The Progress., 1893-09-30


product. Our mines of gold and silver
should be owned and controlled by the
government, and our currency question
/ should be lifted at once from the plane
Of sectional politics and placed upon an
International basis, and by such an act
the people would be relieved from gov
ernment by the bankers, of the bankers
and for the bankers. And the people
will learn it sooner or later. AT present
our banking concerns in their bills pre-
/ sented to congress are having things
pretty much their own way, as they
have had it in the past, but when the
people discover their real power and the
game that has been played upon them
so long there will be a change i'll the
programme.
1t is said that sailor once pitted a
half grown American eagle against a
game cock in South America for a fight.
For a good while the young eagle did
not seem to understand what the cock
was about as he jumped about him and
spurred him and picked pieces of his
topknOt out He walked round with
a surprised and hurt expression as
though he did not know exactly what to
make of the procedure. When it final
ly dawned on him what this chicken
meant by his actions, it is said that the
young eagle simply reached out one
claw, took the chicken by the neck,
placed his other claw on his body and
pulled his head off.
In many ways today our transporta-
ton and distribution have been placed
upon a cooperative basis. Our great
distributors have become great, glgan-
tic, cooperative concerns. Our great
railroad corporations are becoming con-
sOlidated into greater concerns. The
way is here pointed to their further con-
solidation under the management of the
people for their own benefit. Our su-
preme courts have already decided i'll
several important cases the great cOnstl-
tutional principles involved, and they
have decided them in favor Of the public
character of these functions.
The United States supreme court de-
cided in the New York grain elevator
cases that the state has the right to reg
ulate the conduct and fix the price of
any interest affected by the public inter
est. A state Judge instructs a grand
Jury that the rioting of strikers is treason
against the state Of Pennsylvania. A
federal judge ordered recently the arrest
of locomotive engineers for leaving their
work. He declared that it is unlawful
for employees to abandon their work
when such acts interrupt the course of
national business. If this work is a
public function, it should be assumed
by the public and run in their interests,
not in the interest of private corpora
tions.
ONLY $40 TO CHICAGO.
Prussia, poor country nationally,
without great resources, has made the
successful experiment of owning her
own railroads. Their railroads paid in
1SS9-90 the interest on their cost, on the
state debt and laid up a surplus of $780,
100000. Some young men in Borden
town, n. j., recently hired freight car,
furnished it with hunks and cooking
stove and freighted themselves to Chica-
go for $40 each. Had they lived in Hun
gary, far behind America in intelligence
and III the science of government, they
could have been transported that dis
tance in palace car for S. at regular
fare simply because the state in Hun
gary owns the railroads.
l appeal for a soul to society. As a
social organism we need to be conscious
of our being. We are acting as though
we We're in dream. We are merely
drifting toward these great transforma-
tions. Could we but gain consciousness
of our organic life we could move for
ward with gigantic strides. Let no man
be frightened with the cry of paternal-
ism. Whether paternalism be good or
evil depends entirely upon who the pater
is. We need a more thoughtful citizen
ship. We need to study our relations
and our obligations to one-another. Let
the man who believes in individualism
take note of his present inconsistent and
untenable position.
The present crisis is the wreck of an
overdone individualism. The present
system, so far from maintaining individ-
uality is crushing out from the life of
men whatever individuality they had.
The ancient cobbler at shoes was a man
of character and individuality. The
modern manager of a joint stock corpo-
ration for the manufacture of shoes is a
machine; he is an automaton. So the
course of all the industries that have
been absorbed into the 20 great trusts
which dominate our commercial world
could be traced. In each case the indi-
viduality has dwindled until it is repre-
sented by trust certifcate-a thing of
bloodless mechanics. AS Hyndman SO
graphically says:
Their anxiety for the welfare of the in,
dividual is so great that they crush indi-
viduality by competition. They so love
order that they foster industrial anarchy.
They SO dread the state that they for
ward the growth of practically irrespon-
sible and uncontrolled monopolies. The
present social regime is founded upon