The record-union., 1898-06-08
VERY NEAR TREASON.
Unpatriotic Document Signed by
Bishop Potter.

1t is greatly to be regretted that
Bishop Potter should lend his name and
influence to the appeal to workingmen
circulated by Bolton Hall and the sim
gle takers, for the sake of stirring up
an anti-patriotic sentiment against the
Cuban policy of the Government. The
following is a specimen of the tone and
character of the petition:
Gould anything be more foolish than
to drop the great fight (agitation for
single taxi and take up the smaller one.
If there is war; you will furnish the
corpses and the taxes. and others will
get the glory Spectators will make
money out Of it-that is. finally out of
you. Men will get high prices for in
ferior supplies. leaky boats, for shoddy
clothes and paper shoes, and you will
have to pay the bill. and the only sat
isfaction you will get is the privilege
of hating your Cuban-Spanish fellow
workmen, who are really your brothers,
and who have had as little to do with
the wrongs in Cuba as you have"
The influence to national spirit, the
unpatriotism and class animosity
amounting almost to treason, breathed
through every syllable Of this para
graph, is not merely discreditable but
1t is untrue and uneconomic as we'll as
unpatriotic. For Bishop Potter to sign
an appeal to workingmen containing
such utteranceS as these Is something
more than discouraging To appeal TO
workingmen to oppose the Government
in it's contest with foreign enemy,
when it's attitude is wholly and unqual-
ifiedly in favor of the freedom of an
oppressed people struggling for free
dom, on the poisonous plea that the
workingmen alone will furnish the
corpses and pay the taxes while others
will get the glory and spectators will
make money, is spirit of most sordid
selfishness and reflects the lowest type
Of market-place greed and cowardly
selfishness.
In the first place it is not true, and
Bishop Potter ought to know that it is
not true, that the wOrkingmen will
either furnish all the corpses or pay the
taxes. On the contrary, the business
men, clerks, and well-to-do classes are
furnishing very large portion of the
volunteers, who run the risk of being
corpses. and the property of the coun-
try, owned by the wealthy classes, will
have to pay the taxes If Spain does not
If there is loyalty and patriotism
enough throughout the country to win
paid by Spain.
But the idea of taking this time and
this method Of poisoning the minds Of
workingmen, not only against capital
lists and business men, but against the
very Government itself. and trying TO
extinguish the spirit of patriotism in
order to promote hairbrained hobby
like single tax, is discreditable to ordi-
nary citizens to saw nothing of ono of
the highest functionaries in the richest
church in the country. Nothing could
be better calculated to inspire distrust,
social hatred and ultimate disruption
than to discourage the growth Of
national spirit and patriotic impulse
among the workingmen of the nation.
and especially on the plea that they
alone are to be made the catspaw of
the situation. Such q statement is
economically untrue, and such an ap-
peal is socially and politically discredit-
able to every signer.-Gunton's Maga-
zine.