The Labor enquirer., 1883-12-15

thus they created fictitious debt that,
to-day, with their bad management and
extravaganza, amounts to enough to re-
build and restock the entire railroads of
the United States
Robbing the stockholders On one side
and the producers and consumers on the
other, they taxed our property in way
congress dare not even suggest. So said
Messrs. Conkling, Window and Sher-
man in report made years since, and
the condition is worse today than at
that time. 'They rise above law, and
bid defiance to our courts, said the late
President Garfield. They select mem
bers of the house, purchase places for
senators, nominate presidents and own
ourjudges.
Well, some years since these railroad
kings undertook to put their miserable
laborers down to starvation wages, and
the sufferers rose, in their wrath, and put
sudden stop to all transportation.
God knows they were right in this, if
right exists happened to be on my
way from Cincinnati to Washington,
over the Baltimore and Ohio railroad,
and Travelled 100 miles through gaunt
starvation. The crowds of hungry
ragged wretches on all sides made my
heart ache.
The farmers, holding politically vast
majority, had the power to regulate this
trouble and right the injustice. Bless
your soul, they sympathized with the
oppressors- very knaves engaged in
taking all the profit out of farming-and
the raiload monopolist triumphed.
Correct evils such as these at the ballot
boxl Ny good friend, of what are you
talking The land is divided into two
hostile camps, called severally republi-
can and democratic. The one is the or
ganized ignorance of the land, and the
other the organized dishonesty, and the
farmer votes one or the other ticket with
a solemn pertinacity that would be ludi-
crous were not the results so serious.
You talk, in your clever way, about
organizing new party. Go into the
rural districts and try it on. You will
not get man to listen-or, what is
worse. comprehend if he does liston.
There is but one remedy for all such
ills as these, and that lies in violence.
That will come in time-perhaps not in
our time, but sooner or later. The slave
holding oligarchy of the south had its
constitutional guarantee torn out by
bayonets, and these stuffed monopolists
will one day have their turn. Not pos
sessed of the brain or pluck of the south
erners, the contest will be limited to a
Falstaffian race for holes in which to
hide. --.- .. F.. i
Your farmer, however, will take no
part in the row, although the greater
sufferer. He will, if anything, sympa-
thize with the monopolists. Why, John
Swinton, if every granger at given
time, would march out with such soft
soap as he may have about his house and
annoint the nearest railroad track, they
would fetch those fellows to terms in
three days There is no property in the
world, immense as it is, that rests on
such frail foundation. 1t took 100000
men to keep open 100 miles of railway
during the late civil war, and they failed
at last.
1 am well aware that shall be abused
for this, and charged with advocating vio-
lence. Perhaps l am. l certainly am
trying to write the truth. But the real
advocates of violence are those wrong
doers. Nothing less will satisfy them.
There was time when the south could
have freed its slaves and made money by
so doing But they advocated violence
by perslsting in wrong. We have the
same ugly element at work to-day, 1t
walks blindfold on, while behind it
stalks the headsman." Don PIATT.
COOPERATION.