Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1898-12-07
.,NEw TIME" EYE OPENERS.

The acquittal of Sheriff Martin, the
plutocratic hero of Hazleton, was 10
have been expected. Never yet in the
history of the United States, or for
that matter any other country, have
the hired murderers CT workingmen
been brought to justice when arranged
before court. The slaughter of the
men at Hazleton was the most infam-
GUS act eyer committed under forms of
law. It has its parallel in the judicial
farce which resulted in the acquittal Of
Martin and his cowardly deputies.
Such legal crimes do much to destroy
the faith of the American people in
their courts and the machinery of law.
If ever men were murdered, the I'M
armed miners who peacefully marched
down the road with an American flag
at their head were murdered. If ever
men were guilty of murder. they were
the deputies who poured volleys of bull
lets into the ranks Of those marchers.
The murder of these men and the
farcical court proceedings resulting in
the acquittal of their murderers is per-
fectly natural and inevitable under the
private ownership of coal mines and
similar properties. When the people
are ready to assume ownership and con-
troll of such plants the world will no
longer be shocked with such scenes as
those enacted at Lattimer or in the
court where justice was made mock
cry.
~
The Chicago Journal thus comments
on the remarkable submissiyeness of
the ignorant foreigners whose friends
and kinsmen were murdered by hired
thugs:
Owing to terror, stupefaction, or an
instructive Difference to authority, the
miners of the Hazleton district have
been as peaceable and orderly since the
wholesale murder OF last week as they
instead of Ignorant foreigners" there
would have been different story to
tell, for the American is too thorough
ly imbued with the spirit of independ-
ence, too thoroughly indoctrinated with
the principles that animate the laws
and institutions of his country, too sure
of his ground, and too much at home,
to suffer such an outrage to 60 unchal
lenged. The dumb acquiescence that
has followed upon the tragedy is one of
the most remarkable and most singular
features of the whole affair.
In their war on society the corpora
tions will not discriminate between
Ignorant foreigners and Americans
who yet imagine that they have some
rights under the constitution. Unless
all signs fail the day will soon come
when pure blood Americans will get
their taste of cold lead. 1t will then he
possible to institute comparisons.
~
A typical phase of our competitive
system is we'll shown in these para
graphs from Chicago paper, descrip-
tive of scene on the board of trade
during the recent wheat furry:
When men grab each other as if they
| were demented, when they talk jar
| gon at the top of their voices that is
like Choctaw to the uninitiated, when
they make more gyrations with their
arms andlegs than AlCaron ever thought
of, when they lose their hats. nearly
drop their eyes, clutch at the all, scream
wheat is at 81 in the pit of the board of
trade and the men who do that are in
the pit.
| When the sunlight streaming through
the big windows into that pit is made
gray by a flying cloud of dust; when in
the railways of the stone building a
distant roar is heard like that of lions
sometimes or jackals at other times
coming down the glen; when men limp
into out of the way places, drop into q
foreheads and gasp, my God, I'm
ruined,' or wien they come out witt
red, flushed faces, clothes all awry eyes
sparkling, lips dry and hands clenched
saying, "What'll you have?" that's also
dollar wheat on the board of trade.
At the present time we know of NJ
other way than to transfer wheat from
the farmer to the consumer. People
who dare criticise this method and wht
imagine that they can improve on il
are denounced impractical, visionary
and are termed cranks. The existing
state of society is nothingbut regulat
ed lunacy.
A CAMPAIGN based on education ar
principle will beat one based on spoils
| and SO.callad nOlioy