The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1908-10-16
THE WASHINGTON GRANGE.
Declares for Legislative Reforms in Plain
Language

Consciously or unconsciously, every
person has some controlling motive,
some supreme ambition.
My highest ambition is to assist in
fastening the day when the people oil
Washington will directly manage their
own affairs. I am weary of the pater-
nalism" of monopolies which manage
our legislatures, govern our executives
and own our courts.
Now that we have become men and
our boards are grown it is time to put
aside the gentle hand of Big Business,
and ourselves begin to exercise what
few inalienable rights our longtime
guardians have not appropriated.
A normal community is living body.
When a brier pierces your flesh, the
whole body comes to the rescue-hand,
eye, brain. All are instant servants to
the injured member. So an injustice to
the lowliest injured social member
should produce a social CONFUSION.
Without regard to personal consequent
ces, every member Of our social organ
ism should spring to the relief and
defense of the member in need. This
feeling of social unity is the very es-
sence Of patriotism-the life-blood of a
nation. When this spirit is lacking, a
neighborhood or a nation is merely a
lifeless body, dead carcass waiting to
be devoured by carbon crows.
How is it with you, brother? Do
your pulses throb when you see mother
hood degraded to the position Of beast
of burden in order that luxury may be
adorned in silks2 Do you make any
PRACTICAL protest when childhood
is torn from the school room and the
playground to earn, by dwaring toll,
coarse food and scanty clothing2 Even
the wild beasts defend their kind; but
did you do anything when you read
that on the day when the steel trust
declared a dividend of Is per cent.
there were $4,000 men out Of work in
Chicago-the hungry fathers Of hungry
babies?
Perhaps public opinion is merely
asleep and not dead, though it seems
the thunderclap Of the late panic should
have disturbed any ordinary slumber.
If we are ever to have a dominant,
compelling, public opinion, we
must devise means whereby it may
DIRECTLY express itself; not through
devious and labyrinthian ways, but
DIRECTLY, as the ball from the can
non. In government, as in business,
we must abolish middlemen.
Commissions should either be made
elective or be abolished. An appoin-
tive commission is the delight of the
machine politician.
Some time we may persuade angels
to come down from Heaven and act as
judges, but so long as we need to select
our judges from the ranks of corpora
ton attorneys, they should be elective,
for a short term, their decision liable
to referendum and themselves to recall.
DIRECT, that is the word. Don't for
get it. DIRECT.
Direct legislation; the direct pri-
mary; the Australian ballot; civil ser
vice reform; recall; removal from Office
for violation OF a campaign pledge;
township organization; direct taxation.
Direct. Remember the word.
Public opinion exists only where it
can act directly.
The machine politician prefers the
quiet of a back room (either bank or
saloon); but public opinion lives only
on the street. Like all primeval, ele-
mental passions, public opinion knows
no fear; can be seduced by no bribe.
One of the chief missions of the
Grange is to create, educate and en-
force public opinion.