Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1914-05-18
ONE MANS OPINION.
(By r. F. Panel


in Michigan, West Virginia and Colo
rado. western editor says:
There is remedy very simple
remedy.
Recognize the combatants in the
industrial war. Give them equal
rights and let them fight it out.
when mine owners, for example,
are permitted to maintain private
armies of gunmen to protect their
property, let the miners have full
right to arm themselves to protect
their own lives.
why temporize? Why beat about
the bush? Why not frankly admit
that the Industrial war is actual war,
and grant to the other side the same
belligerent rights we all know the
one side now exercises without him
drance?"
In short, this editor asks, why not
a community civil war every time
there is a serious disagreement in the
industrial world? Young Rockefeller
give sa pretty fair answer when he
says that these Colorado men are
fighting their own government.
1t is indisputable that the people
should have the kind of government
that they choose. If the people of
Colorado, for instance, want a cow
ardly, brutal and impotent govern
ment, such as they have, they should
have it. 1t is their own government
and they can change it to suit them
selves 1t is their own fault if they
don't provide for themselves some
thing better. Republican form of
government is based wholly and sole
ly upon consent of the governed To
depart from that basic principle
means nothing less than anarchy or
monarchy.
But let us pass this feature by, and
suppose that the miners in West Vir-
ginia, Michigan and Colorado had
been permitted to arm themselves
and kill as many of the opposition as
they could. 1t would be civil war,
which the federal government would
be bound to put down, and, so sure
as war means money, money,
money" as the greatest warrior in
history put it, the hundreds of mil
lions of the Rockefellers would win.
The miners of Colorado have resort
ed to arms. They have instituted
actual war. What have they gained
For every enemy slain, the Rookie
feller have hired ten others. Every
rifle that the miners have got hold
of has been matched by Rockefeller
| rapid-fire gun. Have the miners
been violent? Look at the mutiated
corpses of those women and children
at Ludlow, victims of the servants OF
Rockefeller gold.
We hear that the conflict is Oh
between men and dollars. Is oul
power of self-government so ficti.
tious, our civilization so rotten, oul
Christianity so barbarous, that he can
only settle the issue between a man
and dollar by cutting each others
throats?
Who is it that permit mine owners
to maintain private armies of gun.
men who slaughter inoffensive as
well as offensive workmen and burn
women and children in their homes
The people. Is it our only remely to
equip another part of the people to
shoot and burn?
! Is il really Rockefeller greed
which is natural and rather universal
that is responsible for such condi.
tions as that in Colorado. or is it the
political ignorance and recklessness
of the populace, which popuace it is
proposed to permit to settle its differ
ences by civil war?
All men must despise the cowardly
and senile government of Colorado
and abhor the brutalities perpetrated
over there in the name of that miser.
able hypocrisy, law and order, but
must we not all finally get back to
the fact that what the people ovel
there suffer is suffered al the hands
! of their own goyernment9