The advocate., 1895-09-18

railroads IS CoQay really one or the
strongest inducements to citizens to be-
come candidates for the legislature. {"
-CTopeka Capital, Nov. %, 1S94)
Was that the kind of patriots that
maintained our free institutions in times
past? Persons like the writer of the
last quotation were probably in the
mind of w. T. Stead when he wrote
in his book, ''If Christ came to Chi
cago:" "There is a wide region within
which conduct may be legal, but never
theless supremely wrong, but this does
not seem to have made it's way into the
moral consciousness of many American
citizens"
Fancy business men so far out of
touch with our best class of citizens as
to say: ''They (the farmers) would make
our ears ache bowling about hard
times, and drawbacks ON notes, and
every other damnable pretext that the
farmer Is capable of to evade payment" 3"
Yet these words were written within
the past month by business firm that
has extensive dealings with Kansas
farmers. Can we expect or hope justice
from man as incapable of appreciating
the true conditions of affairs as that
letter indicates?
In it's unbridled editorial denunciation
of the income tax last winter, the AL
bany Law Jorual called it scheme
foisted upon us by the scum of Eu-
rope"
The plutocrats who two or three years
ago were all "bimetallists'', according
to their own report, now openly favor
the single gold standard.
All of these incidents show the bold
front and open advances of the despotic
class which seeks to become absolute
in power. In 1873 and on many other
occasions the schemes were carried
on in secret. Now they are so bold as
to have no hesitation to proclaim their
plans. The English who placed the
portraits of John Sherman and Grover
Cleveland in the Bank of England, say
through Goldwin Smith that Jefferson
was a 'malevolent," "canting Jaco-
bin Americans (?) read such stuff.
! Cam there be some who approve itt
Jefferson ''malevolent and "cantingw
At present even our plutoeratic ma
tional court admits that a corporation
Is not in the fullest sense a citizen,
that state may keep out or restrict
as it sees fit, all corporations not char
tered under it's laws. Even this safe.
guard against dangerous corporations
from other states has once at least been
near destruction. 1t may yet be de-
stroyed.
A. little over two years ago the house
Judiciary committee reported favorably
and recommended a bill CH B. 1920,
making provision for constituting rail-
way corporations citizens Of states"
This would give such corporation all
the rights, privileges and immunities
of citizens in the several states. The
possibility OF furnishing (now inflnit-
esimally smalD would be yet further
reduced. The tyranny of corporations
at present Is but a. tithe of what 1t
would be i'm the event Of the passage OF
such measure.
How do such measures and the men
who favor them-yes, and those Who
tolerate it all-look, measured by the
acts and characters of the historic
past? What are we doing? Where are
our young men-the descendants of
those who could noC brook papal power,
church tyranny or British despotism,
of those who led from Lexington to
Yorktown, of those who subdued the
wilderness and settled the west, of those
who elected Lincoln, destroyed slavery
and maintained the Union? Do they,
crouching, cringingly acknowledge
masters? ]. G. RUPPENTHAL, JR.