The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-11-13
WHY DO WE DO IT?

What species Of insanity possesses us wien we vote to give our public franchises into the hands of gang of thugs. whom we know in advance are bent solely upon exploiting us to the last exasperating pitch! < Why don't we take charge ~of our public necessities. and run them so- cialIy for the general good?
 Why should we expect any sym pathy from an intelligent donkey for bringing such disgrace upon the fam- fly?
 E Portland, Maine, has now reduced the water rate on her municipality owned water supply, from $6 to 50 per ,> year-'.Household rate." Why wouldn't it be equally advantageous for them to take over. gas, electric lighting and power plants. the trac- tion and telephone systems. public market; and whatever monopolies are necessary to the welfare of the social body, and administer them in the in terests of all the people. instead of continuing to permit few hyena- minded 'sfinanciers" to s'hog' the ut- most that ''the traffic will bear?'
 Again. for the sake of few dirty dollars, manufacturers will continue to adulterate, food stuffs, and the ne- cessities of life-cheating, sfckening. poisoning and killing their thousands every year. Why wouldn't it be to the advantage of the public, to as- sume charge of the abbatoirs, cold storage plants and food supply; eli- minate the dead rats. decayed horse meat and other trustified delicacies; sell off co1d-stored eggs. butter, fish, and other foods which undergo deteri- orating organic change in a certain time-before that time elapses-at rates which would permit of their purchase by .housekepers not yet in the millionaire class?
 Why wouldn't it be an excellent thing to give man of the Armour. Swift and Cudahy brand, long. steady job, breaking large pieces of. rocks into smaller ones in the inter- ests of the. good roads movement? And incidentally. cut off three sources of an unspeakable injustice to long suffering public?
 Then we could borrow small DOT tion of the intelligence of the Swiss, Germans and French. and attend per- sonally to the preparation of our meat and poultry supplies. and incidentally derive advantage and profit thereby.
 You couldn't imagine a people quite idiotic enough to poison themselves, could you? And if we had the busi- ness in our own hands, we wouldn't feed ourselves decayed meats. or chop ped off fingers, would we?
 If we. wanted smoking tobacco, we wouldn't mix fifty percent or more brown paper in it, would we?
 And if we prefer to wear w6olen garments, instead of, as at present, cheap .shoddy, we wouldn't be such idiots as to re-elect stout smiling gentleman who regards Schedule K'' and it's hideous iniquity and damna- ble highway robbery, as the perfec- tion of tariff legislation.
 But we DO prefer to be robbed, and we DO prefer to wear cheap shoddy, and we DO prefer to be poisoned, by the genial pirates. who smile as fra formally as any hyena, and at the same time twist the garrote on the public's. throat-otherwise we would not vote for continuation of this rotten regime.
 It has come to a pass when poor man can no longer even get drunk with any reasonable peace of mind or definite assurance that he won't wake up in Heaven-or wherever he is ticketed for. An overdose of chor- al. pyrolygenous acid, fusel oil. or some other first aid to the diStill- CTS and brewers is liable to leave him hors du combat, and he will for get to wake up, and enjoy that mo- lasses colored taste, and that Katzen- jammer.
 Oh, yes. we have intelligence enough, but we seldom or never use it. If we did, we wouldn't suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and the insolence of office as we do.
 And we wouldn't-just because he was the greatest President we ever had-from a standpoint of avordu- pois-get on our hind legs and howl with delight at the prospect of his be- ing reelected.
 No, we'd exercise our brains lit- tie. and try and figure out what this