Hutchinson gazette. [volume] (Hutchinson, Kan.) 1895-1902, 1895-10-31
WHO ARE PATRIOTS?
THE BANKERS AND BROKERS
OR THE ToILING MILLIoNS2
Absorbers OF American Produce Who
Annually Spend Millions In Europe
Are Not Truly AmerIcanS-LOVO Their
Native Land for the Profit Only.

There are a class of people in Amer
lea, growing class, who call them
selves Americans, whose individual
members are asking, what does re-
public amount to anyway" This class
is made up of those who absorb the pro-
fits Of American labor and American
enterprise. They annually go to Eu-
rope, and annually spend in Europe
millions Of American dollars They are
not truly Americans at heart, and the
more they see and enjoy the European
privileges which their money so readily
commands the less American are they.
In short they care little for their native
land farther than they reap the results
Of its energies and genius, which re-
suits are dissipated in wasteful self-in-
diligence on the bounties Of older civil
izations whose glitter and pomp is aris-
tocracy. Gold is the god Of this grow
ing class of Americans, and costly jew
els their playthings; wome9 their pas
time, and fine wines their Recreation.
Americas toiling millions to them are
all right so long as the millions do not
rise above their toiling conditions.
The happiness and prosperity Of Amer
ica's millions Is a menace to these an
nual American tourists, to these abb
sorbers Of American blood, and con-
trollers of American destiny. The
brokers and bankers of this class are
found In the financial heart Of every
commercial city, their servitors In
every capital of the country. In speak
Ing Of America to their foreign enter
tainers they praise only It's material re-
sources and its financial possibilities.
Their paid agents and expert statisti-
clans count the number of acres under
Olow, and watch the weather reports;
estimate the probable tonnage to be
moved and determine how much freight
charges each commodity will bear; cal
culate the output Of every kind Of mine,
the produce Of every sort Of factory, the
margins Of profits of all which they
deem to be theirs by virtue of their
stock-exchanges, their boards Of trade,
their chambers Of commerce, and the
money Of their banks, and even Of the
treasures whose volume they control
The national treasury itself is not
safe from their manipulations nor the
precious metals Of which money Ia
coined, they sending the price Of the
one up and destroying the value Of the
other at will, whereby the farmers bin
Of corn, the miners pound Of ore, the
planters bale Of cotton, all becomes
theirs.
The man who never goes to Europe,
the man who never expects to go to
Europe, the man who loves the govern.
ment and the institutions Of America
loves 1t mountains and pralrles, itl
woods and streams, and all that 1t is
physically, socially and politically, past
or present, outnumbers the man who
spends his millions in Europe thou
sand to one. The plain from which
the Caesars sprang, the waters that re-
fleet the palaces Of the Doges, the
grape-laden hills and cathedral-shad-
owed valleys Of Spain, the castle-be-
studded banks Of the Rhine and all that
England or France has to offer in the
way Of the mist and dust and ruin OF
ages, with all their tinsel crowns, and
feather-bedecked nobility, fail to at
tract, much less win the heart from its
fealty to this land Of manhood and hui
man equality Of the man who never
goes to Europe-of the American who
is for America.
The question which Is now confront
ing the man who never goes to Europe
is: Who is to rule America? The
thousand, or the one; the toiler who
stays at home or the absorber who goes
abroad to criticise his own land? It is
confronting him through the medium
that has ruled all lands in all times,
and which has become so potent of late
in this country Of the ballot-box and
school-house-the medium of money.
Is it to be a currency of the people or OF
medium so limited that the absorber
can corner 1t at will? Is II
to be Of both gold and silver and
promises to pay in either or both? or oil
metal which is owned and held by the
absorber, together with such additional
currency as the absorber may see fit to
have issued by those who own our
bonds and control and fix the amount
of our debt-burden? Is 1t to be uni
versal national prosperity with an even.
handed chance for every man, or peOn.
age to syndicate gold?
In the great middle agricultural sec.
ton covering a dozen states, in all the
region whose fields are white with
fleecy cotton, in the vast sweep oil
mountain and plain that stretches from
lakes to gulf and from the Mississippi
river to the Pacific ocean, there is not
one man in ten thousand who is an lab
sorber," not one in ten thousand who
distrusts the republic, not one in ten
thousand but that loves his country and
its institutions.
Why should the ten thousand submit
to the selfish greed and rule Of the one?
-Uretula Eagle.