The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-07-24
JUDGE FoorE SPEAKS.
Defeated Candidate for Craftsmanship
Enthuses the Convention.
Especial to the State Journal.l

Especial to the State Journal.l
Fort Scott, July 24.-Judge c. E.
foote, Topeka, after the temporary or
ganization of the convention had been
completed, was called on for a speech
He said:
l am glad to be accorded the honor Of
speaklng TO a body of men who repre-
greater per cent of honest, intelligent and
independent thinking people. than any or
SSnIzatlon OF like character on the fact
OF the earth. The Peoples Party was the
chlld or agricultural distress; conceived in
the hour of industrial gloom, and born in
the day of political degeneracy. The
pdnSS OF munger and the curse of greed
nourishment from the emaciated form Of
t tne GODDESS OF liberty nursed it to man
The Peoples Party had its origin among
tne agricultural and industrial classes,
because these were the first effected and
the most sorely afflicted by the contrac-
ton of the currency and the shrinkage of
value. and for the further reason that all
people.
in vile epithets and defines the members
or this party as owls and bats: repudia.-
tramps; scamps and scalawags; fools and
chumpS, 1t a traducer and slanderer of
titled to either consideration or respect
by w, fair minded people.
There Is no effect in this world without
a cause, and the very men who have
vtled us the most are largely responsible
for the severing of party affiliations by
those who today compose this party. The
cold, clammy Indifference with which the
demand of the poorer classes was treated
by the old parties, finally resulted in driv-
ing a large number of the most conscier-
uous, honest, deserving men out of them
and In many instances, out of them for
ever.
The Republican papers and orators
would have you believe that the distress
ing times which led up to this movement,
originated during the Cleveland admins
tration. They charge it all to Democratic
trade n They
seem to have forgotten that during Mr..
Harrison,s administration corn sold in
wheat as low thirty-five, and other
farm products in proportion, while many
could find market for it at all They
seem to have forgotten that resolution
concurred in by the Populist house in
1891, calling for a commercial congress of
of agricultural depression and to suggest
remedies therefore; That resolution be-
throughout agricultural sections, based
upon economic questions, having become
general In the states Of the west and south
west, etc; that such a congress did meet
in Kansas City, Mo, in the month of
April in the year 1891, it being about the
office, and that Mr.. Harrison in a letter
addressed to that distinguished body of
men, made the following statement:
1.-The farmers insist that the prices of
farm products have been too 1ow-below
the point of fair living and fair profits. I
The distinguished senator from Ohio.
John Sherman, in a letter to the same
body of men, used the following language:
There has been a depression among
those engaged in agricultural pursuits
not confined to the western states or to
our own country, but general throughout
Mark you. this depressed condition con-
ceded by President Harrison, Senator
Sherman and thousands of other great
rather misrue-and during the reign of
the Mckinley tariff law. Smarting under