SUCCESS OF THE POPULISTS ASSURED.
The people of Alabama will no longer vote the Democratic ticket simply
because the "antediluvian" leaders say so. They will no longer be
intimidated by party threats, or blindly driven by party lash, but they
are going to have a good reason for so doing, hereafter, before casting
their votes for the party which has been in power in Alabama for
eighteen years, during the whole of which time the people have grown
poorer and poorer and no measures have been adopted or suggested for
their relief. The great masses of the people cannot again be forced to
neglect more pressing interests to take issue on tariff reform only.
While these people favor tariff reform they demand other more vital
things as well, and they have formulated these demands into a party
platform; and the brave and patriotic people who have the courage to
maintain their convictions, will no longer be frightened from the issues
they indorse, by threats of disrupting an existing political
party,--especially when there no longer remains any necessity for
keeping that party together.
For what purpose are political parties organized and why do they
continue their existence? The reading and thinking masses understand
that there is but one answer: Political parties are formed to educate
the people upon a proposed policy and to be instrumental in having such
policy enacted into law as soon as the majority of voters favor and cast
their votes for it. When the policy which brings a party into existence
has become accepted as a proper theory of government and ceases to have
any opposition, then the necessity of the political party itself ceases,
for it has nothing else to accomplish. It is proper and usual, however,
for such a party to continue its existence until some other living
issues arise which demand the consideration of the voter. When this is
done, one of the political parties which has accomplished its mission,
should, by appropriate platform, present the issues of the voters of the
country; or some new party having that object in view, should be formed.
The Republican party was formed for the purpose of eradicating chattel
slavery in America, opposed secession, and incidentally favored a high
protective tariff to enable the United States Government to carry on the
Civil War. The Democratic party in the South favored slavery and
secession, and thus the issues were made. The Republican party established
the objects of its organization and it is conceded that it was right, both
in its opposition to slavery and secession, and hence the issues then
dividing the old parties are now dead issues, leaving the only issue the
incidental one of protection. The fundamental principles promulgated by
Jefferson upon which the Democratic party was organized, have been
instilled into the hearts of practically all Americans and no organized
political party is necessary to maintain them. The issues formerly
dividing the Democratic and Republican parties (excepting the tariff)
are no longer in politics; and the political "bosses" of neither party
can show why those who once opposed slavery and secession should remain
as a separate political organization, and those who once favored it
should remain as one also, while there are living issues concerning the
welfare of the masses of the common people, about which no concern is
manifested by either of the old parties.
Had the Democratic party adopted the living issues and burning demands
of the common people in its platform, and honestly advocated their
speedy enactment into law, then it would be the party of the people. The
rank and file of that party in the South and West does not express any
marked disapproval of the principal demands for reform that are embodied
in the platform of the People's party, yet, nine-tenths of the voters of
the Democratic party are controlled adversely to their political belief
by one-tenth--the Wall Street or Eastern portion. And, as S. S. King,
Esq., a noted reform author, has said, "Whistling against the wind in
the effort to drown the fury of the tempest, has always been as
effectual as the effort of Western and Southern Democracy to reform in
the face of Wall Street dictation." Unfortunately for the Democratic
party, it has been controlled by this un-Democratic Eastern end of
itself until the importunings of the common people of the West and
South have been ignored. The thunder of the "Tammany tiger" having
drowned the appeals of the Western and Southern producers, they have
been forced to present their demands by independent political action,
and the People's party was necessarily the result; and if these people
have the courage and manhood to stand firm to their convictions, and to
resist the "party lash" which the "machine bosses" will of course
continue to vigorously apply, there can be no question as to its success
in Alabama.
First and foremost, however, before the strength of any new issues can
even be tested in this state, the "machine bosses" who have reigned
supreme in Alabama for the last nineteen years must be dethroned. In the
name of Democracy they have perverted every principle which the word
represents, and by "bulldozing" and fraud, have constantly thwarted the
will of the people at the ballot-box. They have inaugurated methods as
corrupt and revolutionary as their despotic minds could conceive, that
their dominancy of the common people, might be perpetuated with ease;
they have shaken the very foundation of the sacred covenant of liberty,
broken the peace, blighted the prosperity and threatened the homes of
the people; they have also hastened the time when all good,
liberty-loving and truly democratic citizens of this state must unite in
re-establishing the fact that they are the equals of the "machine
bosses," and that a majority should rule. When this is established in
fact as well as in theory, then, and not until then, will the demands of
the people, which are favored by a majority of the people, be enacted
into law. Whether favoring or opposing the demands of the common people,
all honest citizens should unite in an effort to secure to those
favoring them, the right to have the issues that come before the people
fairly tested by a free ballot and a fair count of the votes polled.
Anything else is slavery, which will not be submitted to by the common
people of Alabama. In the language of the greatest Alabamian of to-day,
Capt. R. F. Kolb, the grandest Commoner of them all, whose every impulse
is actuated by a desire to do service to his downtrodden fellow men:
"The common people of Alabama believe that democracy means that the
people shall rule. They now feel that a few political 'bosses' are
undertaking to overthrow a republican form of government in this state.
I warn the 'machine bosses' to stop and reflect. Don't trifle with these
people longer. Let justice be done and sweet Peace will again spread her
white wings over our beloved state."
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
Punctuation has been corrected without note.
The following misprints have been corrected:
"manmer" corrected to "manner" (page 14)
"addresed" corrected to "addressed" (page 34)
"day" corrected to "days" (page 34)
"the the" corrected to "the" (page 37)