The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-10-22
Class Feeling Due to the Men of
High Estate.
PEOPLE WILLTRIUMPH
Has Confidence in Ascendancy of
Dynamic Democracy.
John Barrett Talks of the Pan
anna Canal.

NIL al ieailu Oh washington, ID. c.,
were the speakers at the Knife and
Fork club banquet last night.
Mr.. Murdoch said in his address on
'sThe Days Work."
THAT there are men in this country
who think that the people are unsafe
is almost unbelievable Yet there are
such men and I am of the opinion
that at the bottom of their belief is
a feeling of their own of class dis
tinction
SO long as our problems were
mainly problems touching the ac-
emulation of wealth. we heard little
of class feeling in America But now
that we have entered a new era. where
our problems concern in part the
methods of the distribution of wealth,
there is an amusing anxiety. in some
quarters. to accuse anyone who at
tacks special privilege Of an attempt
to create a dangerous class feeling.
Glass Feeling.
Let us look into this matter of
class feeling. Who is responsible for
whatever Of it exists?
"On this score there are two major
aspects of American life. One is the
undeniable aspiration to class dis
tfnction of many of those Of high es-
tate. A man may climb the high and
rocky slopes of riches to a fortune;
gain the summit and see beyond,
reckoning and defying him, the
higher peak of social eminence An
other man may scale the perilous cliff
of politics to high station and find,
far out in the empurpled distance, an
other and higher crag, the crag of
social elevation. Now 1t is this crag
that some of the rich and powerful,
from the haOinnipo nF
have tried to make permanent. It re-
mains, however, fugitive ephemeral
and insubstantial. Those who have
tried to make it permanent have never
been successful 1 do not think they
ever will be, but they have never
ceased in their efforts and whatever
of formative class feeling there is in
America today. they have created.
1.-The other major aspect in Amer
lean life is the dynamic democracy of
the multitude. restless, abiding,
progressive patriotism which has no
class feeling and no patience with
those who have.
IT confess I do not understand the
efforts of those who aim at class dis
tinction. I have never grasped the
meaning of the attitude of a high fed
eral judge, one of whose chief con-
Germs in life is an anxiety to get off
the waiting list of an exclusive social
club and into the club. Just as I sup
marvel at the emotions of the people,
just as I suppose Chief Justice fancy,
in his way, could not foresee that the
humble voice of Benjamin Lundy. the
ragged abolition tinker. crying in the
wilderness, would finally reverse and
remand the grave decision of the
court of last resort
And now the army is marching on,
always into q broader. more intimate,
a more direct democracy. It has march
where Jay Gould and Jim Fisk felt it
possible to try to trick president into
absence from Washington, that they
might manipulate a market. 1t has
marched over and away from the day
of the open and the controlled and the
corrupt ballot. 1t is reaching for the
political convention system and is sub
shutting the direct primary. Within its
grasp is perverted representation in
congress in the form of concentrated
power in the speakership. For the day
when a man can go to congress and
surrender himself and his convictions
tc a legislative machine is waning. Con-
stituencies are coming to know that
such a congressman surrenders not only
his power, but theirs. and Cannon and
Cennonisn have passed westward of the
zenith of their power. In its line of
m arch lies fraudulent market manipu-
lation, the industrial combination which
EFFORTS, ard facing its battle front are
IHG
interests naturalization of public SER
vice corporations. and all the practices
of those men who would twist and dis
tort the ideals of American youth by a
show Of success in fraud, trickery, or
the abuse of public privilege.
There are many and great things to
be DONE There are few corners to
be looked into. Publicity will reach most
of them ! am told that in connection
with the manipulation of the weights
L. fT-yIS
was noticed that the employees of the
trust each morning washed off the
docks, wetting down also the platform
of the scales. A little investigation
showed that the tare of the scales was
taken while The platform was wet SO
that the trust would get the benefit
of the difference in weight between a
wet platform and a dry one. One whisk
of the broom of publicity cleaned up
that.
Il know there are those, sometimes of
high estate and sometimes not, who be-
Iieve that the people are unsafe and
that those who voice the passing evils
that the people see are dangerous
pessimists.
But there is only one actual political
pessinist in America-the man who be-
lieves that the people are unsafe. And
the true measure of all political opri,n-
ism in this country is faith in the de-
sires and the designs of the ordinary
folk who make up its citizenry. They
are neither envious nor unjust They
are demanding and demand no equality
except equality of opportunity and
equality before the law. They have no
socialistic attack on property and never
win have. They have no class feeling.
And more than the powerful, the high.
the dominant they have a keen, broad,
true vision of Americas mighty des-
tiny. And no man and no set of men
and no issue and no distortion of issues
can blind them to it. They are not
pessiuists. They are optimists. In
eighty years they have builded enough
railroads to parallel every railroad in
Europe and girdle the earth at tine
equator with what is left. In one hun
bred wears they have added 1000, 600
farms to the nation In forty-five years
since the civil war they have added TO
a+iov, con ono mn nn0 one fo,Jr-f ,,