Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1900-08-21
0URFLAGATRUSTASSET
CAPITAL Seeks Its Shelter to En-
slave Mankind.
MARX HANNA THE KING HUoKsTER

Political Dominance of the Trusts IL
the Most Sinister Plague That
Can Amict the Race - Conditions
Demand the Overthrow of Present
Administration.
Trade, commerce and huckstering
large and small are good things In
their way and place, and never In the
history of mankind have they been SO
much in the ascendant as they are
now. They have aided to make the
Democracy conscious Of itself; they
have acted as a stimulus to science, In
dustry and invention; they have en-
abled the former serf and slave TO earn
his own independent living and they
have brought down the aristocrat VINO
was wont to be so proud and despotlc
and have either made him, too, a shop
keeper or have rendered him depend
ent upon those who are. From this
point of view we may all don our caps
TO King Huckster, for, indeed, we are
nearly all of US partakers OF his blood
royal.
But when we get beyond generahza-
lions and figures of speech and come
down to the hard fact that the huck-
ster Is actually king, with all the pow
ers and many of the outward appur-
tenances Of kingship, and that he is on
the throne and directing our destinies
political as well as pecuniary at this
supreme junctre when the world
- int 81 MIN
that battle OF Armageddon, which the
prophets have been foretelling so long
why. then, we may have reasonable
doubts whether he Is altogether the
best man in the best place.
The mind of Bacon, conceiving the
advancement Of learning, laid the
foundations of the future Democracy,
and started the huckster on his up
ward career. His progress was rapid,
and today he has arrived. Nowhere
else so much as in this country and in
Great Britain has he so firmly grasped
the reins of power. But the original
condition Of the huckster was low.
mean and contemplate, and, unfor-
tunately, in ascending his throne, he
has laid aside none Of his evil quail
ties, and on the other hand he has
adpoted none Of his noble traits OF the
aristocracy which he supplants. or
all passions, greed for money is the
vilest, the cruelest, the more inhuman.
1t has no cOmpunctionS, recognizes no
sanctities, hesitates at no crimes or
degradations, spares no one and moth
ing. Self. in the basest form, is it's sole
aid and the god of its 1dolatry. Sprung
from the Democracy, it hates and de-
sires to crush its parent; it tramples
upon the rights of man and upon the
integrity and Independence, of man
hood, as the aristocracy in its worst
days had never done.
In America, of late years, the domin-
ion of capital has been greater than
elsewhere, and its dominion has been
attended with the most sinister effects
This country aimed to be the freest
and most enlightened in the wor9d, and
because we aimed so high our fall has
been lower than that of others The
present Republican party is trusts and
capital incarnate, and in 1t according
ly we see the evil of its apogee. In tue
mass of our people noble instincts and
aspirations still remain, but the cap
tains of trade turn them to their own
er crush them. Thus the popular de-
sire to free the Spanish colonies from
oppression has resulted in the imposi-
ton upon them of thieves and tyrants
appointed by our own capitalistic gov
eminent, which squeezes and defrauds
them as the SpaniardS had not the skill
TO do. The young men whom we sent
to fight our battles were starved and
poisoned by the agents OF the trusts,
in order to secure more dollars from
corrupt jobs and contracts The chOk-
ing off Of trade competition has made
us nation of employees, afraid TO call
our souls our own lest We lose our
jobs.
And now the new king is seeking
dominion afar. He has tasted the prof
its of empire and wants to enlarge his
holdings and thereby increase hts steal
ings. In China he put forward the
missionary to open the way for him.
and under cover of introducing C.hrists
gospel he has cheated and robbed the
heather, until the latter rises in blind
rage against all Christendom. And
what has rendered the heather fornid-
able in war? King Huckster himself,
who has been diligently selling him
these many years the best arms and
munitions of war that money could
buy, Indifferent to the fact that he was
thereby sacrificing the lives of his own
brothers and sisters. and perhaps set
ting back for generations to come the
clock Of human progress. So long as
he realized his reasonable profit he
cared nothing for aught else. When
the members of the legation and the
foreign and native Christians stood in
deadly peril at Picking he would not
send forward a force to rescue them,
for fear that some one among the com
peting nations might gain an advant-
age over him, and so obtain a larger
share Of the spoil TO come. Honor,
honesty. patriotism are to him mere