The independent. [volume] (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907, 1905-04-06
Under One Banner

political history, even II IL never WINS
another political victory, and it will
live for this reason. When the progress
of invention and science was produc-
ing new economic conditions every
where, when. the old ways and the old
craftsmanship was failing to meet the
wants of mankind, when men saw be-
fore them only anarchy or absolutism,
when degeneration, moral and physi-
cal, was impending and no man point
ed to way of escape, populism point
ed out way, and the only way. Lit
tie by little, the principles OF popullsm
were adopted. First one city and then
another, one state and then another,
some in the east and some in the west,
adopted some of the principles OF pop
ulism. They did it because there was
no other way of salvation. The cities
adopted municipal ownership of city
utilities and the states put into prac-
tice the initiative and referendum. Day
by day the work goes on. The adyo-
cacy of the government ownership OF
railroads spreads with astonishing
rapidity The land question will press
as hard for solution in a few years as
the public ownership of city utilities
does now, and the money question will
some of these days spring into promi-
nence and press upon the public wei
fare with such overwhelming presist-
ency, that it will have to be settled.
In that day the populist monetary prin-
ciples will have to be adopted. Let the
gold mines fall off in production to
any great amount for year or two
and the money question will be on us
again.
In the next few years the whole CIV
ilized world will have to adopt popu-
list principles. There is no other way.
While the populists have certainly
given to the world a theory of govern
ment and the only theory that. is
adopted to modern conditions, they
have not evolved any politician capa-
BILE of marshaling the voters under
it's banner, but such man may appear
at any time. Without any doubt
ninety-nine men out of every hundred
in the United States is populist. In
fact all men are except those who ac-
cumulate wealth by pirating upon the
inhabitants of the nation. Ask any
man if he does not want a money that
every dollar is as good as every other
dollar, and he will say yes. Ask him
if he does not believe that land is the
heritage of all the people and that it
should not be monopolized for the ben
eft of the few and he will say yes.
Ask him if he don't think that the
alien ownership of land should be pro.
hibited and he will say yes. Ask him
| if he does not believe in the public
ownership of everything where compe-
| tition is impossible and he will say
| yes. When and where the master lead
er will appear, who will gather under
one banner this overwhelming major
| ity of the people and get them to vote
| one ticket, we do not know 1t is al
together probable that he will appear.
In every great crisis of man in mod
ern times at the critical moment the
leader did appear, and The Indepen-
dent believes within the next three
| years such a man will loom up and
| be recognized by all who love good
government. He may he some man
hitherto prominent or some one who
has been silent student of the affairs
of men.
But whether such man appears or
not within the populist ranks, one
thing is certain. The world is going to
adopt populist principles, and the men
who gave populism to the world will be
the heroes of the future, just as the
men are still heroes who helped to es-
tahliSh individual liberty in the world