The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1904-11-02

pace OF Cne ueeO IL Will give you an
equal share in the enterprises that are
making our millionaires billionaires.
1 want to say to you today men and
women that our liberties are being cut
off one by one and in some cases by
punches and groups at time by the
class conscious, wide awake, scheming,
owning, ruling business class and most
Of us are asleep and don't realize what a
condition of slavery we are being forced
into. Already eight Southern states
have enacted laws making it necessary
for man to own $500 worth of listed
taxable property before he can vote and
two thirds of the citizens of those states
have thereby been disfranchised. And
that's all right too, under capitalism
and nothing could be more reasonable
under private ownership than that those
who own these United States should
rule them. Rockefeller alone is by the
grace OF the working peoples ballots
buying up these United States at the
rate of between one and two hundred
millions annually. There aren't very
many hundreds Of millions of wealth in
the United States comparatively speak
ing. and it won't be long before Rookie
Teller owns it all. Every time he buys
a mine he begins to rule that mine and
that's right everytime he invests 3D.
600 in railroad or factory stock he has
ten votes in the management, the ruling
of that stock and that's right too. That's
what ownership means if it means any
thing-the right to rule and to manage.
Well when Rockefeller owns the
nation and that won't be long if the
working people continue to vote the old
party tickets-he, of right ought to have
the privilege of ruling it and he will no
doubt use it, Suppose you hire me to
work on your farm and am to board
and lodge myself. I rent few square
feet of land on your farm at set price
and build my shack on it and 90 to work
for you. Then suppose l claim right
to place to stay always on that farm
you can evict me when you get through
with me. That's your farm. and sup
pose claim an equal voice with you in
deciding when the wheat shall be sown
and how it shall be put in and whether
the ground shall be fall or spring plowed
and whether the horses shall be fed hay
alone or hay and oats or grass and some
other kind of grain, etc. You'd think
me rather presumptuous sort of hired
man, wouldn't you? those horses are
yours that farm is yours and owner
ship gives you the right to rule and any
time can't endure it can steploff from
your earth, can't l? Well il that is all
right on piece of the United States
why isn't it right as to the whole Of it.?
Where can you draw the line? Nowhere
so long as you vote for private owner
ship. Ifyou want voice and vote in
the ruling of this United States, you'll
have to own your share of it, and you
have no right to rule what someone else
owns. Better wake up, hadn't you?
That dark specture of disfranchise-
ment is moving north and if you Repub-
licans and Democrats don't dig the
scales out of your eyes and let a little
light into your hoodwinked brains before
long you and we will be ruled by an
autocrat and the Republic will be thing
of the past. believe you have delayed
too long already. despair of any peace
full settlement of our labor troubles.
Thare was time when votes counted
when cast as majority but votes don't
cutany figure at all now.
In Colorado the working people had
elected men to peace Offices who were in
sympathy with the laboring class but
when the time came that Rockefeller and
his gang, the Citizens Alliance and Mine
Owners Association, needed men of a
different stamp in those officers, those
who had been duly elected and had