New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-10-06
BETTER Days FOR 1HE POOR.

This Tile can scarcely furnish more touch
ing spectacle than was afforded the other night
mt Tammany Hall when Mr.. John Kelly, Mr. +.
3. Thurber and others sound Il what is called
III one of the reports the trumpet note of war
against monopoly" The poor are always hay-
ing hard time of it. Many of then are COM
PEELED by the stress of circumstances TO work
for living. Others, less inclined to industrial
pursuits, but deeply interested in the great
problem OF existence, wear away their weary
lives in vain endcavors to pierce the two great
my stories of their environment, to wit why
things are so uncqualy divided, and why the
deserving poor should get three cents worth of
froth to every two cents worth of beer. The
poor, too, are almost always oppressed. Many
of them who have no business in Chicago, and
no desire to go to Chicago are ground down
and walked over by the tyraunous circumstances
that except they go afoot they cannot get to
Chicago without paying tribute to some one of
the gigantic monopolies which have possessed
themselves of all the facilities for travel in that
direction. Others who have no freight of any
sort, and whose entire personal belongings
might be comprised in the simplest of valises,
are fretted to death daily by the fact that the
great monopoles establish arbitrary freight
tariffs to which the laboring man must succumb
of the poor, and especially of the poor voter, is
so hard that it very frequently happens, on the
eve of an election, that men who are not
obliged to work for living go right down
among them and talk with them about it, and
tell them what ticket to vote in order to amelio-
rate their condition and make things more even.
There have been instances where candidates for
oflice-thoroughly impartial men--have gone
SO fan as to personally invite men whose fami-
lies were suffering for the neccssaries of life
to take drink with them.
These things are very touching. One may
look upon the hardsnips of the poor with some
thing like phiosophic resignation when it is
considered that after all they get used to being
poor and don't mind it much. But to see an
active politician, who is above want himself,
stand up on platform and boldly sympnhize
with the oppressed-ah that is what takes hold
of the emotions and brings the unbdden tear to
the eye And this is precisely what happened
the other night ut Tammany Hail. 1t is, if we
may be permitted foi n moment to drop into the
unretined but expressive language of the street,
it is no SLOUGH" of an occasion when IL states
man like Mr.. Holaban, an orator like Mr.. Grady
"a " boss like Mr.. Kelly, and II wholesale grocer
like Mr. Thurber step boldly out as champions
of the poor, relieving their distress by the pas
sage of stirring resolutions and ministering to
their comfort by "sounding the trumpet note
of war against monopoly 1t Is the sort of
thing to be long and gratefully remembered
by the poor. We venture the prediction that in
the coming day, when monopolies shall have
been utterly crushed out, and the stock of those
great corporations instead of being tho exclu-
sivc possession of the rich shall be within the
reach OF the poorest citizen. the redeemed and