The Lafayette gazette. [volume] (Lafayette, La.) 1893-1921, 1903-01-24
as.,..--ss---
Harlequin on Existing
Conditions

CCnCltlOOS.
VIII, can ask, where is to-day the greatest
power in these United States? In the peo-
pie; in Washington: in office in Wall
street?
Is there not, housed beneath the dome of
one Wall street think-,auk, more power
than beneath the dome of the Capitol?
Cannot purpose, lodged in that one
skull, DO more prevent more than the
national ow wow of all the chiefs assembled
in Washington? ......
OF course. in reality. power resides alone
a, its source of production.
The power of the engine is in the boiler.
1t is but transferred to cylinder. Cut the
connecting piping: the piston rcd is power
less, the boiler as before.
The power resides really in the millions
who toiling away. o
Eut what tremendous conduit of energy
quietly hcs been built from the myriad
creative unit shurces of energy to the great
central manipulation of il.
Almost, if not quite. hfty millions of pep
pie are telling away daily in this country of
linlj!Iess wealth AMI natural advantage, in
innumerabie kinds Of productivity. but 10
transfer the total expression of this
energy TO the foremost manipulation among
them and equip him with the power of it.
Is this not absolutely Il Statement OF fact?
And, if it be, is the condition normal
natural?
And If It be abnormal, considering that
the tendency of ali ahn"rna,ics is to in
crease, how long can i, endure and what
Will he the process of its dissolution?
The world has lived and Experimental
long enough to know one thing clearly:
All human power is dangerous which is
just. However fair anci even necessary to
outward show at first, unj just powers harm
and is hurt grows p-op"r,ionately to its
growth he king at first was the hest-lovcd
best man on his li,tlc tribe; ami his king
ship, the natural ou;srow;h of the necessity
10 b.: led. Yet in the process OF the cvou-
lion ii bred the classes, the arrogant and
idle robher nob!eman and the peasant and
the serf-the man who was natura! heir to
the earth and The who lived Ivy suffer
ance of the earth owners.
W.;h"u; doubt tie gigantic strides the
world hes taken in material Accomplishments
even in the very latest years could motor
rather would not have been recorded had it
net been for the creation IF such fictions as
c"Tpo: aiip.2S: whose necessity to-day is SO
absolute that ingenuity cauno, suggest a
>u!'s';'utI without the most radical revolt
ton. Vet by these very tist;oas i, ce:m:s
about tn 1t ttl8 sum total expression of the
energy Of millions, of and women j.; AT
The bidding Of few--orc might almost say
Cow, Of one man in a vas; Continent.
The kings (nhn in time grew into tyranny,
although they started from the best be loved
best many the kings, the m:ghtiest of them,
Of yore and nov. and are but ,insel-
kings by comparison with the realities of
power Of our financial kings. And by law
which is working on: remorSclessly did
the prototype viii ch afforded the nobility
and the favored who came to cluster around
The king of blood. the kingsh:p is bul:!-
ing up following. Its tide is Ut as stable;
lis reality can he !ojt by one stroke of adj
verse Fortune, but is its flavor quite de
strnycl?
I, is 20 he doubted whether the tyranny of
anc'snt kings, whom history mentions, was
recognized At all in the days in which they
lived whether the style of '';yranny' has
rot Ecen conferred iy the mere enlightened
mind Of Retrospective history. Is it reason
able to believe, for instance, that thu vast
masses Of the shvsr;ns Nrrih attribute their
sU'ierngs to the rapac:iy, selfshncss and
injustice OF the controlling modern kings?
If Cor m"mcEt they clearly did, what
would becorne to the kings? What would
have become "t III: king-tyranls OF oh had