Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1908-11-05
FOOLS AND PROTECTION
Continued from Page p

laying SOlld foundation 1or all man
ner of chronic diseases, and all be-
cause some irresponsible quack has
advertised the stuff 10 cure dozen
or more widely differing ailments.
AS l have before intimated, gentle
reader, | was fool, and the other
man was another; and so are you,
every time you put a dose of pro-
prie;ary medicine into your much
abused stomach.
Now, l consider myself to be
possessed of an average amount of
horse sense, but leave it to you,
kind friends, if l did not need the
intervention of paternalistic form
of government to protect me from
myself, by making it impossible for
the murderous quacks who invented
the Kargon scheme to place the T
nostrum before the public.
And you who have children must
agree that if your family Is to be
poisoned by patent medicine doses,
dealt out with the best of intentions
and with damnable regularity.
Yours and every family in the U. S.
needs the same kind of protection.
And does not the future existence
of the American people depend upon
being thus protected?
Now if you will have the patience
to bear with me little longer l will
speak of another case which is just
the same, only different.
A great many years ago when l
was young man "a little more than
seven) l was passinga factory build
ing in Sterling, Ill.,, when big man
shouted at me from the doorway,
and said "Come here young Teller,
don't you want chance to rise in
life? We are just starting new
factory here and if you want to be-
gin as roust- about you will be ad-
vanced as fast as you show yourself
capable" And then followed all
the stereotyped advice to young
man which the world has used every
since the present industrial system,
was evolved.
1 took the job, expecting, like
good bread, to rise rapidly. l de-
veloped a great capacity for moving
things, and lots of muscle after a
long time he asked me if l did not
want to try and run a machine. l
did, and ran the machine success
fully. Then l was offered the posi-
ton of running this machine at
slight increase in my wages but
which was great reduction in the
wages of the man who was running
it at that time. did not get the
Job, because the man came to those
terms himself.
Thus you see by being an ambl
tious energetic and capable young
man 1 had very materially assisted
the company in robbing skilled
workman of goodly chunk of his
we'll earned pay.
Shortly afterward l was fred.
They id not want me any how but
they did want the wages reduced
and l knew too much after one job,
so I was kindly invited to find other
employment, and fresh young man
called in. Now when we have had
spread before US in the pages of
he Saturday Evening Post,
"Colliers," "Ladies Home Journal"
and many magazines that the wages
in every line have been reduced be
low a reasonable point, and often 20
the point of starvation by these and
similar methods, | ask you If l did
not need the intervention of a very
paternalistic form of government to
protect me from my own foolishDess,
and did not the married man who
ran the machine need to be protected
from my foolishness? And does not
the millions of starving workingmen
in the eastern f. ctories need proteC-
| ton from the diabolical ability of
the captions of finance to scheme
them out of every bit of surplus they
can earn?