Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1900-10-26
DRNOcRAFaCE GOVERNMENT.
A 0overnmsne Of the People aad by the
People eheula He for Aa the
PoOplaes Coed.

0pcdkluS Oh the miners StTIAS
Chairman Hanna, of the republican
national committee, says:
81 will not discuss the miners strike
from a political standpoint. There is
something far more important than
questions of politics involved in sit
uation like that. It looks like set
Element was in sight, but until that is
accomplished there should be nothing
said about the steps which have been
taken to bring it about. The politi-
clan who for partisan advantage would
seek to promote a strike like the one
now in progress in the anthracite dis
trict should be taken out and hanged
to lamp post. Want makes men
desperate, and, from what / am told,
the women in the anthracite region
have become more desperate than the
men. There is no politics involved in
this strike, and it should not be dis
cussed by anybody from a political
standpoint
1 am not surprised that Chairman
Hanna doesn't want the strike issue
and the rights of the miners to living
wages made political issue. At the
same time I can conceive of no ques-
CAOh Which, OCCtCI uCSCINOS R1dCC III
our politics tnan one which involves
the right of men who create wealth
to wages that will permit them to live
comfortably and ,iecently, and enjoy
something more than mere animal
existence. What the capitalists who
own the coal mines do with their prof
its ought also to be political ques-
ton. No government is good gov
eminent unless it is just govern
ment; and no just government will
permit idle capitalists to make men
and women desperate by Cypress
ing them and robbing them of their
earnings.
There is no politics involved in
this strike,'' says Mr.. Hanna. And
yet politics is the science of govern
ment, and the government has created
and licensed the great corporations
which stand on one side in this con-
test. The idea of Mr. Hanna, and
those who think as he does, seems to
be that the rich are above all govern
ment, and that laws are to be made to
| enable them to rob labor with impun-
ity, but that question as to the right
fulness of dividends wrung from the
sweat and blood of toiling miners who
have to live almost like beasts, ought
| never to be injected into politics. 1t
is very evident why those millionaires,
rolling in wealth and enjoying every
| luxury, are anxious to keep their re-
lations with their oppressed and out
| ragged wage earners from becoming a
political question. And it is equally
| evident that those relations are going
to become a political question, in
| spite of anything Mr.. Hanna and the
| coal barons can do to prevent it. 1t
will get into politics, because it is
right that it should, and because the
strong arm of the government is the
only power that can relieve the over
burdened and underpaid miners.
The right of any man to live in ease
and luxury, while the labor that digs
his wealth. out of the dark caverns OF
the earth is starved and crushed and
cheated and denied ii right to decent
living, is going to be insisted on as
a matter of politics. No doubt Mr.
Hanna would like to hang every so.
] cialist who prociaims the eternal
truth that man has the right to enjoy
the products of his labor, but there
are too many of us now for that to be
practicable. Republicans, aye and
democrats and populists as well, who
still believe in property rights that
are inimical to manhood rights, are
going to be overwhelmed some day by
a rising tide of popular sentiment in
favor of a new political economy
And that new political economy viii
teach that the doctrines of the decla
ration of Independence. and the still
more profound ethics OF the COLDER
rule, apply between the man who tolls
and the man who reaps profit from
anOther's toll. Before we become
really Christian or civilized, we have
got to refrain from treating other me1
as we would be unwilling to have then
treat us, and become willing and anx
iOus to do for others all those things
we would like to have them do for us
That is the only way in which we car
i live worthy of our immortal birth
right as creatures into whom God ha.
breathed the breath of life, and whom
He has endowed not only with physi
cal and intellectual, but also will
spiritual natures.
| Any government which fails to pro
tect its weakest and hu1nblest either
against the rapacity and injustice o.
the rich and powerful, is unworthy tt
endure and will perish from the earth
Any form of politics which does no
interest itself in the wrongs of tn,
plundered and outraged workers il
underground caverns, is unworthy tn,
consideration of good citizens.-Kan
sas Populist.
The cost of maintaining the pro
visional brigade of the national guard
among the striking miners in the an