Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-07-07
The SUGAR Trust and the Debs Strikers.

Despotsm is more than the hydra OF
fable-it is a real monster of many heads.
The despotism of the mob is certainly as bad
as the despotism of monarch, often much
more to be dreaded. Regarding different
kinds of oppression which free men fear
and combat, there is often strange incon-
sistencies and anomalies. They will show
great indignation as to some form of des-
potism existing remote from them, but re-
main quiet and powerless as TO worse evil
of the kind at their own doors. Who can
deny that the bloody hand of the anarchist
is more abhorrent to civilized man
hood than Czalism at Its worst.
For many years this country, which
had revolted at the excessive tax demands
and high prerogative claims of British
monarch, endured centraliz ed Slave Power
which held the government of the nation in
it's grasp and welded its power and patro-
mage in it's repusive and blrbarous selfish
| ness, while millions Of freedom-loving peo-
pie looked on in dumb Amusement. So to-
day the Sugar Trust and the Debs strikers
are inhicting damage and injuries on the
American people in comparison to which
the oppression of George III, and the evils
inflicted by England which produced the
war of 1912, dwindle in importance.
The Sugar Trust and the Debs strikers
may belong at opposite polls, but their
intolerable despotism is born of the
same spirit, and their lawless, savage, bru-
tai work conduces to the same destructive
consequences to the public interests. For
the Sugar Trust in control of 100000 900,
of stock and bonds, of which $50 900, 900
is water, to corrupt American politics and
to control the price of sugar of 10000, 900
of people, and thus secure large dividends
on its practically watered stock, is an evil
which no patriotic people can endure but
with burning shame.
But in practical consequences, to all
that makes civilized society desirable and
free government possible, the Debs strikers
are more deadly hostile. The sincere and
the thoughtful men of this country may
well be appalled, at what is now transpiring
in their midst. 1t seems to be the law OF
human nature and the rule of history that
men underestimate the events which take
place before their own eyes. Because
of some grievance, real or supposed,
against the railroad managers, the
Debs strikers propose to disrupt So
ciety, make war on millions of people
who own not dollar in railroads, to place
thousands of innocent lives in peril, and to
infict countless millions of damage to the
general public. This means the despotism
of anarchy, the reckless audacity and brp-
tai seltishness of piracy. 1t must be met
with the rigor of faithfully executed law.
The interests of labor, even more than the
interests of capital, require that the con-
shtution and the laws shall be maintained.
Those who play with fire must be
made to understand the terrible wick
edness of their demoniac amuse-
ment. The American public must . be
protected against outrage and violence from
whatever quarter they come. The rights
and interests of American labor require
this. All that is valuable and sacred in
American life demand it. The insolence
and grasping selfshness of the Sugar Trust
tends to ipjure the American public by rot;
tenness. The Debs railroad strikers make
war against an entire people with the
weapons of anarchy. Irrespective of creed
or party, all honest men should unite agains,
these two threatening foes of the country
| and its laws.