The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1896-09-23
FREE SILVER.
Speech of North CarOlInian who
Claims 10 be a Parity with Bryan.

Speech of North CarOiiniah WHO
claims 10 be a Parity with Bryan.
Fellow Citizens Il am here to talk
to you about the free coinage OF all
the silver in the universe at the ratio
of lG to |. This is revolution and !
am leading it. ME and Bryan are
the biggest figures in It. The masses
are rising against the classes, and ME-
and Bryan are at the head of the ris-
ing hosts. Bryan is generalls>imo
and ! am at parity with Bryan.
Don't get into your proletarian
heads that Bryan is bigger man than
ME. He is not. We are at parity
and I propose to stay at a parity. And
[ want you to understand right now,
nv sansculottie friends, that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor princi-
palities, nor powers, nor things pres
ent, nor things to come, nor height
nor depth, nor any other creature
shall be able to separate me from my
mighty parity with WILLIAM Bryan.
am playing the role, or am trying
my best to play the role, OF S'amiie
Desmoulins in this new revolutloh'
He started the French Revolution d
hundred wears ago, and [ started thls
one that is, NJ + and Bryan started
il, and we are at parity but the very
first start of it was the letter Of mine
70 the News and Observer away back
in March last. When Bryan saw that
letter he Joined in with the mighty
movement thus inaugurated, and
right then and there ME and him
started out at revolutionary parity.
This is q great revolution. 1t is very
like the French Revolution of hun
dred years ago. Camille Desmoulins,
the man who started that revolution,
and the man that 1 am try
ing my best to look like, though
| much fear 1 am not built after
a fashion ever to feel like him,
he found out that the people had
been and were being badly treated
by such traitors and deserters and
pie-hunters as Dug Carter and III
Gudger that the masses had for ages
been grossly put upon by the classes
that the plutOcrats had trodden them
down; that the money power had the
whole French Nation by the throat
that there had been some kind OF a
great and very successful conspiracy
to demonetiZe the peoples money,
and to discredit the dollar OF their
fathers that there was not enough
money in the country with which to
do the business of the country, and
that what money there was, was TOO
good tha. every dollar of it was worth
two hundred cents that people who
worked and earned it, could buy toe
much Hith it; that the man with q
wife aud children, who worked day
aEI got a dollar Of French money
could take it to store at night, and
get too much provisions and other
neoessaries for that wife and those
children; that the necessaries of life
were coming to the people too cheap
that flour was too cheap, and meat
was too cheap, and corn was too
cheap, and cotton goods were too
cheap that woolen clothes were toe
cheap; that the farmers supplies
were entirely too cheap; that medi-
cines for the sick were too cheap
that the salaries of the clerks in the
stores went entirely too far in the
purchase of things to live upon; that
the preachers pay for the ministra-
lions of grace bought him too many
of the things necessary for the susten-
ance of his body; that the working
man was ruined by dollar of too
high purchasing power; that what
the country needed to restore prosper
ity was a cheaper dollar also that
there were too many fine houses i'll
the country and too many respectable
people living in them; that there were
too much culture and refinement
abroad in the land; that there were
too many ladies and gentlemen in the
country that there were too many
people who wore clean clothes; that
there were too many who took bath
every day; that the whole land was
being devastated by billed shirts,
starched collars and laundried cuffs ;
that there was too much purple and
fine linen, and too much faring sump-
tuously every day; that there were
too many Vanderbilts, and J. Pier
pont Morgans, and Goulds, and AS
tors, and Rocketellers, and prosper
Gus people generally; that wealth was
too easily accumulated by the frugal
and brainy industrious; that it had
become too hard for the people who
did not do anything to get living out
of the people worked; that un.
der the social, economic and labor
conditions Of that day it was really
next to impossible for those who idled
away their time and dissipated their
lives to live in comfort and respecta-
bility. Aud so, Camille Desmoulius,
that fellow that / hope and pray you
think l am looking like at this very
minute, he jumped upon Il table one
day, he did, near the Cafe de Foy,
jerked out his pistol, and drawed it
on the crowd, attracted thither by a
free-lunch counter somewhere about
the said Cafe, and swore that the su-
preme hour had come for Frenchmen
and for men that the time had come
for them to choose between swift
death and deliverapce forever: and
he called upon universal Paris. and
universal France, to sound univer-
sal call To- arms and what he said
was tantamOunt to advising all the
people who heard him TO go to work
and kill all the rich folk in France,
and to down such traitors as Dug
IdI lSI anu M SuNSCls Auu tlllI w Co
the real beginning of the grand and
sublime movement for the free coin-
age of silver, and that movement has
eliminated at last in this great revo-
luton that ME- andsBryan are lead
ing. And the minds Of the people
who heard Camille, were intiamed
and maddened by his words Of great
ness and fiery wrath and they an
swered his call to arms as with the
voice of a million demons crying from
the air; and they rose up like swell
ling sea and they swept the land
like tidal wave; and the fever of
revolution spread like prairie fire !;