Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1899-02-03
GARNETT, KANSAS, FEBRUARY 3, 1899.

ventlon OF the money power, to plunder the
people, farms and farm products have shrunk
SO in value that they are not worth more than
one-half what they were twenty years ago.
But the mortgage on the farm has not shrunk
one penny. The Shylock smiles as he sees the
interest piled up from year to year, and at last,
under the sheif's hammer, the labor of life
time is swept away, and the farn-owner of to-
day becomes the tenant OF tomorrow. In
country like this, unequalled as it is in its nat
ural resources, with its hundreds of millions of
acres of rich soil yet untouched by the plow,
every family, under reasonably fair conditions,
could, within few years, own home, free
from incumbrance. But, strange as it NAV
seem, it Is none the less true that, under our
present unjust and oppressive system, we have
more tenants in proportion to population, with
possibly one or two exceptions, than any other
nation on earth
Yet, i'll the face of these facts, partisan COM
nercial agencies tell us, from week to week.
that our country is enjoy ng wonderful "wave
of prosperity"
Look at the closed WOODEN and cotton mills
there if this "wave of prosperity" has reached
them. Turn to the ut-down cotton mills at
Augusta, Georgia, and hear what the unem-
ployed operatives there say about it. Ask the
comrades of the poor coal miners who were
murdered i'll cold blood at Hazeton, Pa, what
prosperity or happiness has come to them Go
to Ohio, the home of the "advance agent of
prosperity,' and ask the thousands of hungry
miners there who have had to depend largely
during the past year on contributions of the
people to keep them from starving, whether
their condition has improved under the present
administration Then pass over into Illinois,
where poor falf-fed Negroes were imported
from Southern coal fields to take the places of
of resident white miners who were engaged in
a strike, involving struggle for sufficient food
to keep soul and body together. Ask the COM
rades OF the fifteen or twenty who were killed
in that conflict what prosperity has come to
them under present conditions.
The truth is, there is no prosperity, except
that which comes to the money power, nonop-
oles and trusts, through the oppression and
robbery of the poor Aud now it is proposed,
in the face OF rapidly-incleasing national
debt, and deficit of over $Ioo, 900, 900 for the
present fiscal year, to add at least ten million
haI-civilized inhabitants of the islands of the
seas, to eventually become The slaves OF the
same system that has SO cruelty robbed and i'm
poverished our cwn people. And in order to
keep these people IN subjecton, and suppress
l,ar.
al least 100, 900 men is demanded to be clothed
fed aud paid cut of the earnings Of the masses.
Old issued have passed and gone. Even the
fraud and shan--has reached
a point when it can 10 longer successfully de-
ceive aud misead the people. And now that
he president of the Uuted States can wear
Confederate badge without offending his party,
and the lynching of Negro causes but little
more comment than the shooting of a dog, sec
ional differences and the race problem may be
considered settled
The great issue of the present hour involves
a desperate struggle for human liberty, the
right of every man to be free to own himself
and enjoy the fruits of mis- own labor.
To accomplish this trusts must be crushed,
thieves driven from high places, public utilities
must be owned by, and operated in the interest
If, all the people, tIee and unlimited coinage
If both gold and silver; the money of the con-
'tituton must be restored to the people, and all
money issued direct by the general government,
aud banking corporations made to understand
hat they do not own the country or any of lis
,itizens.
The saloon is only one of the many corrupt
no influences which threaten the life of the