The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1899-07-06

.899.
damages the property OF the people
without making any adequate compen-
sation that is gigantic theft. What
is wrong on a small scale is wrong Oh
a large scale. Monopoly in England
has ground hundreds of thousands of
her best people into semistarvation, and
in Ireland has driven multitndinous
tenants almost to. madness, and in the
United States proposes to take the
wealth of $4,000, 900 or 70, ,000, 900 OF peo-
pie and put it in few silken wallets.
Monopoly, brazen-faced, fron-fin-
gered, vulture-hearted monopoly, of.
fers his hand to this republic. He
stretches it out over the lakes and up
the great railroads and over the tele-
graph poles of the continent and says:
Here are my heart and hand. Be mine
forever" Let the millions of the people
north, south, east and west forbid the
banns of that marriage. forbid them at
the ballot box, forbid them on the plat
form. forbid them by great organiza-
tions, forbid them by the overwhelming
sentiment of an outraged nation, forbid
them by the protest of the church Of
God, forbid them by prayer to high
Heaven. That Herod shall not have
this Abigail. 1t shall not be to all-de-
vouring monopoly that this land is. to
be married.
Another suitor claiming the hand Of
this republic is nihilism.i
He owns nothing but q knife for uni
versal cutthroatery and d nitroglycerin
bomb for universal explosion. He be-
lievas in no God, no government, no
Heaven and no hell except what he can
make on earth. He slew the car Of
Russia, keeps many king practically
imprisoned, killed Abraham Lincoln,
would put to death every king and pres
ident on earth, and, II he had the power,
would climb up until he could drive
the God of Heaven from His throne and
take it himself, the universal butcher.
In France it is called communism; in
the United States it is called anarchism;
in Russia it is called nihilism, but that
last is the most graphic and descriptive
term. It means complete and eternal
smakh-up. 1t would make the holding
of property a crime, and it would drive
a dagger through your heart and put
torch to your dwelling and turn over
this whole land into the possession OF
theft and lust and rapine and murder.
Where does this monster live? In all
the towns and cities of this land. 1t Of.
fers its hand to this fair republic. II
proposes to tear to pieces the ballot
box, the Legislative hall, the congress
sional assembly. It would take this
land and divide it up, or, rather, di.
vide it down. It would give as much tc
the idler as to the worker, to the bad
as to the good. Nihilism! This pan
ther, having prowled across other
lands, has set it's paw on our soil, and II
is only waiting for the time in which
to spring upon its prey. It was nihilisn
that burned the railroad property al
Pittsburgh during the great riots; il
| was nihilism that slew black people
in our northern cities during the war;
| it was nihilism that mauled to death ths
Chinese immigrants years ago; it is nj
hilism that glares out of the window,
of the drunkeries upon sober peopl,
as they go by. All, its power has never
yet been tested. / pray God its powel
fmay never be fully tested. It would, j
i ~ 49, vns.~ N1Sv1 1vsSyh