The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1902-08-12
THIS GRAND COUNTRY OF OURS.
An appeal to the Filipinos /:


you are missing by not wanting
to become citizens of this grand
country of ours. There isn't
anything like it under the sun.
You ought to send a delegation
over to see us-the land of the
free-land of fine churches and
10000 licensed saloons; Bibles,
forts and guns, houses of prosti-
tuition, millionaires and paupers;
theologians and thieves; liberal
lists and liars; politicians and
poverty; Christians and chain
gangs; schools and scalawags;
trusts and tramps; money and
misery; homes and hunger; vir-
tue and vice; land where you
can get good Bible for fifteen
cents or a bad drink of whiskey
for five cents; where we have a
man in Congress with three wives
and a lot in the penitentiary for
having two wives; where some
men make sausage out of their
wives and some want to eat them
raw; where we can make bologna
out of dogs, canned beef out of
horses and sick cows, and corp
ses out of the people who eat it;
where we put man in Jail for
not having the means of support
and on the rock pile for askin g
for job of work; where we
license bawdy houses and fine
men for preaching Christ on the
street corners; where we have a
Congress of 400 men to make
laws and Supreme Court of
nine men to set them aside;
where good whiskey makes bad
men and bad men make good
whiskey; where newspapers are
paid for suppressing the truth
and made rich for teaching a lie;
where professors draw their
convictions from the same place
they do their salaries; where
preachers are paid 500, 900 a year
to dodge the devil and tickle the
ears of the wealthy; where busi-
ness consists of getting hold of
property in any way that won't
land you in the penitentiary;
where trusts ''hold up'' and pow
erty "holds down." where the
Assessor places a fair valuation
upon the property of the rich
and the Board cuts the valuation
down to almost nothing; where
men vote for what they do not
want for fear they won't get
what they do want by voting for
it; where "niggers" can vote and
in most States women can f;
where girl who goes wrong is
made an outcast and her male
traducer flourishes as a gentle
man; where women wear false
hair and men ''dock" their hors-
es' tails; where the political wire
puller has displaced the patriotic
statesman; where men vote for a
thing one day and "cuss" it 364
days; where we have prayers on
the floor of the National Capitol
and whiskey in the cellar; where
we spend $500 to bury a states
man who is rich and so to put
away a workingman who is poor;
where to be virtuous is to be
lonesome and to be honest is to
be crank; where we sit on the
safety valve of energy and pull
wide open the throttle of consci-
ence; where gold is substance
the only thing sought for; where
we pay SIS, 600 for a dog and
fifteen cents a dozen to a poor
woman for making shirts; where
we teach the untutored Indian
eternal life from the Bible and
kill him off with bad whiskey;
where we put a man in Jail for
stealing a loaf of bread and in
Congress for robbing a bank
where the check book talks, sin
walks in broad day light, justice
is asleep, crime runs amuck, cor
ruption permeates our whole
social and political fabric, and
the devil laughs from every
street corner. Come to us, Files
We've got the aggregation OF
good things and bad things, hot
things and cold things, all sizes
varieties and colors, ever exhib.
tied under one tent.