The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-01-24
A CRY FOR JUSTICE.
That Is What William Allen White
Calls Present Economical Agitation.

Kansas City, Jan. Civilian Allen
White, of Kansas, the author and editor
of the EmpOria Gazette; Miss Ida NJ.
Tarbel of New York, and Professor
Martin G. Brumbaugh of the UniVer-
sity of Pennsylvania were the guests
of honor here and delivered addresses
at the monthly dinner Of the Knife and
Fork club. Miss Tarbell spoke on
"Commedcial MachiaveIism, dealing
with Standard Oil and other subjects.
Mr. White made a characteristic talk
on Present Social and Political Move
ment,' and said:
To those who believe in the divine
autocracy of wealth this must seem
strange mad world. 1t was but yester-
day that two presidential campaigns
were fought and won defending the issue
that the rights of capital were sacred;
only yesterday millions poured into the
treasury of a great political party,
WhereupOn torches fiared. bands blared
and men marched hurrahing for sound
money. and today, without the bellows
of political machinery to blow the fire
the whole nation is agloW in the demand
for clean money. No one seems to know
how the conf1agration started. Some
men say that young Mr.. Hyde of the
Equitable threw his lighted cigarette
stub into the powder magazine; others
say that Tom Lawson did it with his
dynamite; still others contend that
Theodore Roosevelt set the praries afire
with his burning zeal for righteousness
Beyond Control.
But no matter who kicked over the
lantern. the fire is beyond control. The
fight for the recognition of the partner
ship of society is started, and honest
citizens both rich and poor, are enlisted
against the Abimelech of aggrandized
capital which has set itself up as
prince of Israel, and no matter who be-
gan it, at the close of this contest we
shall hear Abimelech say to his armor
Icfn IA
hit his head and broken it: Draw thy
sword and kill me that men may not
say a woman slew me Without Tor
a moment desiring to be captious; with
out wishing to make any unpleasant
comparison, one is constrained TO Won
der if Abimelech did not pick out Mr..
H. H Rogers as his deadly armor
bearer and to wonder further If the
sarcasm which he hourished a Mis-
sOuris attorney may not be the blade
of which Abimeleeh shall die.
This partnership of society in civil
lization for which we are striving Is a
demand not for confiscation but for
Justice. The laws of this land which
all the people made, have been IN
struments by which all the wealth of
this country has been accumulated
In so much as all the people have had
a voice in the passage OF these laws,
in so much have all the people a part
nership right in the amasSed wealth
which has accumulated as the result
of those laws; and while the people
are not demanding a division OF the
wealth, they are demanding pretty
vigorously that the custOdians of that
wealth cease using it in its great mass
to acquire power in the government.
Wants Square Deal.
For a generation the laws we have
passed in America have concerned
chiefly the production of wealth. We
have thrown every safeguard around
the producer. We have made every
exemption possible to those who were
accommodating capital. Now we have
come to the point where we are ready
to make laws which shall guarantee
to citizens an equitable distribution of
the common wealth. We are not
clamoring for an equal division. The
differences in men are insuFmOunta BILE.
We are not demanding that the man
with ten talents shall give nine of
them to the man with one talent. But
we are demanding in all earnestness
that the man with ten talents shall
not use the laws OF this country to
legalize his robbery of the man with
one talent
A few weeks ago the business men of
the state of Kansas held q meeting at
Wichita to discuss some plan for secur-
ing more equitable railroad rates in our
state. Those who see things through
corporation glasses are inclined to sneer
at the Wichita meeting. They like to
recall the days of Populism and to draw
That there is some parallel between
POpulism and the present movement
for equality before the law and for the
abolition of special privileges in COM
merce, is of course true. But there is
Just as much of parallel as there was
truth in the Populist contention. That
the Populists had the germ of q great
truth which the country was not ready
to accept is undenia Bile. The exposure
in life insurance, and the revelations be
fore the grand jury III the recent beef
trust Indictment, and the testimony be-
fore the railroad commission in the mat
ter of railroad rebates and private car
rnonopolies. prove that the POpulist
charge that the people were being un-
fairly treated bv the holders of special
privileges. is true. But the POpulists
were wrong in this. The basis of their
hatred of the rich. 1t was a tearing
down movement. And it failed because
it preached not merely equality before
the law but tacitIy demanded that there
should be an equality of the enjoyment
of the things of this life-despite the
fact that the INEQUALITIES of men viii
forever prevent this.
Rogers and His Glass.
Mr. H. H Rogers, for instance, even
though he We're made to obey the law,
would still have more money, would en-
foy more luxury and would be a bigger
figure in the world than the average
country merchant. But what the pres
ent movement demands is not that MT.
Rogers and the owner Of the corner
peanut stand be put on an industrial
level but that Mr.. Rogers be made to
respect the law, and that the absurdly
disproportionate difference between him
anu the peanut vender be removed, in
so far as that difference is the result
of Rogers enjoyment of legal privileges
and fmmunities which the peanut man