The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1892-11-15


sufficiently enlightened and trained in
both may, without detriment to their
organizations, merge their political
with economic tactics. Where there
is unity of thought and &C ion there
can be no disagPeements in regard to
what is best for all. But as long as
men are unable to arrive at logical
conclusions, so long it will be prefer
able TO keep politics divorced from the
economic fight.
The Columbian Pageant OF last week
reminds me of the feast of Belshazzer
and Of the orgies of the Roman en-
perors, who forgetting in their drunken
debauches the dangers brought about
by their own Generalization and bru-
taliGy, plunged into beastly revelry
and were then overtaken by sudden
disaster. The capitalistic class of this
country is richer and more powerful
than the ruling classes of any country
before our times, and well may they
celebrate festivals to parade their
power and prowess, for the world is
theirs and all the pleasures that wealth
may procure. But theirs is a dance
upon a volcano. I believe that this
Columbian celebration has been the
last occasion for the plutocracy and
the middle class in these United States
to enjoy themselves at undisturbed
banquets. am confident that the
proletarians of America will make an
end Of political and social despotism
before the dawn of the twenty first
century.
And yet, in spite of the awful signs
OF the times, there are men in our
ranks who dare to assert that the Judi
ciary and all other public officials, re
cruited exclusively from the capital
istic class, are not rotten to the core,
every single one of them, although it
is notorious that no man can be placed
in public Office before selling himself
to that class For them | desire to
quote from Editor Hubbard's Van
guard:
The American Republic is in grave
danger because its working millions
believe that it's judges have become
traitorous perverters both of the letter
and the spirit Of the law, in their
eagerness to give lackey service to
lawless and oppressive plutocracy. The
very foundation of free and peaceful
government is gone when the masses
of the people have lost all faith in the
purity of it's courts and the justice of
their rulings. Affirm who dares that
this terrible state of affairs is not exist
ing in our Republic to day. Ali intel
igent men know it to be the case, and
it will only be lyingly denied by the
lawyers, judges and plutocratic benef-
ciartes of our befouled and 5debauched
legal system. The stable foundation
of our democracy is gone from under
it, and it now rests on the precarious
props of mere forms and the tradition
al habit of popular respect for them,
How long can these fctions of solid
support stand the weighty footballs of
tumultuOus multitudes marching after
stolen rights and more just opportuni-
ties9 If the producing millions of
America had perfect confidence In the
righteousness of our courts of law
there would be small danger to the
republic in the all pervading venality
and rOttenness that find expression in
laws made to enrich the classes and
devastate the masses. An indignant
uprising of the voting majority at any
general election would sweep the
bought legislators from the seats they
disgrace and put in honest men,"
And because every word of these
lines is true, the tools of the plutoCracy
are straining their every nerve to pre-
vent the masses from taking political
action. But they are very near the
end of their rope-the masses cannot
be kept in the dark forever, and that
is the ray of hope already penetrates
i'm the clouds of our terrible times
Journal Of the knights Of Labor.