The Principles of Populism 

Speech Delivered by Senator James E. Doom in the Oklahoma Legislative Council,

January, 1895

Mr. President:  I had not intended taking any part in this discussion, but the senator from Canadian (County) has so far diverged from the subject as to cast reflections on the principles, and misrepresent the aims, of the People's Party, and sneer at the senator from Payne (County - Mr. Spencer) that I feel it my duty to declare my hearty approval of the sentiments expressed by the senator from Payne. 

The People's Party need no defense from me.  Its platform of principles speaks for itself.  It did not emanate from the dark recess of the midnight caucus, but was enacted in the broad light of the midday sun, on the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence -- an event forming an epoch in the history of the world, and I say it with all reverence, equaled only by that memorable event when the Prince of Peace was born in Bethlehem.  

Sir, since the fourth day of July, 1892, when our banner was unfurled to the breeze, our principles have been known to all men.  The vituperation and misrepresentations of a venal press, and the sophistry of hireling orators, has only served to strengthen the attachment of true, generous and patriotic hearts.  Investigation and arguments have convinced reflecting minds that the best interests, if not the salvation, of this nation depend on the success of the policies advocated in the Omaha platform. 

Sir, in reply to the misrepresentations of our opponents, I measure my words and unhesitatingly declare that we are not anarchists; we are not nihilists; we are not revolutionists.  On the contrary, there is not a pillar or stone in the government edifice erected by the fathers of the republic that we would tear down or deface.  We heartily subscribe to the sentiment of that old man -- William E. Gladstone, -- "The theory of the American government is the perfection of human wisdom."  We want nothing better.  Our greatest desire and highest aim is to transmit this beneficent government in its original purity to our posterity. 

Mr. President, with sorrow, not in anger, I express it as my deliberate conviction that, considering the present condition of this country, brought about by legislation, combined with executive action, for which the Republican and Democratic parties are solely responsible, the People's party is today the only national party whose policies will perpetuate the government founded by the wisdom of Washington and Jefferson and brought by the blood and privations of our fathers and mothers in the war of Revolution, to establish the principle of "Equal rights to all, special privileges to none."

Sir, the time has gone by when the dangers that menace the welfare of the people and the very existence of the government, can be dismissed with a sneer, or be made the subject of jest.  History but repeats itself.  The man of today is the same creature, with like desires and ambitions as those for whom, in the far distant past, Draco made laws in Athens.  Like causes produce like effects.  Every student of history knows that, from the days of Draco to the present time, whenever the wealth of a nation has passed into possession of a privileged few, and the mass of the people became miserably poor, that nation sank into ignoble slavery, or, by bloody revolution, righted its economic conditions. 

Sir, the American people will never be slaves.  They are patient, are long-suffering, but when the cup of their misery is full, to the running over of a single drop, there may be precipitated a condition of things, the thought of which makes my blood run cold.  We are traveling the same road traversed by the French people preceding the great revolution of 1789.  There, the governing class, the privileged few, with three-fourths of the wealth in their possession, turned a deaf ear to the prayers of the down-trodden millions.  That governing class, arrogant from long immunity, sneered at and derided the advice of Turgot, drove Necker into exile.  The starving people who cried for bread were hanged on gallows fifty feet high, in order to deter others form the disturbing festivities at the royal palace.  But the day of retribution was at hand; the cry of the poor and oppressed had gone up on high.  A just God, who is no respecter of persons, poured out the vials of his wrath on the heads of the oppressors.  Who can say that punishment was not deserved?  They would not listen to Turgot; they would not listen to Necker; they would not heed the admonitions of LaFayette, nor of the Girondists, B but were forced to hearken to the inexorable logic of Robespierre, Marat, and the guillotine. 

So today, in our own beloved country, the money power, which Mr. Ingalls characterized as having "No politics but plunder, no principles but the spoliation of the human race," acting through gigantic corporations, arrogant in assurance of security afforded by vicious legislative, executive and judicial action, turns a deaf ear to the cries of distress going up from every city and town and from almost every fireside.  The cry for bread is answered by volleys of musketry or by imprisonment.  Surely, a day of retribution will come.  The just God, the omnipotent Jehovah, who as the foundation of political economy for his children in all ages and in every climate, said to each and everyone of Adam's race, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," and "Thou shalt not steal," will ere long, loose the thunderbolts of his wrath, unless the wrongs of his children are righted.  It is the mission of the People's party to avert that wrath.  Like Abraham pleading for Sodom and Gomorrah, the most profound thinkers, the most ardent patriots, eminent men and women in every walk of life, have raised their warning voices. 

Mr. President, the time is past when the cry of "calamity howler" is sufficient to close people's ears to the truth.  Facts are stubborn things and events are forcing the truth home to the understanding of immense numbers.  It is not only the "impracticable cranks" of the People's party, but the most eminent scholars, statesmen, and jurists, have sounded the note of warning.  Listen to John J. Ingalls whose ability and orthodoxy no Republican will dispute; speaking from his place in the national senate, he said:  "It is useless to deny the fact that we are on the verge of impending revolution," -- the principle cause being -- "a financial system which allows 31,000 out of a population of 63,000,000 to acquire, mostly within twenty years, over one-half of the immense wealth of this great nation while a million Americans citizens are walking the streets and highways seeking work by which to procure food, NEEDS READJUSTMENT,"  Again he declares:  "Society is becoming rapidly stratified into the superfluous rich, and the people who are becoming hopelessly, miserably poor."  He further says, "A social system which condemns virtuous, dependent females to prostitution or suicide, to escape beggary, IS A CRIME, for which unrelenting justice will sooner or later demand atonement."  The influences which are surely undermining the foundations of that government which Mr. Gladstone pronounced "the perfection of human wisdom," Mr. Ingalls designates as a "vast conspiracy, having its ramifications in every quarter of the civilized world."  These conspirators he characterizes as "Men of all nationalities, and of no nationality; with no politics but plunder, no principle but the spoliation of the human race."  Volumes could be filled with utterances equally significant and prophetic, from men utterly beyond the pale of the People's party.  I can not refrain from quoting from that tribune of the people, Senator Plumb of Kansas, who characterizes the condition as "one of helplessness, hopelessness, brought about by legislation, combined with executive action."  His admonition -- "Let us burst the bonds which bind us to this body of death called 'fixed capital' which oppresses labor and discourages enterprise; instead, let us legislate for the people, the common people, who were loved and trusted by Jefferson, Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, and who, in every fateful hour of the republic, rescued it from whatever danger it might be encompassed," -- I heartily commend to the earnest consideration of all true lovers of republican government. 

Mr. President, I repeat, we are not nihilists, we are not anarchists.  We want no bloody revolution.  We are trying to avert it, and seek by peaceful and constitutional means to so readjust economic conditions that each and every inhabitant of this land may enjoy "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."