The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1900-08-24
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE
GREAT MIDDLE CLASS.

clares that "neither slavery nor invol-
untary servitude, except as a punish.
ment for crime whereof the party shall
have been duly convicted, shall exist
within the United States or any place
subject to their jurisdiction" But
what does Emperor Mckinley care for
that? What does he or those who own
and run him and his administration
care for what the Constitution declares?
He has recently both violated and de-
fled this provision of the Constitution,
not only by buying and accepting ter
ritory in which slavery does exist, but
by recognizing slavery as an established
institution TO be respected and pro-
tected by the government and its agen-
cies. He has entered into, and made
the supreme law of the land, treaty
which recognizes slavery in the Sulu
Archipelago, now territory of the
United States, under the American
flag and subject to the Federal Consti-
tuition of our Republic. This treaty
provides Gin Article y. that "any
slave in the archipelago of Sulu shall
have the right to purchase freedom by
paying to the master the usual market
price" He did not ask the American
people to remove this prohibition from
the Federal Constitution so that slavery
might be recognized as a lawful insti-
tuition under the American flag, for,
under his imperialistic conception of
the Constitution, no such precaution
was at all necessary. To him it was
all sufficient to know that Mark Hanna
and those who own and run this adj
miuistration wanted him to do as he
did.
But what wonder can there be in
their thus recognizing slavery in the
Sulu Archipelago which was only re-
Gently brought under the Stars and
Stripe, when the Republican party,
under the inspirations and mauipula-
lions of Hanna, Mckinley & Co., is
fostering aud protecting gigantic GRIM
inal trusts and combinations of wealth
which are fast destroying the opportun-
tiles of the young men of America,
crushing out the small dealers and
middle-men If trade and reducing to
the condition Of industrial serfdom
that great, conservative middle class
OF society which has been heretofore
not only the mainstay OF the Republic
but the fundamental strata ofits society
and civilization? The tyranny and op-
preston Of these criminal combinations
of wealth in the form of gigantic trusts,
which are now so prevalent in the
United States and of which this admin
istration has been perfect Incubator,
are rapidly closing up or destroying out
right every avenue of industry open to
that great, conservative army of the
middle class and well-to-do mddIe-men
of trade by reducing them to the low
level of the impoverished and unem-
ployed poor, and by themselves mo-
nopolizing and controlling within and
for their own selfish greed everything
in this country from the tack to the
coffin in which we are all to he finally
laid away. In the United States today
there are millions of formerly well-t0-
do business men and middle-men of
trade who have been reduced from the
condition of being IN business for them
selves to that of scrambling with the
great army of the unemployed for
chance to earn the scautyiwages, which
these soulless combinations of fabulous
wealth are compelled to pay-mere pit
tances, at best, upon which families
have to be supported or suffered to
starve to death. Many men of families
are glad to get 81 aud So a week, while
there are thousands and hundreds of
thousands of trust magnates who do
nothing but manipulate the strong
agencies of the peoples government
for the peoples everlasting spoliation
and ruin and pocket their dividends of
millions per week. This white slavery,
this industrial serfdom to which the
Republican party is fast reducing the
well-to do middle class of American
society is infinitely worse than that
chattel slavery which the thirteenth
amendment was intended to abolish in
this country forever. The Southern
Shareholder was compelled by law to
provide his slaves with comfortable
homes, wholesome food and suitable
clothing besides, self interest COM
PEELED him to take care of his property,
and to take care of them when they
became too old, or crippled by disease,
to work; but there is no such obliga-
ton imposed upon these owners of
white slaves. They get all of the bene-
fits without any of the obligations
which attached to the slave owners of
the South before the war. The dollar
has been put above the man and prop
erty above human life.