The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1895-06-21

made permanently peaceful and prosper
Gus the winter Of the nations discomfort
will be made glorious summer by the tri
umph of common sense over the intrenched
power Of corporations, trusts, monopolies,
syndicatcs and all the combinations OF
wealth and wickedness which now cast
their dark shadows athwart the pathways
Of the people.
need not be told for my information
that there are difficulties in the way ~ the
realization of the blessings of refo-,. ]
know of no good thing that has l-oh Sc
cured to the human family without a
struggle battles succeeding battles from
the day Moses led the Israelites through
the Red sea down to the Giving present,
nor has there been reform that stands
forth today challenging the admiration Of
the world that did not have its origin in
humble and obscure beginnings, Tor has
the work of reform proceeded without en-
counterlng the opposition of men, who,
trusting in their fortified strongholds and
the ignorance of their Victims have treat
ed with ineffable contempt those who in
vadcd their intrenchments, nor have these
aristocratic autocrats been required To con
tend for their assumed rights unaided by
others. Power exerts charmed influence
over the weak, the purposeless, the cring
ing, fawning henchmen and retainers who
do the bidding of their master, content
with the thrift which follows slavish ODE
dience. 1t has been true in all the past and
Is true now, an instance In which history
constantly repeats itself.
In the recent past, when millions OF
chattcl slaves disgraced the civilization OF
all Christendom, there were few humble,
obscure men within narrow limits of great
areas, the score as compared with the mil
lion who pleaded the cause of freedom.
They placed their lives In peril, and some
wore the martyrs crown, but with a power
for which the earth has no standard of
measurement the reform moved on and or.
Education advanced with stately step
pings. The humble and obscure achieved
renown and Immortality, and mid the
smoke and carnage of war, the roll OF
drums, the boom of cannon and the groans
of the dying came the announcement
which still thrills the world that the slaves
were free and that from henceforth the
soil of America-every foot of it, from
ocean TO ocean, from lake to gulf-was, by
the fiat of reform, dedicated To freedom.
Another form of slavery is now in the
land. 1t Is not chattel slavery Men are
not bought and sold, nor are they scourged
to their daily tasks, but they are victims
of conditions which hold them in perpetual
bondage. OF the total number of wage
slaves in the United States the estimate is
that 4, 600, 900 cannot find work and are
forced into idleness, and Of the remaining
10, 0O0 900, beginning with sweatshops and
rising by woeful gradations to the best
paid, permeating the entire mass is cease
less unrest, impressing the most coura-
geous with a sense of peril.
A Challenge to PlutOcracy.
In government circles the danger is real
lied, but within the sweep of official vi
sion only guns are thought of. The cor
morant plutocracy, enriched by faminized
toll, screnely surveys the scene and en-
larges its palaces and embellishes them
with i'll gotten wealth, and the press and
the pulpit, palladiums of liberty, TEEN,
one with assurances that in all time labor
was never so prosperous - now, while the
other exhorts TO endurance with something
better than 40 acres and Il mule" in pros
pect when from the nerveless hand of Ia
Dor its implements fall and its task Is
done Amid these pleas of falsehood ana
fiction the workmgmen of America are
proposing reforms calculated to improve
conditions and break down inthralling
and debasing environments, and it should
be said TO the credit of the educational adj
vancemcnt OF workingmen that they are
not advocating illusory projects. They dis
card utopian theories Rejecting the Chi
merical, they challenge the whole army of
plutocrats and their henchmen to the de-
bate, confident that as the controversy pro-
ceeds the new light that comes when truth
leads the way will make the pathway of
reform more luminous.
The plea put forth in the interest of
monopoly that certain products have been
cheapcned is admitted but investigation
discloses the haggard fact that in cheapen-
ing the product, through the agency of the
machine, the man, the woman and the
child who toll in factory, forge, mine and
shop have been cheapened in still greater
ratio, besides being beggared, betrayed and
degraded
The dominant thought Of the present
crystalized may be expressed in the word
"Amcricanism. As ours is n type of gov
ernmcnt designed to be frcer than that Of
any other government, ancient OF modern,
the policy that levels down the American
workingman To the squalid level Of coolies
and poems while IL elevates the rich to the
plane of royalty is not and will not be toll
Grated The educational forces lin opera
ton in the ranks of workingmen are pledg
ed To the overthrow of such "a policy
Americanism means sovereignty, and SOW
ereignty means power, power not to steal,
not to rob, not To Cypress, impoverish and
degrade its devotces, but a power To Gle
vate, emancipate and fill the land with the
resounding acclaim, "Workingmen arc
free and justice prevails"
EUGENE V. DEBS