The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1902-03-18

not political; but if it should once be-
come firmly fastened upon US, it will be
more difficult to unhorse than any politi
cal despotism that ever bestrode the
necks of men. For years it has been
entrenching itself behind the doctrines
of vested rights, that salutary principle
of our law so dear to the Anglo-Saxon
race, and any attempt to overthrow it is
easily made to seem raid upon the
foundations of society. Let us, however,
not be confused. 1t is not legitimate
commerce, nor the accumulation of
wealth in ITSELF which constitutes this
threatened danger.
But it is wealth accumulated and ag-
gregated for the sake of power, which
stands as threatening menace to the
liberty and freedom of man; the lust
for power, unlimited, arbitrary power,
the same enemy man in his struggle for
liberty has ever had to face. The con.
flict is not between capital and labor,
between the rich and the poor, but it is
the same cid conflict between freedom
and oppression, between liberty and
tyranny, between democracy and auto
cracy. By the charter of our liberties
all political power is reposed in those
over whom it is exercised. 1t may no
more safely be entrusted to corpora
ton than to a king. Whatever power
gains absolute control over those utili-
ties which are mans prime necessities
under the circumstances of the age in
which he lives, becomes his master. In
area the United States is an enormous
empire; under the needs and require
ments of modern commerce, its remot-
est parts are brought near together by a
system of transportation that is the
browning work of mans genius, and the
management and conducting of this sys-
tenn is the greatest industry which COM
mands his energies. Under present
conditions this transportation system is
as much necessity as food or raiment.
Eliminate it, and man drops at once to
primitive conditions which would pre-
sage further retrogression. The trans
portation business stands, therefore, first
and at the head of the great utilities.
Commercially speaking, the present
has sometimes been called the ''iron
age certain it is that, except for the
use of this metal in its multiform varie-
ties, the electric progress OF the present
must slacken to the movement of the
fifteenth century buildings now erected
in few months would require years for
their construction; but for its use the
business now done in day could scarce
be done in decade, if at all. Prohibit
man the use of iron and he could live,
but it would be as the savage lives /;
commerce, progress civilization would
no longer be his part. Standing, then,
second among these utilities is the pro-
duction and manufacture OF iron in all
its forms. Give one man absolute con-
troll of these two great industries, the
transportation business and the iron
business OF the United States, and he
can, by the peaceful revolution, trans
form this splendid republic into the most
absolute despotism that ever fourished
upon the face OF the earth. The men
who make your laws will be his men.
The men who administer these laws will
be his men. The men who collect your
taxes and the men who spend the rev.
enues, all will be men of his selecting,
and the splendid heritage of American