The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1888-04-19
Kansas stili 8. shrieking. >,

Is Kansas a "freen State? This
question cannot be avoided if one reads
of or listens to the complaints of the
present working population that live
within its borders. Some of its politi,
cal leaders and numbers of its news
papers do not hesitate to describe its
bondage as something entirely ineom-
patible with freedom. They pronounce
it state of the deepest and most un
questionable slavery-such slavery as
just preceded the downfall of several
of the Eastern empiIes.
Erecting monuments to soldiers-to
Abraham Lincoln, TO Ulysses s. Grant,
and to James A. Garfield, and above
all, to that immortal hero, John
Brown. of Hudson, does not seem to
fill the bill of liberty which entered
into the calculations of all the friends OF
Kansas as she was about to be inducted
as State of the Union. What ails
her? What is the matter ? Her ne
grOes are fellow citizens. It is not to
be supposed that God has pronounced
any special curse upon her for any
sins of omission or commission in this
respect. No Sontherner or slave holder
has meddled with the sacred - mon
ument on OssoWatomie Creek. Indeed
some Southerners have brought their
| capital and enterprise into Kansas and
become of its most prosperous and val
ued citizens, especially in the neigh
borhood of Atchison. Indeed, 1 have
heard negroes in Atchison say that
they did not know how they should
have got along had it not been for the
help they received from their old
masters.
Then what is the matter? They say
it is the Mortgages the Death
grips" Well! how does it happen
that they cover nearly all the soil ?
The South does not hold them and
takes no stock in her monuments.
She has been sacked and i'm impoverished
by the monument builders. Now why
this discomfort and shrieking," even
worse than when the "border ruftians''
wanted voice in settling the state?
Here are few extracts from a Kan.
sas sheet just published
Unless there is a change in the
financial policy of this country, and
that before long, your mortgages will
be foreclosed, and you, after all your
years of toll aud privation trying to
prepare home for your wife and little
ones and yourself in your declining
years, will find yourselves turned out
Of house and home, to be kicked and
,.uffed from place to place, like a dog
without master"
Again: "The privileged classes
owned the land in large estates, struck
| not lick, raised not grain. yet rev.
elled in the greatest Iuxuries, and
dined on the merriest wines, while the
| people became slaves to the kings and
their associates, with 81 per cent. of all
the money in the Golfers of the few.
1t was thus that Babylon fell. Rome
and Greece fell in the same way :; so,
to make slaves of the people it was
only necessary to control the profits OF
| their toll. Let me control the profits
of the industry of people, and they
are worse off than though they were
my slaves. for they are not in my care.
They can starve and die. and my loss
is nothing. While one of the most
cruel wars the gods ever witnessed was
oeing fought for the dusky checked
slave, the monopolist came up and run
off with the freedom of all the indus.
trial classes"
There is before me enough to fill
your paper of similar import. But ]
will close with an inquiry that forces
itself strongly into the subject: Are
not these wicked monopolists the same
people who sent "Sharps rifles" and
John Browns" to help in making
Kansas q free State? And how is il
that the people-the whites-are worse
off than if they had been the dusky
slaves of an ordinary STAKEHOLDER?
DEMoCRITUs.