The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1878-06-27
THE DEMAND FOR A LARGE STAN
DING ARMY.
nh Foolish, PsrIIOus and UnpstrIOtIo Demand

in maintaining large standing army,
which was employed in moving Indians
out of the way Of Jay Gould's railroad,
and in enabling Carpet'bag thieves to
rob and harass the Southern States.
These were its sole employments, and 80
far as protecting the frontiers is concern
ed, it did no more than standing army
of less than half the number of men &C.
complished during the ten years prece-
ding the war at about one.third the cost.
The imposition of taxes to the amount
of nearly six hundred millions for the
support of standing army during ten
years of peace, coupled with other SINH
lar extravagant expenditures at a time
when we are carrying an enormous pub
lie debt, is enough to place the affairs of
the country in very critical condition
but that condition is now used by the
men who brought it upon us as a reason
for increasing the standing army. The
Journal, we see, has joined the unani'
nous howl of the Republican organs for
a larger standing army to garrison our
towns and keep the workingmen in or
der. 1t said yesterday:
"In fact, the affairs of the country are
in very critical condition, and mob
like that of last summer thirty days
from now would have the great centres
OF industry and the lines of transporta'
ton in their power The people must
look at these things, for there is danger
in the very air."
Thus speak all the corporation organs,
and the fact is becoming more and more
apparent every day, that the money
power and the great corporations find
the simple popular government of the
past unsuited to the schemes by which
they have accumulated such vast for.
tunes, and by which they hope to thrive
and rule in the future. They regard the
workingmen as the natural enemy OF
their policy, and they want stronger
and more stable government, that is able
and willing to grind and keep him down.
Hence their organs jump at every ru-
NOR, pretext, or occasion to alarm Capi'
tai, and the orderly instincts of the
American people for the purpose of get
ting up sentiment that may hasten the
drift of our Government policy toward
the methods of European Governments
We are already in transition state
between the gentle, peaceful, inexpen.
sive, and free government of the ante
bellum period, and that kind of govern
ment, which, in Europe, maintains about
one.seventh of the laboring population
in armed idleness to prey upon the hard
earnings of the other six.seVenths, and
to maintain privileged aristocraCies who
possess all the wealth and control all the
productions of labor. Or capitalists
spend great deal of time amid the lux
uries and splendors of European Gov
ernments, and have there learned to de-
spise the popular precepts of their faith
ers, and the homely maXims and princi.
pies upon which our republican Govern
ment was, until lately, conducted. They
see that under our system the plunder
they have accumulated cannot become
stable fixture in their families as in Eu-
rope, and hence they want more stable
governmental Government under
which the few are born to honor, wealth
and power, while the many are born to
hopeless toll and slavery. Over there
they learn to look with admiration upon
the glittering parades of vast standing
armies, and to love the peace of despot-
ism which accompanies "strong govern
ments" between the intervals of anarchy
and revolution.
They are working our governmentintO
that channel inch by inch. They have
us saddled with enormous public debts.
They have a bond. holding class with a
bank monopoly established in control of
our Federal Courts, and in full control of
our Executive Departments. They have
a corporation oligarchy established, with
rami6cations reaching and stealthily
sapping all the sources Of political pow
er. The people are still able to main
tain a show of resistance to this drift of
things in Congress, but the battle wakes
warm and doubtful, and unless the peo.
pie awake to the rapidity of the transit
ton, we shall, ere long, be passing
through blood to Imperialism.
The plot is arranged in all its details,
and Grant is to be the Moses of the |
movement. Whence comes this new
born distrust of the people, this demand |
for huge standing army to hold them |
down? 1t is not an indigenous product |
of American soil and Republican insti-
tutions. 1t is brought to us from Europe |
by those of our citizens who have means |
and leisure to cultivate European ideas |
of government, as Grant is now doing |
preparatory to the execution of the Mon
ey Powers insiduous plan of revolution.
Hence we see the organs of the party |
that is responsible for the present Condi. |
tion of the country, now carefully Culti- |
waiting an exotic distrust of the people; |
disseminating fears OF labor riots; max |
ing bugaboos out of Communism and
Socialism, and demanding huge stand |
ing army to fight these chimeras. Give |
Grant and tbe corporations the standing |
army they demand, and they will ask for
nothing more. They will take what they |
want without asking.
In the change that these men are 80
craftily promoting, what is there to pay
for the blood it will Cost2 The slaughter
that paid for the capture of Richmond |
was mere trife compared with the la
Dor that must be done before the yoke |
of the proposed plutocratic despotism |
can be made to rest peacefully upon the |
necks of race brave to recklessness
and nurtured in the traditions of Amer.
can liberty. And when the work of
death shall have been done for a time,
and "a stronger and more stable govern
rnent" shall have been erected upon the
ruins of popular self.goyernment, how |
will its fruits compare with that of the |
government which Democracy gave US
before the war; What other government |
was ever so peaceful, 80 free from foreign |
wars or domestic commotions2 What |
other government ever made its people |
80 prosperous and happy Compare its
yv,skh kbnoa ~ tho ofropo,ouf aud |