The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-09-03

the StagnatlOn OF QeSpOblSna however
gilded and placid it may be. And l will
60 one step farther than that and l
would say that the safety of repub-
Iican institutions would be promoted
if that other antiquated and obsolete
machine were banisEed, and we
chose the presidents and vice presi-
idents also by direct vote of the peo-
pie. [Cheers. Both of these devices
were invented by men who distrusted
the capacity of the American people for
seIf-g government They believed they
could not be trusted with the franchises
of power, and therefore they held that
an intermediate body should be in
vented that should deprive the
people of the exercise of their
primary functions and franchises.
Aud l allude to these matters. la
dies and gentlemen, for the pur-
pose of saying this, that if at the pres
ent time there are conditions unfavor-
able to labor and to the laboring classes,
the Iaboring classes themselves are to
blame for it.
l have heard it said often that this
was plutocracy. that this was gov
eminent of the millionaire against the
masses. There are perhaps in this
country a hundred thousand men that
have passed the million mark in their
possessions; l do not know but there
may be more than that. But there are
five or six or may be seven millions of
people in this country engaged in the
gainful and la borlous occupations of life.
Every one of them has a vote; and if
this government be a government Of the
milliOnaires or if it be plutocracy, 1t is
because the labOring classes are delin-
Quent in the exercise of those functions
that American institutions have placed
in their power. That is my prescription,
that is my medicine, that is my panacea,
for the evils that affllct American
society; and that is for the American
people, in their primary capacity, to
create an intelligent, patriotic public
opinion and discharge faithfully their
political duties.
Arbitration.
If you want arbitration you can get it;
if you want shorter hours of labor you
can secure them. If there is in your
condition anything detrimental to your
welfare and your interests. every two
years comes the time when the labor
ing men in this country, if they are
united, can enforce absolutely their will
and register their decree.
am not at all Indifferent to the dam
gers that result in this country, that
threaten our society from the aggrega-
ton of wealth. All of US cannot be rich;
but no man ought to be poor. Poverty
and liberty are incompatible. / say that
any man who holds his subsistence and
the support and maintenance and care
of his wife and children absolutely at
the behest of another, who can at pleas
ure raise and depress his wages or de-
prive him of them altogether, | affirm
that that man is not free. I am not at
all Indifferent to the fact that labor does
not receive its adequate share of the
increment of modern society, but instead
of being exclusively the fault of plutoc-
racy, it is the fault of the laboring
classes themselves. I believe there are
altogether too many millionaires in this
country, and yet when I reflect upon the
dangers of that condition, when l reflect
uponswhat may come in the future if it
is not interrupted, l confess TO you in
strict confidence that deep as is my
grief, profound as is my aft ctiou, feel
a pang that is keener still because there
is not one more added to the number.
Laughter
Like to be MilIionaires.
And that is believed to be the condi-
ton of every upright, self-supporting,
intelligent American citizen If there
be any man in this vast multitude who
would not like to have his name enrolled
in that shining and illustrious organiza-
ton, the plutocracy, let him rise and so
l dou't believe there is any laboring man
in this audience, OF in Shawnee county or
in the state of Kansas, who begrudges
any man the possession of money that
has been honestly acquired and is honor
ably used l do not care how much it is,
and whether it be one million or ten mil
lions. That is what we are here for.
That is what we have been endowed
with full liberty of our functions for and
L 10h.,
our faculties until each man can secure
the most to which they will entitle him.
l tell you that in this fight brains were
put on top to stay on top, and the man
who has the sharpest and keenest brain
aud the most trained faculties. who can
perform the humblest task and rise in
the confidence of his employers, is the
man who is to reap the rewards of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Voice from audience: 'Ain't brains
bad in many cases?"1 Very likely they
are bad l have no doubt that there are
bad rich men, as there have been ever
since Dives suffered in torment while
Lazarus ate the crumbs that fell from his
able; and there will be so long as the
human heart has happiness.
As l say, do not believe there is any
man in this audience that begrudges the
man who invented that little device of q
piece of rubber in the end of metal
cylinder on the head of lead pencil. 1
don't believe there is any man who be-
grudges the inventor of that device the
100000 he got from it. $50 thou and
do likewise" [ApplauseI
Equality of Men.
I have heard a great deal said about
the equality of man. Men were created
equal. If Thomas Jefferson, when he
wrote that immortal phrase, intended to
say that l was created physically equal
to James j. Corbett, he mistook his voca-
ton. He ought to have been seated at
this table here with the reporters.
Thomas jefferson didn't mean to say,
think, that Mike Mcdonald, the ward
heller of Chicago was created the equal
of DR., Gonsalus or Prof. Swing. He did
not mean to say that the town fool was
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