Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1889-03-22
ANARCHY ORSOCIALIsM?
A LOGICAL DISCUSSION OF THE
MERITS OF BOTH.

changes as our own. Religious liberty
has been almost universally accorded by
human governments as the natural right
of man, and personal freedom is almost
coextensive with acknowledged civiliza-
ton. Even Russia, in our own day, has
by an imperial ukase abolished personal
serfdom.
The inventive genius of man has util-
lied the material and unseen forces of
nature in the production and distribution
of the comforts and Injuries of life. Our
own country, favored by boundless natu-
raj resources and republican government,
has grown from infancy to giant proper
tons, and is respected everywhere as one
has proven her ability to defend her rights
and honor against foreign enemies and
maintain the majesty of the laws at home.
1t is indeed as proud distinction to be
an American to-day as once it was to say,
Il am Roman citizen" But that proud
Roman has slept for centuries and his
posterity become the slaves of tyranny
and darker superstition.
Is there any lesson for us in the decline
and fall of states once comparatively free
and prosperous? Are there laws that con-
troll the destiny of nations, as there are to
control the health, strength, character,
and longevity Of the individual? Reason
and history answer yes. History is
philosophy teaching by example, and it
duce like results
Once the frugal Roman loved his own
and his country's honor more than he
loved ease, luxury, or wealth; but contact
with the luxuries and RIGHTEOUSNESS of
the East changed the tastes and ambitions
of the Roman citizen. Political and
military place was sought not to serve the
state or secure good name, but to acquire
wealth and enjoy luxury; to get public
office became business enterprise in
which the wealthy invested their money
in the hope of reimbursing themselves by
public plumber. So bold became political
aspirants, and SO mean and abiect the
poor people, that Senatorial honors were
in open market-fnally knocked down to
the highest bidder.
Can we find any analogies in our day
spent to carry each important election.
and memo, not men, but voting cattle"
are marched to the polls Snder contract
and paid for their votes? Is it not true
that these things are not done to secure
the general good, but as business invest.
ment? Having bought voters like cattle,
they are sold again like sheep for shear
ing" It is indeed cause for national hu-
initiation and grave alarm.
Faithful watchmen are sounding the
notes of warning; from the hill tops they
shout to us: What means this unholy
scramble for power except for the gains
that follow? Shall history repeat itself,
and another republic be transferred into
an aristocracy of wealth."
Daniel Webster, orator, statesman and
philosopher, said: mo matter what your
form of government, if the wealth Of the
country be concentrated in few hands
you have an aristocracy, not republic. "
millions and the millionaires; in the Ian
guage of Gladstone, between the masses
and classes"
The masses begin to feel the grinding
of the upper and neither millstones. Per:
sonal slavery is abolished, but some power
! is scaling down the price of productive
labor, while the great combines are getting
fat. With more or less of reason and
philosophy men are seeking for the causes
and the remedies for the growth of mon
opoly and inequality, the unrest among
the millions.
Activity among the conquering few
having won many victories over the plain
people Gas Lincoln called them) they are
organizing for fresh conquests. While
praising the law Of competition for the
masses they organize and combine for
themselves, hence the formation Of huge
trust companies; some incorporated, some
not. Among the corporate we may name
banks of issue, railways, telegraphs, and
manufacturing and mining companies.
The Standard oil is the parent and model
Of unincorporated trusts, followed by cot
tonseed, sugar, rice, paper. beef, -four,
school books, and other combines to
''corner" and control prices to both pro-
ducer and consumer.
But few weeks ago o national -four
trust was organized in Milwaukee. The
avowed object is to put down the price of
wheat and raise the price of -four. The
London Times says q millers' trust has
been formed in England which will surely
crush out all the small mills and put up !
the price of flour. The American sugar
trust last year pocketed SIS 10000 900 from
the increased price of sugar. Who uses
and pays for it? The working people |
from moral and sanitary point of view,
to eat more than the idlers.
These combines, whether corporate or
not, defy the natural law of competition |
and the divine right of oil to live and en-
joy life, and are Selling upon every valua- |
BILE thing upon the earth or within the |
earth. and their Yankee smartness will |
soon be initiated all over the Christianity |
world. Already the money trust, inter-
national as it is, commands tribute from
labor everywhere by debating the tinan-
cial policies of the nations; but, not con-
tent to reap its own golden harvest Of
usury and profits. it hedges itself about
with the lesser combines as defensive out
posts. If you but look you will see that |
these combines all pull together against
any effort of the people to save themselves
from their rapacity. Why? Because they
fear that the people, having learned how
to deal with one of them, will be armed
against them all.
That crisis is near in the strained rela-
lions of parasite and victim, Of wealth.
producers and those who gather it in,
is apparent to every student of history or
Of human nature. How shall we avert or
direct it to righteous ends? Here we are
met by three differing theories. First
come the favored classes and their echoes
saying: Inequalities in the conditions of
men have always existed. 1t is the natural
order of things, therefore inevitable. 1t
must continue" 1T is right" they say,