Appeal to Reason from Girard, Kansas • Page 1

If you like this' kind of a Paper, this is about the kind of a Paper you'll This Issue of the APPEAL TO REASON is 62. No Man LsJich enough or Great enouzh to zet Published Every SATURDAY. 50 CENTS A YEAR Three Months, is Cents. Advocates the Government Ownership of i i ir 7 thl paper on credit, or for longer than the time Paid for. au 6IRARD, KANSAS, U.

S. FEB. 6, 1S9T. it rTvn I I A 1 i if I If I Bt I Conducted by J. A.

Waylakd, One IIoss Philosopher. The N. Y. Journal is advocating municioal The bank failures in 1896 were 195, with My readers have noticed in the daily pres3 of the awful 'starvation, by tens of thousands, in In Well, how d'ye do? Been some time since I annoyed 3011 wit nj IN OUR NEW HOME. presence, for which some of you rejoiced and others felt Otherwise.

The" last issue of the Appeal to Eeason was October 24. at Kansas City. It was the in- tention to resume in a couple of weeks, but other plans "presented themselves and I eluded to move to a smaller place, buy a home, put in a printing plant and settle down permanently. This has been done and you receive this issue from Girard, Kansas, the prettiest town I found in three 1 months hunting for a place to make my Hundred? of letters of inquiry as to what had become of the paper reached me, but all could not be answered and 1 have allowed them to wait until this paper would explain. All snb-.

seriptions will be filled out with the fulinum-; ber of papers just as though no break in the publication- had occurred. I am now prepared, in every way, to continue the agitation better in fact than an- time since I have been in it, with the single exception of my eyes, which are rapidly failing by reason of the great strain the work requires. The rest of four months the first in five years John L. Far well, of Claremont, N. went to Europe several months ago with belonging to the savings bank of which he was the head.

He is so impressed with living under royalty that he will not return, and the sound-money majority in New Hampshire was short one vote. Farwell is a firm believer in a 'money good in Europe, and so are the people of New Hampshire (see election, returns). The practical application of the theory may make them squirm, but serves them just right. If any one were to suggest to a New Hampshire voter that government savings banks would good thing for the people, furnishing a safe deposit for savings as solid as the government, he would be looked upon as a heretic fit for 'treason, stratagens and spoils. They prefer to follow the political leadership of such men as Farwell.

A burned child dreads the fire, but grown up children do not seem to be so wise. The losses to the people by private banking has been thousands of millions since this government was and yet the masses of people have so little confidence in the government they prefer to be robbed rather than use the government for a safe deposit for savings. Banks do not want government savings banks because they would not be able to use the people's money, and the bankers control the daily and religious press and politicians and Farwell is sojourning ia Yurrup. Some women with a tender regard for other women's virtue are trying to crusade against the bicvele for females and are hunt-ing up specific cases to prove the, wheel is undermining American womanhood. This is straining at a gnat and swallowing the proverbial camel.

If these wouien will investigate the ruined girls who are employed in shop, factory and store on wages less than will board them, they will find a source a thousand fold worse than the wheel. Women who can afford the wheel are not of the poorest classes, such as these unphilosophic reformers will investigate. Poor girl3 are just as good in everj- way as these "fly" respectable daughters of wealth who do not earn their living but get it off the labor of their poorer sisters. If these reformers desire to abolish prostitution, they will have to begin by abolishing private ownership of property that results in the many being ground into poverty and vice and which gives to a few lives of idleness that always result in the development of the animal. Virtue can not be in lives degraded by, toil or pampered by unearned wealthy How-, many cases where the rich ladies' dresses and jewelry are paid for by fallen women's buisness by reason of the rent these unfortunates pay! Many rich pews in churches are decked out by money coined out of the lives of fallen women by reason of the legal robbery called rent.

The whole social system is one of deception, hypocrisy and crime, and the wonder is that there is any virtue at all. The recent discovery that a French nobleman has been working as a in London recalls similar instances to a journalist of that city. The Marquis de Beaumanoir is a laborer at a flour mill near Nantes: the Comte de St. Megrin drives a cab in Paris; the liarond'Aubinalsand Vicomte de Monoliers are employed as searchers in a French costume house; the Marquis de' Poligny is an omnibus conductor, and the servant who waits on M.Doree is a marquis who prefers to pass under the name of Emile, but whose real name is Gaspard. He can trace his direct descent for 1,200 years.

Exchange. Which shows that nobility has had to give way to the commercial andcorporate princes, and that the latter are more heartless, if pos has done me much good and I trust those who have been disappointed at the non-appearance of the paper will take the matter kindly, and continue to aid in making the paper an effective agent in the propaganda. Owing to the failure "to materialize of the impossible promises of the corporations, more, people are ready to listen today than ever before. The "one hoss" will give you the best work he has in him, but it remains for you to make that work effective by getting it into the homes of the people. Shall I have 3our co-operation? There is coming into SPECIAL PRIV- general use; owing to the I LEGES TO NONE, scarcity of legal money, a system of checks or scrip, issued by our merchants and corporations.

Laborers are compelled by necessity to accept these in lieu of money and by an arrangement men are compelled to patronize certain stores. Every such check, token or rf ih Tt law as I ferries to break the monopoly. It is the only i uuu t.uiit uu it. So long as the lamp holds out to burn, I'll send out "sample copies to the address of any thinking person whose name you send me, regardless of sex, color or previous condition of party servitude. A few socialists, noble soldiers who were not clouded by the silver craze, have been sending in all the few subscriptions the Appeal has recievd since the campaign started and have thus kept it living.

The future looks bright however. The man who believes his government cannot create the medium of exchange, but that bankers can, must have mighty little faith in his government. His patriotism or reason is at low ebb. He goe3 on the hypothesis that a part is greater than the whole. Logical? certainly! McKinley sa3's postmasters must be endorsed by congressmen.

The republicans are therefore considered not intelligent enough to vote for one of their members to be postmaster, but oulv the congressmen have sense enough to select! This means boodle for congressmen. Aged and wealth Mrs. Wilson of Chicago has been spirited away by her foster daughter to get possession of her property. Glorious system of private property! What horrible crimes you cause! "Public ownership would destroy all incentive" to such crimes as are caused by" property. A bill has been rushed through the senate to re-establish the 4 'cat" or flogging of sailors, by those Very Respectable men, Senators Hale and Fiy.

These men, and all who voted for it, would be the first to receive the application, if justice were. done. we're progressing in libert! 1 am more than delighted with our new home and its people. The town of Girard, 125 miles south of Kansas City, has about 4,000 population and is beautifully laid out and improved. Every street is lined with large shade trees, every house has a large yard, and I feel.

more at home than I have for yeais. Must hot allow politics in the labor unions, oh, no! If the unions were organized on a poliitical basis as they are in Germany and France the labor would lose their oc-cupatiqn. Bid you ever 'hear tell" of men being nominated because they stood well with unions? Well I guess. But labor unions must not allow political discussibns! oh. no! Shorter work will be made with the abor-iginees of Africa, in the conquering march of whiskey, guns and civilization, than was made with the Noble Red Men.

In another centurj' or less the Africans will have been robbed of their lands and homes and only a ew specimens will be left. Blasted is the land which the merchant and missionary "civilize." New York is adding a printing plant to the penitentiary in which to do the state printing, while South Carolina has bought a cotton plantation and will use her convicts in raisins cotton. If the states will furnish the land and machinery, untaxed, to the millions of unemployed who are not criminals there will-be less criminals. Why deny to honest men as favorable conditions as are furnished criminals? In the last issue I made the statement, based on an article in an exchange, that the Columbia bicycle that sells in this country for $100 is sold in Germany at $35. The manufacturers write me that this is incorrect, as the wheel is sold in Germany at 450 marks or $108.

The Appeal wants to be right and cheerfully makes the correction. But it well knows that under a socialist government the best wheel can be made and sold for not over $15, without cutting the wages of any necessary labor in the production of the wheel. I believe, from observation and reading, that socialism the world over finds its most active workers, not among the poorest who would gain the most, but by the lowerstrata of the middleAclass. There are "many thousands of rich men who are active but its social force is in the middle class. This is largely due -to the fact that this class is yet able to buy the literature and have homes congenial to reading.

The very busy man or the man brutally worked to get bread and butter, Tiave no time or opportunity to investigate the benefits the would gain by its adoption. Every nation has produced men great in unselfishness great in conception of'justice but the world has so idolized its murderers (called military chieftains) that but few have been able to be heard. Adown the stair steps of the centuries we sense the existence ot Socrates, Plato, Seneca, Xenoplion, Christ, and but for the truths taught by such men the world today would be a worse howling pandemonium than it is. in modern times Buskin, Carlyle, Mill, Smith, Marx, Laselle, Bebel, Liebnicht, Singer, Mazzini, Bellamy, and others have by different methods impressed on the mental world, that governs the materialvvorld the spirit of these ancient philosophers." We are moving, rapidly today toward the era of conditions. You can ace: file of the Appeal liabilitiesof over $150,000,000.

Bestsystem on earth or in heaven. That man is a philanthropist who distributes good knowledge among his neighbors, for knowledge is better than riches. The starvation, want and crime in the cities, reported in the daily press, are sickening. If this be prosperity, for heaven's sake send us a dose of adversity. ii i.i.

In 18 months 22 savings banks in the one state of New Hampshire failed, losing depositors all or nearly all of $17,866,791. Best system on earth. Only fools or anarchists would want postal savings banks that could not fail. The Royal famiby of England costs the people $3,000,000 a year. Rockefeller alone has cost the American people $15,000,000 a 3ear for ten year3, besides the other brood of standard oil leeches.

Please pass us a dish of royalty and take our untitled kings. Fire Island, N. was purchased by the state as a landing place for "first-class passengers" when some malignant disease had shown itself on incoming ships, paying for it, two years ago, $238,000. It is now offered for $75,000 with $20,000 bid! The purchase was a scheme to legalize stealing about $200,000 out of the state treasury. But rich people are honest! State insurance would save to Kansas people many millions of dollars annually, that now go to build up millionaires.

The state can secure the services of just as competent insurance men as the insurance companies. So can any other state. State insurance is safer than corpoiation insurance. In closing up my affairs in Colorado I found several of my policies were not worth the paper they were printed on when I thought I was full' secured by them. Had the State been back of them I would not have been swindled.

Whew! What a mad whirl of dizzy, dazzling diamond-bedecked dancers was that ball of the American Duchess of Marlboro to English Royalty! That is what the American wage-slaves are supporting by allowing railroads to remain private property so the Vanderbilts can "pay the freight" ain't we a great free people? Americans would never, never, never stand it to support royalty not much! And the John Henry's of toil buckle it down to harder work, live in continually meaner homes, dress in meaner clothing, and take smaller doses of more adulterated food to enable the Vanderbilts to draw greater dividends on greater amounts of watered stock, and swear this is the freest country on the globe where everj' man is a sovreign and the man who says not is an anarchist. Poor, deluded peasant You are fast going into the conditions of your ancestors of centuries ago. "On with the dance, let joy be unconfined," the fools who furnish us the wealth do not know it We Americans read with horror of the debaucheries of the kings and princes of old, and how they squandered the wealth they squeezed out of the people in lascivious entertainments and drunken orgies. That the people had to work and keep up these rich robbers and louts causes us to shudder in this, the glorious nineteenth century. yes, it does.

We brave, intelligent freemen would never submit a minute to such extortion! This retrospect flashed across my mind as I read the other day of a dinner given in American simplicity by one fellow named Seeley in New York. Those modest modern dinners begin about 9 o'clock p. m. and last until the last guest, dead drunk, is taken home by his valet in the "wee sma' hours ayant the twal. In addition to the viands and freely flowing champagne, a troupe of more or less nude women in lascivious songs, dances and exercises that would put to shame a sultan's bower, furnished the guests with those elevating moral sentiments that go to make up the Respectable Classes, and distinguishes them from the vulgar herd of common humanity.

These dinners of republican simplicity, costing thousands each, as well as the wealth possessed by hosts and guests, are as much robber booty off the working people of today as was the orgies of a French king. It is all possessed by means of legal robbery and these Very Respectable rJeople are not squeamish about the legality. no! Us Americans would not labor to keep idle, vicious, useless snobs and moral criminals in luxury! Of course not! We boasted Americans make the laws and govern We would not allow poverty to drive our daughters to be the playthings of those who rob U3 into that poverty! Nor our sons to be forced, for bread withheld, to become lackeys, valets and flunkies for nobility! You bet your Our glorious ancestors "fit" for our freedom, and it is too precious to be lost! The Seeleys believe in private property they can afford to but what must be- said of the fools who produce the wealth that Seeleys squander, advocating the same theory and. living in poverty and woe? Are they less fools than the men of bygone centuries who supported kings and nobility and from which only a few received any benefit? Only under a society organized on a basis of private ownership. of property could such things occur.

Think this over five or six thousand years, like your ancestors did about the divine right of kings, and then act STARVING IN INDIA. dia, where the dead are so many they lie piled up unburied. The whole working pop-luation are produced to skin and bones and the daily allowance of food is only about one ounce of rice! This awful condition has produced an epidemic of the black death, which is spreading by fleeing refugees and commerce to all parts of Europe. The black death is the most horrible plague that evei visited the earth except the cause of it private property as I will show. So terrible was this disease that Sir J.

E. Thorold Rogers estimated that one-third of the people of England died of it during its visit there in 1348. The cause of this plague is filth, and poverty produces filth, and private ownership, sucking interest, rent and profit, produces poverty. For years the English capitalists have drawn fabulous millions of wealth from India, the results of the people's toil, and this drain has gradually been producing the poverty there, as it has' in the United States. Nothing has been returned to India for this wealth, except the English system of finance and ownership, by which it has been produced.

Do not think, gentle reader, that this robbery has been committed as a highwayman or a feudal baron of old would do it it" has been done legally, by forms of. law, upheld by the courts supported by British soldiers. It has been done by the private ownership of banks, railroads, factories and land grants and has gone to England in the shape of dividends, interest, rents and profits just as hundreds of millions annually are going from the United States to foreign lands for the same reasons and which will in time produce the same results here as it has in India, Egypt, Australasia, Cuba, and other lands. This is no theory- it is a fact as big and plain as a full moon, borne out by every page of history. Save your tears for distressed India you will need them for the starvation of our own fair land in the not distant future.

The increasing trusts and monopolies are fast producing the poverty of the people, which will result in a condition here similar to that of other nations where greed has been given license to rob the producers. There would be no starvation, or even want, in India if the people had the wealth they have produced. The violation of God's eternal laws of justice ever bring retribution. Only fools think they can cheat Justice of her rights and escape the penalty. The difference between India and the United States is ono of degree, not of kind, and we are rapidly traveling the same road.

We have kings, nobles and masters here as much as they and they are sucking the substance of the people in the same way. Open j'our eyes to the tyranny that private property has always, produced, or like your ignorant and bigotted ancestors shut j'our eyes to reason and perish in an era of despotism such as the world has never known. The traitors at Washington are creating the army and navy to hold your nose to the grindstone of serfdom, just as the English red-coats, for a bloody hire, do in India. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers.

And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and sins were done by the apostles. AND ALL THAT BELIEVED WERE TOGETHER AND HAD ALL THINGS COMMON: AND SOLD THEIR POSSKSSIONS AND GOODS AND PARTED THEM TO ALL MEN AS EVERY MAN HAD NEED. Bible, Acts, chapter II. This was Christianity in the time of the apostles. This was the doctrine as taught by the men whom Christ had selected to propagate his teachings.

How many "steadfast in the apostles' doctrine" are in the churches today? How many make even ths pretense of Annanias and Sapphira of folloTT-ing the doctrine? Christianity is all right, but where are followers? Where is tho "fellowship" in building many "kinds" of churches while people are freezing for houses? I wonder what Peter will say about the modern "fellowship" which is so intensa that people can't even worship God under one roof, to say nothing about putting all their property in a common ownership? What a place for a banker or profit-monger a real Christian church would be! Wliere Is tho preacher that dares insist on the application of the REAL doctrine of Christ? Wouldn't he cause a sensation, though? When all property is held by the government for tho equal use of all people, giving to each according to the time he or she has devoted to its production, it will be going a long way toward Christianity and socialism. Periiap3 you have not done all you can afford toward sending reform papers to your neighbors this year. If so, the Appeal to Reason offers its- services. Remember your neighbors are as honest and sincere a3 yourself, and only "oppose us because they do not see us as we really are, but as they believe us to be, Theyare not to be blamed. It our duty to put in their way the means or seeing what the reform agitation really is.

I think the Appeal can do this in most cases. A bill for Direct Legislation by the peoplo has been introduced in the Colorado 1c jb-lature. I wonder if Colorado silveritcs vill take a more progressive step than Kn populists? Svllp 19 i JJiaiU- luiativii the following statutes will show: Sec. 2, of an Act passed July io, being section 3583 of U. S.

Statues: "Sec. 2. And be it further enacted. That from and after the first day5 of August, eighteen dred and sixtyt wo, no priyate corpo at ion, banking association, firm, or individual shall 1 make, issue, circulate, or pay any note, check, memorandum, token, or other obligation, for a less sum than one dollar, intended to circulate as money or to be received or used in lieu of lawful monev of the United States; and every person so offending shall, on conviction thereof in any district or cimuit court of the United States, be punished by fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding six months, or by both, at the option of the court." If there is sufficient mone', there is no excuse in issuing these tokens, some of which are being forced into circulation in Girard. If there is not sufficient money, enforce this law and there tcill soon be going up a nowi from these law violators for more money.

It is unjust to business men that any corporation should use these, forcing trade to any favored business man or firms. It is no simple affair to monkey with Uncle Sam. Withdraw the bastard You know I have often SERVED flE RIGHT. expressed a grim pleasure when I wrote of a bank closi jr up on the deposit of the chumps who run to a bank every time they get a dollar and give it to the banker to speculate on taking all the chances of losing with no profit if the banker gains! A few weeks ago, in a transaction I received a check Ona distant bank for $500. I had to get it cashed at bank.

The Missouri National, of Kansas City, took it and the day tJiA notice that it was paid came, before I could draw the money, the bank closed and I am in the soup. Served me rignt Knew banks were only confidence games under legal protection and deserve to lose it for having even three or four day transactions with them. But I don't do it any more. Post- i office money orders are better. So please bear in mind that no checks go hereaftei.

Don want them. Somewhere between LOST, STRAYED time and eternity a fine.v OR STOLEN. large gob of prosperity. of bright yellow color, with a collar of confidence fringed with na-tional bank patriotism. When seen, was dressed in a suit of corporation promises, made in the mills of privale property.

A suitable reward will be paid for any information by applying to any unemployed or half-paid dupe who voted to corral the animal last November, i -vv k. Enough" money has been squandered in hundreds of counties in trying to establish local reform papers where there was not support, to have flooded the county with one or more of the half dozen able aud cheap na tional papers, like the Chicago Express, Sentinel, Coming Nation Sound Money Xonconformist or even the Appeal to Rtlvson, and thus converted "a majority and the sentiment that would support a local reform paper. At the risk of be-risidered envious, I'll say these refofm-i ted at. the wrong end of the reform 1 sible, than were their predecessors of royal lineage. If all the royal robbers who can trace their descent back for centuries were reduced to menial positions and want, it would be only a just retribution for the generations they have rode over roughshod.

Besides, they would be more or less useful to society a thing their ancestors were not The Engineering News of N. Dec. 17, shows how competing gas plants ir cities have raised the price instead of making it possible to decrease it, as they inevitably combined ard paid interest on useless plants. It says the only method, proven by experience, to get the cheapest and best service is for the city to own the plants. That is all us socialists claim, yet if one were to Call the News a socialist it would want to call on him for libel.

Any city can have gas at 25 cents a thousand if it will operate its own gas plant at cost. Said a preacher to me in Kansas City at the postoffice: "Yes, socialism is all right and will come some day, but there is no use trying to get it now." Which logic would, if applied to his profession, make him rather ridiculous not trying to teach Christianity because it could not be accomplished at once. It is funny how many excuses people will make to justify their refusal to advocate right I do not see how an impure soul-one that, knowing right, prefers to practice wrong -can prepare a soul for the next sphere of existence. The wire nail trusts subsidized the patentee and manufacturers of the nail machines, raised the price of, nails 300 per cent, and made $6,000,000 in seventeen months. See how easy money is made by honest industry, economy and thrift? And a nation, of asses submit to this high handed -robbery and still vote against socialism under which the public would own and operate industries in the in-, terest of the whole The public robbed of that six millions not 5 receive one cent of the benefit f6rlL Ono II iaihd postpaid.

to Beae:.