The Hazel Green herald. [volume] (Hazel Green, Wolfe County, Ky.) 1885-19??, 1891-05-08


and the rights and demands of the peo-
pie are spit upon and trodden under foot.
That this government has commenced
through all its agencies to contend against
the people. Having blarneyed and blind
ed them so long, while their pockets were
picked, they deem it presumptuous AFRO
gance in the people to define their rights
and ask for redress of grievances.
We had little boy once, rosy, beau
tiful boy, We handled him upon our
knees and called him our son. The JOY
of the household and the pride of the
family was he His name was Absolom.
AS he grew larger we called him our little
man. But the larger he grew the fur
ther from our control he strayed. He
was often in bad company, visiting bad
places and saloons. He finally married
the daughter of Dives, our longtime
enemy, and came around only every year
or two in perfect friendship, but SEEM
ingly as matter of business. Time
rolled on and he and Dives proffered
their services to help me along. Today
he and Dives own all my goods and eff
fects; and am poor. BY the fine arts
under the guise of friendship and viii
lingness to aid they own all. Poor Abso-
lon! Who would have thought this of
Absolom?
This story presents facsimile picture
of this government in its relation to the
people. The legislators have married
Dives daughter, and they and Dives
have Invested the people of their sub
stance under the guise of aid and friend.
ship. They, too, have coherded with
the vilest and lowest stratum in morals
to accomplish their aims.
But perhaps we are overstating the
matter, and if so we should apologize
before reading public. Perhaps the
politicians and party workers do not
pander to the saloons and the vilest dregs
of society to carry their points. If they
do not, we here apologize. Perhaps
Congress, in its financial legislation, has
not made laws in the interest of the
moneyed power by which the value of
their holdings were vastly increased and
the burdens of the taxpayer and pro-
ducer vastly increased also. If they have
not, we here apologize. Perhaps the
governmental departments and the party
organizations have not bristled up to
fight the people in their demands for
redress of grievances. If they have not,
we certainly ought TO apologize. Per-
haps the government has taken strong
ground in behalf of the people against
capitalistic combinations to destroy free
competition. If so, we certainly should
apologize. Perhaps the administration
of the government is not wasteful and
corrupt, and is not run in the interest of
a few rich, with system of taxation
against the poor. If not, we are in error.
Perhaps our courts and our penal code
are administered with even handed JUS
tice to both rich and poor alike, and the
rich can not buy exemption from punish.
ment, and the poor can get their rights
in civil process. If so, we have made
a mistake.
But if we have made no mistake, we
make no apology. Truly, affairs are bad
enough without exaggeration. With the
people approaching the creature of its
own hands, with an exemplifcation of
their own wrongs and remedy already
formulated for the purpose of amend
ment, and then for the whole camp, with
its factions, to spurn this approach of
the people and to set all the apostles of
plutocracy to preaching against them, is
certainly an alarming spectacle to those
who think themselves free. The people
OF America must now confront tyranny
in its most dangerous and deceptive form.
Had it central head its location would
be simple. Now it comes in the form of
corporations, captalistic combinations,
party boodle-mongers, with all the arts
of hell to first deceive and then make
man his own destroyer. No slave is half
such a slave as he who winds the chains
around his own limbs. If the people
bow and humbly submit to this Moloch,
and that, too, through ignorance and of
their own accord, we know of no such
example in history, and can by no means