The Editor Who Told the Populists to Cancel Their Subscriptions
A small-town Washington editor refuses to let a secret Populist club run the Fourth of July, and invites any reader who disagrees to stop his paper.
One Populist stopped his paper last week because the Chronicle notified the people that the Knights of the Referendum, a secret political organization, was attempting to run the Fourth of July celebration in the interest of the Populist party.
It has never been customary for political parties to run the Fourth of July, and the Chronicle does not desire to have such a gang as the Populists get in and dictate to the American people what they shall do on that day.
About all the methods of the Populists are revolutionary. They have no respect for a United States marshal nor any other United States official.
In their speeches in some states they even advocate the destruction of public records, thinking by so doing to wipe out their mortgages; then again they say if they cannot get what they want they will rise up as one man and take it.
They want the government to make rag money and loan it to them at 2 per cent, and we suppose if they had the power they would print such money and force people to take it. That is what one of their brethren in Whitman county advocated last fall.
They have always sneered at the National Guard and used every effort to have it abolished. They are against our present form of government and want to make laws by means of the referendum.
Besides these and other revolutionary ideas, they secretly take an oath not to support either of the old parties, thus signing away their freedom and making of themselves serfs of the Populist doctrine.
We asserted it last and we say again, that the Populists are not the crowd to resolve for a Fourth of July celebration for all the people. The Fourth of July is a national holiday and is not to be trifled with by any political party, much less the Populists, who are a revolutionary outfit from head to stem, and the sooner the people set down on this crowd the better it will be for the country.
If there are any more Populists on our list who do not like our sentiments on this subject they are at liberty to stop their papers. This paper cannot be bought by a few Populist subscribers, and they should by this time tumble to the fact.
“This paper cannot be bought by a few Populist subscribers, and they should by this time tumble to the fact.”
The 1890s Populists were farmers and laborers demanding cheap credit and direct democracy; the editor's rant against 'rag money' and the referendum is an early draft of every later fight over who gets to set the rules. Substitute 'Populist' for any insurgent faction today and the subscription-cancellation threat is instantly recognizable.
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