Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1899-12-20

cratic platform and candidates, why
keep up the farce of independent
party organization any Longer? ], for
one, as a Peter Cooper greenbacker,
am tired of dancing attendance on
the councils of party which formu-
lates reform platforms, and nomi-
mates plutocrats of the Mclean type
thereon, and emasculates its financial
planks by inferring a possible exist
ence of non-legal tender paper money,
and demanding coin redemption for
paper money that is legal tender.
If it would not be rank heresy to
do so, / would like to suggest
that Mr.. Bryan, if he is the ideal can
didate. could accomplish greater and
more permanent results as the can
didate of an independent reform
party, than he can as the candidate
of party that is not in accord with
itself on any one issue. AS the South
ern Mercury well says:
There are more populists to-day in this
nation than ever before. Every one OF
the 100000 voters who voted for Mayor
Jones for Governor of Ohio. is a populist.
while goodness only knows how many
populists were mislead into voting for
Mclean by the populist platform adop-
ted for that specific purpose by Ohio dem
ocrats. and by the apeals of Bryan and
men of the Bryan type; and in other
states the vote was cast In a more OBJ
scure mc lner. but in every state lies dor
mant within the old parties a large pop
ulist vote Combine this vote, let IL be
cast separately from the old parties. and
the possibility of a national populist vic
tory is not to be laughed at. But how
to combine this vote. how to draw out
from the old parties those populists lin
principle) who are now in them. is the
problem with which we must deal, and
that, too. without delay.
Certain 1t Is that these men will never
join the peoples party so long as its po-
sftion In 1900 is uncertain, so long as
there is the remotest shadow of suspicion
that it will league itself with either of the
corrupt old parties and compromise its
principles and stultify its membership.
Certain 1t Is, also, that they will never
join party whose membership is so in
ert, so inactive. that they sit idle-handed.
and open-mouthed. while the harvest sea-
son passes away. Certain IT Is that IL
these men are to be gotten out of the old
parties 1t must be by a party which is
at once active, aggressive, and independ-
ent or the old parties and no other.
There is no good reason WIN the peo-
pies party should not fill these require
ments. There is every stimulus to make
popufSts active; the very nature of pop
ulism. the very needs of its acceptance
by the people should make populists ag-
gressive. and the plan of the founders of
the party made the peoples party at it's
birth Independent of lie old parties-not
one of them, but Of both OF them-and
every violation of that independence has
been a violation of the populist faith, a
desecration Of the populist creed.
With the glorious opportunities before
the peoples party it Is exasperating that
our national committee sits in sullen in
dinerence. Why does =. not meet and
call national convention? Why not
make some show of life? Why not do
something or say something to refute
the oft-told slcndef that the life of the
peoples party is gone. and that 1t is but q
side-show, an appen>-x vermiformous.
as 1t were. of one of the old parties?
These questions are being asked to-day
by thousands of populists in every state
populists who are anxious to push for
ward and to victory, but who are being
held In check by those who were chosen
to lead.
Again 1 say that it is time for the
reform press to speak out and define
the policy of the party. The old
party managers are already selecting
the time and place for the peoples
party convention, which it seems to
use as q kind of a whip to force the
democratic convention to nominate
Bryan. 1 should be pleased if each
populist editor who reads this arti-
Gle, will send to me, at Kansas City,
Mo-, marked copy of their paper
containing their conclusions upon the
matter therein.
GEORGE c. WARD.