The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-06-14

Gus forms of national state, municipal,
telegraph and railroad debts created
by, special legislation and supported by
a Venal press, then turn to the other
side and behold the workingmen bow
ing in meek submission to this legalized
ROBBERY, their independence and man
hood vanishing like a fleeting shadow
before the sacred right of property. I
am reminded of the words of Gold
smith:
Ill fares the land, to fastening ills
prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men
decay;
Princes and lords may flourish or may
fade;
A breath can make them as breath
has made.
But a bold peasantry. their country's
pride,
When once destroyed, can never be
supplied
Should a patriot appear upon the
scene with enough courage to attack
our present slave system and enough
brains to offer remedy by opening the
eyes of those who have been blinded by
party prejudice, all the power Of plu-
tocracy Is directed against him. the
hireling press, the paid lackeys, will
hound him at every step. The debased
creatures that he is trying to help VIII
crawl out of their miserable homes and
join in the cry of their masters that he
is an anarchist, a socialist or an as1-
tator opposed to the sacred rights OF
private property: if this will not sufhce,
he Is denounced as foreigner who does
not understand the benefits of Amer
lean institutions. To-day the cry of
patriotism is taken up by every cor
poration hireling in the land and every
person who dares to withhold his as
sent is branded as traitor; the cry OF
treason is hurled at him by the agents
of plutocracy. The words of Thomas
jefferson are very applicable to our
over-zealous patriots when he declared
that Patriotism is the last refuge of
a scoundrel" They might pause in the
midst of their folly and turn their pa
triotism into a desire to better the con-
ditions of their country before the furY
of revolution spreads from ocean to
ocean.
revolution similar to that described
by General John A. Logan in his speech
March II, 1874 "Capital rests upon Ia
Dor, but when it attempts to press too
heavily upon that which supports 1t in
free republic, the slumbering vol
cano, whose mutterings are beginning
already to be heard, will burst forth
with fury that no legislation VIII
quell." When General Logan saw the
awful danger that threatened his coun-
try 90 years ago. what would he say to-
day if he could see the oppression of
the corporations who have less regard
for the rights of labor than they have
for the comfort of the meanest Grim
inal on earth? The slumbering vol
cano described by General Logan is in
action; it is gathering strength day by
day: it is constantly fed by the hand
of oppression, nourished by the tyranny
of combined greed, and agitated by the
acts of despots in office. Already its
lurd light illumines the canopy of
heaven, casting its ravs into every city
and hamlet in the land. 1t haunts the
laborer in his daily toll, it haunts him
by his Preside with his wife and little
ones, it gnaws at his very heart afer
he has been duped and deceived into
casting his ballot on election day for
men who have betrayed their constitu-
ents and legislated him into bondage
from which he sees no escape.
The American workingman cannot
endure the oppressor's scourge much
longer. There is yet enough of the
spirit of the Revolutionary fathers left
to guide them on to a nobler and higher
life. They will not forever bear the
tyrant's wrong and bend the knee TO
the soulless corporation without a muir
muir. in a land where all are supposed