The Populist Editor Who Saw Anarchy and Came Home to the Democrats

F. F. Lischke, formerly editor of the Sprague Populist and an officer of the local Freeman’s Protective Silver Federation, didn’t know what Populism meant. The murder of Ginston and other lawless acts have opened his eyes. He has changed the name of his paper to the Democrat, and in his issue of August 6 says:

“In the eternal fitness of things, an explanation is in order, for the benefit of those whose mental calibre does not permit of their realizing why a person should drop a hot stove poker which he has accidentally grasped, remove a shoe that pinches or retreat from the brink of a yawning precipice. I have, in the past six months, sailed far out in the sea of Populism, and gazed into the seething vortex which in the very nature of things will be the future abiding place of the Populist party. On the voyage I discovered bloody billows of anarchy outlined on the horizon. I saw the angry breakers of prejudice, ignorance, injustice, cowardice and demagoguery beat against the bulwarks of the social fabric that surrounds all that which is held dear by the American people—liberty, patriotism, equality, fraternity and happiness. Having become thoroughly convinced that the Populist party is a menace to the perpetuity of our republic—a republic that is the outcome of over 100 years of popular will and statecraft—I have steered my bark away from the treacherous seas of Populism and am again anchored in the harbor of Democracy, where the beacon lights of Americanism cast their rays of conservativeness, statesmanship and loyalty over the children of this broad nation, and guide them up the incline of material and social progression. Hereafter I shall advocate the pure and undefiled principles of Democracy, which have been promulgated in the interests of the masses.

“I have started the Lincoln County Democrat on my own responsibility, in an endeavor to atone for my mistake in embracing Populism—to atone by presenting to the people of this county a paper that will point out to those who have been ensnared into the Populist fold, the fallacy of the Third Party doctrines. I have received no aid or encouragement from any source; should the Democracy see fit to aid this paper as proof of its merits, their aid will be appreciated.”