The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1890-09-03
THE CENTRAL TRUTH.
Senator Plumb on Republicanism Versus
CiYi ization.


Civil ization.
Senator Plumb of Kansas has taken
hold on the central truth Of modern
political economy, and if he has the
courage and the intellect to make hims
self its exponent it will make him
man in America annals. Instead of
pottering with truth and relying on
shrewd trickery of reasoning, as Mr..
Blaine is doing, he has gone straight
to the roots of the whole matter. The
man who scizes on vital and funda-
mental truth and proclaims it unflinch-
ingly becomes great with its greatness.
And in all the range of modern politics
there is no greater truth than that Mr..
Plumb has stated in stating that it is
the genius of civilization to produce
plenty and cheaper price, while it is
the practice of the Plutocratic allies of
the Republican party to demand laws to
check plenty that high prices may be
maintained.
Every lover Of humanity wishes for it
the least suffering and discomfort, the
greatest poss re plenty of the neces-
saries and comforts of life. Those alone
are civilized who desire this, whose
work contributes to it's attainment.
Those who seek to prevent it, who for
their own selfish gain perpetrate tho
discomforts, miseries and privations of
their fellows, are the worst savages,
because they have not the savage ex-
cuse of complete ignorance of what they
are doing.
The president and directors of every
trust in the country know that when
they strive to prevent plenty and create
scarcity they produce or perpetuate
dearth. want and suffering, that these
may result in high prices for what they
have to sell. Some chemist, giving his
life to the service of mankind and ask
ing no money reward, makes a great
discovery; some mechanic makes a
great improvement in productive ma
chinery. Chemist and mechanic are
alike liberators van leaders in the
struggle for progress, for freedom of
mind and body; for higher life than
that of perpetual want through which
men by their deprivations and needs
are tied down to brutality. Then when
such men, through self-denying toll,
have found ways to tighten the labor
ind sufferings of mankind, making pro-
duction easier, increasing plenty and
! lessening want, comes the Plutocrat
with his money, and with brains-not
brains enough to see his own best inter-
est in the common welfare, but only
with that quality of brains which can
use good for selfish purposes All these
plenty producing inventions are good in
the highest degree in themselves, but
in his hands they become instruments
for robbing labor of employment while
he is using them not to increase plenty.
but to check it. He takes machine
that can furnish some comfort of life to
10000, 900 people. He agrees with other
owners of such machines that the sup
ply shall be limited to production for
only 10, 900. 600, that the deprivation of
the rest may keep up prices. And to
carry out this agreement for artificial
scarcity, he goes to Congress and pro-
cures the passage of laws under which
those who suffer from the artificial
scarcity produced by him and his associ.
ates are prohibited from supplying their
needs from elsewhere.
This is an Ordinary business tran
saction." 1t is done every day. 1t is
the method of Plutocratic business, but
none the less is every man who is the
agent of depriving his fellows of the
greatest possibility of plenty bar.
barian, an obstacle to progress, STUN
bling block in the way of civilization,
~ opponent of Providence, an enemy
of the human race.
A small class of men, in this country
and in Europe, are struggling to keep
for themselves the great benefits of the
new methods of creating wealth, which
unselfsh students and thinkers have
wrought out during the century. The
work was done for the world; it is the
heritage of the world, that the world
may suffer less privation, and, being rio
of that oppression, advance to large in
tellectual and political liberty. Every
invention, every new discovery, gives
an added i'm petus to the forces which
are com bining to crush this Plutocratit
class, and give the world the benefit
of the plenty created by the mastery o.
mind over matter. The Plutocracy viii
be overthrow. The time will como wheI
the world will stop troubling itself with
juggled figures and with percentages
when it will say: "This is right and il
shall be done;" "This is wrong and i
shall not be done" And that time viii
come first here in the United States. /
is not far of. The Plutocrats are show
ing the hardihood of their blind covet
BUSINESS. They are struggling for thei
nneanied percentages in front of thu
rolling wheels of the Juggernaut car o
civilization and progress, and If they re
fuse to see the truth, to hear reason ant
to do justice, they may expect to NEE
the rewards of their injustice.
Senator Plumb has partisan recor'
which makes it surprising that h
should be the one man of all others il
his party to stand forward to tell tn
whole truth, but as he has done it. al
who love truth have only thanks ant
praise for him. He has stood forward
in the leaders place. If he has tn
leaders stuff in him, he will have no
only the whole West behind him, bu
with it all those who hate oppression
who love freedom and progress.
Louis Republic.
pEEn,S SNMERSAlu