Newspaper Page Text
as were never before reaped in legit
imate industry. We have made it
possible for one man to amass rich
es until his wealth is greater than
that of King Solomon. We have been
blindly voting to support a system
which enables the poorest section of
the union to become the richest, while
the richest section in natural wealth
has become the poorest.
“We have gone like fools to the
polls and held up with our ballots a
system which gives the one privil
eged corporation—the Steel Trust—
greater net profits than can be earned
by ten million workers on five mil
lion farms.
“We have reeled in political drun
kenness as we followed leaders who
made us vote for a system which
gives to the privileged few, engaged
in manufacturing, net profits, every
year, of 6 per cent on the invest
ment, and two billion dollars be
sides; whereas the ten million work
ers in agricultural pursuits have
made no net profit at all.
“This, and more of the same sort,
is disclosed by the government itself
in its statistical abstract. What are
you going to do about it?
Farmers Should Take Lead.
“You, whose year-round toil pro
duces the food and raiment of the
world, live within a few days of des
titution, and your children are often
clad in tattered rags. You, who real
ly produce the wealth of the union,
are allowed to have enough to live
on, and that’s all. You haven’t got
any surplus. Many of you are in
debt. You can’t school your children
as you want to do. Your wives and
daughters live harder lives than they
ought to live, and they are broken
in health and beauty at an age when
they ought to be’ in their prime.
There is the pinch of poverty in yor.r
homes, when there ought to be com
fort and plenty. God never meant
that a few should grind, oppress ard
plunder the many. Nature has no
such law anywhere in all the myriad
leaves of her great book. Such laws
are made by men—men who are
grasping and cruel, men who have
no proper sense of justice, men whose
selfishness knows no rule of right,
men whose god is gold, men who
would trample the light out of a mil
lion cottages to illuminate some New
port or New York palace.
“But what about you?
“Who shall be able to sum up in
words the immensity of your own
folly? You are the men who are to
blame for the fix in which you find
yourselves. You are the men whose
ballots did the business.
“Who killed Cock Robin? Who
slew your prosperity? You did it.
You did it by your fanatical devo
tion to party names; your blind ad
herence to sectional prejudices, your
refusal to use your own eyes to see
actual facts, your boundless credul
ity in believing all that the political
leaders told you.
“Do you tell me that you can’t
price raw cotton when you sell, nor
manufactured cotton when you buy?
“My answer is, ‘Nobody’s .to
blame but you.’
“When I was at school I soon
learned that if I didn’t want every
blessed boy in the bunch to run over
me I had to do some fighting. Each
of you had the same experience, I
guess. What is true of the individ
ual is true of the class. A man who
is too weak to stand up for his own
rights is not permitted to have any.
A class that is so unwise as to let
every other class exploit it will go
hungry and naked into a permanent
hopeless degradation.
Organization Imperative.
“To advance their class interest,
capitalists throughout the world are
organized, and whenever the thing
which organized capital wants is in
politics, organized capital goes into
politics after it.
“To advance the class interest, la
bor throughout the world is organ
ized, and whenever the thing which
labor wants is in politics, labor goes
into politics after it.
“The federal government could
never bring itself to see the eight
hour law, which I hoped to pass in
1392, until Samuel Gompers, the
pure, able, patriotic leader, went right
into politics with the matter.
“Then Uncle Sam saw the law
mighty plainly, and went to enforc
ing it.
“Along the lines of class interest
*he agricultural millions have never
been fully organized, and the conse
quences are that the agricultural class
is the beast of burden for all the oth
ers.
“What better slaves could the ex
ploiters of labor want than the agri
cultural workers are? You men of
the farms—do you not produce
larger crops of cotton and corn than
your slave niggers ever did?
“And you don’t get much more.out
of it than the niggers got. You, a*,
a class, work for your victuals and
clothes. And when you fall sic’-,
those who exploit you don’t eve i
have to send the doctor to you, as
you sent one to the sick nigger.
“Modern commercialism neither
takes care of its wounded nor buries
its dead. ‘No quarter’ is its terri
ble watchword, and besides its year’;
piles of slaughtered men, women and
children the bloody harvest of Get
tysburg seems insignificant. And you
are to blame for it.
“You could have voted for good
laws, instead of bad; good men, in
stead of bad; prudent, economical
administration, instead of the mad
dest extravagance and waste in na
tional and state affairs.
“B t you are going to do better
in the future. God grant it! You
couldn’t do much worse if you tried.
“Well, what are you going to do?
Organize, build warehouses, estab
lish newspapers, send out speakers,
fix the price of what we sell and so
forth.
“All of that sounds well. But.
look here! Suppose while you are
fixing the price of what you sell the
other fellow is fixing the price of
what you buy—how about that? Can
he not slide his figures up as fast as
you slide yours? Fifteen cents for
cotton and a dollar or two for wheat
are refreshing, but suppose we have
to pay more for all wo buy, in pro
portion to the advanced price of cot
ton and wheat? In that case, w«
move about a good deal, but we don’t
go anywhere. We are active, but
not progressive. Like mules in the
old-fashioned gin, we walk all day,
but we don’t travel, and, when night
comes, our path is beaten into a very
nice circle, but some other fellow has
gotten away with the lint. We ar<*
the mules, mighty patient mules at
that; and we keep going round and
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
round, all the days of our lives, and
we are thankful when the horn blows
for dinner, just as the mules used to
be.
“As a class, we get just what the
mules got—regular feed in return for
pulling the machinery which turns
out wealth for our masters.
“No ginhouse that was ever built
was put together with a stronger pur
pose to benefit the owner of the
mules—him, and not the mules! —
than was our system of class legisla
tion constructed for the definite pur
pose of enabling the beneficiaries of
special privilege to get rich and stay
rich at the expense of the agricul
tural classes.
“Leave this class legislation like it
is, and your Farmers’ Union will be
like the quack doctor who tries to
cure impure blood by putting salve
on the sores.
“Never in the world will our gov
ernmental system restore normal and
happy conditions to our people until
we are given constitutional treatment.
We must remove the source of the
disease. We must drive from the
body the cause of the sickness.
Iniquitous Class Legislation.
“What is the cause?
“It can be summed up in one
word, class-legislation.
“We have legislated in favor of
those who asked something special,
and in every ease where the govern
ment has granted a special privilege
it has been done, necessarily, at the
expense of the common weal. The
government has nothing of its own
to give away, and therefore when it
legislates in favor of some, giving
them advantages not possessed bv all.
there is something gained by those
who are favored and lost by those
not favored.
Equitable Taxation a Necessity.
1. An equitable system of national
taxation is surely a prime necessity.
“Have we got it? No!
“One of the most extravagant gov
ernments the world ever saw is sup
ported in its wastefulness bv a svs
tetm of national taxation which is al
most incredibly unjust. It does not
tax accumulated wealth. It does not
tax large incomes. It does not tax
vast landed possessions, gorgeous pal
aces, mines of silver and gold, or any
other form which tangible values
take.
“It does not tax the collossal cor
porations whose revenues exceed
those of the government itself. Tt
exacts no tribute from insurance
companies, express companies, bank
ing companies, telegraph and tele
graph and telephone companies, tail
road and Pullman car companies.
“What the government does is to
make ns pay the tax when we buy the
necessities of life, and under such a
system the rich pay less than the
poor. ’’
“A more infamously unfair p”-
rangement never had the respectable
name of law.
Sound Financial System Needed.
“2. A sound financial system is
certainly another absolute necessity.
“Have we got it? No.
“The monev of the constitution is
no longer good monev. Those wh.i
favor a restoration of the system of
Jefferson, Hamilton, Washinvto’-*.
Jackson and Benton are c»ll.>d
‘cranks.’ Who calls us that? Whv.
the spokesmen and writers who rep
resent the organized bankers. These
gentlemen assure us that gold is the
only good money for final payment;
that paper money is dishonest, cheap
and nasty, when issued by the gov
ernment, but nice and clean and cor
rect when issued by themselves.
“Furthermore, that the government
acts justly and wisely when it taxes
a hundred million dollars surplus out
of the pockets of the people and
gives it to a few pet bankers to use
it in their business.
“The Farmers’ Union could not do
better than to plant themselves on
the ‘money of the constitution’ as
their demand, and to educate and
agitate for a system that will be
something more than a trap in which
the favored few catch all the bal
ance of us.
Equal Control of Business.
3. That no man’s business should
be legislated into an advantage over
the business of other men is surely
a correct principle.
“ Equal and exact justice to all
men,’ applies to every relation exist
ing between the government and the
governed.
“Have we got it? We have al
ready seen how the exploiters of the
special privileges have made laws to
their own advantage, with ruinous
consequences to the unprivileged.
“That the Farmers’ Union will
combat, by resolution and vote, the
injustice of our protective system
there can be no doubt. Their own
self-preservation demands it.
“Not until you get broader mar
kets will your products command bet
ter prices. Not until you wage war
upon the wall-builders and breach
those walls, will you have broader
markets. Not until you make an en
trance for the stranger who wants
to compete with the wall-builders can
you prevent those robbers from run
ning up the price of what you buv,
to offset any advance of price in
what you sell.
“Out of many more matters that
might be discussed I will select but
one more.
Public Ownership.
“4. It is the matter of public util
ities. That which is essentially pub
lic in its nature should be owned
and controlled by the public. We can
allow the private alley, but we could
never tolerate the private ownership
of our main streets. We are willing
to respect the owner’s rights to the
private road through his place, but
we cannot allow private ownership
of the public road. You may own
the creek, but not the navigable riv
er. The boat is mine, but the deep
water lake belongs to us all. The
ship is yours, but the ocean belongs
to mankind.
“In this day of marvelous develop
ment along certain lines, we have got
things mixed. Individuals like Har
riman and Morgan and Gould are in
control of public utilities—such as
railroads, telegraphs and telephones.
All these public utilities must be
fairly assessed, honestly paid for and
taken over by the public for the use
of us all on equal terms.
“Witness the breakdown of pri
vate ownership of these public utili
ties. Part of the railroads are defy
ing the states. The president is try
ing to bring the Harriman crowd in
to respect for the law, while a num
ber of southern governors are trying
(Continued on Page Fourteen.)
PAGE SEVEN