1893 was planned and pre-
cipitated upon the country by the
bankers for the express purpose of
wiping out the last vestige of silver
legislation and forcing the issue of
gold interest bearing bonds.
This banking system enables the
banker to draw interest upon what he
owes; the more he owes the bigger his
interest. Two-thirds of the business
of the country is done upon the credit
system.
1T is to the interest of the bankers
to have little money in order to COM
pei the people to come to them to bor-
row. They continually clamor for the
contraction of the currency. No other
class of business men want a scarcity
Of money.
''The business men of the country
are absolutely under the thumb of the
bankers. The bankers control con-
gress and the press-all the great dali
lies of the eountry-and 1t is almost
to resist their power.