The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1893-02-24
TAKE YOUR MEDICINE.
A Few Truths Rammed Home will Do
tho Toiler Good.

TAKE YOUR MEDICINE.
A Few Truths Rammed Home will Do
the Toiler Good.
Joseph r. Buchanan is the author
OF the following: The natlonal election
is a thing of the past. The political
trickster and willy Office seeker, the
agent of plutocracy, pretending to be
divided into two camps, no longer
claim the attention of the working
men, and probably one who has some
thing to say for labor outside of cleo
ton campaigns as we'll as in them
will be given an audience Claiming
to be one of these out Of season as
well as in season, friends of the cause
of labor, | have something to say. /
am going to talk about politics, too,
You will stand it from me now, since
it will not be chargeable to desire
to defeat the candidate of your be-
loved party. Some of you have
tasted the bitterness Of being on the
losing side, while others have had
the barren satisfaction of bowling for
victory, and every mothers son of you
is just as deep in the mire of wage
slavery and plutocracy tyranny as
you were year ogo.
There isn't a man among you, Dem
ocrat or Republican, who can to-day
give sound reason for taking the
side he did, unless. there was hope of
office or personal emolument of some
kind in view, and [ defy the winners
to show how labor is to be bene-
flied by their victory, or the losers
to prove that their success would
have made the prospect brighter. |
understand that most of you were
honest in your convictions if that
word may be properly used. know
that you justified your action by what
you thought was good ground; but l
also know, as you do, that in nine
cases out of ten you voted as you did
because you knew the other party to
be an enemy of your class. l heart
lily agree with the eighteen-nine on
each side.
l have an opinion upon the only
question which is pretended to be at
issue between the two old plntocratic
parties; but it doesn't make any diff
ference which is right on that point
So long as the government -legisla-
tive, executive and judicial-is in the
control of plutocracy, all under a
Democratic cloak or a Republican
mask-Or, as at present, divided be-
tween the twO-labor will be forced
to fight for the crust to keep it alive,
while the millionaires will continue
to fatten on the result of honest mems
toll. That any workingman, after the
experiences of the past twenty years,
can have any other than this opinion
is something that passes my under
standing, and / have had some pretty
hard nuts to crack in studying the
so-called labor problem.
l am not talking to or about the
few labor men who are able to show
the substantial benefits they derive
from the positions they take. That
they are about equally divided be-
tween the two old parties shows that
in their cases one is about as good as
the other. The ninety and nine out
| of hundred, the honest men who do
the politicians no further service than
to vote for them. are those whose
| conduct surprises and discourages
me. You will do me an estimable
favor if you will tell me how you
square your denunciations of Pinker-
tonism and militia interference with
struggling labor with vote for the
parties which visit these horrors
upon you and your brothers. You
can't do it, and it is time you ac-
knowledged the truth.
Do you say, dive heard all of this
from cranks before?" It is to your
discredit that you still have to hear
it. Have the cranks who have been
telling you these things for dozen
or more years been right, or have
you? You needn't answer. That
you find it necessary to denounce
plutocracy now more bitterly than
you ever did before is answer enough
That you are striking oftener and
with more desperation this year than
ever before in the history of the
country is sufficient reply. Just
keep on striking 1854 days in the year
and vote for capitalism one day, and
your children will rise up and call
you blessed-in pigs eye.