Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1902-10-17
Oh, for a Democratic Hano!

After all his strenuous endeavors
the best President Roosevelt can do
it appears. is to bow his head beneath
the yoke of the coal kings and advise
the striking miners to do likewise.
Since the coal kings will not yield one
inch, he concludes, the men who are
fighting for living wages and the right
to protect themselves should yield
everything. All he can promise is
that II the miners will do this he will
appoint commission to investigate
and report to congress, and will rec.
ommend to congress action along the
lines that may be sugges ted by the
commission.
President Mitchell of the miners
union will not entertain the sugges-
tion. President Mitchell would be a
mighty poor and unworthy president
OF miners union if he did entertain
1T. Fhe suggestion is simply an invi-
tation to fall supinely beneath the
yoke and trust to the republican party
to make the burden less CALLING some
time in the indefinite future.
For q man with republicaniSm bred
In his blood and brain rand bone and
stnew, President Roosevelt is not a
bad man. BE tries, according to his
sights, to honestly discharge the du-
tiles OF his office. But his lights are
very poor and murky. Their smoke
blinds bis eyes to many evils which
should otherwise be plain to him.
They prevent his ordering criminal
proceedings against the criminal
trusts. They make him blind to the
pitiful weakness OF advising, as medi-
ator, that the shorn lamb lie down
defenseless by the side of the baleful
wolf and trust to some good man to
come along and rescue it next year.
There is some poison virus, it ap-
pears, inherent in republieanism, that
compels even the best of republican
officials to cast his influence with the
dollar against the man whenever the
two are In conflict. There is some
thing inherent in the creed that
makes its possegsor look upon the
"rights of property" as more sacred
than the rights of men. lis this in-
herent evil in the creed that has driyy
en- the president Of the United States
to humbly accept the refusal of the
coal kings to compromise, and has led
MIN to suggest to the miners that,
inasmuch as the coal kings will not
compromise, tLey, the miners, must
yield all for which they have been
contendiDg, and "trust to the repuli.
can party"
With what good reason might the
American people congratulate them
selves, just now, if there was real
statesman, q real democrat, in the
White house. Such man would not
tamely permit the heads of the Grim
1nal trusts to rebuke him for having
Invited them to meet with John
Mitchell, Such man would not say
to labor, "Since capital will not yield,
you must"
A genuine democrat, real states
man in the White house would have
summoned his attorney general before
him long ere this. His instructions
would have been brief and explicit.
Enforce the criminal statutes
And the attorney general would
have proceeded, long ago, against the
coal kings and the steel kings and the
oil kings and all the other robber bar
ons that are plundering the people. |
He would have proceeded, not with
civil suit, but under the criminal stat
utes, to send these felons to the peni- |
Tertiary, where the law says they be-
long. And he would have pushed bis
congenial task SO vigorously that,
when the president sum moned these
lawbreakers into his presence, they
would have come humbly and respect
fully, not arrogantly and disdainfully.
They would have come to listen, notI
TO dictate, to honestly weigh and !