The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-08-23
MIR. PArTERsoN's sPEEcH.
Colorado Editor Discusses the Issues
of the Day.

Oh the lay
Thomas M Patterson. of Colorado.
chairman of the Bryan notification COM
mittee, said:
Mr.. Bryan-We are here today that,
as the mouthpiece of the national con-
vention of the Peoples party, we may
formally notify you of your nomination
for president of the United States by
that convention The convention fully
understood when it gave this token of
their great love and confidence that you
were not a member of the Peoples party
neither would you be pledged to its
platform, except so far as your convic-
lions and the principles of your own
party conceded with its declarations.
Nevertheless, sir, the Peoples party
nominated you with absolute unanimity
and with an enthusiasm not excelled
even in the convention of your own
party when it nominated you for the
same great Office.
Only extraordinary public conditions
and extraordinary faith in you could
nave prevailed upon the Peoples party
to go outside of it's own organization for
its presidential candidate
Its convention met when congress
had struck the final blow against the
constitutional rights or the people over
the money of the nation, and had re-
formed every public obligation against
the interests of the masses for the ben
eft of the holders of the obligations.
Silver could no longer be used in the
were in process of Punishment, to make
room for the paper of the bank ring.
Congress had abdicated it's power to
regulate the volume of paper money and
had turned that function of government
over to the banks, with power to ex-
pand and contract the volume of the
currency at pleasure, and thus control
the price of every product. 1t had closed
the mintS to the free coinage of silver
and opened the government printing
office to the free coinage of bank cur
rency for the benefit of the money syn
dictate. With the war against Spain
which had been the provocation for obi
GUS and burdensome stamp and revenue
taxes-formally closed, the people were
yet harassed by these taxes, unabated.
Congress and legislatures had become
the eager tool of cOrrupting trusts and
rporations-presenting to the public
representative government as a farce.
Private monopOlieS were controlling the
prices of all materials and finished pro-
ducts; they were closing and disman-
ting mills and factories, driving thou
sands from profitable employment, and
were arbitrarily fixing the hours, the
price and the conditions of labor Private
monopolies had about closed the doors
of opportunity in the face of the young,
ambitious and capable, and had written
above them the warning, You shall not
enter here
"A tariff law was upon the statute
books which stimulated and nurtured
these baleful trusts, and transportation
the most important instrument of our
national comTnerce-was in the hands
of railway and steamship syndicates.
These syndicates were levying exorbit-
ant rates. discriminating for and against
localities, and with rebates and like
robber devices were enriching and i'm
poverishing business investors at will
There was boosted prosperity, but it
was prosperity that ran in narrow chan
nels. It sought the mansions of the
rich and Summed the homes of the
common people It was evidenced in ex-
orbitant profits to the trusts-forty mill
lions of dollars per annum to the Carne-
gle company and fifty millions per an
mum to the Standard Oil trust. Kind
nature had smiled upon the husband
man. For his good crops the trust had
claimed the credit While the trust has
not yet acquired complete dominion over
tremendous tolls from those who grow
the grain, upon every article and imple-
ment necessary to conduct the farm
The great advance in the cost of imple-
ments and of every item of building
material accounts, in a large measure,
which the trusts are periodically distrib-
uting- The reign of the rich had been
inaugurated. They had taken the reins
of government from the hands of the
many. The few had intrenched them
selves behind the vicious power of their
of the masses and subordinate it to their
selfish and avaricious designs
This has been inevitable in the life of
every republic In ours the burning
question had been whether there was
such living virtue in the work OF the
fathers as that the american. people,
overcoming every influence that the
forces of arfstocracy and plutocracy
would array against them, might con-