The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1889-09-24
SPEECH OF HON. WHARTON J
GREEN,
Before the North Carolina State Farm
7 ers' Alliance.

men, as well 1t may, for Wnere the
first is tolerated the last rarely long
exist. If l may be pardoned the use
: of a misapplied expression as first en-
ployed, there is a "i~rreconcilable con-
fict" betwixt freedom and monopo-
". When a man is debarred entry
in any honest vocation, be it by patent
royal or by trust contract, he ceases
to be a freeman, as SO he does when
compelled to purchase of the pam
pered monopolist, be it by kingly
mandate or the no less %imperious law
of necessity, brought about by rogues
and schemers under a newly invented
device of that infamous but ingenious
class
From immemorial time "patents
royal" by which certain exclusive
privileges were conferred upon the
favored few to despoil the helpless
many, have been considered by crown
wearers a legitimate continuance by
which to reward their minions, or, by
going shares, replenish their own de-
pleted Golfers. It is such a simple
contrivance no wonder it was of early
invention. "To eat bread, you must
buy of the v~izier, salt of the multi,
and meat of the lord high execution
er," so ran the edict of those days,
"and let US hear no complaint as to
price" Owing to its extreme sim
plicity, OLD Rome, in her degenerate
days, quick caught onto the happy
thought, and soon all the most impor-
tant financial transactions of life, from
the bargain and sale of a pocket
edition, or image, rather, of Jupiter
Flavius 1.-THE rain god) to the farming
out the tax collections of provinces
and kingdoms, were in the hands of
favored monopoly.
After the long darkness of Medie.
val night, Christian kings unearthed
the Midas secret of transmitting mans
necessities into the precious metals.
Monopolistic traffic in these we're free
ly bestowed upon the Montespans and
the Pompadours and La Walters and
other royal prostitutes to keep them
provided with trinkets and lapdogs
and castles and bric-a-brac until king
ly baseness could no further stoop
and human endurance no further go,
and then the deluge burst on France
just one hundred years ago, which
swept dynastic monopoly to the devil,
to whom it properly appertains.
The vile thing even had a foothold
for a while in the royal palace of
England; but men of that land have
ever been less patient under kingly
claim unsanctioned by reason than
those of any other. In the Parlia.
ment of 1897 our forefathers raised
the issue with the old tigress Eliza.
beth, then on the throne. The com
plant was made that, "for the benefit
of favored courtiers, oppressive mo-
nopolies had been granted, not only
for the sale of foreign Iuxuries, but
for salt, leather, coal and other
articles of ordinary consumption"
Old Bess knew when she had a good
thing for herself, and was naturally
10th to part with it. 1t is amusing to
hear that amiable dame begging for
the retention of the right to cheat her
dear English "She hoped that her
dutiful and loving subjects would not
take away her p~rerogative, which is
the choicest flower in her garden, and
the principal and head pearl in her
crown and diadem" Monopolistic
claim was then and there virtually
overthrow in England, nearly 800
years ago; but it required, later on, a
little royal blood letting to convince
her second successor that the law.
makers of England are not addicted
to joking when Ill, advised taxation is
involved. They we're wont to speak
to the point and to mean what they
said.
Countrymen, is it not incredible
that this monstrosity of tyrannic
origin, after dying a dogs death in
monarchical lands, centuries ago,
should be revitalized, brought to life
and invested with powers never
dreamt of before in any age, and
certainly not in this boosted land of
freedom, and in the year of grace
1883 Impossible! would have been
the oncurrent verdict of all thinking
men who died previous to the taking
of the last census, and yet the start
ling fact, for fact it is, stares US in the
face to-day, and laughingly derides
our Wanted boast of "freest of the
free" Yea, verify, my friends, we
are to-day, or if not will be to-mor-
row, the worst monopoly-ridden, as
we have long been the worst tax
ridden, people of whom there is
record.
1t is needless to expatiate on the
derivation or Specification of the terms
pool, trust, combine, now in daily use,
by which it has been brought about.
They all mean, in effect, the same,
and that monopoly, which, from it's
Greek derivations, means sole, single,