A Traitor Government by Judas Representatives. Representative Legislation a Fraud and Delusion. Direct Legislation, the Right and Only Solution
Oakland: Howe Print Company, [ca. 1895]. 43pp. Original printed wrappers, stapled. Light wear and dust soiling to wraps, heaving along spine and at staples points. Paper somewhat browned, but sturdy. Still very good. Item #2079
A scarce anti-everything screed by late 19th-century Oakland politician and crank, John H. Fones. In the present work, financial policy is the principal target, as Fones dedicates individual sections of this tirade to his anti-bank, anti-debt, anti-gold, anti-greenback, and anti-tariff agenda -- "Money has a legal but no intrinsic value." Nevertheless, he also reserves space to attack the character of both major political parties, contemporary school and college curricula, and religious organizations, "one of the greatest obstacles in the way of good government." The only solution, according to Fones, is government entirely by referendum, with members of the People's Party elected to enact the stated will of the people.
An 1896 article in the San Francisco Chronicle characterized Fones as, "a politician of kaleidoscopic history, [who] turned Socialist after a year ago he was an ardent Prohibitionist. Mr. Fones three years ago was the passionate Methodist, and the most devote of the worshipers of the First Methodist Church of Oakland." Despite Fones' previous political incarnations, this vitriolic declamation is an excellent exposition of the views of the growing populist movements and of the People's Party in California (and elsewhere across the United States) during the 1890s. The present copy was evidently sent through the mail, with the manuscript address of a T.P.Q. Reinders and a canceled stamp on the rear wrapper. We locate only one copy, at Berkeley.
Price: $650.00