The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1900-09-07

favor OF popular institutions; but there
is one point, with its connections not
SO hackneyed as most others, to which
ask brief attention. 1t Is the effort
to place capital on an equal footing
with, If not above, labor. In the struc-
ture Of government, = No
men living are more worthy to be
trusted than those who toll up from
poverty; none less inclined to take or
touch aught which they have not hon.
estly earned. Let them beware of sur
rendering a political power which they
already possess, and which, II surren-
dered, will surely be used to close the
door of advancement against such as
they, and to fix new disabilities and
burdens upon them till all of liberty
shall be lost"
The warning is even more needed
now than it was forty years ago. The
Army and Navy Journal is already
justifying the colonial idea, and de-
claring that fate has decreed for us g
destiny in which an imperial execu-
tive, free from the restraints of
written constitution, will govern sub
jects according to his own pleasure.
The Investors Review, published at
Boston. in its issue of July %, says:
only blind person can fail to see
that remarkable transformations of
one kind or another are in store for
the race; hence the folly Of asserting
that the policy of this country, which
is destined to play such leading part
in human affairs of the future, shall
be governed for the most part by polit-
ical maxims uttered more than hun
dred years ago. The greatest evil
which now confronts this republic is
the clamor raised by certain faction
for settlement of our problems of
state by just such method as we have
been deprecating. Considerably more
than a century ago certain notable
declaration was made in this country
to the effect that all men ought to be
free and independent. This is merely
a generalization of the French school
Of Voltaire and the encyclopedias 1t
is dictum absolutely lacking founda-
ton in history and incapable of syllo-
CYSTIC Justification. 1t was, however,
handy phrase for lis to employ when
asserting our right to break away from
the mother country; it suited the ex-
igencies Of our situation in 1875 adj
mirably, though In itself but bit of
sublimated demagogism. The declar-
alton was a serviceable. means to the
end that was at that time desired. To
bring forward this declaration in this
year. 1900, in connection with our
treatment of the Filipinos and the Gu
bans. is as gross an absurdity as ever
was practfced. To do so is to offer an
insult to the intelligence of the people
who first subscribed to the declaration
in question:"
But why quote from newspapers as
to what may be done hereafter in the
presence of law already enacted
which makes subjects out of Porto
Ricans, withdraws from them the
guarantees Of the constitution, and as
serts the power of the president and
congress to govern them without their
consent and tax them without repre-
sentation-a power as unlimited and
tyrannical as was ever asserted or ex-
ercised by any ruler in all the history
OF the human race. This doctrine has
not yet been approved by the people;
1t furnishes the supreme question of
the present campaign. In the pres
ence Of these perils the laboring man
has a responsibility. commensurate
with his opportunity. Without a large
percentage of the laboring vote no par
ty can win an election in the United
States. The men who work for wages
can, by throwing their votes on the
one side or the other, determine the
policy of this country. They need not
march in parades; they need not
adorn themselves with the insignia of
any party, but on election day their
silent ballots can shape the destiny of
this nation, and either bring the gov
eminent back to its ancient land
marks or turn It into the pathway fol-
lowed by the empires Of the old world.