The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-12-12
kansas City starr

(Kansas City Starr
II the average casual student of
American history should be told that
there was q period when the very
foundations OF the republic were
threatened with q reign OF bolshevism,
when red-capped revolutionaries
preaching the doctrines of anarchy
swept through the country destroying
property, killing and torturlng law
abiding citizens, and when q mob army
OF sixteen thousand men was muster
ed to defy the power of the chief exc
cutive Of the nation and had to be sup
pressed with federal army, the state
ment would likely be greeted with
amazed incredulity. True they didn't
call 1t bolshevism In those days-it
indicated around q banner which a
celebrated French woman said was re-
sponsible for many crimes, that of
Personal Liberty" And one of its
slogans was Free Whisky"
For nearly four years, when the
young republic was just emerging from
its cradle, 1t went on a wild jamboree
of radicalism and drunkenness that
brought Its new constitutional govern
ment to the verge Of doom. It was a
phase OF our history over which his
SOA
the period from 1892 to 1896. Wash
ington was president and it was for
tunate for the country that he was, for
by decisive action he checked the ris-
Ing tides of revolution and anarchy
and foated the young ship of state
through the dangerous waters.
There were two distinct currents OF
revolutionary propaganda that COM
blned their influences to create the
political upheaval-one OF foreign, the
other Of domestic origin. The French
revolution was responsible for one
movement. the tax on whisky for the
other and between whisky on the one
hand and revolutionary doctrines on
the other, the nation travelled far on
the road to political and physical de-
lirium tremens in that fateful four
years. The political movement swung
around the person Of that troublesome
Citizen Genet, who came to this coun.
try as an emissary from the French
revolutionary government, then enter
ing upon it's reign of terror in which
Robespierre figured as the Trotzky of
the period, and the whisky movement
had for its leader one David Bradford,
wealthy distiller from that region of
Pennsylvania where the fountains of
Monongehela rye had thei rorigin and
overlooked the land in a plenteous
+ stream.
When Louis XVI was beheaded in
January. 1893, and the French repub-
lie established, wave of republican
ism OF the most radical character
swept over this country, even pene-
trating the conservative cities of New
England. From Boston to Savannah,
the red cap was in evidence at public
gatherings, French songs were sung,
citizen" and "citizeness," terms
adopted from the French revolution
lists, began to be freely used and soap
box orators denounced the new gov
eminent as undemocratic. About this
time, in April, 1898, Genet, as minister
OF the newly established French gov
eminent, arrived at Charleston. His
reception in Charleston was an ova-
ton. Banquets and public meetings
were held in his honor at which the
red cap figured prominently and pub
lie speakers denounced Washington
and his policies and praised Genet and
the new French doctrines Of Liberty,
Equality and Fraternity"
Genet won over Governor Moultrie,
the revolutionary hero, to his cause,
and before he had presented his Gre
dentials as minister to the government
at Philadelphia, he began a policy Of
open defiance Of the neutrality pro-
claimed by President Washington be-
tween France and England, and with
Moultrie's connivance, 1t is said, start
ed to organize on American soil, priva-
teering and filibusterng expeditions
against England and Spain. He com.
!nissioned four privateers. manned
chiefly by Americans, and sent them
to attack the British commerce on the
coast, and he even went so far as to
organize a regiment of American SOL
diers of fortune for an expedition from
the frontiers of Georgia to attack the
Spanish-American possessions. When
her ode in to Philadelphia, thousands
of the people turned out to meet him,
and escort him to the capitol. Boston,
Philadelphia, New York and Savannah
went crazy over him. Washington
alone held his head and refused to be
drawn by popular clamor into the rev.
dictionary wave that followed the
trail of Genet and his red doctrines.
Genet developed a violent antago-
nism to Washington. "The old man."
he wrote home to France, SIS not what
history has painted him." Republican
clubs We're formed and most of the
big cities of the east and revolution