Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1900-01-31
SOCIALISM IS COMING.
The Silver Question L. . Minor Issue Com
pared with Governments Ownership
of Public Utflftfes.

One of the most striking anamolies
in the game we call politics is the
substitution, by professional spoils
hunters, of secondary and immaterial
issues, which promise party victory,
in the place of primary and vital is
sues upon which the people are ripe
for action.
Thus it is that we find democratic
politicians iterating and re-iterating
that trusts and Imperialism will be
| the leading issues in the coming cam
paign with the silver question as the
third in Importance. Some, indeed.
| relegate silver to the background, as,
| for instance, Mr. Elliott Danforthr
| of New York, who has repeatedly as
serted that sixteen to one would not
be the chief issue in the next presi-
| dental campaign, but that "the DEM
| ocrats would make anti trusts and
anti-imperialism their battle cry"
So far as I am concerned this dis
position of the silver question is fit
| and satisfactory. The money question
in its essence, is banking question,
with interest at it's core and issue and
distribution as it's controlling fac
| tors. Government issue and distri-
| button, direct to the people and at
low rate of interest, cannot be sub
served by silver coinage, which simp-
ly gives to gold and silver miners
jointly, the power now enjoyed by
gold miners alone, of regulating the
volume and value of money by pre-
senting for, or Withholding from,
coinage, the metal of which money is
coined for their private account. I'm
der the present system the govern
ment does not issue any money, but
| simply coins it for those who use it
Legal tender paper money and gov
ernment banks will solve the money
question, so far as it can be solved
under the present system, for so long
as interest rent and profit continue
to make the rich, richer ,and the poor
poorer, it matters but little of what
material money is made.
But, speaking of anamolies, what
shall be said of the three, or four.
millions of populists and socialists in
the United States who are asked,
in the sacred names of liberty and
reform, to join in an aggressive anti
trust campaign, with the end in view
of smashing the trusts and revivify.
ing and entrenching with law, the
dead and decaying competitive sys
tenn. For it must not be forgotten
that the battle flag inscribed "anti
trust" under which the reform, o1
Bryan forces are marshaling for bat
tie, stands for an attempt to arrest
/ 4 ho ~f ..1.
establish the competitive system by
drastic legal enactments.
The people of the United States
are not thinking along these lines
Neither silver coinage, nor trust
smashing are vital questions with the
reform masses. The predominant
issue in the minds of the independent
economic student to-day, is public
ownership and operation of public
utilities. This question divides with
direct legislation the honor of being
the prime issue of the day. AS David
B. Page well says in the Kansas City
Star:
The subject of public ownership is fast
taking hold of the minds Of the people
The inquiry is being propounded: Why
are our public utilities being operated
to the profit of a few and not in the in
terest of all the people. To this inquiry
| there Is but one answer. The people
have not demanded that they shall be SO
operated. Whenever the people shall de-
mand 1t they will be. There is no higher
power than the people in any government
People who do not think are ruled. When
people begin to think they begin to learn
when they begin to learn, they begin to
act and then the change comes.
The people of Kansas City have begun
to think. Not only the people of Kansas
City, but the people of the whole Uni
ted States. The people of the entire earth
are thinking. The result of their think
ing in Kansas City will be public owner
ship and corporations or partisanship
cannot prevent it,
And Gt may be remarked), in San
Francisco, in which city the people,
as result of their thinking, adopted
new charter, public ownership is
to be accomplished through the ini-
tiative and referendum.
And this process of thinking seems
to inevitably lead to the same deduc-
tions and conclusions, no matter
from what premises, or standpoints
the thinker begins his course of rea-
soning. Men who stepped out of the
republican party ranks over the sill.
yer issue are now good populists and
socialists, as, for instance, Wharton
Barker ana Senator Pettigrew. AS
the Kansas Populist tersely says:
"Many of the men who left the re.
publican party in 1896 on the silver
question are now among our most
radical socialists. AS a rule they are
more progressive in the direction OF
public ownership than the men who
have been fighting the republican
party for generation on the finan.
cial issues. Senator Pettigrew, who
walked out of the last national re.
publican convention and has since
been known as "silver republican, .
has just introduced in the senate q
bill providing for the purchase and
operation of all the railroads in
the country by the government"
In the meanwhile the railroad cor.
porations, like all other corporations
are being forced by the natural and
inevitable evolution of competition
to form a vast railroad pool, or trust
And now, simultaneously with the
announcement of the introduction O,
Senator Pettigrew's bill, is published
the following press dispatch:
AS result of the recent consultations
II n