The Kalispell bee. [volume] (Kalispell, Mont.) 1900-192?, 1902-09-05

uty Mr. Baer SO ingeuI0usly and
modestIy declares himself to be-
while endowing him with a sharks
appetite and capacity for Selling
things, has mercifully denied him the
sense of humor Thus is he spared
the consciousness of sin when he
blasphemes Indeed, when Mr.. Baer
blasphemes he does so solemnly,
with a warming AMI unlifting feeling
that he is performing a religious rite
and doing a vlrtuous deed. This
blessing is vouchsafed only to those
who in all things except money get
ting are dense beyond the understand
ing of ordinary men.
Not since last February has one of
the pious plutocracy who protect the
rights and interests of laboring men"
and "to whom God in His infinite wis
dom has given the control of the
property interests of the country"
favored a subject people with a speci-
men of unconscious blasphemy at all
approaching in stupendous insolence
THAT of brother Baer.
1t was In February that young Mr.
Rockefeller, heir apparent to the Stan
dard Oil millions, informed the Young
Mems Christian Association of Brown
University that the trusts are Gods
work-that 1t is by the Almighty's
design that small competitors are
killed off in order that a great mo-
nopolv may arise. He scared to flo
very illustration, thus:
"The American beauty rose can be
produced in the splendor and fra
GRANGE which bring cheer to it's be-
holder only by sacrificing the early
buds which grow around it. This is
is merely the working out of law
of nature and a law of God.
There is no real difference between
business and the Christian life.
And the whole history of the Stand
ard Oil monopoly is a history of
crime
Brother Baer, proclaimed by MIN
self an agent sent by God to take
possession of. and care for the prop
erty of the rest of us, though blind
to blasphemy in himself, has doubt
less a hawks eye for detecting a
sacriligious spirit in others.
The coal trust, according to Mr..
Baer, being like that American rose
in tie commercial garden, the Stand
ard Oil trust, a divine institution,
it manlfestly follows that he regards
any meddling with it's sacred opera
tons as an affront to heaven. 1t is
tThIe the coal trust violates those hui
man laws which forbid the railroad
companies that comprise it to engage
in coal mining and to form a com
bine, but the coal trust being of
celestial origin and under the direct
protection of Deity president Baer
vice-regent), what are human laws
to it?
The pious pirate is no new Thing.
Often in the old days the prayerfui
buccaneer in a stormy sea vowed
for a safe deliverance, and to add
a wing or a tower to a church was
not an unheard of act of graf tude
after a voyage in which much booty
had been gathered and many passeng-
ers and seamen on captured galleons
made to walk the plank.
But President Baer and the rela-
tons between a just God and the
thieving trusts must be left to the
pulpit for adequate treatment. Only
the pulpit can deal with blasphemy
so Grass and horrible as it ought to
be dealt with, without seeming to be
as blasphemous as Baer himself, and
all the privileges and immunities of
the sacred desk will be needed for
task which no layman may under
take who would not sin against rever-
ence even in appearance.
1.-THE Lord God omnipotent still
reigns," exclaims the amazing Baer
of the coal trust, "and his reign is
one of law and order, and not of VIC
lence and crime"
And still stands the commandment,
delivered through Moses on awful
Sinai to all men:
"Thou shalt not steal"
S. F. Examiner.