Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1896-10-08
ng, sell cattle and are without meat.

Our marvellous inventions have been
monopolized SO that, in spite Of the
daily miracles Of our machinery, the
hungry still lack food and the homeless
wander through the streets Step by
step the moneyless man ia losing his
right to exist. Every recent change in
legislation has been made to protect
property and to disfranchise men. Ar.
mories are erected and schoolhouses for.
gotten. Immense grants Of land are be.
slowed upon railroads, but the settlers
upon those grants are evicted. Trades
union leaders are imprisoned for having
contempt for q contemplate judge,
while monopolists are aided by injuno.
tions and federal troops.
Today Shakespeare has been revised
and Shylock is the hero Of the play.
Portals plea for mercy is called revolu-
tionary and Bassanio is branded as q
repudiator.
There is hardly trust or syn
dicate that has inaugurated this
campaign of threats and ridicule and
object lessons that dares open up ito
own business career to the public.
One of these defenders of law and ma
tional honor, the Standard Oil compa-
ny, has illegally increased freight rates,
closed rivers and canals, destroyed in
ventions, bought up inspectors and put
its stamp upon explosive oil. attacked
the property Of competitors and blown
up rival refineries. These trusts are re.
ligious at one end and murderous at the
other.
This law breaking, aggressive spirit
Of monopoly has found q perfect embodi-
ment in the person Of Mark Hanna.
He today towers above Mckinley
and above the Republican party, the
American Bluebeard, who slays his
workers instead of his wives.
Give Hanna four years of power,
and he will paint the White House
slack.
He will utterly destroy every vestige
Of trades unionism, for he will have
the army, the navy and the treasury at
his command. He will discover that it
IL cheaper to abolish manhood suffrage
than to buy votes, and next November
may be the last chance that moneyless
men ever may have to record their vote
for president. Many Republican work
ingmen are thoughtlessly going to the
ballot box just as an OK goes to barbe-
cue-gayly decorated in honor of its
own death.
Mayor Pingree gave us q national
motto when he said, "Give the people
what they want" am not one of
those who regard the people as danger
ous, covetous animals who must be
chained and muzzled. The experiment
OF the referendum in Switzerland has
proved that when the people are left
entirely free they are naturally conserv-
ative. French revolutions never occur
except when some King Louis has re-
pressed the people and goaded them to
resistance. II am the state, said the
boastful king, and the people replied
with the guillotine.
I trust in the common heart Of all
more than in the private scheming of
any financial syndicate. I don't excuse
the ignorance of the masses, l don't
celebrate their poverty. don't ignore
their frailties, but l say that they are
far nearer the truth regarding all social
and political problems than those hood
lum students Of Yale whose only argu-
ment is an insane college yell.
It is time to cooperate and enjoy the
creation of our hands otherwise all the
energy and daring and inventiveness of
our fathers have come to naught. I do
not believe that Columbus discovered
America for Hanna or that the monopo-
list Is the last and highest product Of
human evolution.