The Van Buren press., 1899-06-10
Ex-senator Joha J. Ingail Writes
About She Trust Evil.

About She Trust Evil.
From the ST. Leuis Republic.
NEW YORK, June 3.-"The tools to
him who can use them. said Napo-
leon.
Them as has. gifts. . says the Ark
ansas man.
Every one for himself. and the devil
take the hindmost. says the Nineteenth
Century.
Root hog. or die. says Nature.
TO him that hath shall be given, and
from him that hath not shall be taken
away even that which he seemeth to
have. says God,
IAN men are created equal. says
the Declaration of Independence.
But they are not, any more than
horses are. The hip-shotten. sway
backed. lop-eared ssreet-car steed was
not created equal to Ormonde. the king
of the turf, who cannot be bought for q
quarter of million. Nor Richard
Croker TO Daniel Webster; nor Alfred
Austin to William Shakespeare.
Since Adam left Eden. If he did, this
has been a tough world for the most of
its inhabitants. Not one came into it
of his own accord, and few would have
come at all had they been consulted.
Fewer still would remain were they
sure Of anything better somewhere else.
All being endowed with aspirations for
happiness multitudes find wretchedness.
poverty and disease their only inherit
ance. Our credentials bear the same
sign and seal. but some are born to
honor and some to dishonor. Some lie
in lilies and roses and walk on velvet,
while others equally deserving shiver
in rags and sleep in doorways and stain
finty paths with bloody feet. All de-
sire to succeed, but few reach the goal.
1t is apparent that whatever progress
has been made hitherto is due wholly to
the effort Of individuals. States make
no inventions. Nations write no poems
or dramas. Society Is rich or strong or
pure only as the individuals Of which it
is composed are wealthy and powerful
and virtuous. Battles are won or lost
as the individual soldiers are intrepid
or timid.
The decalogue, that statute enacted
in the parliament Of the skies and
promulgated amid the thunders of
Sinai, has no effect upon the race ex-
cept as its precepts are obeyed by the
individuals to whom they are addressed.
So our social and political system
rests on individualism the highest de-
velopment of the individual as the unit
Of the State; and as the correlative of
this, the equality of all men before
equal laws and equality Of opportunity,
so that all shall have an equal chance
In this harum- scarum, helter-skelter
scrimmage which we call life.
Our political ancestors did not foresee
the invention of corporations and trusts,
fictitious creatures without souls and
yet endowed with earthly immortality
legal monsters incapable of crime, but
that can rob the citizen Of his birthright
and deprive posterity of its heritage.
In the early part of the century my
grandfather, Ingalls, Of Middleton,
Mass, was blacksmith, as iron
workers were called in those days. On
the hearth in my library In Atchison,
rs the most valued Of my ancestral
heirlooms, stands the old anvil upon
which he used to fashion and temper
the scythe blades, the hoes and spades,
the horseshoe and plough points for his
rustic neighbors, when Thomas Jefferson
was president, He was man OF in
huence and position. an active leader Of
the local Democracy and died possessed
Of comfortable fortune.
To day there is not one Of the things
which he made In his forge that is not
manufactured by machinery controlled
by trusts at prices which render in
dividual competition impossible. and
the occupation of the blacksmith is
gone. In the same way, the tailor, the
carpenter, the compositor, the weaver,
the farm hand, have gradually become
dislocated. Population is constantly
increasing, and the avenues Of employ
ment are continually diminishing. La
Dor, thus having lost its independence
is becoming degraded and discredited.
The prosperous are tolerant or patroniz
ing. The dependent are sullen. They
feel that under existing conditions they
do not have equal opportunities.
They are right The race is no longer
to the swift, nor the battle to the strong
But public opinion, when aroused, is
irresistible. Its DEGREES will be formu
lated in 1900. In 30 far az trusts and
monopolies interfere with individualism
and the equality Of rights and oppor-
tunities, they will be restrained. The
remedy is simple. The power of congress
to tax has been held to be the power to
destroy. 1t was invoked against the
state banks. 1t is the most formidable
weapon that can be welded by an eI-
asperated people.
Judge Rogers Position.