The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1900-10-26
DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT.
a Governnasat OF the People asa By the
People Should BE for All the
Peoples Good.

national committee, says:
II will not discuss the miners strike
from political standpoint. There is
something far more important than
questions of politics involved in sit
uation like that. 1t 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 strike like the one
now in progress in the anthracite dis
trict should be taken out and hanged
to a lamp post. Want makes men
desperate, and, from what I 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 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 a political issue. At the
same time l can conceive of no ques-
ton which better deserves place in
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
it's 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-
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
political question. And it is equally
evident that those relations are going
to- become 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 OH as
a matter of politics No doubt Mr..
Hanna would like 10 hang every So
ciallst 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. ave 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 new political economy.
And that new political economy will
teach that the doctrines of the decla-
ration of Independence, and the still
more profound ethics OF the golden
rule, apply between the man who tolls
and the man who reaps profit from
anotherS toll. Before we become
really Christian or civilized. we have
got to refrain from treating other men
as we would be unwilling to have them
treat us. and become willing and anx-
lous to do for others all those things
we would like to have them do for us.
That is the only way in which we can
live worthy of our immortal birth
right as creatures into whom God has
breathed the breath of life. and whom
He has endowed not only with physi-
cal and intellectual, but also with
spiritual natures.
Any government which fails to pro-
tect its weakest and humblest citizen
against the ranaci@y and ;p;,s+;,, of