Potosi journal. (Potosi, Mo.) 1894-1929, 1909-10-06
Call To Arms Next.


Civil war is an ugly word. l
is something that few people car
to contemplate. All classes shrinl
from il in horror and submit tt
great evils that it may be avoided
vet when one class in a nation per
sists in preying upon another, ciYi
war is sure to follow if some con
sideration is not given to the clas:
preyed upon.
The interests of this country are
widely divergent. One section
produces food, another produces
manufactured articles; still another
produces the raw materials from
which manufactured articles are
made. Under the protective tar
iff each system seeks to obtain an
advantage over the other. the
factory owners along the sand
banks of the Atlantic want finish
ed goods protected and free raw
material.-lndependent.
Despair often leads to despera.
tion. and the Independent seems
about to have lost faith in the ability
of the people to govern themselves
through the ballot-box and feels
that the time for armed revolution
is almost ripe. Here we have
something that. smacks slightly
stronger than a mere hint of sedi-
ton, and the tariff, that we have
had with US off and on for more
than a century, and which the
people have regulated more or less
satisfactorily at various times by
the peaceable means of going to
the polls on election day and turn
ing out Of power the party whose
tariff policy did net happen to
suit. There has been no abrega-
tion of this power from the people
by a plutocracy built and main
tanned upon protected interests.
The tariff question was a live one
in the campaign of 1908. What
ever faults it had in it's bearing up.
on the political economy of the ma
tion were aired from one end of
the country to the other, and the
friends of the tariff took the same
care in presenting their side in as
favorable light as possible. The
result was the Democratic party
got one of the worst defeats in it's
history.
We do not contend that economic
conditions are wholly satisfactory
in this country, there is constant
ly growing danger from the CEN
tralization of the wealth of the ma
ton in the hands of men who
would use it to selfish and unscru.
pulous ends; but these conditions
are, we still believe, remediable by
peaceable means. In fact the rem
edies will meet them as the condi-
tions ripen for a change. Political
changes by armed force is to step
back to barbarism. England has
taken step in advance of the
United States in this direction and
is on the point of throwing the
burden of taxation upon the few
who have the wealth, rather than
upon the great masses who subsist
in poverty; and in England the
will of the people rules, it might
be said quite within the truth,
more effectively than it does in
our own republic. The wealth
and aristocracy of England call
this movement Socialism, they re-
bel against it, but they have lost
the power under popular rule of
forcing their own policies upon
the masses by force of arms, as
they were wont to do in former
times. Sustained by their own
will expressed through the ballot
the people of England are supreme
and will make effective whatever
political policy may suit them.
The same should be said of the
American people. To claim that
they have nothing left but resort
to force of arms is to descend to
means that would chain them to
rather than release them from
political abuses.