The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1893-11-29

of the abolitionist nearly half century
ago?
What an idiotic failure is our indus
trial system, or rather our industrial
chaos, existing only for the production
of want on one hand and brutality ex-
cessive wealth on the other. In land
which fancies it can define the word
freedom, the Shareholders and slave
makers are absolute rulers and, strang-
est of all, by the franchises of the
slaves themselves, for every ballot cast
by labor for the old parties is one more
rivet in their shackles whose clank is
heard round the world.
O, brothers! There are still slaves
covering under the traitorous folds of
our dishonored flag whose crimson bars
have deeper hue because of the noble
blood shed for it. Was that blood shed
in vain? Is freedom but an empty
name, dream of poets? Must another
sea of blood be shed to make it re-
ality?
Oh! the pity of it and the folly of It'll
For is it not safe to say that a large
number of those wretched 500, 900 now
enduring compulsory idleness, voted
for Cleveland? And does he not rem
der just punishment for their folly
punishment by capital which is NOR
cruel than capital punishment, because
the agony is prolonged indefinitely?
Five hundred thousand men starving
in enforced idleness! In the language
of Puck: What fools these mortals bel"
~
ing table and let Shylock cut his pound
of flesh at the very risk of our national
life But when the victim half re-
covers from the Supplying effects of
such potions as IAN honest dollar" "a
sixty-five cent silver dollar" and IAN
act to strengthen the public credit"
and similar capitalistic drugs Shy
locks occupation will be gone, and if
Shylock himself gets off with whole
skin it will be because history has got
tired of repeating itself.
The late bankers panic, brought on
with utter disregard of the torture it
was sure to bring upon thousands of
human beings, was merely a trick to Sc
cure the repeal of the Sherman act
What did these commercial cannibals
care for all this prostratiOn of business,
or what did they care though their
villainy destroyed that natural market
of the manufactured products of the
east, the west? Care? 1t was part of
their plan. They looked for it; they
desired it. This action of the bankers
rendered the farmers of the west and
south as poor as if their lands had been
swept with pestilence and famine Is
there no punishment for such mon
ster crime as this? These loyal agri-
cultural democrats who voted for Cleve-
land, and SO unwittingly for repeal,
are now unable to purchase the neces-
saries of life. In 1898 they will be
wiser. They are learning under the
hard teacher, called Experience, and
next time they will vote for their wives
and children and the extinction of de bt,
instead of for the political pirates who
roam the high seas of human industry
to plumber and murder.
Already the south has awakened
from the democratic dream that Cleve-
land is friend of the ma >ses. The
Globe, of Durham, N. c., a democratic
about the greatest of American GRIM
inals This is what the North Carolina
democracy think of the monster they
helped to elect: He is an imperial
ass. He has da!lied With the Wall
street crowd and he tells the people
more strongly than ever Vanderbilt
did that they may be damned He has
no sympathy with the masses He
poses as the great and only, but if to-
morrow he were to ask the suffrages of
the people he would be pounded faith
oms deep into the broad and fat earth's
surface and would never rise again"
Bravo, North Carol ma! We know
where you stan now and forever with
both feet firm and steadfast.
But this southern and western in
ability to buy clothing, shoes, ma
chinery, etc, from the east is reacting
with terrible vengeance here. stilling
the whir of machinery, closing facto-
ries, paralyzing business and throwing
500, 900 men out of employment
The east is wading through deep seas
of tribulation and the other shore is
far distant Will not this teach both
sections that their interests are one
and that the money lender and de-
stroyer of legitimate enterprise is the
common enemy of both?
If possible, the outlook is even darker
here than in the west. There the
farmers have their homes, until the
mortgage falls due, but here we have
five hundred thousand unemployed, with
nothing to save them from sure beg
gary, and possible death, from want
and cold close at hand.
A leading merchant told me that if
the bankers and wholesalers should
enforce their claims against the retail
ers of this country, eight out of every
ten of the retail merchants would go
under. just think. friends of the west
how near to the ragged edge of despair
these people have been driven by the
murderous and unholy greed of a few
monsters who call themselves bankers,
but are only thieves hiding behind
name and behind these Ubiquitous laws
that ought to be swept from the statute
books of the land by the indignant
whirlwind of intelligent votes Re-
member! They are only men! Find
them out. Call them by name. Give
A. I.