Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1902-08-01
rived at the cost of their fellow men,
would rather yield than hold them on such

would rather yield than hold them on such
terms
ance is to come from the rapacious COM
binations now in real control of the coun-
try's affairs. If the abuses of power which
have put to shame our national principles
and traditions, are to find redress the relief
must spring from a party which will unite
the people in defense of the common well
fare, in unflinching hostility to its insid-
ious and powerful enemies.
Democracy Able to Restore Rights.
Cannot the democratic party do this
great thing? Cannot we gain from its
thorough understanding of the rights of
man a clear vision of the true source ard
handspring of these mighty evils which
have become so harmful, so menacing to
our countrymen, and enkindle the noble
love of fierce, uncompromising fight for
noble ends which marks its history of use
fulness and glory? There stands before
in arrogant defiance, its natural, dearest,
enemy, unnistakable, never so boldly I'M
covered never more fagrantly violating the
common right.
Under the false and deceitful name Of
protection to industry there has arisen
such a system of combining devices of
legislation with devices of business man
agement to obtain mastery of the people as
was never before seen in this or any other
land, the iniquity of which it would be
hard to find any parallel for unless in ORR
entail despotisms.
Their fabulous gains have won to the
management of these combinations some
of the ablest minds and the best trained
skill in the American business and legal
world, men capable to draft laws that Will
most cunningly extinguish competition and
pass dominion to their hands, or Off need
be to hoodwink legislators laws that shall
seem to enact one thing and really enact
another and then to so apply them to
the agencies of production and the markets
that every 1aborer and producer of what
ever class of goods or necessarfes they
choose thus to appropriate to their monop-
oily is forced to work within their lines
and on their allowances, while every con-
sumner must pay an unconscious excess
above all cost and fair profit whenever ne
cessity corhpels him to buy.
DingIey Tariff Aids the Rich.
Experience has so refined their skill,
both in adapting legislation and with its
aid, in shaping affairs of business that
diabolical perfection IN its use of congress
was reached by the Dingley tariff enact
ment, but the limit of ingenuity in creating
forms of monopoly enabled by it=for public
plumber seems yet far from being found
Their effectiveness already is astounding
THE ruthless conQuerors of India found
in the fabulous treasures of the nabobs they
plundered no such riches as have been thus
unjustly taken from the producers of this
country until piles of wealth are seen held
in single hands, Won within but few years,
such as in other lands are to be found
only by accumulated inheritance and
growth through many generations. The
craft of these masters has been only out
stripped by their audactty, yet even they
must wonder at the enormities their coun-
trymen will endure and their patience in
the servitude.
Nothing less than the vast productive
ness of our millions of laborers working
upon the rich natural resources of such
country could possibly supply such streams
as, cunningly gathered from innumerable
rills, now pour into the watts of these mar
velous wealth suckers. We have at last
reached a stage in this oppression where
their exactions lie upon almost every ar
ticle of human necessity and comfort.
People Slaves to the Trusts.
1.-THE American people, Boosting indie
pendence which had its root in resistance
to unjust taxation, now find themselves
bound hand and foot in practical slavery
to great confederacies which more ex-
actingly enforce taxation for private gain
than ever tax collectors for public use;
harder masters than hereditary artstoc-
racy. for they at least acknowledge the
maxim of noblesse oblige.
mot a so-caled freeman in our land can
build a house to shelter his wife and chill
dren, cover them with clothing, buy food
for their hunger or Goals to cook 1t, can
procure the very necessaries of life, spar
ing it's comforts or luXuries, but he must
put in extra days of labor to earn this
iniQuitOuS eXactiOn.
And the worst of it is not the money
outrage, gross as that has come to be. Our
entire business, social and political sys-
TENS are through this means, undergoing
a menacing change. Every considerable
town now contains many who are depend
ent for livelihood on the will of the man
ager of some great combination, Saiaried
dependents and not infrequently on ca
PRECIOUS favor, whose Independent bust
ness enterprises have been eXtinguished.
Consumer at Mercy of Iron Terms
I'm many lines of trade the suppression
of competition has become so perfect that
the consumer finds he can no longer ne
gotiate; he must buy on the iron terms de-
creed him or go without. So enriching are
these methods that more objects of need
and use are continually being brought with
in their compass.
AT the pace the movement has attained
it can be but few years, if it go unchecked,
before substantially the entire range of
manufacture, mining. trade and transpor
tation will stand composed of a few mas
tiers and millions of employees, the latter
constrained to trade Only at what may be
called practically company stores and
all agriculture will be helplessly ensnared,
as it already is to no small extent. Liberty
in the pursuit of livelihood will well-nigh
have disappeared, for with the devices of
our modern invention it is unnecessary
longer to manacIe the cOEGe mned with
ball and chain.
''These are not pictures of speech; they
are melancholy facts. Nor Cb they half tell
the story. This is but a summary sugges-
ton of the evil to business life, while the
consequences entaiIed upon all its aspects
as we'll our social life and political
conditions would require volumes to detail.
The facts are in sight of the people every
day in some shape, but many have SEEM
ingly become so habituated to them as to
inertly suffer without thinking of relief.
as they who dwell by swamps accept ague
as a dispensation of Providence.
Democracy a Foe to Paterna1ism.
1--WE have recently heard much discussion
of trusts, Iearnedly profound, sometimes,
with phrases which mean little to the oroi-
nary reader, possibly to no other. The
necessity for aggregating wealth to &C
complish great ends is also expounded and
the heresy of socialism denounced. It Is
all wide of our mark. There is no heartier
antagonism to socialism and its twin, pa