CHAPTER IV.

METHODS OF TRAVEL.

For those very respectable speakers of the old school who go to a town only when sent for and speak only at meetings properly advertised and pre-arranged, who are blessed with a goodly supply of that eminently obstructive article, the chief burden on every popular movement, commonly called dignity, there is no advice needed as to methods of travel. For such well regulated exponents of bimetallism and reform about the only advice that can be given is "be sure that your car fare is sent to you before boarding the train."

But to another class of speakers, those who make up the rank and file of Democracy's Volunteers, those whose purpose and power of will are such that no obstacles, no stumbling blocks, no hardships can embitter or delay, those in whom the fire of enthusiasm for humanity has burned up their dignity and who in starting out do not ask whether they have means to go respectably and comfortably and quickly or not, but one question presents itself, namely, "Can I get to my destination in time to deliver my message?" The methods used by such will be various.

When we have the money to buy railway tickets and when cars go at the proper hour, we will travel by rail. Otherwise we will drive when we can conveniently secure a horse and vehicle, or we will gladly mount the saddle or a wheel. But when car tickets, carriages, saddle horses and bicycles are alike impossible, the man fighting for principle will rise superior to his dignity and dependence upon small comforts and taking a bundle of literature and a small bag will, before starting, ask himself only, "Are my shoes good?"

EXPERIENCE FAVORS TRAVELING TWO BY TWO.

The early Christian disciples went out preaching the gospel by twos. Throughout history and in the experience of those living, it has been found that the will and intensity of purpose of the average man is better preserved and that he more easily overcomes obstacles, troubles and disappointments if in traveling among strangers he has companionship. Therefore although, at times the Volunteers may travel as individuals, lonely and homesick, still, wherever it is practicable, we advise our speakers to travel by twos. It is much easier to walk five, ten, twenty, or even forty miles in a day, from one town to another with a companion. Not only is loneliness overcome, but two speaker and workers have more than twice the influence upon a community that either would exert separately. Besides it is safer, and, in case of sickness or accident, there is some one to go for help or to "tell the story."

AFTER ENROLLING.

Two young Volunteers start out for a month's campaign in the cause of American liberty. We have no money, the extent of our capital being a bundle of Democratic literature, an appointment from the Bureau of Volunteer Speakers and a good pair of shoes each. We start at seven o'clock in the morning from town "A." It is twenty miles to "B" where we wish to speak at night. We walk six miles by nine o'clock and are then overtaken by a farm wagon in which we are allowed to ride eight miles, when it leaves our road. We give the driver a pamphlet, thanks and a blessing and we part. It is now eleven o'clock and we walk six miles further when at one o'clock we reach our destination.

In ten minutes we have found a friendly Democrat who, after looking at our letters, shakes our hands, takes us to his house and provides food. After resting a couple of hours after dinner, we make an outdoor talk as suggested in Chapter three, and announce a night meeting.

If those who profess the name Democracy in this village are overburdened with sham dignity and devotion to what is old and inefficient and refuse to recognize or aid the appointed speakers of the people's cause, we must be ready to rely on other resources. Our afternoon collection may amount to ten cents or it may reach fifty cents or a dollar. The crowd may, however, refuse to contribute anything. We may sell literature sufficient to supply our wants, or the gold standard and the trusts may have caused such a scarcity of cash that we cannot sell anything. We may be compelled to get our supper and maybe breakfast by trading a pamphlet to a grocer for crackers and cheese. After speaking in the afternoon and evening if we should meet with no success or recognition, expediency would suggest that we shake the dust from the soles of our feet and proceed on our journey toward a more friendly community, while the oppressor prepares the way for the work of education later.

In some places friends will supply car tickets; in others they will procure a carriage or wagon and deliver us to the next town. From other villages or towns we may have to proceed as we started and as the apostles used to travel, walking along the dusty road, the frozen ground or through mud or snow. This method of travel is not only now practiced by many of our speakers, but can and will become the method of thousands more. It is a thoroughly practicable and sensible method of teaching truth against great odds and adds to the force of the speakers' message by proving him sincere.

That this plan of campaigning is altogether feasible the writer can personally attest from actual experience. Years ago, as a mere boy, I became intensely interested in the principles of the New Democracy and starting without money, without friends or any organized assistance, impelled merely by enthusiasm for humanity and hatred of that tyranny through which my race and family had suffered, I traversed in this way every county in the State of Kansas, circulating thousands of pamphlets in which were pointed out the way to a nobler civilization. While still a boy I also walked or rode with friends through Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. I was often interfered with by persons disposed to disagree, but at every village and town and city through which I passed, I stood up in the open street in a carriage, on a dry-goods box or a chair and proclaimed my faith that the poor people need not suffer as they do if they would but unite in behalf of their own interests and use the ballot against oppression and tyranny.

Very often I was without money, and I then discovered that my early study of hygiene could be turned to good account. I found that the great capitalists, aided by Edward Atkinson and the soup house reformers, in trying to devise a diet for the poor that might enable them to work for less wages, though failing in this, had at least given me a pointer. I found that their bill of fare lacked but one ingredient to make it very endurable, and that was enthusiasm and youthful hope and fire. I added this ingredient and was independent of the world.

HYGIENE AS A WAR MEASURE.

Those Volunteers who intend not only to try to speak for the cause during the next four years, but have determined to fight for the continuation of our Republic in spite of all obstacles, should learn how independent the body really can be of what are usually termed the necessaries of life.

As an invalid child I attended a course of lectures delivered by one Dr. O'Leary. This distinguished gentleman, with the theatre stage, which he used as his platform covered over with polished skeletons, manikins, human heads in chloroform and colored pictures of the various parts of the human frame, impressed my young mind deeply. At that time, I remember I had been "given up" by my parents and the doctor, as a child who could not possibly be raised. I was accustomed to thoughts of death and for years constantly expected a visit from the dreaded monster. No memory is more distinctly engraven on my mind than the nights when, with eager eyes fastened on this wonderful man and his mysterious skulls and manikins, my heart throbbing, my face aglow, I listened in rapt attention, that possibly I might catch some secret that would help me defeat death and add strength to my frail body sufficient to do battle with life's hardships.

After describing a boy who died at about my own age because his nervous system had been deprived of the proper life-giving elements which had been taken from his food by modern processes, the Professor took up a handful of wheat letting it fall repeatedly through his fingers, stating that each grain of wheat contains in it all of the elements required to sustain human life. He said that civilization, by taking away the outside, the most nutritious part of the wheat, had struck a blow at the physical development of our race. He declared that man can live for years on whole wheat requiring no other article of diet, and that the outside of the wheat especially, now thrown aside as bran and fed to the cattle, contains the elements of bone and nerve fibre, that, while the lady who eats only the choicest white bread, made of the finest flour, has to substitute gold for parts of her teeth, the teeth of the cattle that eat the bran are perfect. He gave as an illustration the march of Caesar and his legions through Gallia, when Caesar's soldiers often for weeks at a time were without provisions and were compelled to feed on whole wheat alone which they would snatch in handfuls from the fields as they marched, thresh in the palms of their hands and grind with their molars. The crushing of the hard wheat grain gave the teeth exercise while the crushed bran and surface of the grain supplied those elements required in the construction of bone and teeth. "At the present time, nineteen centuries after," so this doctor said, "there are numerous skulls of these same soldiers of the great Caesar to be seen in the London Museum and as a result of their wheat mastication, every tooth is as sound in these skulls, as whole and free from decay as when heathen Rome was Mistress of the World and Caesar was King."

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.

Whether this astounding statement of the learned doctor has any basis of truth or not I do not know, but that the lesson he sought to impress by it is true, my own experience can attest. During a period of several years, with another young enthusiast, I subsisted on a diet of bread and apples except when these could not be had, when we repaired the waste of our bodies by eating whole wheat, a bag of which we constantly carried with us for "emergencies." Often we have subsisted on whole wheat and clear water alone for several days, and even a week at a time. During these periods we did not notice that we lost flesh. Of course we had very little to lose, but our vigor and the intensity of our enthusiasm and faith in our powers, all of which depend largely upon the amount of nutriment carried from the stomach to the brain, and various nerve centers, were not in the least diminished. Later on we found that when convenient, we could obtain more nourishment from the wheat with less chewing by having it boiled, but when boiled, we could not carry with us a week's rations without fatigue, and boiled wheat will become sour in the summer time while whole dry wheat will keep for years, and, like feminine beauty, remain ever fresh. It is the most condensed form of digestible food known to man.

Of course where men have dissipated and their powers of digestion have been undermined by intoxicating liquor, tobacco, or the habitual use of highly spiced and over-prepared foods, any coming down to a natural diet like this is a severe hardship. But for a young man with firm faith and good health, NOT TO BE IMPEDED IN HIS DESIRE TO BECOME AN ESSENTIAL FACTOR IN THE GREATEST MOVEMENT OF HISTORY BY THE MERE FACT THAT HE HAS NO MONEY WITH WHICH TO PAY CAR FARE AND BUY GOOD FOOD AND CLOTHES, the suggestions here given will be found helpful. I would not advise others to do, what I have not done or am not willing to do myself. The fact is, however, that any young man, in good health, and formed of the right kind of "dust," can travel, without any money from one end of the country to the other speaking daily, and accomplish much for our cause, even if he does not meet more than one true friend in a thousand miles. But the comforts and vices and follies of civilization he must be able to do without.

This austere and ascetic mode of life is not commended for its own sake. The suggestion is merely thrown out as one possible way of beginning work, so that no young man in good health can claim that he would have done wonders for the cause had he not been prohibited by poverty. No such excuse exists. Healthy single men can live and thrive if buoyed up by hope and faith and manly purpose, and travel the world over on a quarter of the wages of a day laborer.

NOT CIVIL BUT MILITARY.

To those persons who may possibly criticise these suggestions as tending to encourage a lower standing of living, thereby indirectly aiding in the lowering of wages, I will simply say that I am not giving suggestions for methods of civil life but only military suggestions to be acted upon in time of war. The battle is now on. No conflict of the past ever appealed more strongly to the sublime qualities in human nature than the present war of the people against the united plutocracy of all countries. It is therefore appropriate and timely to give any and all suggestions that may be of value to those bearing the brunt of the people's battle.

Can it be urged against the half starved Cuban patriots that because they have learned how to subsist through months on roots and berries, and sugar cane their habits are likely to lower the standard of living in Cuba? In answer the smallest boy would say that the Cubans eat berries this year in order to eat watermelons next year, that they chew slippery elm and sheep sorrel to-day in order to have roast beef, oysters and plum pudding to-morrow. They are now eating the food of the animals and sleeping in the open fields with the beasts and dying, as the cattle die, by order of a butcher, that their countrymen and their children and their children's children hereafter may live as free men, enjoying the heritage of a free Cuba and all the varied gifts of civilization.

Did our forefathers of the Revolutionary War lower the standard of living and decrease wages or injure the cause of labor or of trade-unionism, because, in fighting for country they were willing to go without shoes, staining with blood from their wounded feet the projecting icy rocks that gashed them as they marched against the British? Oh, no! Our forefathers went without shoes that we might have them. They went hungry and cold and gave up their individual comforts and lives, that we, their descendants and fellow-countrymen, might have greater comforts, increased liberties and life more abundant.

GENERAL MARION.

When General Francis Marion with his brave soldier boys was lying in at Snows Island on the Pedee River, North Carolina, preparing to make another one of his surprising and brilliant raids on the enemy, an officer from the British post at Georgetown was dispatched to visit him to treat for an exchange of prisoners. The blooming Britisher was blindfolded and carried by a circuitous route into camp. The bargain arranged, he accepted an invitation to dine. The meal was served on pieces of bark and consisted entirely of roasted potatoes of which General Marion ate heartily, requesting his guest to profit by his example, repeating the old adage that "Hunger is the best sauce." "But surely, General, this cannot be your ordinary fare" said the well fed adversary. "Yes it is," replied Marion, "For months at a time my men have lived on roasted potatoes, and we are especially fortunate on this occasion to be able to provide a double allowance to set before so honorable a guest." The young foreigner was so overcome with admiration for the brave patriots fighting for their country in such a spirit that on his return to Georgetown he retired from the service, declaring his conviction that men who could with such cheerfulness, endure the privations of such a life, could never be subdued.

The blooming Britisher was right. The God of William Tell, of Cromwell, of Washington and Marion, of Garrison and Lincoln, of Moses and of Bryan, never has and never will permit such enthusiasm and faith and patriotism to go unrewarded. Men with purpose so intense, whose flame of patriotism burns so brightly as to consume their love of comfort and dependence upon external things, can never be subdued by hired Hessians nor the combined forces of opulence, ease and greed.

Going out in such a spirit, demanding three full square meals each day for every human being born into the world, yet to obtain this end willing ourselves to live like Marion's band on roasted potatoes, like the Cuban patriots on sugar cane and berries, or on graham bread and apples, or to ease our hunger if necessary by grinding with our teeth dry whole wheat, we will in the name of God and humanity take this country and rescue our world from those who now make of it a living hell.

This unconquerable, independent spirit that rises above physical conditions, social limitations, comforts and luxuries, is and always has been the conquering spirit of the world, always the sure omen of victory.

If Marion and his band could rise superior to physical appetites in fighting for thirteen little colonies away off from the great centers of civilization; if the followers of Gomez and the immortal Maceo can march over perilous mountains and through deadly marshes, suffering continually for want of food and drink, and for years swing with almost supernatural skill their deadly machetes against the brutal hordes of Spain, in order to free one little West India isle, then surely we, who see the brutal arm of a united world plutocracy striking down and destroying all that has been bought so dearly by Washington, Marion, and Lincoln, about to enslave the world's home and refuge of freedom for a hundred years, we should not be unwilling to make any sacrifice, take any risks, perform any drudgery.

In defending our country we decide the destiny of the human race. We fight to make seventy millions of people free and eventually to free the world. Ours is the most sublime, the most terrific, the most inspiring of all historic struggles.

In fighting we will take the advice and learn what we can from any source however humble. We will listen to the hygienist, the vegetarian, even to the soup house reformer, if their words will help free us from those chains of poverty that paralyze the arm of the ordinary slave and make him impotent to strike back against his oppressors.

The man who, because he earns his bread by labor, is looked down upon by the companions of his youth and, because of his helplessness and his clothes, is fenced out of respectable society, such a man requires condensed and highly spiced food. He craves wine and beer and whiskey and every condiment and stimulant that can raise his spirits, depressed by failure, disappointment and the slow plodding life that offers no advancement. Continual drudgery, without opportunity for promotion, engulfs man in a gloom uncheered by a ray of hope.

The reformer, the friend of labor, the idealist, the true Christian believe that such victims should not only have the best food and drink, better clothes and better homes, but that they and their children should also have a chance to rise, should never be debarred from opportunities for advancement or for utilizing any talent or genius before discovered or that may hereafter be discovered, that might lift them to a plane of distinction and honor.

We believe in luxury; so much so that we believe every poor man's family should have an opportunity to enjoy all those healthful and normal luxuries which invention and progress have placed within the reach of men. But the greatest of all luxuries, that which is more appetizing than pepper or salt or cinnamon or garlic, that which is more stimulating than beer or whiskey or even champagne, and which must precede in the hearts of the masses the procurement of all these other and lesser luxuries, is that divinest gift of Heaven--hope. Give a man all the other luxuries that the world affords, and take away hope, and his blood thickens, his eye becomes dull, his color heavy and his pulse irregular. But allow him only dry bread in the open air and sunlight by a flowing brook, and give him hope, and his eye flashes, his heart throbs quicken, his face flushes, his muscles harden and all his physical and mental powers are ready for instant application.

We, the Volunteers of the New Democracy, have an abundant supply of this stimulant more powerful than any liquor, more appetizing than any condiment, more soothing than any narcotic, giving power and increased facility without reaction. We have hope. We have faith. We have purpose. We have absolute knowledge that our cause is just. We know that we shall win. We cannot be suppressed. We cannot be put down. The world is ours. WE ARE INVINCIBLE.

NO RAILWAY PASSES.

In starting out to destroy plutocracy, the first thing the average weakling does is to approach some senatorial or congressional tool of the very plutocracy that he thinks he is opposing, and ask him to beg plutocracy for a weapon to fight it with, free of charge. In other words, in opposing the trusts and monopolies, among which the railroad monopoly is one of the most tyrannical and corrupt, he asks for a free railway pass.

The railroad pass is the most corrupting instrument in American politics to-day. It buys for a small price our congressmen and senators, our county and state committees of both the Democratic and Republican parties, our bosses in both parties, our editors, Democratic and Republican, our preachers, Democratic, Republican and Prohibition, and many of our Democratic lecturers and speakers. Even many of our labor leaders make themselves impotent in this great struggle by accepting railroad passes. Our labor statisticians, from the National office in Washington to the smallest State branch, aid in smothering facts and giving life to fiction in order to ride on railroad passes.

Our speakers, in accepting the gage of battle laid down by plutocracy in the late campaign, must neither ask nor accept favors of our enemies. We must defy them. Rather than ride on railroad passes we should walk.

We should learn from that venerable Cuban patriot, Maximo Gomez, who, when offered a sop by the brutal despotism against which he was fighting, although it was presented to him by those two eminent yet despicable toadies of European tyranny, Messrs. Cleveland and Olney, refused point blank to consider their degrading propositions and answered: "We do not accept favors of Spain. We hate Spain. Our business is not to ask favors but to fight."

DEFY THE RAILROADS.

During the late campaign the railroad corporations united not only to aid in continuing the gold standard by the use of corporation funds but in robbing our people of a free ballot by the most treasonable acts of coercion and intimidation. There is not a giant stock jobber, tax dodger, labor skinner or other law protected thief in the country who has stolen more than one million dollars from widows and orphans and other unsuspecting investors, who has not been aided and abetted in his nefarious schemes by the railroad corporations. There is not a single monopoly nor trust that preys upon legitimate trade and commerce but has been fostered in its unnatural growth by railroad discrimination. There has not been a single reform advocated for the benefit of the common people during the last thirty years, but has been fought bitterly by the railway officials.

We cannot destroy plutocracy, we cannot fight the trusts, we cannot fight the gold standard unless we are willing to defy the railroads.

If, during our coming Congressional campaign, the railroads continue their habit of monarchical coercion and intimidation, depriving American citizens of their right to a free ballot, we must be sufficiently intelligent and determined to co-operate with the enraged and long-suffering people who will then be forced to declare for government ownership of all public highways thus destroying, at a single blow, this most dangerous and tyrannical form of plutocratic despotism.

We cannot afford to ask for railway passes. If we cannot pay our fare and cannot secure a horse, WE MUST WALK.

BRYAN WAGONS.

Before describing our method of fitting up and sending out Bryan wagons, something should be said about the use of the word "Bryan," and of Mr. Byran's request that his name should not be used by clubs and organizations.

The word Bryan no longer belongs to any one man. It has become the common property of all who love liberty. The word Bryan became the cry of exultation at the birth of the New Democracy. At this most momentous historic event of the present century when an ideal was grasped from the upper realm of books, of hope, of morality and religion, brought down to the world of fact and embodied in flesh and blood; when what before was a dream, a philosophy, an aspiration, suddenly allied itself with physical agencies and created a political power that surprised the world, the one cry into which the long oppressed millions breathed their joy, their hope, their hate, their devotion to their fellows, their defiance of their enemies was the magic word, Bryan! Bryan! As this one word was repeated and cheered and cried aloud to express both hope and anger, promise and defiance, it became sacred. It flitted from the possession of the single human mite whom it had pleased God to appoint as the herald of the new dispensation, and became the common heritage of humanity.

At the Chicago Convention one citizen lost his name, but the world found it and the word Bryan became the battle cry of all who fight for freedom or strive for justice.

As this individual citizen of Nebraska cannot by any act or blunder in the future, efface the mark that he has made upon history's scroll nor smother the fire of enthusiasm his eloquence has lighted nor imprison again in his single breast the wondrous truths breathed out of it that now fill the whole world, so neither shall he rob us of the one magic word, once his own, NOW OURS, which, wherever uttered, kindles lethargy and inertia into enthusiasm and fills the abode of gloom with the light of hope.

The people need a key-note, a battle cry, one single word that expresses all they believe and feel and hope. We have such a word. It is BRYAN. We intend to keep it and utter it wherever and whenever it will cheer us or help our cause. And if again one individual citizen's modesty prompts him to interfere with our rights, our only answer will be: "Hands off, honored sir," or, in the immortal words of Pennoyer of Oregon, "You tend to your business and we, the people, will tend to ours."

BEST WAY TO START.

Where one or two or three persons are willing to start on a trip from town to town, and, with the co-operation of their friends, can secure a large covered wagon and two horses with a supply of condensed food, we would commend this as the most economical and efficient method of campaigning as it affords not only means of transportation, but supplies a dwelling house to the occupants, and at the same time, by the proper application of paint to the covered wagon, the wagon itself and the horses may become living missionaries, continuous and convincing speeches in themselves, by their presence protesting against the continuation of existing political barbarism. If at the top of the cover is painted in large letters, the words, "Bryan wagon," every child, every woman in the farthest country district, every passerby, whatever be his race, religion or education, will know instantly that this wagon, now passing through the country, is one of the army of wagons being used in the work preparatory to the decisive battle of modern times to be fought in 1900. A few well-chosen sentences painted on the wagon and American flags at the top, will make it serve as the best possible advertisement for meetings.

MAKE YOUR ENEMIES ADVERTISE YOU.

The moment this wagon arrives in town every gossip, every old woman, every street gamin, every enemy of Democracy is converted at once into an advertising medium for the propaganda of our cause. The wagon, the horses, the dried beef, the apples, the whole wheat, the literature and everything that the wagon contains become subjects for conversation in the village. The Bryan wagon is the center of interest and the Volunteers who live in it are objects of curiosity. By meeting time the people are prepared to listen with open eyes and open mouths, drinking in every word of the speaker's message.

Its work done, the wagon moves on to the next town but the sight of it is a powerful aid to the memory of every inhabitant of the village. Each will recall time and time again the character of the speakers and the words and prophecies that they uttered, so that when the next speaker, traveling on his shoe leather or maybe in a palace car wearing silk hat and patent leather shoes, arrives and tells the people how they can free themselves from the money power, they will remember the wagon and the men who lived and traveled in it and spoke from it.

It is well to have the wagon so constructed that, when the time for meeting arrives, by removing the top it can be used as a speaker's platform and the announcements made from the front seat as it is driven from corner to corner.

FORWARD, MARCH.

Let a thousand such wagons be started out at once and kept on the road for four years visiting every country school district every village from Maine to New Mexico and from Texas to Oregon, each carrying an abundant supply of literature.

Let every Democrat patronize the Volunteers liberally, purchase from each a quantity of literature for distribution and sale and throw in a piece of silver as the hat is passed around. When possible supply them with substantial and well-cooked meals so that they can better stand their heroic diet when they find no friends.

Start the hat agoing at once in each community, and let the town or the county that purchases a Bryan wagon put the name of such county, town or village on the cover. Let counties in Colorado, Arkansas and Texas fit out such wagons and start them toward the heathen territory of Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Maryland.

ABOLISH NAKEDNESS AT HOME BEFORE GOING ABROAD.

Let the money heretofore sent by our religious friends to teach the naked savages of foreign islands to be ashamed of their nakedness and to desire clothes, be applied now to the conversion of America to the conviction that every citizen of our own country who wants clothes should have a chance to earn them. If America is destroyed by that arch-devil worship, gold idolatry, if our Republic goes down amid the horrors of a violent revolution and military despotism, following in the footsteps of Rome and Greece and Egypt, what will result from our missions in foreign lands? They will become relics of the past because no possible teaching can then convince the poor heathen that our religion is a saving power. When the very country from which the missionaries come is the helpless victim of greed, avarice and organized crime, how are other races to be tempted to follow our example? Let us rather turn our missionary money for the next four years, ALL OF IT, into the coffers of the New Democracy, and start our wagons toward the doubtful states from every Democratic and Populist stronghold. Let the more civilized people of Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, where the creed of progress has reached the greatest altitude in earth's history, share their increased physical, intellectual and moral development with the less progressive and more barbarous states that fringe the ocean uniting us with decaying Europe.

Such friendly action will not only be rewarded by the satisfaction that always follows a righteous act, but the givers will be blessed of God. Nothing that a man can do, or a woman, or a child, will accomplish more good in this world or gain greater reward in the land of the hereafter, than the giving of their dollars and dimes and pennies for the starting of Bryan wagons. In this way the western and southern centers of thought and unselfish patriotism may uplift and educate those states where greed, political corruption and the infamies of Hannaism still hold undisputed sway.

Let the churches of the Western states hold entertainments, let suppers, masked balls, ice cream socials, cider picnics and barbecues be held by the good women of every village and the proceeds devoted to the equipment of "Bryan wagons." And after they are started out, each well provisioned with literature, blankets and food, and containing two good speakers and workers, the good women who raised the money to start them should continue their benign activities and proceed at once to raise a fund to keep on hand, so that when our missionaries send tidings of persecution, accident or neglect, they can be answered at once by a generous remittance.

In order to insure the permanency of the venture, and that the wagon and horses may continue to serve the cause even if the men traveling with them desert their posts, a bill of sale or transfer of the wagon and horses should be sent to our National headquarters or to our state officers on the day of departure. The friends of the organization would then be communicated with in advance wherever the wagon went, and in case either one or both the speakers tired or deserted, the vacancies would be filled at once from headquarters, and in the meantime the horses and wagon would be cared for.

OUTDOOR MUSIC.

There can be no greater aid to the success of a "Bryan wagon" than for the volunteers to carry with them and be able to play a banjo, guitar, violin, or small organ. Music is one of the world's forces and as rare music, like all rare things, is a very small part of the whole, it is not necessary that our music be of that sort. If we have the best arguments, we can afford to let the other side have the best music. But we must not, for this reason, give up music altogether. Therefore a man who is proficient in any musical instrument that can be played out doors, is a valuable acquisition to a Bryan wagon. But by far the most popular and most effective music in the world, if well rendered, is the exercise of the human voice in song.[6] To open a meeting with music always strikes a sympathetic chord with the people. It aids and strengthens every word that follows. If our speakers do not know how to sing when they start out, they should practice singing our songs until they do know. This should be part of the young speaker's education.

[6] A volume of songs, prepared for our volunteer work, and for all sorts of Democratic meetings, will be ready shortly, and can be obtained of our National Bureau or from any of our volunteers.

STEREOPTICON PICTURES.

Another advantage of the "Bryan wagon" is that it can carry a certain amount of baggage the "shoe leather traveler" cannot possibly take with him. For those who do not possess an unusual oratorical talent, a small stereopticon or magic lantern with views picturing the principles of the New Democracy in effective colors, will prove a valuable aid. Reform stereopticon views have been produced in great variety, and the method of enlisting the eye wherever possible to strengthen the impressions made through the ear is sound policy. In securing collections for the payment of expenses, the average citizen is more likely to give his nickel or dime towards the support of the travelers if he has heard a dime's worth of music or seen a dime's worth of comic and interesting pictures in addition to instruction gotten through the medium of the speaker's voice.

BICYCLES AND DEMOCRACY.

Where a man doesn't care to walk, and where it is inconvenient or distasteful to travel by means of the "Bryan wagon," that most modern and popular conveyance, the bicycle, should not be despised as a means of disseminating truth. The bicycle is one of the revolutionary factors of our age. It is the enemy of tobacco, liquor and all other vices that arise from abnormal desires created by a sedentary life. It is the friend of health, strength, red cheeks and clear heads. Where there are good roads it is an excellent means of travel, and a strong wheelman can easily speak every night at a different town by using the wheel, and still have plenty of time to advertise each outdoor meeting.

A bicycle, too, is an excellent companion to a Bryan wagon, because while the wagon is slowly moving from one village to another, the wheelman can be scouring along the side roads distributing small circulars to the scattered countrymen, telling them of the meeting in the next town the coming day or night. In fact, one of the most important truths for every friend of the New Democracy to learn while very young, is that our enemy, plutocracy, utilizes every invention and element of civilization for the perpetuation of its power. In opposing plutocracy we cannot be narrow, prejudiced, superstitious, nor allow preconceived ideas as to dignity, custom, personal appearance or respectability, to interfere with our free motion and our energetic conflict.

We fight with every weapon that by any honorable means can be secured. We travel by every means that will emancipate us from the limitations of time, space and poverty. We accept as allies every friend who will aid in impressing upon our fellow mortals the solemnity of the opportunity that confronts them and the malignity of the enemy that is destroying our common race and country.

Grasp every force in earth, in sea, in air, which by ingenuity, wisdom, persistence, or heroism can be utilized in lessening human pain or adding to human joy; which can be of service in forwarding these grand principles that will, by one social and political transition, abolish the primary sources of human misery.