Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1892-09-29
MIR. INGALLS'S SPEECH.
The Kansas Senator'S Great Speech
for Free Coinage.

for Free Coinage.
The Tyranny of Combined, Conscience
less and incorporated Capitalized
Coinage one Remedy-A Crisis that
may Become Catastrophe.
In the Senate of the United States, on
January IA, 1891, pending consideration
of the financial bill, the question being
upon Senator Stewards free silver coinage
amendment, Senator Ingalls,, OF Kansas,
addressed the Senate in favor OF free coin
age. He spoke as follows;
Nh. PRESIDENT: Two portentous perils
threaten the safety, if they do not endanger
the existence, of the republic. The first
of these is ignorant, debased, degraded,
spurious and sophisticated suffrage; sur
frage contaminated by the sewage OF de-
caying nations; suffrage intim1dated and
suppressed in the South; suffrage impure
and corrupt, apathetic and Indifferent in
the great cities of the North; SO that it Is
doubtful whether there has been for half
a century a presidential election in this
country that expressed the deliberate and
intelligent judgment of the whole body OF
the American people.
FRAUD WORSE THAN VIOLENCE.
The election bill that was under consid-
Grafton a few days ago was intended to
deal with one part of the great evil to
which / have alluded, but it was an imper-
feet, a partial and an incomplete remedy.
Violence is bad, but fraud is no better, and
it is more dangerous, because 1T is more
insidious. Burke said, in one of those i'm
mortal orations that emptied the House of
Commons but which will be read with ad-
airation SO long as the English tongue
nall endure, that when the laws of Great
sritain were not strong enough to protect
the humbest Hindoo upon the shores OF
the Ganges, the nobleman was not safe Ill
his castle upon the banks of the Thames.
Sir, that lofty sentence is pregnant with
admonition for US. There can be no re-
pose, there can be no stable and perma-
nent peace in this country and under this
Government, until it is just as safe for a
black Republican to vote in Mississippi as
if he were white Democrat in Kansas.
THE TYRANNY OF COMBINED CAPITAL.
The evil, Mr.. President, the second to
which l adverted as threatening the safety,
if it does not endanger the existence of
the Republic, is the tyranny of combined,
concentrated, centralized and Incorporated
capital. And the people are considering
this great problem now. The conscience
of the nation is shocked at the injustice of
modern society. The moral sentiment of
. mankind has been aroused at the unequal
distribution of tcealth, at the unequal DIFF
fusion of burdens, the benefits and the
privileges of society. At the beginning of
our second century the American people
have become profoundly conscious that
the ballot is not the panacea for all the
evils that afflict humanity; that it has not
abolished poverty, nor prevented injustice.
They have discovered that political equal
ity does not result in social fraternity;
that under democracy the concentration
of greater political power in fewer hands,
the accumulation and aggregation of
greater amounts of wealth in individuals,
is more possible than under monarchy,
and that there is tyranny which is more
fatal than the tyranny of kings.
General Washington, the first President
of the republic, at the close of his life in
1893. had the largest private fortune in the
,,ed States of America. Much of this
came by inheritance, but the Father of his
Country, in addition to his other virtues,
shining and illustrious, was very prudent,
sagacious, thrifty and forehanded man.
He knew good thing when he saw it,
great way off. He had keen eye for the
main chance AS surveyor, in his YOUTH
he obtained knowledge that enabled him to
know exceedingly well the value put upon
the public domain. The establishment of
the national capital in the immediate
vicinity of his patrimonial possessions
did not diminish their value. He was
just debtor, but he was an exact, if not
exacting, creditor. And SO it came to
pass that when he died he was, to use the
expressive phraseology of the day, the
richest man in the country.
GREAT CONTRAST.
At this time, 80 years afterward, it is
not without interest to know that the en-
tire aggregate aud sum of his earthly pos
sessions - his estate, personal and mixed,
Mount Vernon and his lands along the
Kanawha and the Ohio, slaves, securities,
all of his belongings reached the sum
total of between 100000 or 100000.
This was less than century ago, and it is
within bounds to say that at this time
there are many scores of men, of estates
and of corporations in this country whose
annual income erceeds, and there has been
one man i0hose monthly rerenue since that
period exceeded The entire dccumuldtions of
the wealthiest citizen of the United States
at the end of the last century. At that
period the social condition of the United
States was one of practical equality. The
statistics of the census of 1900 are incom-
plete and partial, but the population of
the Union was about 100000, and the
estimated wealth of the country was be-
tween $4,000, 100000 and $4,000,000,000.
There was not millionaire, and there was