The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1897-09-29
H0N.ICKATIUS O0NNELLY
TALKS ABONT CORPORATIONS AND
THE MONEY POWER
He Addresses Large Audience 0t the
State Fair On Labor
Day.
Continued from last week.)

CONTINUED from last week)
But it may be said that if the court
does not restrain the congress it may
violate the constitution. We reply that
it is better that that instrument should
be infringed than that the people should
be reduced to bondage. Liberty is more
than any document the people are more
than form of words. The concensus
of opinion of few millions who lived
one hundred years ago, and are now all
dead, has no right to tie the hands of
hundred million or thousand mil
lions of the living.
We know of no attempt by congress to
violate the express terms of the cOnsti-
tuition; but If it does so, let the people
correct the error at the ballot box.
But the courts have not paused here.
We have seen them enjOining hun
dreds of thousands Of men from per-
forming acts which were not in them
selves public offenses; we have seen
them forbidding men to hold public
meetings, although the first of the
amendments to the constitution of the
United States drawn by the hand of
Thomas Jefferson (the same hand that
wrote the Declaration of independence,
says:
Congress shall make no law respect
ing an establishment of religion, or pro-
hibiting the free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech, or the
press, or the right of the people peace
ably to assemble, or to petition the gov
ernment for redress of grievances"
We have even seen them denying to
citizens the right to peacefully march on
the public roads, the ownership of which
is not vested in any individual, but be-
longs to the whole people.
There are those who may read this
who will say:
"How does all this concern me? These
men are poor toilers, with their hands; !;
l am not. l am something better"
To these we reply:
How far can you trace back your an
cestry and not find a carpenter, or a
blacksmith, or shoemaker, or a tailor
or, perhaps, day laborer among your
ancestors? And how far will your pos
terity go before your wealth is scattered
and your descendants reduced to the
Of 1oh uyhi
now so much despise?"
The present panic is great school
master. Chicago banker was collect
ing genealogical data, the other day, te
be published in book form, to demon
strate that his blood had always beer
blue and his clay always porcelain, wher
the deluge struck him, and he is nov
hard at work making shoes in the Hi
nois penitentiary.
The ups and downs" of life are pro
verbal The last of the royal line o
the Plantagenets is now running buch
er shop in a little village in England
There are thousands of people in thes
United States Of noble and even roya
blood, and some of them are tramps
and others are pickpockets.
If you consent that any man may b.
robbed of his rights how long will !
be before it will come into your dish
Greed is never satisfied. Aggression
never turns back. Today it is the me
chanic's turn; tomorrow it will be tn
tradesman's; the next day the farmers
and the next the small capitalists.
In England it is a common Observa
ton that there is nothing left but tn
wretched toilers and the aristocracy
The middle class is squeezed OUT
Goldwin Smith laments that the clas
of English yeomanry, the small farmers
who fought at Naseby and Marstol
Moor, have disappeared forever from
England Their posterity, he says, ar
to be found today in the valley of tn
Mississippi. But here they are bein
subjected to the operation of the sam
| causes, with the same results. Tn
United States have today more tenant
than England, Ireland, Scotland an
Wales. Texas alone has 80,245, whil
| the whole nation contains $685. ,755-
| about three times as many as the entir
population OF the country in 1776.
| The wealth of the country must eithe
be in the hands of the millions who pre-
| duce it, or in the hands of the thousand
who appropriate it. II in the forme
those millions will have millions {
wants; and to supply those wants en-
| ployment will be furnished to other mi
lions, Of mechanics, farmers, merchant
and manufacturers, and to the employe
of hundreds of transportation compar
!es And from the overflowings, tn
abundance and the general prosperity {
the multitude, vast numbers OF artist
authors, doctors, dentists, lawyers, new'
paper employees and clergymen ca
maintain themselves and families.
To impoverish the producers is ther
fore to starve those who live off them.
If a man is worth a million he dO'
not eat and wear as much as the mi
lion men from whom he derived h