E. J. Whelan, Tipton, Mich.
I like the way you write and the way you put it, but I am discouraged. It doesn’t seem as though the rank and file will ever see the point. The most of them will agree with me about the condition of the country, but when they come to vote, they vote the same old ticket. That is the way they do. Some one gets hold of them before election and they vote it straight. Only a short time ago a friend of mine said to me that he thought we as a Government were getting right where Russia is, and it would take the same internal revolution to get rid of the monopolies and trusts that are holding us down. Now I will venture anything that that same man will vote with the old G. O. P. and vote a straight ticket too. Now it makes me sick, but I think if they can stand it, I can, and have made up my mind to let the whole thing go to the devil. It looks as though the men with Hon. before their names were thieves. It is called “graft” now.
F. A. Jeter, Alto, Tex.
I am on your side, never have been on any other way and I know that if the laboring people do not get some relief, and that soon, we are gone. Your Magazine has done good here. Has changed hot-headed Democrats to Populists.
A. C. Shuford, Newton, N. C.
In a letter some time back you stated that you believed the “Money Question” to be infinitely more important than any other before the American people. You are undoubtedly correct in the view you take of the matter. People take the same superstitious view of money that they do of religion, and how to reach the reason of the average man through all this thick covering of superstition is quite a problem. I have thought over this problem for years and am not much nearer the solutions of it now than when I first began. I have practiced caution in my contact with men, and to look back for twenty years I can see quite a change has taken place in my own neighborhood as well as elsewhere. I have been a great admirer of Jefferson and have read everything he has written which I could get my hands upon. His boldness in attacking the church is a marvel to me. Here is the power which enslaves the minds of the people and keeps them from using their thinking machines. The result of such methods is that the average man is afraid to think for himself. No step of progress can be made until this vast machine is shattered, and yet care must be used in doing so, because man must have some foundation upon which to stand. Do not misunderstand me, please. I am a believer in Christian principles as I understand them.
The money power and other monopolies are allowed to maintain their grip through the church largely. How best to expose and open this organisation to attack is a problem I wish you or some other man would solve. The average politician knows well how to play upon this feeling which the Church creates and as long as the organisation is allowed to continue its process of enslaving the minds of our children, just so long will the crop of “Grafters” be an abundant one.