The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-08-27
.ional axes are laid upon labor and eon-

tional taxes are laid upon labor and con-
sumption.
aside from the fact that our vast acre
age and relatively sparse population af-
ford opportunity to live, out of pro-
portion to the relation between numbers
and property values. our condition is
worse as a people than that of the French
at the outbreak of the revolution.
1.-The absolute silence of Senator Hill
concerning these most grave and menac-
ing conditions, forces me to exciaim:
Art thou a leader in Israel and knowest
not these things?' Does the distinguished
senator really suppose that a party of
people can shut its eyes to these things?"
Continuing Mr.. Overmyer says:
Senator Hill is Mortified at the specta-
Gle of the disconnected and distressed
elements of the populat ton fiocking to the
Democratic standard. What and where
would the Democratic party be without
them? Did he seriously suppose that it
could any longer compete with the Re
publican party for the favor of the great
and powerful, the capitalstic classes, as
it did during the Cleveland ascendency?
Has it occurred to the senator that but
for economic oppression and dire distress,
which doom three millions of men to
idleness and millions of people to penury.
suffering and starvation, there would be
no crowd of Populists, silver Republi-
cans, single tax men, old Greenbackers.
professional labor agitators, socialists
and Adullamites generally? If he re-
jects all these and all whom the compan-
ionship of pain and the instincts of JUS
tice and humanity cast with them. he
will reject the entire American people
save the immensely rich and the vicious
elements of our metropolitan populace-
Again he says: 1t is neither good poll
tics nor is it honest to teach the people
to expect the government to provide a
living for them True, 6ht did the Chi
cago convention do so? Does the reform
ed and regenerated Democracy, the re-
stored and reclaimed Democracy of 1886
teach any such thing?
g Nor to lead them to believe that all
the ills to which the body polite is ma
turalIy subject. can be cured by legisla-
ton When and where did the Democ
racy of 1896 ever say they could be? But
the above assertion of the senator is
pregnant with apostacy to popular rights.
1t implies that it is useless to attempt
to right existing wrongs by legislation.
Which is saying in effect that the Demo-
cratic party. as Senator Hill would have
it, should wholly ignore existing evils,
in it's platform and public utterances and
in its acts if in power. What sort of
Democracy would this be?
''Agrarian tendencies. Who but patri-
clans. mobiles and aristocrats ever feared
them? Was the Agrarian law of Rome
wrong? Is our law limiting and equaliz-
ing the amount of public land which a
person may acquire by homestead or pre-
emption wrong? Why were it's homely
limitations established? Is it wrong to
advocate policies which tend to the own
ership of lands by the many instead OF
the few? Is it wrong to support meas
ures which will save from anihiliation
that remnant of proprietary farmers
which still remain with US, shall we
go on checking and depressing the
'agrarians' and licensing the vultures OF
trade, till the lands are all owned by ur-
ban landlords and titled by a peasantry?
Was not the maintenance of the agrar-
ian law coincident with the maintenance
of Roman liberty? Was not the Hebrew
Jubilee redemption 'argarian?' Did not
Aristotle declare that the best republics
were those in which the citizens them
selves titled the lands?' Were the mar
tyrs Cassius. and the Gracchi wrong2 Or
were their arrogant, inhuman, purse
proud assassins wrong? Is the Demo-
cratic party to be Democratic, or is it to
be aristocratic? Shall the future of the
Democratic organization be limited to
an act of self-destruction, i. e. proclaim
ing absolute enmity to all things agrar-
ian and all things plebeian, all things
popular all things ameliora tive? A proc
lamatfon of cruel scorn of poverty, fierce
hostility to equity. base and servile sub
mission to presumptuous and heartless
pIutocracy? Or shall its perpetuity and
its future power and glory be assured by
a brave return and strict adherence to
the agrarian principles of it's great
founder, Jefferson, who turned the for
ests and fields and looked to the country
for political righteousness, but never
dreamed that it could be found amid
dense populations, where poverty and
crime. want and squalor. debauchery and
degradation arc the companions of cruel
greed. merciless avarice and inordinate
wealth. Shall the Democratic party in
the future content itself with reiterating
its mere adhesion to the eternal princi-
pies and with chanting parrot like the
empty and vapid sophIsm: L am Demo-
crat,' or, shall it realize the full meaning of
the eternal principles and that their
beneficence is wholly lost If they are not
constantly applied to the changing con-
ditions of men? That the mere formal
endorsement of the most sacred prfnci-
pie unless the principle is applied to and
made operative through the affairs of
men is the verfest naockery? That good