The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1898-05-03

Chairman Butler Writes Eis Views to
Mr. Jones, Of Burgaw, N. Give Pub.
lish the Letter by e request.

NY DEAR SIR:-Your esteemed favor
received and carefully considered
Iagree with you in much that you say
and were it not that most evil and
dangerous influences were controlling
our government and producing hard
times in the midst of plenty it might
be proper for us to be influenced by
the feelings that you express.
Bus in times likes these, when the
welfare of seventy millions of people,
including our own wives and children.
are at stake, our judgment and con
science alike call upon US to meet the
situation from the highest plane of pa
trioaGic duty.
Y III say that you endorse and that
every patriotic man should endorse
the sentiments OF the recent address
issued by the twenty five PopulIsts
Congressman and Senators, appealing
for a co operation OF all who are op-
posed to the rule and domination of
the gold ring and the allied trusts and
monopolies; but you say it will not
work in practice because a large num-
Der, if not q maj ority, Of the leaders
of the Democratic party are not sin
cerely for the principles Of Jefferson
and Bryan.
Now this may be so and it may not
be so, but for arguments sake let US
admit that tits so; that there is q larger
number Of Democratic leaders and
Democratic newspapers who are in
sympathy with Cleveland and his poll
cies than with Bryan and his princi-
pies; let us even admit that this class
makes up q majority Of the Demo.
cratic press and the Democratic State
Committee, but do these men and
these newspapers represent the senti
ment Of the great rank and file of the
Democratic party7 We know there
were q hundred thousand Democrats
in the State who were on the eve of
leaving the Democratic party when the
Democratic National Convention con-
vened in 1895 They would have
left if Cleveland had been nominated
or if any straddle bug had been nomi
mated. These voters in the State are
the rank and file Of their party. They
have to-day no more confidence in the
Democratic leaders who supported
Cleveland and who up to 1896 ridi
culed silver and every other reform
the Peoples party was advocating than
they had then. They r simply stay
ing in the party because they have
faith in Bryan ard Organism. If we
ever get these voters in the future, and
only hope for recruits in the future
is from this class of voters, we must
do il By pursuing such a course as will
command itself to those men, and at
the same time expose the hypocrisy of
the pretended Bryan Democrat who is
at heart a Cleveland Democrat.
/ believe that the great majority of
the voters OF the nation as we'll as of
North Carolina are honest and patri
otto. They sincerely believe in the
principles advocated by ] ferson,
and Lincoln. If this we're so then
there would be nc hope OF aver redeem.
ing this government from the domino
ton of Snylock and the monopoly tt
ries that now have us in their clutches.
But you say the Democratic party
will do as its leaders may see ft to
direct. II the Democratic party is
not honest with the people in this fight,
if it will not prove it's sincerity by re
pudiating its traitors and strddlers and
marching boldly up and helping US to
fight the allied and combined enemies
of humanity, then it ought to die and
the q Kicker it dies the better. Bat the
only way that the party can be kill ed,
that is: the only way that the dis
honest and i%nsincere men in it can be
thrust into the Republican party where
they belong and the honest and sincere
men taken into the POpulist party
where we hope to zee them, is by show.
ing the honest rank and file of that
party that their leaners are not sin
cere and that the party will again be
tray them al it did under Cleveland.
We are now in q position to put this
ttst to the party and to accomplish
this end so much to be desired, and it
would be criminal in US both from q
q party standpoint and from a stand
point of patriotic duty to fail to put
their sincerely to the test at this juno
ture.
Now the way to test their sincerely
is by proposing TO them to do as Bryan
has requested them to do: that is, to
CO operate on certain great funda-
mental principles. II they refuse to
cooperate it will prove their insincer-