Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1902-07-31

noble ends which marks Its history Of use
fulness and glory? There stands before Us
In arrogant defiance, its natural. dearest
enemy unmistakable. never SO boldly un-
covered, never more fiagrantly 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 1t 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 df 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
thai every laborer and producer of what
ever class of goods or necessaries 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 compels 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 a
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 ound
in the fabulous treasures of the nabobs they
plundered no such riches as have been thus
u~njustly 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 audacity, yet even they
must wonder at the enormities their ccun-
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 a
country could possibly supply such streams
as, cunningly gathered from innumerable
IllIS, HOW pour lulD lHG NdlS VI lANse Ild
Vicious 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.
"The American people, boasting 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
han ever tax collectors for public use
harder masters than a hereditary a~ristoc-
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 it, 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
Ubiquitous exaction.
And the worst of 1t 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, salaried
aCpCllOtAlo ubd hoS lACquCLlly vi Co
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 tha
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 ompass
"A the pace the movement has attained
it can be but few years, if it go unchecked
before substantially the entire range o.
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 b.
called practically company stores anG
all agriculture will be helplessly %ensnared
as it already is to no small extent. Liberty
in the pursuit of livelihood will well-nigf
have disappeared, for with the devices OF
our modern invention it is unnecessary
longer to manacle the condemned with
ball and chain.
''These are not pictures of speech; they
are melancholy facts. Nor do they half tel
the story. This is but a summary sugges
ton of the evil to business life, while tn,
consequences entailed upon all its aspects
as we'll as on our social life and politica
conditions would require volumes to detail
The facts are in sight of the people ever,
day in some shape, but many have seem
ingly become so %habituated to them as t.
inertly suffer without thinking of relief
as they who dwell by swamps accept agut
as a dispensation of Providence.
Democracy n Foe to PaternaIism.
awe have recently heard much discussion
of trusts, learnedly profound, sometimes
with phrases which mean little to the ordi
nary reader, possibly to no other. III
necessity for aggregating wealth to &C
complish great ends is also eXpounded an,
the heresy of socialism denounced. 1t i
all wide of our mark. There is no heartie
%antagonism to socialism and its twin, pa
ternalism, in every form than democratic
principles demand, opposing line by lin,
every doctrine of that false philosophy
The democratic creed affirms not the sur
render but the highest uplifting of individ
uality and of every right of the individual
man, peculiarly his right to hold and en-
Joy all the honest fruits of industry AM
personal achievements.
mo safer foundation for the rights o
property can be laid than the principle
of democracy; none SO safe, in truth, be
cause they are Embedded in right and JUS
tice to all.
In my poRf opinion, no cause more peril
ously tends to the anarchy of socialism
than protection, arraying the mhsse
against those who profit by unjust laws an
inviting social disorder by its iniquities
Let them who would accumulate all tn
business property of the country in fey
hands remember how easily the lands O
the church, the acquisition of centuries
were confiscated in the French revolution
and that, too, before it's days of terror, an
reflect whether those are not the safer law
of property which comport with popula
justice"
The Crow Was Surprised.
paSSapuarC ON cnmo nf tho na1o>uor