The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-07-27

can't die without being buried in a
! trust coffin. I've been slashing around
on earth for sixty-foIr years, and
/ can't remember a time when it came
! harder on human nature to be honest
It's a pretty hard thing for one man
| to buckle down and saw wood at
sixty cents a cord when another is
| making twenty dollars a day by
financing" While farmer Reube is
grubbing out a bare living in his fields
/ the constable his vote helped to elect
is making fifteen dollars a day by per-
hitting autos to speed at a higher
| limit than the law says.
Nevertheless. my son. my advice to
! you is to hang on to yourself. Don't
be carried away by the fnanciering
excitement. If the man who was
called a robber five years ago is re-
ferred to as a CRATER" today. another
five years may change things back
AS q people we get streaks on. We
seem to go to the devil for few years
and forget that there is such a thing
as integrity. and then we haul up
short and begin to fill the states pris-
ons with shining lights There are
signs in the air that a change is com
! ing When it comes the judge who is
| holding stock in a trust-the 5uryman
who has been taking bribes-the
/ banker who has been faith1ess to his
trust. and the congressman who has
sold his influence to a corporation are
going to have a hard time getting
away TO South America, and the mos
quitoes viii bother them after they get
there.
You can't make any permanent
change in a civilized race. It will be
honest about so long and dishonest
about so long. 1t will have a con-
science and admire integrity for a few
| years and then every man will seem to
/ feel licensed to rob every other man s
! hen-roost Today we would admire the
3 lee V,~f- 49, x.,
sene oil to forty cents a gallon and
make ten million dollars in a week: a
| year hence he'd go to prison in spite of
ali the lawyers in the land.
There was just another such graft
ing era when Uncle Jerry was sent to
/ the legislature. He saw other mein
selling their votes and he didn't sit
| down and figure that 1t was only a
I spasn. He decided that it was going
to be a permanent thing, and that the
people had made up their minds to be
grated on for all time to come. Uncle
Jerry got five hundred dollars for his
vote and went home and painted his
house and barn q beautiful yellow. The
paint was hardly dry when a spasm Of
virtue came along and Uncle Jerry had
to hand that yellow house and barn
ovex to the lawyers to keep himself out
OF state prison
Just now We are permitting the trusts
to rob the dead and the living. We are
kicking on the one hand and buying
their stock SO as to reap the big divi-
dends on the other. When these trusts
can defy the highest courts in the land
and squeeze the people a little harder
every day. it looks like a sure and last
ing thing. Don't count on It, my boy
The people viii get up on their hind legs
some day and begin to howl, and before
they are through there will be a new
deal all around.
The real rules of any country are
the workers When the farmer and
the mechanic have been sat on about
so long they will begin to squirm- Their
!, is the time for the CRATER" to take z
European trip. The souirming VII