Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1891-11-24

our government, are found advocating
measures and policies subversive of them.
For score of years they have been plant
ing seeds throughout our industrial and
commercial system utterly at variance
with the doctrine of equal rights. Today
we ARE cursed with privileged classes ex-
listing by virtue of legal enactments to
as great y degree as many of the nations
of Europe. We have broadened the
Foundation Of the splendid temple our
fathers began, bat we have not raised
its walls, except with a single stone, in
100 years. The emancipation of the
black man is the only achievement in
tbs interest of humanity worth record
ing in this century.
The forces of nature, the natural
products of the earth. the equal gifts of
God to all the children of men are
walled up by the omnipresent corpora
ton. The goods, the rights, the benefits
made matters of corporate ownership
aud distributed to the few, while the
many are shut out from fair participa-
ton,
Public instrumentalities- railroad,
the telegraph, the financial systems
drift enormous revenues into private
Golfers, while they exist under nomi
nal condition of public control. This
condition is an economic absurdity.
Partisans have raised ghost and
named it paternal government, forget
ting that the people are i'll theory and
ought to be in fact the government, for
getting that except for the paternal care
of government there would not be COR
poration on the face of the earth. Yet
partisans build no adequate defense
against the combination that clutches
labor by the throat, that glowers upon
industry with the eye of Polyphemus,
sucking up her substance to the wall of
bare subsistence.
The Farmers Alliance as an OrganiZa-
ton is the natural result Of the neglect
of political parties to consider economic
questions from the standpoint Of merit
rather than of party advantage. The
farmers have become weary with the
long drawn Quarrels over minor matters
and the barren contests of mere place
hunters.
The Alliance demands that industry
shall be emancipated from the domina-
tion and spoliation of the money centers
by enabling her to provide her own
medium of exchange.
We are today us II nation holding fast
to notion that has been an absurdity
from the beginning. 1t is this-the gov
ernment although possessing the sole
power of creating money cannot create
any for itself, but must be borrower.
This is scarcely greater than the other,
that an interest bearing bond is a better
foundation for paper money than actual
property.
The past six months has lifted the fog
sufficiently that all may now see where
the cen:cr of the great industrial battle
Is 20 be Po!it!ClaES may beat the bush
yet lire longer over an insignificant
difference in the adjustment Of the
tariff, bnt the real contest cannot be
long delayed. We must fix the status
Of .ha ruling force in America.
Shall II be money Or manhood That
is the question. We must settle the
question whether our medium of ex-
change shall be great labor saving ma
chine, as great as the nations indus
tries. as strong RS the nations arms, as
sound as the nations heart, or whether
it shall continue to be tool of mo-
nopoly, nominally under public control,
but really controlling the people, and
exacting tribute from industry by the
rnbbar'. ,rl.. cf ..,vt, lt the IRA fife will
bear"