Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1896-04-03
GARNETT, KANSAS, APRIL 8, 1896

grown dizzy with success, intoxicated witt
deaf to the laundering lessons of history. W.
have forgotten that new occasions teach neV
duties; we have cherished the belief that pro
duction is the dynanics Of wealth. A race o
mighty giants who neither eat, drink nor wea
clothing (machinery), has taken the place o
human workers; has filled the land with bound
less production, without the aid of hands; thu
aborers condemned to idleness are unable t(
supply the stimulus of consumption. Increased
production without increased consumption Il
valueless. Hence, our peace and general pros
perity are menaced by glutted markets and un
employed labor. We are confronted by cond
tions that may we'll cause grave apprehension
conditions the solution of which becomes a
problem of the age, the task of intellect and
the test of religion. A condition under
which tile rewards of industry are diverted
from its rshtful owners and poured in golden
streams into oillanks and lard-tubs is a menace
to- our industrial system. A condition that
makes it possible for the daughter OF a
mouse trap peddler to pay two million dollars
for poverty stricken French nobleman, and,
at the conclusion of the bargain and sale, to
give wedding breakfast costing $50, 600, while
twenty thousand people in the city OF New
York 90 without breakfast dinner or supper is
a menace to our civilization.
"a condition that makes it possible for a
daughter of the Nanderbilts to pay ten million
dollars Tor the disreputable, t-oh, worn-out
rags of Old World royalty, and purchase for
herself scion of the British peerage who bears
in his veins the bankrupt blood of the Jefreys
and the Marboroughs, is a menace to our re-
publican institutions. And when we remember
that every dollar of the Gould and Vanderbilt
wealth has been hched, by class Legislation,
from the honest hand of American toll, then
such condition becomes not only a menace to
onr republican institutions, but disgrace to
our civiization--a stigma upon American man
hood.
"'rhere was time when we made 1t our
proud boast that this nation was founded upon
no distinctions of class caste; a time when
we sat safely apart from the king cursed, land
lord-oppressed nations of the Old World by
three thousand miles of ocean wave; time
when we were separated by inclination and
distance from Old-World shams, superstitions
aud artist. craces; time when European
ized Yankee would have been ostracised at
home and scolied at abroad But to-day, new
conditions, surh as have never been known be-
fore, confront MS. Were it possible to resurrect
some olden SAGE who lived and died six thou
saud years ago, and let him visit every land,
let him toucl, upon every shore, i'll every year
from then till the last half this century, he
would exclaim: Il have witnessed all this
knowledge in day long past; there is nothing
new, | have heard and seen it all before But,
standing on our shore al the beginning of this
century's afternoon he would say, with bated
breath: This have never SEEN.
"The world is unified by electric nerves.
Humanity, like mighty chain, encircles the
globe The vision of the apocalyptic seer is
fulfilled, the ocean is blotted out with lines OF
ocean steamers and lines of telegraphc COM
munication. The people beyond the farthest
Himalayas, and the steppes of farthest Siberia
are our next-door neghbors. The good deed
or the good word in your beautiful city tonight
flashed on the wings of fire across the deep,
becomes the inspiration of the world tomorrow
There exists to-day no human being so isolated
from the commonwealth of human interest thai
his wrongs find no vibration in the heart o.
fellow man. The social fabric is unified