Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1898-04-13


erty of the workingman. A
What can be expected from a party
whose allies are corporations and
whose methods are subsidized courts,
subsidized daily press and a vigilant
coercion among employees, coercion
even to the extent of issuing circulars
in pay envelopes, making the support
of the Republican candidates condi-
tional with employment. 1t is well
worn and tried truism that THAT
Government governs best that governs
least"
Government by injunction has ex-
tended until the liberties of the people
have been seriously encrouched upon,
and yet the workingman who dares to
resist or demonstrate, is made an out
cast, blacklisted to the ends of the
universe. Well may the 1aborer cry
'Where is protection to the working
man so long promised by the Grand
Old Party" That protection promised
to the workingman is given to the cor
poration, is evidenced by the fact that
our statute books are filled almost
from cover to cover with monopolistic
Legislation, which is, not only not pro-
tective to the 1aborer, but hurtful to
his every interest. And it will ever
be thus, until the workingmen, both
organized and unorganized exercise
greater care in the selection of men
who represent them.
The workingmen bear an excessive
burden in taxation and otherwise suf-
fer many evils because they do not
stand together. They have allowed
themselves to be divided by unscrupu-
lous men, who make glowing promises
of prosperity, which the 1aborer be-
lieves and looks for in vain, until their
strength is frittered away and divided.
Instead of standing in the outer realm
of their own jurisdiction pleading, nay
begging for justice as they now do,
they could be in position to administer
justice to themselves and fully control
that which they now leave to others.
Yet they go on year after year, sup
porting men and party who have
proven traitorous to every interest of
the 1aborer who never made n
honest effort to help the working man.
Will the 1aborer stop for moment
and study this question for himself?
Too long the masses have been led and
taught on the rainbow of promises of
the Republican party. Think for
yourself, act for yourself, vote for
your true interests and economic sal
vation of the workers will be solved.
The twenty per cent reduction in
the wages of the 10000 cotton mill
operatives since the Inauguration of
the present Republican administration
is a sample of the promises of Repub-
1ican prosperity. The failure of Is 900
business firms since that date, SUBJ
stantiates the fal1acy of the so-ca1led
safe and business-Gke management of
the Republican party in its financial
policy; only protected n,onopolies
have prospered. Surely the working
men should know ere this, that the
attitude of the Republicans toward
them, in its promises of care and pro-
lection, is on the same basis of that
of the wolf and the 1amb--it promises
to protect only to absorb, to utilize, to
manipulate in its own interest, to keep
itself in power. The policy of the Re-
publican party in catering to wealth
through legislation, is exemplified
among numerous instances in the last
congress by raising the sugar tariff to
repay, in a measure, for the hundreds
of thousands of dollars donated to the
Republican oampaign fund by the sug-
ar trusts. And so reciprocation goes
on between party Legislation and all
the various trusts, which, in turn
furnish campaign funds to keep 1T in
power.
When it is recalled that the sugar
trust, the leather trust, the Standard
Oil trust, the iron and steel trust, the
wool trust, the paper trust, the book
trust, and all of the other trusts that
fatten on the necessities of the people,
as we'll as the bankers, the railroads
and the Wall street stock jobbers that
gamble in the products of labor, it
matters not what their politics had
been heretofore, all join the Republi-
can party and furnish millions to its
National committee to buy its way
into power.
When these condition are recalled
the workingman must shudder at the
thought that he is victim of such
conspiracy and that by the fruits of
his toll, he is forced to support such
an institution in this so called land of
liberty, all because of his party fea1ty
and hide-bound partisanism.
Is it not logical to think that these
trusts will be paid back by monopolis-
tic legislation, for their assistance and
donations to the campaign regardless
of the effect of such legislation upon
upon the interests of the workingman?
Have they not already been paid?
Surely this must be plain to every in
| telligent mind, and what does it mean?
Does it not mean that the Republican
party is ia the hands of the corpora
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