The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-09-29

After No,ember. what.

will be decided whether the United States
is to be governed by and in the sole inter
ests of the trusts and monopolies, or
whether President is to be elected who
will Immediately secure an Attorney
General who will obey the laws" and pro-
coed against the said trusts and monopo-
lies. On the sixth of November next the
American people will say whether they
endorse the corruptions and rascalities
OF the Hanna Mckinley regime. with its
defiance of the Constitution, its British
alliance, its attempt to abandon the Mon
roe Doctrine, its antagonism to an Amer
lean inter-oceanic waterway, its surren-
der of American territory TO Great
Britain without a fight, and its deal with
the Empress Dowager, Tuan, and Russia
to place the Chinese torturers and butch
ers in power; or whether they will have
q government again of the people, for the
people and by the people.
Whatever statesmen and politicians
may consider or affect to consider the
paramount issue o. the campaign, 50 far
as the voting masses are concerned they
have settled that matter for themselves;
the Coal Trust has presented to them in
Pennsylvania, although they scarcely
needed Ii, so thoroughly have they
learned to appreciate the growing power
and ultimate designs of the trusts in G n
eral.
However, the strike in the anthracite
region as concrete presentment of labor
conditions where trusts absolutely dom
mate has been worth tons of literature
and thousand orators in educating the
people to a thorough understanding of
their danger from private monopSlies.
Hanna and the trust magnates in oil,
sugar steel, leather, tobacco, rubber,
and rum, may fancy that by forcing the
Coal Trust TO offer partial and temporary
concessions to the anthracite miners.
they will earn the wild gratitude Cf labor
generally. II SO. they are mistaken
lesson once taught is not to be untaught
by a slap on the back or a ten per cent
wage advance, good until after election.
In short. the trust question which the
rapacity and callous inhumanity of the
Coal Trust has forced to the front in this
canvass is not 20 be suppressed or
srnothered, even If every demand of the
striking miners were TO be conceded to-
morrow.
Pennsylvania coal regions are not the
only American areas where hardy toilers
work hopelessiy to keep the wolf from the
cabin door, or perhaps have not even the
poor chance of semi-starvation as con-
trasted with starvation complete. There
is the great gas belt of Indiana, where
plants Of all sorts have been utterly aban-
doned after falling into the hands Of in
dustrial trusts, and where the laboring
population has the choice between death
and emigration. The trust problem is
fully understood by the lccked-out arti-
sans of Indiana.
The common people of this country
know that everything they must buy to
feed or cIothe their families has been en-
HANGED in cost by the trusts. They know,
also, that whatever they produce in the
way Of raw material has it's selling price
fixed by the trusts, and that the wages
earned by Industrial workers OF every de-
scription are merely what the trusts
choose to give. Therefore, they know that
10 perpetuate the control of the trusts
over national legislation is to accept uni
versal economic slavery. Is it conceiya-
bic that they will vote to hang chains
around their necks, TO doom themselves
to the condition OF the Irish peasantry,
and their children to ignorance and the
degradation which hopeless, hungry pow
erty drags in its train?
There should be but one answer to this
question. On the sixth of November the
American people will have a chance
possibly las: chance-to win back their
liberties and opportunities. The election
OF william Jennings Bryan will mean
death blow to the trusts. The election of
William Mckinley viii mean their final
and complete domination over the coun-
try. its productions. industries. property,
and Inhabitants. Which alternative will
the people choose7