Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1906-01-04
ODE Great Struggle.
Delivered by Frank l.. Mott in The Con-
test at Simpson College by Which He
Won First Honors and Admission
to The State Contest.

There confront America today greater problems than
any she has solved. She has entered upon strug
gle raught with peril than any through which she
has passed Though she fearless in her fanced
security with the fires of youth in heart and dreams
of conquest filling her mind, she stands gazing into
future around which clouds of gathering face
to face with the greatest danger of her life.
The danger has to with the gold of pros
perty Within the past decade wealth has multiplied
faster than that of any other country under the
America has become the Midas of nations The fertility
of our SOIL the wealth of mines, and the brain of
have turned all that have touched into gold Let
our kings of trade speak, and o there spring every
hand great cities filled with busy workmen But at the
time those kings of trade have become the possess
of more absolute power than the kings of Europe At
their will they raise lower the prices of e's
cessares. The king of England sits upon his throne
leads his retnue about the like old King Lear
IN mockery of power. The king of Spain strives vainy
to weld together his shattered empire. The Car of
all the Russias gathers his guards close about him he
fees from one great white palace to another But
Americas kings of trade rule with iron hand force
strong enough curb their power enemy sturdy enough
to defeat their will
Yet no kind of kingship finds congenial home in
America. There is something in Anglo-Saxon blood
that raises in the spirit of rebellion against any
of absolute Strikes voice the harsh protest of the
laborers and from thousands of homes all the land
come murmurings against those great poenates of bust
ness who adjust prices at their will Up from the
looms of New England up from the mills ofthe South up
from the workshops of the East and the mines the
West, rises cry of oppresson And by that cry, and
by those murmurngs and by that harsh protest of the
strike we know that has passed of its youth
into maturity and that the great struggle of older civ
ilzaon is on-the struggle against the encoachments
of wealth, the rebellion against the tyrannical power of
of hoSc 4 is ifa
which comes inevitably nation grows old and wealthy
Through the years, with steadily increasing danger
been forcing itself upon u.s. until coming to
know it as the greatest struggle America has faced
1t is great in its complexities, for it involves every
phase of social SYSTEM and every field of
activity It's history will be the history country
Labor difficulties, the fight against railroad rebates and
the Investigations of frenzed finance all parts the
same struggle against the abuses of weala struggle
as wide and as deep as the life of the nation Strikes
born of want and treasured wrong often guided by igno
ant hate and stained black by crime have marked it's be-
ginning; what will mark its end none tell The
luton of its problems is engaging the best BRAIN the
broades sympathy the nobest courage in all our nation
How to curb the farreaching power of check
dishonest greed is question which puzzling the mind
of every genuine patriot.
There is not an American in the whole land-be he
rich poor-whose interests are not touched by the
wealth are in the thick of the fight their fortunes are
at stake AT the bar of the peoples Judgment certain
practices of wealth stand condemned If monaires
only had ears to hear that condemnation and the will
heed there might be peace but the niquity selsness
is deep-rooted in all Of u.s. and the sound of the stock
ticker may drown out the voice of a whole people.
But, stirred by hate OF the very rich which years
of real or ncied oppression have produced in the midst
of the conflict showing the depth their feeling in every
strike and boycott the wrechedy poor. They are
engaged in struggle for life. We may overlook their
great army lords of wealth may forget them yet last
night in New York tenement, child born into the
world whose mother had lived life of untold prvation
She had eaten impure food mperfectly cooked she had
slept i'll squaor and filth she had followed the needle
wtheyes which looked through the dim and smoky haze
of New York's daylight, until she fast losing her
sight, health, and all that hers lose And then il
was that this little in the night pierced the thin walls
OF that house of poverty They that the child was
crippled and blind