The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1892-08-18

said were as essential to the general
Welfare Of the world as the first, but
the third class which he said numbered
10 OoO, 600 in this country, had no ex-
cuse for living. He paid his respects
70 the wheat gamblers of the Chicago
board Of trade and related his own ex-
perlence on the beard while q resident
OF That city. He did not magnify the
evils inflicted upon the producers Of
The Northwest by that den of thieves,
but he failed to tell why the third
party men in congress neglected to
give the Washburn-H Hatch anti-option
bill, which had it became a law would
have wiped the grain gamblers bells
out OF existence, their support. In a
Tightly flow of language, in which
thirteen-story words were brought into
requisition, he scathingly denounced
+. D. Armour and the other members
OF the 'sbig four' Chicago meat com
blne, and we cordially endorse every
word he said with reference to that
ubiquitous close corporation. Any
legislation, no matter by what party
proposed, that tends to curtail the
blood-suclking propensities of Armour
y Co., will always meet with our
hearty support. Then he poured some
hot shot into the trusts and syndicates,
and told how they plundered the peo-
pie. The railroad corporations did
not escape his attention. But he
stated no new facts with reference to
railroad discrimination in favor of the
large cities and against the interior
towns and villages. The press of the
country, he said, was owned by the
plutocrats and controlled by five men.
His assertion that the news of the day
was systematically suppressed is
ridiculously absurd. Any intelligent
person knows that the competition
among newspapers for news is so keen
that even if there were not a mile of
telegraph in existence it would be i'm
possible to keep the news from the
great city dailies. He inquired of his
hearers if any of them had heard of
the labor riot in Detroit. One at least
of that audience could have truthfullv
answered yes. No startling event can
occur in any hamlet of the United
States but what it is speedily given
publicity in the newspapers. The
editor of a city daily will publish the
news no matter who or what inter-
est is affected. To be sure facts are
often distorted for partisan purposes,
but sooner or later the truth is bound
TO come out. No, doctor, your general
Indictment of the newspapers is faulty.
The doctor eloquently dwelt on the
decadence Of the wealth>of the agricul-
tural classes. Thirty years ago he said
the farmers owned 80 per cent. of the
wealth OF the country, to-day they only
owned Is per cent. We have no means
at hand to verify this statement, but
admitting that the DOCTORS figures are
correct, what does it prove? Thirty
years ago the United States was AL
most an exclusively agricultural coun-
try. Almost everything in the shape OF
manufactured goods now imported.
There were hardly any manufactures
west of the Alleghanies in existence.
Chicago, St. Louis, and like cities were
country towns, and great manufactur-
ing centres like St. Paul, Minneapolis,
Kansas City and Denver were almost
unworthy of place on the map. Why,
to-day, in our own beloved State OF
Minnesota, the cities of St. Paul and
Minneapolis are assessed at more than
one-fourth of the valuation of the en-
tire State, and Minnesota is considered
an agricultural State. l.
The doctor did not shoot much wide
of the mark when he asserted that the
tariff was the only live issue between
the two old parties at present, and he
truthfully said that even on the tariff
question there were divisions in the
ranks of the Democrats and Republi-
cans.
Although Mr.. Fish made, in our
opinion, some wild assertions, on the
whole his remarks were temperate,
and we can cheerfully endorse many of
his utterances. Of course, there are
gigantic evils in existence that should
and will be righted. If there were no
wrongs perpetrated in the world the
long looked for millennium would have
arrived. The panecea for all existing