The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 16, No. 24, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 17, 1897 Page: 4 of 16
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rUBLIBHRD WBRKLV BV—
SOUTHERN MERCURY.
Term* of subscription, one year «
SOUTHERN MERCURY PUB. CO.
llNCORrOHATBD.]
TEXAS POPULIST STATE,PUBLICATION
—AND —
Official Organ Fanners' State Alliance of Texas
Millos Park Managing Editor
- Money can be receipted for by the home office
onlv.
Entered at the Dalla*, Texas, postoflice a* inail
matter of the second class.
Scott Parker............ . Traveling Solicitor
Office, 196 Main Street, Opposite Trust building.
DALLAS, TEXAS, JUNE 17, 1897.
Any one desiring to secure a home in
Texas will obtain valuable information
regarding lands, prices, etc., by write to
Eugene L Brown, Lampasas, Tex.
The Nonconformist has gotten itself
into that unenviable status that all politi-
cal straddlers get into, in the opinion of
thinking honest people.
If the people will figure a little they
will wake up to the fact that they are pay-
ing the same official fees they did when
the farmer's cotton sold for 25 cents per
pound.
See every Allianceman possible during
the present month, and tell him of the
big meeting we are going to have in Dal-
las on Aug. 3. It will be the most at-
tractive meeting held by the organization
for years.
Ohio and Maryland have both gone
into the lynching business. They can't
sneer at Texas, for our people have far
more excuse for it, since hanging by law
is so much more expensive and uncertain
in Texas than in other states.
We publish this week a summary of
the laws enacted by the regular session
of the twenty-fifth legislature, not because
they are of any value or interest to our
people, but to show how the democrats
have kept (?) their pledges made at Fort
Worth,
The New York World and Senator Till-
man are engaged in the superfluous bus-
n<ss of exposing the rottenness of the
United States senate, under both demo-
cratic and republican regimes. Is there a
jnan in the country that doesn't know that
they and'their wives draw salaries, they
are not entitle^ to and speculate in their
yo^tes?
The pop* of Bosque county at their
meeting on May ?9 endorsed a straight
middle of jthe road policy, but said not a
' word against our erring brethren. If it
js right for the office .to seek the man, we
should keep ail officeholders and hunters
out of our nQnainating conventions. We
must practice what we preach.—Buck
Barry, Walnut, Tex.
The only thing left for the cotton grow-
éra to do is to meet combination with
Combination. At the State Alliance meet-
or atesóme previous time, the farmers
lid get together and devise plans that
¡iMafKwtoilíf crew. Actio*
if at all, should be prompt Stamp out
these combines and trusts if you have to
live on bread and water go naked! Bet-
ter that than forge the chains for your
own enslavement.
Lampasas populists are all in line and
are pressing the call for united action
among middle of the roaders. At a
meeting held at Lampasas on May 29,
comprised of delegates from every pre-
cinct in the county, they endorsed Chair,
man Bradley's efficient cámpaign man-
agement, and took a decided stand for
populist principles of the purest type.
Lack of space forbids publication of the
resolutions and proceedings in full.
The state committee of the people's
party of Kentucky has refused to arrange
for delegates to the Nashville conference,
but the "boys in the trenches" all over
the state are determined that that grand
old commonwealth shall be represented,
and have gone to work selecting dele-
gates regardless of the Bryanitish~brigands
who have the state organization by the
throat Don't be] afraid that Kentucky
will not answer at roll call. She'll be
there in fine shape!
The old party leaders may curse the
populists, but they are pretending to
adopt a good many of their planks in the
Omaha platform. Recently the free sil
silver party met in Chicago in conference
and for preliminary organization. It is
very strange that Butler permitted those
fellows to have any conference. Perhaps
he knows that they will come in on the
fusion reservation when he whistles for
them. It will require something besides
protective tariff and free silver to bring
prosperity, for the railroads would gobble
up the silver.
If the home industry movement does
nothing else it will show up people who
live in Texas but are not for Texas. There
are lots of tax eating officers who don't
evan have the public printing done in
Texas, much less wear Texas "clothes or
eat Texas grub. If the movement gets
strong enough to put the mark of Cain on
these fellows, it will have done some good.
If it gets strong enough to make the peo-
ple trade and traffick among themselves
and fight shy of eastern protected goods, it
will save millions to our people, which
they are now educated and induced to
send out of the state.
The law school at the people s expense
is turning out so many lawyers that the
governor has to appoint six hundred no-
taries in one county.
Law suits, and devilment of all kinds,
are being stirred up and offices created for
the herde. What are the common peo-
ple who pay the freight going to do
about it? The screws are being put on
tigbtep and tighter by this- official class.
Get up your school house clubs and see
if it is not bet,tqr to take up arms against
these blood suckers ,than against Spain.
The mudsillers are being fearfully hum-
bugged by the o$cial. class, and it ifc
getting worse year by year.
A telegram from Austin says that the
official fee lobby has .consented to Jet its
members of the legislature vote fiar a
mild fee bill
jt stiU requireAB99T to p*y an
'Ml
officer one dollar and a half for his signa-
ture to a blank marriage license, and from
one to three dollars for recording a deed
to a little home, and all these other little
extras that go into the pockets of the of-
ficials. One dollar and costs is still
twenty dollars to the poor devil that gets
too much blind tiger, and nineteen dol-
lars of this goes to the officers so they
can drink something better than blind
tigeree.
School house clubs needed.
Some of the legislators seem to think
that the worst extravagance is in the ap
propriation for the governor's mansion.
Eight hundred dollars for a gardener who
did not garden, and such items as this
looks fishy. Governor's perequisites and
presidential perequisites and the thou-
sand other perequisites for the official
family are eating the life and prosperity
out of the people. Now they are speak-
ing of a new white house to cost one-half
million, and even Judge Reagan, when
in the United States senate, posing as a
great commoner, drew two thusand dol-
lars a year for his wife as private secreta-
ry, and went on a twenty-five thousand
dollar funeral junket at the mudsillers ex-
pense.
The eastern states have built them-
selves up in population and wealth by
patronizing their home industries. Now
some of them are discriminating by law
against our cotton seed products as was
done by the legislature of Illinois. Are
the people ot Texas too slavish to retali-
ate? Will we lay down like a set of
steers in the lane? If we can't retaliate
by law we can have patriotism enough to
quit buying eastern goods, insurance or
money. We can trade and traffic more
among ourselves and have less to do with
two-bit merchants, who are only eastern
agents. We can organize school house
clubs and build up a vine and fig tree
civilization of our own. Have we the
nerve and patriotism?
Wanamaker and McKinley hardly
speak as they pass by, all on account of
Wanamaker kicking about how slow the
promised prosperity is getting here. When
the big department stores begin to kick
it scares the G. O. P. Yet when an elec-
tion comes on they buy and herd the vo-
ters for one or the other of the old par-
ties. They even do it in grand old Tex-
as, where the people are supposed to
have more vigor and independence. The
present Texas legislature laid down be-
fore the lobby, worse if possible, than
any ever did before. ' When the people
get the referendum the lobby won't run
in the country for the use and benefit of
special interests only. Get up your
school house club.
county officers Oii fees, supposed^ to be
marked out when the convicts don't earn
the board and guard hire, which you also
pay. There are a thousand things in this
fee system you never heard of. Get up
your school house clubs and be somebody
and know something.
TNE STATE ALLIANCE MEETING.
If a community has a school house
club and one man or wom^n wj10 keeps
well posted and speak* t>ut in meeting, it*
will be independent and not easily gull-
ed. If a comrv.unity has not got such a
club it is i } bad way and a good com-
munity to pull out of. Even in your
covftty affairs you are robbed in many
"Ways, because you have ro one to keep
you posted. Commissioners will pay
hundreds Qf dollars of tax money out to
Alliancemen all over the state should
bestir themselves as never before hi an
effort to make the coming Session at Dal-
las the most notable in the history of the
organization. In every county and pre-
cinct where there has ever been an Alli-
ance organization it should be revived
and put in working order, so that repre-
sentation may be secured in the state
meeting. There will be questions before
this meeting which will interest every la-
boring man in the land, especially Alli-
ancemen. Some of the ablest students
of political economyi as Wéll as some of
the most intelligent and faithful workers
in the ranks of reform will be on hand to
discuss the issues which so affect the hon-
est toilers of Texas.
The committee on arrangements has
provided an unusually attractive pro-
gramme, and nothing will be left undone
to make a meeting a success.
Transportation arrangement will be
made on the different railway lines for
the lowest possible rate.
Not least among the matters that will
be discussed will be the present condi-
tion of the organization, state and na-
tional. Many of the best members in
the order believe that the time is at hand
when we should take our bearings and
see how far we have wandered from the
original path marked out by the founders
of the Alliance. Many believe that parti-
san zeal and political ^prejudice has been
no small factor in weakening the influ-
ence and impairing the usefulness of the
organization.
In its incipiency, the Alliance provided
in its constitution^ a method of govern-
ment, the. principle known as the initia-
tive and referendum, by which it intend-
ed that all laws affecting the entire mem-
bership should originate or be ratified by
the individual members.
Had this principle been adhered to,
much óf the friction and confusion now
existing would have been avoided.
The undue assumption of authority to
promulgate laws and prescribe re^uja_
tions unwarranted by the memberships by
officials of the Alliance, 'nas been no
small factor of evil.
We must "seek old path and walk
therein if we Vould find that prosperity
for the AUia^,t®which we all desire. This
matter v^jj be fully discussed at the Dal-
^ '-neeting and such steps taken as will
put the old ship in smooth water again.
We repeat, every Alliance in Texas
should strain a point to make the Dallas
meeting the most profitable meeting in
the history of the state.
Every reformer should work for the
circulation of the Mercury.
JULY 4 witness the open-
ing of the campaign
oí J898, at Nashville. Sub-
scribe for the Aercury and keep
up with tfre procession,
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Park, Milton. The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 16, No. 24, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 17, 1897, newspaper, June 17, 1897; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth185714/m1/4/?q=Lamar+University: accessed June 11, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .