Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1898-04-08

Mckinley Prosperity in Its True
Light.
The fortune of John D. Rockefeller
Is supposed to have increased $25,000,-
900 in single night by the recent rise
In Standard Oil stock. His daily in
come Is already placed at $41,095.
A Toledo daily newspaper thus gaily
holds I'D the reverse OF the picture:
THE tramps are getting desperate
again. One stole goose from Henry
Pusteoska and sold it to Landlord
Weiting last week and then hung
around to be arrested. The mayor sent
him out Of town. Another tramp broke
lights in the billiard hall because
Sheriff Winters would not lodge him
and now he is lodged at the expense OF
the county"
In an account of railroad wreck the
San Francisco Examiner says:
About an hour after the bridge fell
| 1t occurred to somebody that 1t might
do no harm to cut young LIE. d out OF
the wreck. He seemed to Deealive.
Half an hour after an axe was found
and the wounded man was extricated
Fifteen minutes afterward he died.
Shortly before the end the dying tramp
opened his eye--he had only one, the
other having been gouged out when
the car went down.
"Friend," said he to a stranger who
was bending over him. I'd like some
thing"
What would you like" he was asked.
"I'd like some bread"
Then he ceased to hunger, for he
ceased to breathe.
That the daily press take the con-
mon people for idiots Is emphasized
every day, but the Chicago Tribune OF
recent date emphasized that fact lit
tie more than usual. In an editorial
headed 1.-The Return of Prosperity 1t
dwells lovingly and wildly on pros
perity now among the people. AS
evidence it quotes the higher price OF
wheat and its increased shipments
abroad. but how making me or any
other workingman pay more for bread,
and shipping tons of -four away from
the millions at home whose hunger Is
never satisfied, constitutes prosperity,
I confess l am not bright enough to
understand, says ]. A. Wayland. Rail
road earnings" it says, ARE over II
per cent larger than last year" This
fact does not evidence prosperity half
SO much as 1t does that improved ap-
pliances are enabling the roads to do
II per cent more work without either
an increase in the number OF employees
or the wages paid. Besides, as the
majority of our railroad bonds are
held in foreign countries, an increase
in earnings should be hailed with more
10y abroad than at home. The Trib-
une then devotes stickful to DWELL
ing on the enormous demand for iron.
II probably does this because the next
six lines admit that thousands OF cot
ton operatives are unemployed and lack
bread, owing" it says, ito southern
competition and no demand for the
goods" This last sentence is true. But
IL the people are so prosperous as you
infer. Mr.. Tribune, why don't they buy
the clothes they so badly need Q'd
like a suit myself and start the de-
mand to demanding? AS the gold
standard which you uphold allows the
competitive system to remain, won't the
southern mills continue to compete,
and southern iron works, and western
farms. against the small eastern ones
Is this the prosperity you are SO proud
Of Mr.. Tribune, that allows thousands
of human beings to suffer for neces-
saries of life? The prosperity OF the
present industrial system is being
weighed. and 1t is found sadly want
ing.
The condition of the laboring people
IN New England Is alluded to by Sena-
tor Lodge as national calamity or
account or the encouragement IL lui
nishes to demagogues. The dema'
gogues, we are told, take advantage Of
the misery of the people to preach
dangerous social theories" This
means that when the "demagogues'
tell the people that social system
like ours is productive of misery FOL
the masses, the prevailing misery mus
seem like a confirmation of their words
saws the Twentieth Century. But tt
the capitalistic mind the things which
confirm the statements Of the agitatol
are to be taken simply as evidence o.
the dangerous and delusive nature O
the agitator's teachings. The mlser!
which exists among the working peo
pie of New England is not to be re-
gretted for its own sake. 1t Is to 81
regretted chiefly as the opportunity
; OF the demagogue, who profits by In
dustrial depression to propagate delu
sions." We have yet to learn VIVA
adequate motive such creature as tn
capitalists call demagogue can hav'