The daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1873-1877, 1874-08-25
,,,co W. sbould that large majority Of

self2 Why should that large majority o.
tba whole American people, composed 81
} n nor engaged directly 10 the agricultur
ii interest, stand aloof from participation
: a. =, The The political interest of the country
which Is their interest quite as much as il
;s anybody's, and passively allow that in.
terest to be engineered and run" by a
small class Of persons known as profession
: al politicians ? The Times confesses its
inability to perceive any sense in such a
notion, or in the profound observation
which conveys such an implication.
No other interest keeps aloof from the
whirlpool of politics." Even the religious
interest gets into it occasionally, and the
moral interest, which constitutes about all
the discernible foundation of modern re-
lieions, is necessarily 10 it, more or less, all
the time-politics being merely branch of
morality. The legal interest is so closely al
lied to the political that lawyers generally
may be described as an order of skilled poll
tlcians.in the best sense of the term. Other
interests, less intimately allied to the polti-
cal whirlpool are still more active in pro-
ducing or modifying its action. The rail.
road interest, for example, wherever sub
vention or an opportunity to plumber com
munity or municipality or commonwealth IS
desired, enters the whirlpool of politics,
packs nominating convention, corrupts
the ballot box, fills the lobby with its
agents, buys up congress with brides,
political government to Its
own sinister ends The pig-iron interest,
the calico interest, the cloth, leather, salt,
coal, glass, paint, shoe-peg wood-screw.
and other special interests, whenever the
person engaged in them desire to levy
tribute on the earnings of other people, go
into the whirlpool of politics and endeay.
or to convert government into business
agency for their own particular benefit and
The banking interest,
the office-seeking interest. and the interest
represented by selfconstituted arty-lead-
ers, do the same. Yet the persons en-
gagged directly in all these interests consti-
tute only a minority, and not very large
minority, of the whole people. All of them
together do not equal the number of per
sons engaged in the agricultural interest,
on which, directly or indirectly, all OF
them are dependent. How does it happen
that all the subordinate and dependent in
terests, comprising only minority OF the
people can safely enter the whirlpool OF
politics" but that the paramount interest,
which comprises a m jaorlty Of the people,
can not safely do so? How did these mi
nority interests acquire the monopoly Of
politics which the money grab philoso-
piers assume that they have an exclusive
right to enjoy?
The question is one which people in the
agricultural interest are evidently begin I
ming to ponder. And the more they medi-
tate on it the more it don't seem to them
that the popular minority comprised in the
various monopoly interests can have any
inherent or unalienable right to mouopo-
lie the g whirlpool Of politics" with the
rest.
The assumption is nonsense. 1t is the
one distinguishing peculiarly of free polit
ical institutions that the political interest
is the common interest of all. And it is
the one vital condition of the permanence
of free institutions that all men, OF what.
ever interest shall enter and actively con,
Germ themselves as independent free agents
in the whirlpool of politics. 1t is of
the highest importance that the popular
majority who are directly concerned in the
great agricultural interest, should assert,
their importance as the paramount inter
est of the country, and of right the princi-
pal force in giving direction and character
to its polity ChfcaQo Tmes -