The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1893-05-05

Learn to cant and insult your Maker
Be hypocrite. liar, knave or fool M
But don't be poor: remember the rule:
Dimes and dollars dollars and dimes,
An empty pockets the worst OF crimes.
The New Nation.
AS Others SEQ Us.
The Los Angeles. California, Herald
has interviewed Leon Flutener, a
well-to-do Swiss merchant travelling
in this country. Mr.. Flutener does
not think we Americans have muchs
tie brag of in the way of free coun-
try, and we confess to sometimes
feeling the same way ourselves, says
the New Nation. Mr. Flutener said:
1.-The United States is looked upon
all over Europe with great admira-
ton and respect. | find much here,
however, that disappoints me- It is
true that nine out of ten of your fam
lilies find it hard to make both ends
meet. Rents, interest. taxes. high
priced clothing and other necessities
make it essential for your middle
and lower classes to labor almost
from the cradle to the grave. Your
Rockefeller gives million dollars to
a Baptist college and then raises the
price of coal oil and gets his million
back out of the pockets of the people,
Your Mr. Stanford POUNDS univer-
sity and follows Mr. Rockefeller's ex-
ample by charging all the traffic will
bear. In the eastern states hum
dreds freeze to death with mountains
of coal in sight. You must admit
! you have a curious kind of republic
I'm California | find thousands and
and thousands of acres Of land
uncultivated and unused. Under
| your fine system some old men and
old women are able to keep the mil
lions of land-hungry people from own
ing or even renting the broad acres
which the monopolists have fenced
in and neither sell, improve or use
in any way. Los Angeles could sup
port half million people If the
ranches north of you alone were
broken up.
LAS you gather from my converse
ton, am not at all sure that Amer
leans need to feel any great pride
over their country. It is better than
Europe, but it is drifting to class
government very fast. My expert
! ence in my pedestrian tour South will
show you how free your people are.
Dressed in rough suit and often
dust and mud stained, | did not look
very far removed from tramp. l
asked no favors, paid for what got.
and yet on four occasions I was halted
by constables, rudely asked by bust
ness. and it was only too plain that
they were eager to make a fee out of
me as a vagrant In this alleged
free country of yours | find it is a
crime to walk your highways and ask
for work; and furthermore. it seems
that the rural cOnsta bles and justices,
to use an American phrase, pool their
issues and consider it crime for a
man to walk at all. In a little town
in Ventura county constable actually
arrested me, and only gave up his
prize reluctantly when | showed him
letters from the Swiss consul and
from influential friends of mine. AS
| walked away l said to myself: And
so this is the starry land of freedom
the home of the oppressed of all
nations / wondered as | saw ar
American flag flying over a California
school house if the children could
grow up to respect an emblem which
represents a government that pro
tects land monopolists and sends mer
to Jail for walking it's highways and
asking for work.
Curse of Competition.
Age. infirmity, worthiness of con
duct, count as nothing in the com
petitive struggle, in the capitals
world; brutality is the leading spirit
the most INSCRIPTIONS survives.
or succeeds: philanthropy may b.
preached. but it is not to be prac
ticed; he who cannot hold his own i
thrown down and trampled on with
out pity or conjunction. Competi
tion has destroyed more human lives
wasted more energies and squanderet
more wealth than all the battles o
the world put together; it has de
veloped, as it could not choose blu
do, the devil in man: it has raise,
into supremacy the least estimabl
and useful of human beings. Fo
. what reason should we, standing a
: the elevation of the closing days 9
: the nineteenth century. prolong .thi
agony? Why should we not use on
: intellect and shorten this tryin
: period of the competitive stage
:. Why should we go about with II
= more capacity than poodles, each c
= which must make his own experience
: : without the power to shorten tn
= tribulation of his successors -Th
- People
Il .'Jenersonian Simplicity
If Grover Cleveland's bill at the A
l. lington hotel, Washington, for hin
\ self and family and servants amour
v ed to $500 a day.
= The turnout for drawing him |
= the capital on Inauguration day, tt
1t finest ever witnessed in America.
n Mrs. Cleveland has employed
rs private secretary at salary of -, OF
Of a year.
i'd The mud-sills ought to think
t. these things.
to Having the money we 5don'5 blan
1T them for spending it-and yet som