Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1906-02-22
LOGGED.OFF LANDS DAVID G. Phillips
ARRAIGNS The united STATES
SENATE FOR TREASON.
David Graham Phillips in the Co.'S
mOpo1itan Magazine, on "The
Treason of the Senate" The
Final Arbiter of the Sharing OF
Prosperity.

One morning, during the session of the
congress, the senate blundered into a
discussion of two of its minor disreput.
ables, Burton and Mitchell, who had
been caught with their fingers sliding
about in the change p >"ket OF the peopi e.
The discussion on these change. pocket
thieves was a fine exhibition OF "sena.
torial dignity and courtesy" which
means, nowadays, regard for the honor
and dignity of the American people
sn.ugly sacrificed to the senate's craftily
convenient worship Of tie Mumbo jun.
bo mack and mantle of its own high re-.
spectability. In closing the brief debate
over his fellow senators who had been so
unluckily caught, Senator Lodge said:
"There is too much tendency to re.
member the senators, and to forget the
senate"
A profound criticism-profounder far
than was intended, or realized, by the
senator from the "interests" that center
in Massachusetts,.
Let us take Mr.. Lodges hint; let us
disregard the senators as indivdua 8 let
us for the moment remember the sen.
ate."
The treason of the senate!
Politics does not determine prosperity.
But in this day Of concentrations, poll.
tics does determine THE DISTRIBUTION
OF PROSPERITY. Because the people have
neglected politics, have not educated
themselves out OF credulity to flimsily
plausible political lies and liars, because
they will not realize that IT is NOT ENOUGH
TO WORK, 1T is ALSO NECESSARY TO THINK,
they. remain poor, or deprived of their
fair share OF the products, though they
have produced an incredible prosperity.
The people have been careless and un.
wise enough in electing every kind of
public administrator. When it comes to
the election of the senate, how describe
their stupidity, how measure its melan.
choly consequences? The senate is the
most po~erful part OF our public admins.
tration. 1t has vast power in the making
of laws. 1t has still waste power through
its ability to forbid the making of laws
and in it's control over the appoi ntment
of the judges who say what the laws
mean. 1t is, in fact, THE FINAL ARBITER
OE THE Su,ptNc on ppocpCDvry Tho
laws it permits or compels, the laws it
refuses to permit, the interpreters Of laws
it permits to be appointed-these factors
determine whether the gre 1t forces which
modern concentration has produced shall
operate to distribute prosperity equally
or with shameful inequality and cruel
and destructive injustice. The United
States senate is larger factor than your
labor or your intelligence, you average
American, in determining your income.
And the senate is a traitor to you.
The treason of the senate! Treason is
strong word, but not too strong, rather
too weak, to characterize the situation
in which the senate is the eager, re.
sourceful, indefatigable agent of interests
as hostile to the American people as any
invading army could be, and vastly more
dangerous interests that manipulate the
prosperity produced by all, so that it
heaps up riches for the few; interests
whose growth and power can only mean
the degradation of the people, of the
educated into sycophants, OF the masses
toward serfdom.
A man cannot serve two masters. The
senators are not elected by the people !;
they are elected by the interests" A
servant obeys him who can punish and
dismiss. Except in extreme and rare
and negligible instances, can the people
either elect or dismiss senator? The
senator, in the dilemma which the care.
less ignorance of the people thrnsts upon
him, chooses to be comfortable, placed
and honored, and a traitor to oath and
people rather than to be true to his oath
and poor and elected into private life.