The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1894-10-30

and hope it will be peaceful The revo
luton has come. This use OF the gov
eminent of all for the enrichment and
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF a few is IL revolu-
ton. It is a revolution which has
| created the railroad millionaire5 of this
country. To maintain the highways
is one of the sacredest functions Of a
government. Railroads arc possible
only by the exercise of the still more
sacred governmental power of eminent
domain, which when citizens will not
sell the right of way takes their prop
erty through the forms of law by force
none the less by force because the
money value is paid. These sovereign
powers of the highway and of eminent
domain have been given by you and
me, all Of US, to u government to be
used only for the common and equal
benefit of all. Given by all to be used
for all, it is a revolution to have made
them the perquisite of a few. Only a
revolution could have made possible in
the speechof FIRE Q people sucha phrase
as a railroad king.
It is a revolution which has given
the best parts of the streets that belong
to all the people to street railway syn
dicates, and gas companies, and tele,
phone companies, and power compa
MES. 1t is a revolution which has
created national bank millionaires and
bond millionaires, and tariff million
aires, and land, grant millionaires out
of the powers and you that l delegated
to the Government of the United States
for the equal good of every citizen.
The inter state commerce act was passed
to put into prison the railroad man
ayers who used their highway power to
rob the people, to ruin the merchants
and manufacturers whose business
they wanted to give to favored ship.
pers. The antitrust law was passed
to put into prison the men who make
commerce a conspiracy, to compel the
people every day to pay a ransom for
their lives. It is a revolution which is
using these inter state commerce and
antitrust law to prosecute the en-
ployees of the railways for exercising
their ~inalienable rights as free men to
unite for defense against intOlerable
wrong. It is a revolution which lets
the presidents, and managers, and
owners of the railroads and trusts go
free of all punishment for the crimes
they are committing; which sends out
no process against any of the corpora
tions Or corporation men In the Ameri-
can Railway Association, while it uses
all the powers of the Attorney General
of the United States to prosecute and,
if possible, to send to prisOnt the mem
bers of the American Railway Union.
1t is a revolution which is putting the
attorneys of corporations into ermine
on the bench to be attorneys still.
1t is a revolution by which great
combinations, using competition to de-
stroy competition, have monopolized
entire markets, and as the sole sellers
of goods make the people buy dear,
and as the sole purchasers Of labor,
make the people sell themselves cheap
Last and deepest and greatest revolu-
ton of all is that by which the mines,
machinery, factories, currency, land,
entrusted to private hands as private
property, only as a stewardship, to
warm, feed, clothe, serve mankind, are
used to make men cold, hungry, naked,
and destitute. Coal mines shut down
to make coal scarce, mills shut down
to make goods scarce, currency used
to deprive people of the means of ex-
change, and the railways used to hinder
transportation.
The counter revolution of the people
has come. With local varieties it is
worldwide, and against it people are
rising worldwide in peaceful counter
revolutions, in peoples parties. It be.
gins now to b9 seen generally what a
few have been pointing out from the
beginning, that the workingmen in or,
ganizing to defend themselves have
been only prisoners. The power which
denied them a fair share of their pro
duotion was the same power which is
now attacking the consumer, the
farmer, and even the fellow capitalist.
In organizing against modern capital
ism the WOrkingmen set the example
which all the people are now driven Dy
self preservation to follow. The trades
union of the workingmen was the pre-
cursor Of the Farmers Alliance, the
Grange and the Peoples party.
Chicago oday leads the van in this
great forward movement. Here the
workingmen, capitalists, s~ingle-taxers,
and socialists have come together to
join forces with each other and with
the farmers, as has been done in no
other city. Its meetings are attended
here by thousands, as you see to night.
1t is the most wonderful outburst of
popular hope and enthusiasm in the
recent politics of this country. Chicago
thus leads in numbers and in enthUsi-