Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1899-11-10
might happen should John Bull Recruiting Office Washington

dunk and other disreputable anarchist
sections: Gentlemen, the time has
arrived to stop this foolishness about
popular sovereignty. We will set up
sovereignty of our own and refuse
to be further distracted in our efforts
to make this a great and glorious ma
ton. We will raise the flag wherever
our benevolent trusts can get in to
make an honest dollar; who will dare
to haul it down? We have the terri
tory to make an empire of. With our
dear friends and fellow linguists who
drop their his, we shall acquire a bit
of China. Liberia is ours because some
of our citizens have been driven to set
tie there. We can absorb Nicaragua
and dig a canal that will paralyze Will
liam of Germany. Not only westward,
but all over, and in every direction
shall the star of empire take its way,
and id be he who first cries Hold,
enough!'"
Principles are beautiful things to
think or talk about. We read about
them in political platforms, presidents
messages, reports of the secretary OF
the treasury telling us about the beau
ties of the gold standard, which is
driving all the gold out of the country;
the ears of the populace are stunned
with the masticated mouthfuls of them
hurled from stump-speaking catapults;
college professors turn them over and
over like sweet morsels beneath their
tongues and then hand them over to
us to be swallowed like the hash the
servant girl chewed for her mistress to
swallow; they are simpered at us by
educational mongers and spit at us by
political vixens, but the butcher, the
baker and the candlestick maker soon
discover, when the right to legislate
for their own interests is taken away
from them, that principles, though
very nice things, never materiallze
into goods, wares and merchandise.
They do not buy the baby dress nor
the old man pipe of 'baccy. The ap-
plication of high-sounding phrases
stops where the sound ends, and an
eternal silence begins.
1t is not because it is laid down in
the declaration of independence, that
governments derive their just pow
ers from the consent of the governed"
that the principle which ought to I'M
derlie all human governments hrst
saw the light, it has been the princi-
pie which the people of the earth
sought for six thousand years to i'm
press upon the dull and stupid intel
lects of their rulers. 1t was, however,
the first time in the history Of the
world that a nation was based upon 1t
as the foundation of it's existence; 1t Is
the root of this government, and the
only saving plank of our national au-
tonomy. There can never be imperial
ism, oligarchy, aristocracy, or plutoc-
racy against the consent Of the gov
erned. 1t is the multitude that hasten
to bow before Gessler's cap, but the
William Tell who scorns the tyrant
does not escape so easily in these
modern days; he is blacklisted, finds
no employment and starves.
We are all alike spectators at
grand Punch and Judy show. We see
the puppets but not the hands that
manipulate them. Like children, we
sit with wide, open-eyed astonish-
ment, wondering if they really talk.
1t is cheap show to the Snowman.
but the aggregate door money is fab
ulous and all Of it comes out of the
pockets of the hypnotized audience.
We are ceasing to be citizens and are
fast becoming subjects, in pursuance
Of the same system that prevailed
when the earth was young, and which
still prevails in the decrepit, emascu-
lated nations of the old world, whose
governments are driving their subjects
to our shores. Happy at escaping from
the clutch Of oppression, and their
stomach warmed with white bread in
stead of chilled with the bitter black
they fled away from, they dream OF
heaven and never think of the future
of their children and their children's
children, when the bitter black bread
will be again doled out to them.-Liv-
ing Issues.