Here is the follow up to yesterday's article.
The Caddo Herald
September 17, 1915
Kumrid Debs Was Here
Yes, he was, with both feet and a long glib tongue. And he told other kumrids how much abused they were by the system. Told them as how they ought to work six hours a day and get $2,000 a year each; also told them that since they produced all the wealth, they should have it. He told them lots of things he didn’t know, but that didn’t make any difference, as long as the poor dupes didn’t know any better. Kumrid Debs is a wise man, all right. He’s had dealings with the kumrids before and he didn’t want to get skinned by them again, so before he would even show himself, they had to take up a collection for him and before he would get up on the “flatform” they had to pay him $50 in long green- he don’t believe in this credit business. My, how the poor kumrids did dig to get the necessary fifty. And then he talked; he’s a good talker- but he didn’t say anything- words just naturally roll out of a socialist’s mouth, anyway. Debs rolled out $50 worth; then he went his way rejoicing because he had done something few people have been able to do- made a collection off the socialists- but he got his money in advance.
The kumrids had a chance to yell a few times when he told them how downtrodden they were, and how in the dim and shadowy future the “guvmaint” and the offices were to be theirs. He did not tell them how to save some of the money they earned; he did not tell them to diversity their crops; he did not tell them to attend church and take their children to Sunday school; he did not urge them to send their children to the public schools; he did not tell them how to grow more crops on the same land, and how to save the fertility of the soil. If he had, and the kumrids had acted on his advice, his coming here would have been worth the money.
But Kumrid Debs is not familiar with conditions in this county. He don’t know the habit that “owls” have here. They keep down the socialist vote considerably. Then it’s getting mighty hard for a kumrid to get credit here, and land owners are getting tired of owning rentless land- they want to get enough rent from their land at least to pay the taxes on it.
These socialists sure enough are the easiest, least provident, and poorest managers in the world. They let their glib speakers talk them out of all the money they can rake and scrape by merely telling them how the capitalists abuse them. The average capitalist is a novice beside the soapboxer when it comes to getting money from a kumrid. Instead of saving their money or putting it to a useful purpose the kumrids must pay it out to these calamity howlers, and then let the community feed and clothe their children.
These same banks, merchants and professional men whom the socialists so loudly abuse will be called on almost every day this winter to feed and clothe some poor kumrids’ child and they’ll do it; the district will pay for what little schooling he gets and buy his books; and the kumrid will use the money he earns to pay some calamity howler to come around and tell him how he is being abused by the system and how he doesn’t get half what he produces, when as a matter of fact if he had not already got more than he had produced he would have starved long ago.
Yes, Debs was here, and the kumrids were happy for a minute, but he did not change anything except the available supply of kumrid coin.
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