The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-10-11

been rapidly developing a slave ele-
ment i'm our population property
less class, entirely dependent upon the
sale of their labor. No longer does
Jack hob-nob with his master. The
rich and poor do not live in the same
quarters of the city. A second seces-
sion has split our society into two
hostile elements, and it is childish to
howl anarchist" at the patriot who
proclaims the unwelcome fact and
seeks to weld the nation into unity
again by repeating the laws that
caused it to split asunder.
America is the workingman's Para
disc Lost" and it can never be re
gained by passive obedience to the
serpent.
Our carpenters build magnificent
mansions and live in rented tenements
themselves. Our mechanics construct
electric lights and use kerosene at
home. They manufacture pianos and
do not own tin whistle. They build
carriages and go afoot. Our miners dig
gold and die poor. They delve in dan
gerous coal mines and lack fuel in the
winter. Our farmers raise grain and
want for food, export cotton and wool
and lack clothing, 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 home
less wander through the streets. Step
by step the moneyless man is losing
his right to exist. Every-recent change
in legislation has been made to pro-
tect property and to disfranchise men.
Armories are erected and schoOl-houses
forgotten. Immense grants of land are
bestowed upon railroads, but the set,
tiers upon those grants are evicted.
Trades union leaders are imprisoned
for having contempt for contemplate
Judge, while monopolies are aided by
injunctions and Federal troops.
To-day Shakespeare has been re
vised, and Shylock is the hero of the
play. Portals plea for mercy is called
revolutionary, and Bassanio is branded
as repudiator.
There is hardly a trust or syndicate
that has inaugurated this campaign of
threats and ridicule and object lessons
that dare open up its own business
career to the public.
One of these defenders of law and
national honor, the Standard Oil Com
pany, has illegally increased freight
rates, closed rivers and canals, destroy
ed inventions, bought up inspectors
and put its-Stamp upon explosive oil,
attacked the property of competitors
and blown up rival refineries. These
trusts are religious at one end and
murderous at the other.
This law-breaking, aggressive spirit
of monopoly has found perfect en-
bodiment in the person of Mark Hanna.
He to-day towers above Mckinley
and above the Republican party, the
American Bluebeard, who Stays his
workers instead of his wives.
The skeletons of the Seaman's union,
the Miners union and the Street Car
Mems union hang bleeding in his closet.
When Mckinley was Governor of
Ohio, Hanna was his guardian. There
fore, in criticising Bryan's opponent,
we hook not at the servant, but at the
master-not ait Mckinley, the most
pit.able fgurehead in public life to-day,
but at Hanna, his owner and tyrant.
Give Hanna four years of power and
he will paint the White House black!
He viii 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 is cheaper to abolish manhood suf-
frage 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 Repub-
| lican workingmen are thoughtlessly
! going to the ballot box just as an OK
goes to a barbecue-gayly decorated in
! honor of it's own death.