The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-01-31
AN ADDRESS

: Delivered Before the State Farm
ers Alliance at Minneapolis,
January 10th. 1898.
BY HON. JOHN ARNOLD KEYES
That the Creator intended the
earth for all the children of mer
without discrimination is self-eviden1
and needs no demonstrations; for tt
declare otherwise robs the Infinite
Of the prime attribute of justice ano
degrades him, in our conception, fal
below the ideals Of his creatures, anG
therefore when the anarchists of plu
j tOcracy, through their various ave
nues of expression, announce to you
and the other listeners in the world
that radical ineqality among men is
their foreordained and manifest des
tiny, and that common Father OF
the race foreplanned conditions OF
ease and luxury to those on the one
hand and extreme toll, poverty, and
wretchedness to those on the other;
created social order of masters and
slaves; a world where the struggle to
be ever repeated is according to the
comparative formula of one man
against all other men; and there is
no power of human choice or social
generation, land that it has not been
and cannot be otherwise; either turn
from them listening ear as from
those who speak rank blasphemy and
by every breath do violence to their
Creator and the very instincts of hon
or, or else be consistent with your
selves and this doctrine; raze to the
ground your places of worship, de-
stroy your sacred affairs, and turn the
palms of your hands to the prophets
of the past and present. 1 esteem
men of this plutocratic stamp, who
sheer at and slur the forerunners of
every great forward movement in the
struggle of the average man for high
er and better life, to be the really
dangerous element in community
the banditti of true social order who,
having cast obs tructions in the path
way of civilization, Turk beside it to
prey upon the helpless and unwary.
Happily for the good of the future
these social destroyers are being
branded by their own crimes, and are
no longer looked to as fitted to lead
or even follow in the wake of the on
going movement; therefore we may
dismiss them as men whose frame of
mind is the diseased product of the
past unworthy our serious considera-
ton.
The nineteenth century is one of
life. We are pushing forward every
where into the light, straining every
nerve of our collective being to dis
cover some means by which to dispel
the clouds that wrap themselves
about our civilization and cast a
gloom over what would otherwise
burst forth in uneXampled splendor.
AS Teutonic and English-speaking
people, we have in the past settled,
or are now fast bringing to a final So
luton, many of the great composits
problems about which the human
mind has been concerned for ages.
Standing most prominently among
these, as connected with history, and
most deeply impressing itself upon
it and the institutions it records,
may be said to be three things, the
the acquisition of personal liberty"
personal equality before the law,
and equal political rights" Man
kind is no longer, as in the centuries
gone, divided into two recognized
classes, acknowledged masters and
acknowledged slaves. The turning
of the spokeless wheel of destiny has
brought into life. generation that
has witnessed the corroding chains
and shackles of slavery stricken by a
brothers arm, fall from human flesh
link by link and band by band into
the dust of the earth to lie there for
ever. And yet stop and think, We Gf
there be such)who who do not believe
in progress, how short a time-indeed
how very short lineage it was
that every mother and wife and
sweetheart sent son and husband and
lover out of home and hamlet and
city to finally and forever. on the
gray field of battle, wage war against
and exterminate chattel slavery in
our own fair land. AS to this, then,
we have no longer duty. Its value
to us is that of a lesson only Turning
now from the contemplation of for
mer condition of slavery among men,
once recognized by the powerful as
proper, necessary, and divine insti-
tuition, but no longer existent, we
| will Wow for mOmnnt tho ctrurr1o