The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1899-08-10
ARTICLE
NOTHING TO BE HOPED FROM THE
DIVIDED DEMOCRACY.
Prices of Shelter and Clothes in Eng
land Half What They Are Here
Read and Reflect.

That able paper, the Philadelphia
Conservator, prefaces the following able
letter with these words
This article was refused by one of our
great daily journals, with the comment that
1t was strong and true" but that the edi-
tor dared not print it! There you have-the
last link in the iron chain Of slavery The
money power gagging the press and through
its political party, now in office (by its SEN
ate, backing up the president and cabi-
nett exercising that desperate resort of
tyranny, a censorship of the press both at
home and in the Philippines. Pigmies have
indeed bound the arms of Columbia with
these puny fetters to test her strength. But
she stands there with towering and regal
port, her dazzling aureole undimmed only
the light of the shame and bewildered sur
prise in her beautiful eyes, hard conscious
yet of what her infatuated children are
doing. But moment and we shall see
the steel scourge in her freed hands, 1.-The
clinched and lifted fist, and
The menacing arrogant one that strode and
advanced with his senseless scorn,
bearing the murderous knife,
The wide-swelling one, the braggart that
would yesterday do SO much,
Today a carrion dead and damn'd, the de-
spised of all the earth.
Are we Of today made of the same flesh and
blood as the men who threw the tea into
Boston harbor and gave their lives and
fortunes in defense of their rights as free
men? That is the question that confronts
us with menacing insistence day after day.
l fear we have not the stuff in us they
had then. In 1776 the imposition of few
pennies of arbitrary tax drove the blood
into the face with noble rage and drove it
from the heart as men lay dying on the
battlefield. But there is today no cry of
"Alarum! We are betrayed; our liberties
are being taken from u.s." And yet our very
neighbors and compatriots, the organized
industrial and commercial capital of the
country, have now about completed a gi-
gantic commercial tyranny, compared with
which the exactions of King George pale
into insignifcance. The wage earning and
professional classes of America are the
patient ass crouching down between two
burdens-on the one hand a protective tar
iff and on the other countless trusts, or
ganized bands of conspirators, whose total
capitalization is nearly seven billions dol
lars. The trusts are, of course, made pos
sble by the tariff. When they take us
by the throat could redress the balance
by free and healthy competition, by buying
abroad, were it not for the customs houses.
went into a picture store the other day
to get an etching framed and was told
that within a few months, glass had actu-
ally doubled in price-the result of the
manipulations of glass trust. I go to
buy hot-water heater and am told that
the price of iron has recently doubled. l
go into grocery to buy cakes and crackers
and find that the cracker trust has almost
doubled the price of these. l say, Very WELL
messieurs; but l know where l can get
things at cheaper prices than yours" l pre-
pare to buy in England or France; SER
want of the manufacturing Whig aristocracy
presents pistol at my head or an armed
revenue cutter fires cannon at me.
ask you, my fellow citizens, if your
blood does not begin to boil and your teeth
to set in rage as you thus feel the thumb
screws and handouts upon you? Come, now,
do you feel real free and happy, free as
a Swiss mountaineer or Highland shep-
herd? Do you feel manly, with hands slyly
picking your pockets, while you make no
resistance? Is there no stern light in your
eyes like that of the men of 1776? Slaves,
slaves! That is what we are, unless we
rise unitedly and by the boycott and the
ballot doom the tariff and the trust twenty
five years ago l found the social and politi-
cal atmosphere of England suffocating Re
turning last summer from six months in
Europe l found the social and political air
of America more oppressive by far than that
of England. I found that personal free
dom exists here In less degree. found
in England the price of shelter and clothes
lust half what they are in America, and yet
the people there are all happy and con-
tented.
The time has come for mass meetings,
for agitation, for state conventions, Tor
careful study Of the powers of nation and
state. and the drafting of new laws by all
the states (as some already have done) that
shall not only limit the magnitude OF 1u-
ture trust combinations, but brand as
of robbers a corporation that
seeks to monopolize the bread and food and
clothes and building materials OF the ma
tion and dictate its own prices therefor.
There is lust one legal way, 1t seems to
me out Of this mess-remOve the protective
tariff.
How long do our noble tariff and trust
lords imagine the American people are go
ing to stand this cornering OF the means
whereby they live? Already emigration to
england is looking extremely pleasant 20
more than one family know. The Italians
reyolted in Northern Italy last summer be-
cause the price of bread rose ten or dozen
per cent Here prices rise to the enormous
amount of 100 per cent. and the good ma
tured American only shrugs his shoulders.
Good nature is good thing; but SO are the
necessaries Of life; so is an education 1or
your daughters and sons; so is a trip -
Europe; so is q conservatory bicycle,
carriage a new reaping machine But poor
good natured slaves can't have any OF tnese
things as they once could you know. That
tiresome, worn-out gigantic Ola wing nat
(shall we never see the end OF it? Oh,
good Lord! how it makes us groan when we
see it comingD, this old. greasy historical
hat, the hat worn so long by
out infant industries, is passing round
again. and dollar after dollar, after we earn
It, we "good naturedly" drop into that end
less extension chapeau.
Why, If things go on as they have been,
we shall have to return to the Spartan
self-denial of revolution days-the times Of
ceanothus tea and homespun clothes. Boy
cotting is to be sure poor and imperfect
way of fighting the trusts. But If it comes
to the pinch, and refusal to buy proves the
only way under the constitution to kill
these monsters, we can still manage to live
without the things they think SO indespens-
BILE One little Southern village drove out
the great Standard Oil from it's limits We |
IAN get along without kerosene and coal |
ong enough to make an oil or coal trust |
whine for mercy We can find temporary |
,ubstitutes for glass, or do without 1t. II