The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 17, No. 1, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 6, 1898 Page: 7 of 16
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THE SOUTHERN MERCURY.
ÍV-
r i'EAR.
/ the Mercury enters
«.eenth year—and the
rnts present editorial man-
Many and radical changes
jf"uC industrial conditions have taken
place since its first issue was thrown
upon the journalistic sea. Many who
greeted its birth have passed from the
busy walks of life to the bourne from
whence no traveller returns. Its found-
ers marked out a line of policy, which
has ever been adhered to by his suc-
cessors on the editorial tripod. That
policy was the instruction and educa-
tion of the common people in the
science of economics and good civil
government. Through the instrumen-
tality of the Mercury thousands have
been awakened to the dangers that
threaten our civil liberties; blind de-
votion to party creeds has been erad-
icated; men have been urged and en-
couraged to think and act as becomes
free men; to cast to the winds the
hoary homilies of party bosses, and
stand for the fatherhood of God and
the brotherhood of man.
We, in common with the noble men
and women of Texas, who have so
faithfully upheld ua In the trying
times through which we have passed,
have reason to thank God and take
courage.
We enter our eighteenth volume
with brighter "hopes, stouter heart,
and more fixed determination than
ever before. If the common people of
Texas—the oppressed toilers in our
shops, in our fields, and in our fac-
tories, will continue their support and
encouragement we hope that ere the
year 1898 shall close we will be nearer
our goal.
time and place already named, Jan.
12, at the Laclede hotel, St. Louis. Mr.
he is not disposed to con-
cede anything whatever to
middle - of - the - road Populism. As
far as I am able I am determined that
the rank and file of the People's party,
the voters in every part of the coun-
try; shall settle every question of party
policy and procedure. The St. Louis
meeting will put such plans on foot
as will secure ih.'s end."—Dallas News.
After the Jan. 12th conference many
interesting developments will bo madt\
showing up the tricks of the assistant
Dojuociuts sailing under Po^ul'st c >J-
ors. We withhold further until after
the St. Louis conference. Our Mr.
Tracy and Chairman Park, witii others
of the Texas delegation, leave fjr ¡Ji.
Louis Monday next to attend the oon-
f'*rence of the two committee.? reí3¿rod
to above. Fu'l particulars of \>liicli
will be given our next issue.
CHAIRMAN PARK'S ULTIMATUM.
The following, in addition to being
very interesting reading, will renew
the hope of evei'y loyal Populist in the
nation:
"At the solicitation of a number of
the members of the National Organi-
zation Committee, as well as the Na-
tional Committee of the People's party,
Chairman Milton Park, of the National
Organization Committee, submitted by
telegraph to Chairman Butler a prop-
osition upon which the acceptance of
which harmony could have been se-
cured in the party. The telegrams
were as follows:
Dallas, Tex., Jan. 3, 189.—Hon. Ma-
rion Butler, Chairman People's Party
National Committee, Washington, D.
C.: Will you call National Committee
to meet with National Organization
Committee on terms named in invita-
tion published, if meeting is postponed
till Feb. 15? MILTON PARK,
Chairman People's Party National Or-
ganization Committee.
To this Mr. Butler replied as fol-
lows:
Washington, Jan. 4, 1898—Hon. Mil.
ton Park, Chairman People's Party Na-
tional Organization Committee, Dallas,
Tex.: Upon request for meeting of
committee to consider and determine
stated proposition, will submit to com-
mittee by referendum vote according
to plan of organization, the question of
meeting, time and place; will also
urge an early date. See letter.
MARION BUTLER, Chairman.
The "Dallas chieftain of the middle-
of-the-roaders said to a News reporter.
"This settles the matter oí postpone-
ment. The meeting will be held at the
FARMER SHAW ON THE WAR-
PATH.
In the issue of Texas Farmer of Jan-
uary 1 is printed in full the reply of
the Texas Railroad Commission to the
"Terrible Crime" published in a recent
issue of the Mercury. Watch Texas
Farmer this week and you will see how
skilfully Farmer Bill takes the cuticle
from these tdministration megathe-
reums. He knows what he is talking
about and says:
"When thus assailed, the reader can
not blame Texas Farmer for suppress-
ing all feelings of pity and forbearance,
and showing these three men up as
they are. But Texas Farmer don't pro-
pose to allow them to switch this con-
troversy to the Populists. They have
been trying that game all the time.
We will show that they are three un-
mitigated frauds who are robbing the
people in the interest of railroads. We
will show that they rob the people of
part of their own salaries by drawing
pay while "gallivanting around the
country on personal and political busi-
ness, thus absenting themselves from
their post of duty. After reading what
Texas Farmer will say, people may
judge whether the commision is gov-
erned by cupidity or ignorance. Texas
Farmer asserts for itself that it has
about abandoned the "ignorance" theo-
ry. When the 'war is over," let others
judge who is the liar and slanderer;
who the "galled jade" that winces.' "
STUNNING FACTS.
A dealer in grain reports the sale of
11,100 bushels of wheat to Williamson
county farmers to be planted this fall.
It is now conceded by all that the
prosperity, and even the salvation of
the country, depends upon the diversi-
fying of crops. Few people realize
how much money is expended annually
and sent to distant markets for the
necessaries of life. Ihe following fig-
ures will surprise even the farmers
themselves, and were obtained from a
thoroughly reliable source. They rep-
resent the supplies received and sold
by Taylor mrchants alone to the far-
mers of Williamson county:
100 cars corn, 55,000 bushels... .$22,000
10 cars oats, 8000 bushels 2,400
1 car barley, 600 buhéis 450
2 cars millet, 1000 bushels ... C50
3 cars corn seed, 1700 bushels 2,125
12 cars meat and lard, 300,000
pounds 24,000
20 care corn meal, 13,000 bu.. 5,840
10 cars ccrn chops, 250,000 lbs. 2.125
20 cars wheat bran, 200,000 lbs 1,700
100 cars flour, 12,500 barrels.... 4,500
13 cars Irish potatoes, 500 bu.. 4,500
3 cars onions, 15 bushels 2,565
5 cars cabbage 3,600
4000 dozen eggs 562
500 kegs sauer kraut 1,500
Total $142,517
This does not include an item of
$24,000 worth of tobacco handled by
merchants during a year. And every
item on this list could be successfully
raised in Williamson county.—Ex-
change.
Taylor is a small Texas town, but it
is a fair sample of other Texas towns.
The Mercury would advise the farmers,
who think bucket shops are the only
evil, to consider just a little. Why did
not Texas farmers sell this stuff? Why
did not those merchants buy this stuff
at home and keep the money in Tex-
as? All the gold in the Klondyke would
not keep people going who pursue the
above policy. If you don't intend to re-
form yourself, give your children a
chance to learn better. If your country
merchant won't trade and traffic in
country produce, then you ought to let
the grass grow in the front of their
doors. Diversify your crops, change
your business methods and knock out
one-horse politicians.
any war to temporarily get the devil
off their backs. They know that they,
could never rob any other nation oí as
much as they are being robbed by
fraudulent pensions, contingent funds
and official salaries and political deals
made with railroads and trusts who
spend their plunder in Europe just as
the Goulds, Vanderbilts, Crokers, Car-
negies and the others. They take more
stock in the Pan-American railroad to
extend commerce and to protect this
continent. They are getting up a war
of their own against political frauds
and feebooters.
A great deal of the space in the Dal-
las and Galveston News is taken up
by explanations from the Austin rim.,
of shady railroad compromises and
outrageous discriminations against
Texas freight payers. If the News will
charge them twenty cents per line out
of the Southern Pacific fund it can
Start a daily at Waco. The monopoly
of the Post's columns is to be paid
for with the lieutenant governor's of-
fice. That ring always pays its debts
with something belonging to the peo-
ple or the corporations. When it gives
the Mexicans six months free monte
and the negroes six months free crap-
shooting it is at the expense of the
peace and dignity of the state.
Direct legislation is no longer merely
desirable; it lias become essential to
the safety, if not the constituted exist-
ence, of the republic. A few years ago
the representative system was in decay
—now it is in decay. Then we had
many bad representatives—now we
have substantially no representatives,
good or bad. This is literally true of
state legislatures and city councils, and
it is becoming increasingly true of con-
gress. The former congeries of repre-
sentatives, some honest and some cor-
rupt, each acting form his individual
motives has given way to the boss, who
who owns the legslative power in bulk,
and who takes contracts to "jam
through" any measure whose spon-
sors are willing to pay the price. The
peple enraged by successive betrayals,
and realizing the hopeless folly of
turning out one boss to make room for
another, are in a dangerous mood. The
only way of keeping their rising indig-
nation withing the bounds of order is
to give them some peaceful method of
controlling their own affairs. That is
what direct legislation will do.—New
York Journal.
Culberson's friends say that Reagan
is too old for the senate. His old age
hurts these people ten times as much
on tho commission as it would in the
U. S. senate. That is the best place to
retire old and deaf politicians. So
far as Mills is concerned he has never
straddled on the financial question, any
more than Culberson did, and he did
fight in the army, and did contribute
his mileage to the industrial develop-
ment of Texas by boring an oil mill,
while Culberson never did either. The
Mercury is for none of them, but be-
lieves in the devil getting his dues. As
friends of economical government they
have all put the members of their fam-
ilies on to the people as pensioners.
They have all stood in with corporate
power when the test came, and they
had to choose. The announcement of
legislative candidates show that they
arc slaves to individual boses.
A great many Democrats arc no
doubt honest when they say the party
will purge itself of the Austin gang
and put a new set on guard, but they
are honestly mistaken. These men
don't know the strength of the South-
ern Pacific railroad campaign fund and
of the gamblers in the school fund and
public lands. These elements are al-
ready telling that Jester has barely
enough sense to raise Jersey cows, and
that Sayers and Wynne know nothing
of state government, and that their
services in the army were not much.
They know how to set out pizen and
spend campaign funds against all Dem-
ocratic opponents as well as against
Populists. They have slander-mills
paid for with public printing.
The mud sillers in their school house
clubs will surely spring a surprise on
the politicians. They are not hunting
The combines of corporations are
said to be fighting each other inside of
the Democratic party of Texas, as to
who shall have the attorney general
nomination. Some of the trusts want
ex-Gov. Hogg's law partner, and oth-
ers want some man already In the at-
torney general's office, who is
already committed to the com-
promise policy. It is a Dem-
ocratic row, in which the Mercury
takes no stock, and thinks it is tweedle
dum, tweedle dee. The Democratic
ins claim that they have the breast
works and sinews of war, and that
the outside Democrats wanting nomi-
nations can have a place in the lunatic
asylums along with the Populists or-
dered there by the last Democratic State
Convention. The abuse of those Dem-
ocrats wanting a new ticket of expe-
rienced Democrats in the place of the
Austin syndicate, is only exceeded by
the abuse of Populist farmers asking
a better freight rate. The Austin au-
tocrats have a law of "les majeete,"
such as is enforced in Germany
against citizens who deny the divine
light of the emperor.
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Park, Milton. The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 17, No. 1, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 6, 1898, newspaper, January 6, 1898; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth185738/m1/7/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .