The record-union., 1897-08-29

miles in area, make the capital at
Washington the cynosure and center of
their present welfare and their hopes
for the future, so far as legislation and
government concerns them. So per-
feet is their means of communication
and so prompt the transmission of in
telligence, that, if Senator ex
presses himself irregularly, or shakes
his cane in the Capitol his words and
actions may be commented upon before
sunset by school children in the Pacific
Sierras and discussed by pioneers on
the deserts of Arizona and New Mex
leo.
In this dissemination of intelligence
and in the educational influence of its
schools and printing presses, never in
the worlds history was there a nation
so well qualified to prosper and -four
lsh as republic, or a people so we'll
equipped for self government. The
principles established by it's founders,
as embodied in the Constitution, never
were and never can be assailed as
either imperfect or inadequate. The
administration of these principles, the
soul of which is in their tendency to
absolute equality extending to every
citizen of the republic, is and must be
the goal of all true legislation.
Taking the last sentence for a text
| what is there in the tariff to recon-
mend it as a national issue? The i'm
position of tax upon commercial trat-
fic, as an established policy, cannot pos
sibly result otherwise than as class
legislation, or partial distribution of
privilege. If the tax enables the pro-
ducer to flourish, must not it react in
exact proportion to the dispara cement
of the consumer? The argument for
this tax is that the prosperity of the
producer will fatten the consumer
later on. 1t is a fallacy that must now
prove itself such
If it was possible in the time Of
Abraham Lincoln to deceive "all of the
people some of the time it is not pos
sible now. You cannot deceive all of
the people any of the time, because
there are too many of them we'll in
formed who are accustomed to think
They are not all politicians and they
may be made victims of duplicity and
misrepresentation by false agents, but
they are not deceived. They are simp-
ly outraged. Who may not be abused
by duplicity when there is no infallibIe
rule by which villains may be distin-
guished before being trusted?
That the people of the United States
are honestly represented at Washing
ton, or that they have been so repre-
sented for the past two decades, who
will affirm? The masses of the peo-
pie are yet patriotic and have faith in
the Constitution, but they are not as
patriotic, and they have not as much
faith N the Constitution as they had
twenty, or one hundred years. ago. The
people perceive a thing that is con-
spicuously apparent and that thing is
that their national legislation is di-
rected by rapacious greed and not by
honest sentiment. They perceive that
the Capitalization and concentration of
wealth restricts, creates and fashions
legislation; that it models and modi-
heS national law without consulting ma
t1onal traditions or interests; that eS-
tablished laws, and the whole tendency
of outlined Legislation foster a policy
in direct opposition to the equal dis
tribution of the resources of the COM
! monWealth; that, as was observed ages
| ago in the worlds history, every step
! toward the adjustment of taxation
makes it burden upon industry rather
| than upon wealth." where it properly
should be placed; in fact, that with all
| our advancement in science and en-
lightenment, all our evident progress
toward equality in some attainments
the same flaw, and the same funda-
mental cause of ultimate dissolution
in the earliest governments is some
what beyond the threatening stage in
our own.
Can we doubt that the Senate and
| people of Rome perceived the decline
their republic? Were not the patrf-
clans luXuriously Indifferent and the
common people impecuniously helpless
! 10 repel the lowering hosts of Goths
and Vandals? Yet the same fate threat
ened and overwhelmed them all.
There are more dangers to threaten
our Western Republic than there were
Goths and Vandals who preyed upon
! the Romans. If we are fated to be
| like the Romans in our natural incli-
nations, we have more knowledge than
they had, as to the result of their indul-
gence; but the poet says, and says
wisely
knowledge comes but wisdom fingers,
And we linger on the shore;
And the individual withers,
But the world is more and more.'
!
temporal damnation of human affairs
eternally turks and works. 1t is in our
eternal blindness to future results. and
indifference to the general welfare, that
enables our individual selfishness to as
sert itself to our common destruction.
Truly the individual withers, but this is
not so much to be deplored as the fact
that nations and governments wither
by the selfishness of individuals. and
the world is likely to be less and less.
There is single, solitary hope for the
perpetuity of any form of human gov
ernment, and that is in the restriction
of human greed. The assertion VIII
bear repetition and defy contradiction
(unless the established ethics of all his
tory can be contradicted). the sole hone
of perpetuity for a human common
wealth lies in the restriction and modi-
fcation of individual acqusitiveness. II
is plain and simple deduction. There
is no limit to the desire for acouisi
tion in individuals. and there is a linn
II to the. or to any commonwealth. The
| world itself is an isolated creation. vet
individual desire would and NAV vet
encompass it. Some man may vet get
the globe. Several have claimed it.
and thousands yearn for it.
Unrestricted acquisition by individu
ais can in no measure be compatible
with equality of distribution. and it is
peculiarly Incompatible with the spirit
and tenor of the Constitution of our
Government. Now, if there is any re-
! striction to American greed (and that
there is such thing as American
] wa inf