Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1896-09-25
THE CASE IN COURT.
TO BE DECIDED BY RIGHT, REA-
SON AND FACT.
An Interesting Interview With tho
Famous Historian and Scholar, John
Clark Ridpath - The Populist-Demo-
cratic Congressional Candidate.

This eminent historian has been
named as Fusion candidate for con-
gress in the Fifth district of Indiana.
He is neither politician nor capt.
talist, but he is a man of high ability,
| close student and q friend OF the
common people. In q recent interview
he used the following language, which
should be pondered well by every lover
Of our country and its free institutions:
According to my way of thinking
our government has been steadily drift
ing away from the people and getting
into the power of special interests. The
circle of government has narrowed
and narrowed, till it appears to me the
height of absurdity to call it any longer
government of the people, for the
people and by the people, l want to
see this process completely reversed.
want to see the government restored
to the people. believe precisely what
Webster and Theodore Parker and
Lincoln said, viz: That our republic
is, or ought to be, government of the
people, for the people and by them
"How can there be any harm in such
doctrine? In the name of common
sense has it come to pass that patriotic
citizens of the United States of Ameri
ca cannot advocate the right of the
people to govern themselves? Has it
come to that that we have, sure
enough, lot of self-constituted mas
tiers who shall tell us what is good for
us and how we shall obtain it? Are
we Americans lot of younglings who
are unable to lead ourselves, but must
be led rather as with string and fed
on porridge as with spoon?
Among the methods as it seems to
me by which the government is to be
recovered by the people is, first of all,
as the matter now stands, the restora-
tion of our currency. We want our cur
rency system put back precisely where
1t was under the statute and constitu-
ton for the first eighty-one years of
our existence as nation. Our statu-
tory bimetallic system of currency was
taken from us in 1873 by a process
which I do not care to characterize in
fitting terms Now we propose to have
it back again. The restoration of our
silver money to the place it held before
is the peoples cause, and the people in
this contest are going to triumph. They
are going to triumph in the open light
of day under the clear CLEAN of light
and truth.
"The silver dollar was of old the unit
of money and account in the United
States. That dollar to this hour has
never been altered by the fraction Of a
grain in the quantity OF pure metal
composing it, Every other coin.
whether gold or silver, has been alter
ed time and again, but the silver unit
never. The silver dollar was the dol
lar of the law and the contract. It is
to this day the dollar Of the law and |
the contract. To the silver unit all |
the rest, both gold and silver, have
been conformed from our first statute
of 1899 to that ill-starred date when |
the conspiracy against our old consti- |
tutional order first declared itself. The |
gold eagle of the original statute, and |
of all subsequent statutes, was not |
made to be $40, but to be of the value
of $40. The half-eagle was not made
to be SIS, but to be of the value of S.
The quarter-eagle was of the value of |
$3.50 and the double eagle was of the
value of 500. Even the gold dollar of /
1S49, marvellous to relate, was not 81,
but was made to be of the value of 81.
The subsidiary coins were all fractions
Of the dollar and the silver dollar was
Of silver only.
mot single dictionary or encyclo-
Dedia in the English language before
he year 1878 ever defined dollar in any
.erms other than of silver. In that
rear the administrators of the estate of
Noah Webster, deceased, cut the plates
If our standard lexicon and inserted
lew definition that had become neces-
iary in order to throw penumbra of