The Evening dispatch. [volume] (Provo, City, Utah) 1891-1895, 1895-01-16

A DANGEROUS SUGGESTION.


J. R. Sovereign, chief of the knights OF
labor, who states explicitly that last
summer during the big railroad strike
at Chicago, he and Eugene Debs had a
proposition which they entertained. to
lead a rebellion against thes govern
ment. 1t seems a plan had been sub
mitted to him and Debs, but thsy fin
ally concluded not to embark in so
hazardous an enterprise This is in one
sense veIy important bit of news.
1t deeply concerns the nation that the
knights of labor, Or any other body of
Workingmen or citizens of any degree
of Importance could entertain a treas
enable proposition from any one,
especially 80 powerful body as the la
boring masses of the people of the
west, But it was not carried out and
in that way an immense evil was
averted. Doubtless this wicked sug-
gestlon had its origin, like the strike
mentioned, in the distresses, deep and
widespread which had proceeded from
the scarcity of money occasi0ned in the
first place by demonetiZation and in
the second place, by the nearer injury
caused by The repeal of the Sherman
purchase law. For twenty years the
industries of the west have lain prone
in the dust by reason of the fact that
there is no money and no demand for
the products of labor. There is deep
and hopeless distress prevailing, where
there should be activity, good wages
and prosperity, as part OF
the plan submitted to cuerce
the people into the adoption of the gold
standard and the utter destruction
of tbe money functions Of silver. Just
how near we we're to q dreadful reYo-
luton when the Coxey armies were
marching and the strikes were on, per-
haps we will never know accurately;
we do know enough to warrant the con-
clusion that the country came very
close TO the verge of an abyss, COM
pared with which the rebellion of 81,
was but the merest of a mere baga-
telle.
In the new rebellion, which ie surely
and steadily coming upon us, there
will be no blessed Mason and Dixon's
line. The rebels of the new revolution
will be found sitting at our very
hearth-stones, in every nook and corner
of the land. They will be our hard
handed brethren of toll, made hopeless
and infinitely desperate by many years
of uenuIy and cruel want occasioned
only by the greed of the gold barons of
the east. In the rebellion of '6l, des-
perate, bloody and destructive as it
was, the American ideas of universal
liberty and the brotherhood of man en-
tered largely. In the revolution
threatened last summer would be
found the victorious heroes of the
struggle which closed in the spring of
'65. The universal diffusion of the
seasoned, hardy and Intelligent men
over the entire west, their
acquaintance with affairs, their des-
peration and the many madening
circumstances entering into the up
rising would have in the briefest time
taught this once happy and prosperous
nation what real rebellion and
revolution means. In that of 81
it was one intelligent and chivalric
nation fighting another, its full equal.
It was indeed civilized warfare upon
international rules. This one, had it
come off, would have been only rebel
lion against the national authority
A cruel, bloody and inhuman battle
would have ragged on every plain, in
every valley and on every hill top in all
the wide west, and the national gov
ernment would not itself have been an
unit against it as it was when it brave
ly fronted the rebellion of '61.
May the good God avert revolution
and rebellion for all the future of this
nation. But while we make this
prayer with the sincerest candor, we
cannot shut our eyes to the many |
causes which operated then and exist
now with equal force. The unequal
chances given and assured by the ma
tlonal policy of piling up the yellow
gold in the laps of the spectators and
government fayorites of the east, while
the process of the impoverishment of
the west, by the same power, goes on
and on steadily and relentlessly. 1t
is time to pause and consider the west
if the government would turn its face
away from revolution.