Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1900-10-30

junction.
! If men have a right to themselves
they have right to use their own pow
ers; and if they have a right to the use
of their own powers, they have right
to the use of those things which they
produce by the exercise of their pow
ers. They have the right to work; they
have a right to the things they make;
and if this be so, they have the right
to exchange the results of their labor
with their neighb0rs or with any one
they please. In other words, they have
the right to trade; they have right to
buy where they can buy to the best
advantages; to sell where they can Sc
cure the most for their product The
Republican party denies this principle.
Under the false name of protection it
compels workers to exchange the prod
ucts of their labor in market artifi-,
cially restricted; to purchase in a Iaar-
ket where free competition has been
throttled by law for the benefit OF GER
tain favored classes. The result is a
robbery of labor: it is compelled to ac-
cept the terms and conditions offered
by the benefciaries of the restrictive
law.
The Democratic party stands for free
competition and for the right of all
men freely to exchange with each other
the results of their toll. 1t is there
fore opposed to trusts and to all de-
vices for the killing or even the re
striction of trade. A protective tariff
is a declaration of war against trade;
it is an invitation to combination and
monopoly; it puts premium upon en-
crossing and forestalling; it is the hand.
maiden if not the mother of trusts.
The appalling manifestation of mod
ern industrialism is the Capitalization
of wealth in the hands of the few. 1t
has come about in the last generation
and it is the shining product of Repub-
lican legislation. All the forces of
privilege have been centered on the eff
fort to secure larger privileges, and the
Republican policy has been that of con-
sistent fayoritism; it has never failed
to give to those that had and to take
away from those that had not even
that which they had. 1t gave bound
less territory to favored railways; it
granted monopolies to iron and coal
and lumber and stone; it gave bounties
to sugar and protection from compe-
tition to mills and factories and ship
ping; it has shut out foreign goods
while letting in foreign labor; it has
loaned it's credit to favored bankers
and changed the terms of contracts for
the benefit of bond-holders; it has dis
credited silver in order to vest a mon
opoly in the hands of owners of gold;
and in every instance it has enacted
laws and administered the government,
not for the common welfare, but for
the enrichment of special classes.
Democracy opposes all this. 1t wants
to relieve labor from the levies of priv
ilege. It's whole spirit runs in the di-
rection of freedom. and its candidates
stand pledged by the platform and by
their own records to promote the ends
of liberty and of righteousness. The
party makes appeal to the heart and
conscience of the country. 1t opposes.
foreign conquest both because it is a
wicked wrong to alien peoples and be-
cause it is direful threat against our
own rights. For this country cannot
be half republic and half empire. I'm
perialism will not be satisfied with
foreign subjugation; it will hunger and
thirst after the subjugation of those at
home from whom tribute can be wrung.
Already the intrenched forces of inn
perialism are levying tribute upon Am
erican labor; labor's opportunities have
been narrowed to a choice of masters;
armed men in the service of plutocracy
war against the right of men to seek
better conditions from those who have
cornered industrial chances; and if Me-
Kinley shall win in the great fight now
in progress it will mean further re-
strietion, further narrowing of oppor-
tunities, further aggressions of privil-
eye and still harsher exactions from
those who work for the aggrandize-
mont of thoSa ~ IN foil NOT