The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-06-13
A PROPHECY.
WHAT DON PIATT SAID TEN YEARS
AGO.
The Storm Is Brewing ana WIN
Break in the Near Future-GOd Is
Forever With the Right-The New
Recruits.


The new recruits to Populism are the
most ferocious Old timers in the work
are contented to let each day make its own
history. The valor of these new converts
reminds of the man with street car in
come who constantly longed for ocean voy-
ages. The work of the reformer is slow.
Few who enter the work live to see their
hopes realized. Many give up in disgust
after years Of toll and join the pie coun-
ter" brigade.
There are few readers of the newspapers
who cannot recall some of the writings of
the late Don Piatt, whose pen contained
yitrol and who could make the most cal
loused politician squrm and howl with
anger. Mr.. Piatt was an honest-hearted
conscientious man, although the lickspittles
of plutocracy left no stone unturned to be-
smrch his charater, and he was also a
firm and sincere friend of labor In let
ter to John Swinton, written nearly 10 years
ago, Mr.. Piatt wrote:
II do not advocate anything think ad-
vocacy is a sort of waste of time and wind
who have missions to wear their lives out
in advocating reforms. They are putting
tneir pearl, which cost great deal of hard
labor to accumulate, before swine The
swine want slop, and it is aggravating to
them to be offered pearls, and if they do
not turn and rend the man who offers them
there is no truth in the divine words of the
divine reformer who was crucified by swine
In Illustration of what he said
What l tried to say was merely That q
law existed in the moral world, as in the
physical, which makes evils breed violence
as m1aSma breeds fever l did not say I
advised it. l hope 1 am not a fool. 7
might as we'll advise the elements to hurry
up the cyclone. What l might say or YOU
or a thousand with US, would have as
much effect in one case as in the other
II is the law of our being and it is the law
or our atmosphere. When the hour is rine
When oppression becomes intolerable and
the masses are starving there is a sudden
uprising and fearful storm shakes the
earth ~
we are nation of phrase-eaters'
wrote Don Piatt. "AI the fruit of the
tree of knowledge is canned for popular
use. While we have fed ourselves on this
poisoned Indigestion, in the shape of choice
apothegems tabled Republican government
free institutions equality of man. and
all that sort of rot, precisely the same
system that has cursed Europe for ages
IN which the many, who produce all and
enjoy nothing, are slaves to the few who
produce nothing and enjoy all, is being
fastened on us. Our government stinon
lates greed and calls it enterprise It favors
process that transfer the gainful labor of
the many to the few, and gauges the conn
trys prosperity by their wealth.
The remedy for all this lies in the law
governing our existence. When the spring
IS strained beyond its strength it either
breaks or rebounds When steam exceeds
the power of the boiler, then comes the
explosion. When the people can no longer
bear oppression, they get up in their wrath
and snte.
SO far the safety-valve has been the
vast domain of public lands open as a Gift
10 labor. But the government has swung
the heavy weight of incorporated monopoIv
on this and the valve is closed. The preat
conservative power that SO far has held
oppressed labor to its unrequited toll ic
the agricultural class-a dead, heavy TO-
norant weight that has plodded stolidlv on
to Its own ruin. But 1t feels. like tho
swapping tortoise, the Goals on its hacl.
and begins to move against the enen,v
when the hour of retrbution arrives IN
the Unites States, it will not be cheerful
The way in which we got up and went at
each others threats, in the late civil 1var
tells what we are when once arousedp'