The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1893-09-13
THE GRADED PROPERTY TAX.

panies Lieut.-GOv. Percy Daniels Bin
in Congress.
To the Honorable the House OF Representatives
of the United States:
The undersigned, native of tho
county of Providence, in the state Of
Rhode Island, and now citizen of the
county of Crawford, in the state Of
Kansas, would respectfully represent
that, for many long and weary years,
the great mass of our laboring people
have felt that some insidious process
was robbing them of their earnings.
They have seen the ranks of the needy
and destitute increasing at fearful
rate. They have watched the columns
of poverty grow, gathering in many
from their circle of friends and neigh
bors, until it's shackles hold more of
our people than there were of our fore
fathers who, defying the power of Brit
ain, promised an equal right to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness to
all their associates. They have watched
the rising tide of restitution until it's
advancing waves threaten to engulf
the legions of our wealth producers,
and all these years, so long as they
failed to uncover a cause or locate the
responsibility for their losses, so long
as they accepted the theory of their
oppressors that their misfortunes (?)
were the result of natural laws or prov
idential dispensations, so long as they
could be lulled into belief that the
plans of Almighty God were against
them, ''they have felt the stings of pow
erty without murmur, and seen the
insolence of wealth without a sigh"
but at last they have set about locat-
ing and uncovering the trouble, and,
writhing under the increasing weight
of their burden, their efforts have been
rewarded. They have located the re-
sponsibility for their losses and their
condition; and now the great body of
our industrial classes, and especially
the plundered farmers, look on in
wonder at the cunning duplicity, aye,
they stand aghast in amazement at the
corruption and vandalism through
which the great plots whose inevitab BILE
results will be the antipode of repub-
icanism unless they are thwarted and
overthrown through the wisdom, the
integrity and the patriotism of the peo-
pie they were designed to Cypress, and
the classes they were devised to plum
der have been consummated
Now the scene changes The curtain
is to be rung down to prepare for an
other act. Will the next be a natural
sequence to those that are finished?
That will depend on whether we have
wisdom, conservatism and patriotism
enough to peaceably and without delay
use the only legal methods we have to
right the wrongs of the past.
And this will be the final test of our
republican institutions, the first axiom
of which is 1.-The greatest good to the
greatest number theory which,
with us, is nullity, promise that is
i now fraud.
The laws of the universe under which
nations are born and grow, pass from
the igor of high purpose of early life
to their prime, and on to their dotage
then down to their grave, are as con-
slant and inflexible as the laws of
gravity. We can neither amend them
nor set them aside. This nation will
have a successor. How soon depends
somewhat on us of the present. We
are in transition period,
rs anding with reluctant feet
Where the brook and river meet"
We are proud Of the honor and
achievements of the past. Too much
SO for what we have accomplished; too
much so for the serious questions be-
fore us, questions that are up for dis
cussion and not to be tabled, post
poned or smothered until they are set
tied. Unless we shall soon find wis
dom to revere the presidents, and re-
vive the laws that in recent years have
apparently become obsolete, when these
questions are nut and the roll call COM
pleted, our in the past will be
gone.
In the last twenty years a great
change has come over our people. Ag-
gregate statistics indicate period of
wonderful prosperity, but their items
tell a story of unparalleled injustice
These twenty years have seen the pros
perity and content Of those days
gradually wasting away. Our peo-
pie have watched, first with a
frowning face, gaunt specter cross
the thresholds of tens of thousands of
their cottage homes that were then
filed with the amplest necessaries of
life, and, clutching with his grating
fingers all within save the veriest pit
lance, and writing the names of the in
mates in his book of classes, he stalks
out undisturbed. He next is seen to
enter the dwellings of those who are
surrounded by the abundant luxuries
of life, and his whitening presence has
left them but it's hand-to-mouth neces-
saries. He crawls into the home of
afauence, and sneaking out has left lit
tie but its meager comforts At the
massive doorway of the palace only
does his footstep falter and his form re-
cede. And there this specter robber
has left the plumber seized from all the
rest.
BY this process the occupant of the
palace has been lifted into position
where state and national legislatures
hasten to do his bidding, and his de-
mands are ever the same. He has been
enabled to bring the channels of COM
MERGE to serve his one idOlatrOus pur-