The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 14, No. 22, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 30, 1895 Page: 2 of 16
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SOtJTHEBK MBRCUBY.
MAY 30, 1895*
6B0VEB S WARNING.
J. H. ROBERTS.
Seer:
Grovor, Oh! Grover, be ware of the day
When the people again meet thee in
battle array;
For a vision I see, and 'tis sad to be-
hold,
For it augurs no good to the cohorts of
gold!
Vast hosts are uprising, and their pur-
pose is plain—
'Tis to rout thee and thine in the com-
ing campaign.
Proud mascot, take heed! 'Tis the
warning of fate;
Repent and do justice before 'tis too
late!
Grover:
Go soak thy old head, thou defeat-tell-
ing eeer,
Fur we'll straddle the fence once again,
and 'tis clear-
When the Tammany tiger shall send
forth his roar,
And the tariff hoodoo we work as of
yore—
The mosebacks and bourbons their bal-
lots will e ist,
In the coming campaign as they have
in the past!
And if worst comes to worse, through
the struggle we'll pull,
With the aid of our ally, the brave
Johnny Bull.
Seer:
Obi Grover, these people to the truth
are awake
That tariff is a fraud and a fake;
And I very much fear, though it grieves
me to tell,
They'll ne'er again rally to the Tam-
many yell!
They say, on your class you've at last
lost your grip,
And your grand opportunities all have
let slip;
And they laugh and they shout in riot-
ous gleo,
When they hear that thy chiefs 'mong
themselves disagree.
Grover:
False wizzard, begoneJ you know not
my clan;
Their dollars are millions, their pur-
poses one!
Then welcome those plebian hosts to
the fray—
With our bcodle mil blarney we'll
again win the day;
And my gold-crested chieftalnB to vic-
tory will crowd,
Divide up the spoils and laugh long
and loud
At the fools who for freedom lack cour-
age to try,
Do labor like slayos while we eat the
pie.
LAND, TRANSPORTATION AND MONEY.
T. L. NUGENT.
There are three great questions up-
on which the Omaha platform has
made affirmative declarations, viz: the
land question, the transportation ques-
tion, andithe money question. These
declarations commit the party definite-
ly to a policy which eeeks the destruc-
tion of the "three parent monopolies,"
viz: the monopoly of land for specula-
tive purposes, the monopoly of trans-
portation, and the monopoly of money.
The party eeeks, therefore, in a practi-
cal way to solve three great problems
whieh the age is propounding to those
who mould public thought. These
may be stated interrogatively as fol-
lows: Shall labor have aocess to
land upon terms that shall enable it to
freely produoe wealth? Shall the
inSli
wealth so produced be transported and
distributed at the least possible cost,
by means of government ownership
and control of railroads and other pub
lie highways? Shall labor have the ben-
efit of a financial system, under which
money shall be made to do its legiti
mate service in affording an easy,
cheap and sufficient means for the ex-
change of wealth? Labor must pro-
duce wealth and wealth must be trans •
ported, distributed and exchanged at
as little cost and under as little embar-
rassment as possible.
In no other way can the wants of
civilized men be gratified, or the
wheels of progress kept in motion.
There are those who give greater
prominence to the land question, oth
ers again who regard the transporta-
tion question as the most vital of all,
and others still who think the money
question the one of gieatest impor-
tance. We need not quarrel over the
question of the relative importance of
issues. Brother populists, they are
all supremely important, and not one
can be safely eliminated. Let us see.
L^bor exerted upon land produces all
wealth; all wealth is the product of
labor applied to land. These are two
equivalent forms of expressing the
same fundamental, economic truth,
and when you analyze them you will
find them to mean that every man
must have access to land in some way
in order to maintain his existence and
provide things of necessity or comfort
for himself and his family. As every
man needs land—must have it in order
to live and work—there is necessarily
a constantly growing demand for the
use of land.
Population multiplies and grows al-
ways.
The three millions of Americans who
a hundred years ago formed a little
fringo of population on our Atlantic
coast have grown to more than seventy
millions, and have overspread the con-
tinent from ocean to ocean. Yet, there
is no more land than there was one
hundred years ago. Mark you, popu-
lation (labor) is one factor in the pro-
duction of wealth, land is the other.
Population is the active tactor, land is
the passive factor. The presence of the
active factor creates demand for the
passive. Population ever growing cre-
ates a constantly increasing demand
for land, the supply of which must,
under existing conditions, always grow
less. What does this mean? That the
price of usable land must always rise.
Now if, as population increases, large
bodies of land are b3ught up and hold
out of use for speculative purposes—
that is, as investments only—do you
not see that as the supply of available
land is . thereby greatly reduced, the
price of land must correspondingly go
up, and labor find its struggle to get
land beset with still greater difficul-
ties? So, with increasing population
there is inevitably, as conditions now
are, a constantly growing class who
cannot own land an 1 must use it, if at
all, upon terms dictated by others.
Here your tenant class comes in.
But in favored sections men who
hold land as investments know that it
pay8 better to keep it out of use until
the pressure of population gives it
enormous value than it does to farm it
out .to labor. The denial to labor, thus
brought about, of the right to use land
on any terms not only produoes ten
ants, but idlers, paupers and criminals.
Just here you find poor farms, jails and
penitentiaries.
Now, my brother, you can probably
begin to see why at a time when the
products of labor are falling in priee,
the value of desirable land—of that
without which labor cannot produoe at
all—is going skyward. Indeed, the
contraction of the currency makes
everything cheap but land. Popula
lation makes land values, and as one
grows so do the others; so that while
labor is in penury and want, because
that which it produces is getting
cheaper and cheaper, land upon which
its very existence depends is getting
farther and farther beyond its reach.
But suppose you eliminate land and
transportation from the p'atform and
succeed in destroying the banks, in
establishing free and unlimited coin-
age of silver and in compelling the is-
sne of an ample supply of paper cur-
rency. Well, I agree with you that
the prices of labor's products would,
under such conditions, go up, and the
condition of the landowner be much
improved. The farmer would get bet-
ter prices lor the products of his farm
and for his farm, too, for that matter;
but the speculative owner of unused
land would profit more than all. His
land would fo rise in value that he
could not afford to use it or let others
use it. So you can easily see that the
landless man would find It more diffi-
cult to get a home than ever. Take a
good, square, honest popullstic look at
this land question—just such a look as
a humane, noble man always gives to
any subject affecting the welfare of
his fello «v-creature, and tell me if you
don't think it is, after all, a very, very
big question. When the work of re-
form is done, brother populists, let us
hope that it may be rounded and com-
plete. Let us resolve that when re-
form shall bring good prices for the
products of labor, it shall also, by
God's blessing, make homes cheap for
the laborer. When the struggle for
reform is oyer, let us see to it that the
outcome shall be scientific money,
cheap transportation and homes for
all. If sordid and foolish men call this
socialism, let us not be disturbed.
Such socialism is so near akin to genu-
ine Christianity that we can well af-
ford to welcome it.
LIVES ON THE POOR.
In effect, the supreme court has de-
cided that the constitution and Senator
Hill agree. By means of tariff and ex-
cises, the federal government can tax
consumption, but cannot, unless It calls
on tbo states for apportioned contribu-
tions, tax wealth, either accumulated,
or in process of accumulation.
In other words, the federal govern-
ment cm tax poor people, while rich
people may settle with state govern-
ments alone.
For the fiscal year ending last July
the federal government collected
$131,818,530 of customs revenue, $147,-
111,232 of internal and $75,080,479 of
postal revenue. These three items
constituted about the whole of its re-
ceipts. The internal revenue is col-
lected from spirits, fermented liquors,
tobacco and oleomargarine, with a few
special taxes. The government is
therefore, supported almost entirely
from the consumption of food, clothes
and drink by the masses of the people.
Sinoe the postal revenues do not quite
pay the cost of the postal service, the
rest of the government relies for ex-
istence on increasing the C03t of food,
clothes and drink.—St. Louis Repub-
lic.
Art yo« a Uw agutr Irad lor agsafta
•nxi oa Darla' Book.
The Only
Great and thoroughly re-
liable building-up medicine*
nerve tonic, vitalizer and
Blood
Purifier
Before the people today, and
which stands preeminently
above all other medicines, is
HOOD'S
Sarsaparilla
It has won its hold upon the
hearts of the people by its
own absolute intrinsic merit.
It is not what we say, but
what Hood's Sarsaparilla
does that tells the story: —
Hood's Cures
Even when all other prepar-
ations and prescriptions fail,.
41 Formerly overy year I had an erup-
tion on my body, and a kind of biting
pain besides. I have had it now for
four years every summer, but since X
began taking Hood's Sarsaparilla I
have had no trace of it. I have taken
seven bottles." Fred Foster, 3101
Black St., Denver, Colorado,
Get HOOD'S
HnnH'c Dille s,re tasteless, mild, effeo.-
nOOU S JrlUS tivo. All druggists. 25o,
Mention Southern Mercury when you write.
A NEW IDEA
Ton will remember that Goliath
was very muoh surprised when David
hit him with a stone.
He said that snoh a thing had never
entered his head before. When Mr.
G. F. Filley introduced fresh air Into
the oven of the
Charter Oak Stove and Range
by means of the Wire Gauze Oven
Door, such a thing had never entered
the head of any other stove manu-
facturer.
Bnt they wish It had, for it is a great
improvement, making anything baked
or roasted in the oven much more
palatable and easily digested, besides
causing a saving of food, labor and
fnel.
EXCELSIOR
MF6. CO.,
■T. LOUIS,
HO.
Refer u> ¡southern Mercury when you write.
Alliaail Morphine Habit Cared I
HDI||HH to SO «laya. No pay till es
UrlUlvl Dr. J.8tephens,Lebanon,!
_ In lO
en red.
i./". W. 1 Ern.n.t .wH,OhiO.
Refer to Southern M* *cury when you write.
niBKSBlM, Charter WhM*
L> J.rMj Red and Poland Chiaa
_'IGS. Jeraey, Gatrntej and
HoUteln Cattle. Thoroughbred
Sheep. Fane? FoeMty. Hontlag
and Hooee Doge. Catalogue.
a. WnfclTH. SnliMvUlei Cheater Co* Peaaa.
Refer to Southern Mercury when you write.
RUPTURBPILES
flllDCn WKhovit the KNIFE or
vUnCII detention from business.
Fistula, Fissure, Ulceration of
the Rectum, Hydrocele and Tari*
córele. No Care no Pay, and No
Pay until Cured. Send stamp for
_ pamphlet of testimonials.
DR. F. J. DICKEY, 395 Main St., Dal/at, Tex.
liefer to Southern Mercury when roa writs*
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Park, Milton. The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 14, No. 22, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 30, 1895, newspaper, May 30, 1895; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth185613/m1/2/: accessed July 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .