The intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1887-1891, 1889-02-02
THE LATE ELECTION.


TDonn Plat. In Belford's Magazine.l
There are two lessons, taught by the
late contention, that the people will be
slow to learn until coming events force
them to q knowledge.
The first is, that our government has
passed from the political fabric built us
by the fathers to a financial concern in
which private interests dominate pub
lie affairs. -,
The second is, that no public man let
his honesty and influence be what they
may, can menace the moneyed power
of our land and remain in public lite.
We are 8 o accustomed to being fed
on phrases, that we lose in their use
the object for which they were framed.
Our fathers sought the shores of Ameri-
ca to escape oppression at home. The
sum total of the despotism was found
in the fact that while they who produc-
ed all enjoyed. nothing; they who pro-
duced nothing enjoyed all. In framing
certain legal enactInents, in the shape
OF a constitution that was supposed to
be good against such inequality and in
justice, the fathers thought to eliminate
privileged classes by wiping out the
laws of primogeniture and entail. They
took no %accornt, for they could not
know, of the corporation, that has all
the powers and privileges of the born
aristocracy, and render all the guaran-
tees of the constitution of no avail.
Under the power OF the corporation
we have a hundred and fifty thousand
miles of operating railway that has
passed to the control and into the vir-
tual ownership of less than sixty fami-
lies. To this combination has gone an
attribute of sovereignty found in the
power to tax the people. As Senators
Sherman, Conkling, and Window said,
in their famous report to the senate,
this railroad power can tax all the pro-
ducts of the country in a way congress
dare not attempt. This iron network
of rails enters every mans business
and pleasure, and is the taxation with.
out representation that brought on the
} revolution and gave birth to our gov-
eminent. The people lose through
] fraud all that they gained through vio-
lence; and, sad to say, generally with
, their W consent.
:, We have the telegraph, so necessary
to our business, which science gave as
the poor mans post, for it consists of q
wire, q pole, q battery, and a boy, that
is openly owned and operated as u
luxury by II man.
The currency, the life.blood of trade.
is farmed out to something over two
thousand corporations, that, acting as
one, contract or expand it to suit their
own greed.
We are cursed with a system, called
Il tax, but which is in fact an extortion,
that, under the plea of iavoring certain
moneyed interests, not only forces the
consumer to support the burtbens of a
government kept upon a war footing
nearly a quarter Of q century after the
war closed, but enables less than a mil.
lion out of sixty millions to accumulate
means until our rich men are marvels
10 mankind. The great republic,
through this process, has entered the
avenues OF private enterprise, and with
it's crushing weight reduces labor to
starvation wages.
All these combined form trusts, as
they are called, which, limiting pro-
duction, shut out competition, and &C.
cumulate for the favored few lille the
masses suffer.
All, then, united make our govern
ment; for government is that power
from which there is no appeal, upon
which we depend for a recognition OF
our rights. This power elects our con
gress, selects our presidents, and in
timidates our courts.