The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1897-04-06

Ion as Wise m6Q "OU4u HUI S4EO 00O
brave men will not bear. The labor
organizations are here because Of the
prior presence of oppression. Every
labor organization upon the face OF the
earth to-day stands as a monument
testifying to the existence Of human
woe. Some one has well said that the
people will as soon rise in, revolt with
out oppression as the ocean will heave
in pillows without the wind.
And SO far are these organizations
from being harbingers of i'll, that they
give us the best ground for hope for the
future of America, and therefore for
the world. The dark hour for the
American people will be when they
have become SO sunk in the scale .ot
manly vigor that they wilI'nOt organize
and will not rebel. The labor unions
are omens of good, and speak hope to
the human race, for they are the tan
gible proofs of today that we are the
sons of the sons of those men who, by
seven long years of such bravery as
the riches of history cannot show,
wrested from the hand Of a tyrannical
monarch those liberties which the Gre
ator had given for man, who estab-
lished this republic, carved it from the
wilderness, conquered it from the In
dams, wrested it from England, and at
last, shilling their own tumult, conse
Grated it forever as the home of liberty
loving men and the theatre OF their
transcending achievements, "While
startled kings and emperors gazed and
marvelled that from the rude touch of
this handful, cast on q bleak and I'm
known shore, should have come to the
embodied genius of human government,
the perfect model of human liberty"
And it is we'll that the sons of those
men should be found to day in organi-
cations re echoing the truth that bathed
old Bunker Hill in glory and conse
Grated the American soil, that powder
will as o slumber beneath the spark
as will Anglo Saxon men beneath op-
preston.
Well, anarchism, socialism, nihilism,
communism, are all but varied mani
festations of this same general move
ment-misdirected manifestations, in
deed, but manifestations none the less.
Men are restless and cropping, and their
hands fall upon these things in the
darkness, to which they afterwards
cling in the hope that some way out of
them can come relief. I spoke of the
Farmers Alliance a moment ago. Out
Of that organization sprang q great
political party. The times were crying
loudly for some one to espouse the cause
of truth. Two old parties had long
since ceased to mean anything vital,
and stood for naught save blind infatu
alton with a name. The circumstances
which called them into being had passed
away, and they lived and were loved
but as relics of glorious battles fought
and won. Their platforms were naught
but SUGGESTIONS Of sonorous platitudes.
The victory Of either meant the solu
ton of no vital question, and every one
knew it. Meanwhile the world was
living ages in a few short years. Great
problems we're arising demanding solu
ton. The people cried out for some one
to help them; but as 40 one came, they
finally decided to do that best of all
things-to help themselves. To that
end they organized a political party and
espoused the of man needed re
forms. They accomplished some things
and the way seemed open for more.
The tuture seemed full of promise for
them. But alas! at that very moment
they fell beneath the odious sway of
the demagogue, and their movement
has received a blight.
But is it dead, therefore Is it dead 2
Not unless truth itself can die! 1 am
no Populist, az the term is now used. /
am not speaking for the PopuIist
party as it now is, but for it as it started
out to be; for it as it was in it's incipi-
ency, when it voiced the claims of
eternal truth, and pledged itself to
win the same. And l am speaking for
it as it, or something very like it, is yet
going to be; for 1 declare to you boldly
that the spirit of Populism is immortal.
Why Because it is the same spirit
that stirred in the hearts of those men
who, beneath the leadership of Jefer
son, framed the grand old peoples
party of their time-the matchless
Democratic; the same spirit that burst
forth in the organization of the Repub
lican party when the times demanded
the changes which it wrought; the
same spirit that has ever burned and