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AGITATOR GARNETT, KANSAS, MAY 19, 1905. NUMBER 52. z r77 X X y3ZJ&JSi JVL-bJ-LN 'w V -IN VOLUME V i 'KANSAS .GITATORt Devoted to the interests of f HI N A KM KM. A Fearless, Aggressive, Progressive Advocate of All Reforms. V t. OH A MPK hd ANNA OHAMPK Editors J, M. A l.KX ANDKH. Associate Editor. SUBSCRIPTION: 8-Pagb Edition, $1; 4-Pagb Ed., 50c. nteredassocond-clHSsmall umiter attheOarnett.K..postofflce May 85. 189k. JO McDILL'S MUSINGS. THE CAUSE OF CRIME. A Seattle lawyer wrote and published a long dissertation on the growth of crime, and the cause. The lawyer reached the conclusion that our courts are not severe enough in pun ishment. A lawyer might be expected to take a superficial view. Old Judge Jeffries, of Englaud, boasted that he had banged or trans ported every man or woman brought before him accused of any sort of crime; but, in Jef fries' time, criminals weTe never so rampant. People seemed to court death on a criminal charge. For a time, in the past two years, the more Negroes burned, the more Negroes made themselves liable. To be put to death by a mob ought to have a deterrent effect, if there is anything in awful severity and atrocity. Adam and Eve, the first pair of the human race, came fresh from the hands of God, and yielded to the first temptation. There is much in environment. There are tens of thousands of people who live a long life without crime. There is no temptation to go wrong. It there was not something allur ing in all wrong-doing, there would be no wrong-doing. A man can cultivate or restrain, but many people have not the will power to place themselves under reasonable restraint. Allurement breaks down will powei, and one false step may me4n a wrecked life. In the natural passions and appetites, moderate in dulgence is nature's end. Immoderate indulg ence lies in environment. When we eat too much, nature was not our guide. We had too many dishes of rich food. Our boy went to the saloon and drank because his companions went, and all wanted to "have fun." It is all right for the boys to have fun, but nature nev er prescribed the fun that comes of drinking. Nature has her limits in sexuality. Obscene literature and conversation the mind full of the one thought converted a natural passion into a ruling demon. The man who thirsts for another man's blood is insane. Nine hundred and ninety-uine-hundredths of civilized people do uot thirst for hlood, there being uo disturbing outside influ ence. The mob is the lurking tiger of long past age?, when man took his chances for existence as the coyote now takes his chance. The inflammatory speech of the politician or ine writing of a book unchained the tiger, and resentment of crime burns out in the commun ity of crime. Temporarily, the uob is insane. Hunger drove a man to the taking of a loaf of biead. That man is neither insane or a criminal. Senator Burton fell in wanting to pay debts, and, because our standard of morals 13 so low, he really thought he was doing no harm. Stealing land from Uncle Sam is an old busi ness, and Senator Mitchell, if he stole land, was only doing what both individuals and cor porations have been engaged in from time im memorial. Bigelow appropriated the money of people who had trusted him, so that he might get rich quick, and rank with the Goulds and Vander bilts. Money was more to him than honor, because riches are at a premium. Rockefeller wants all the oil, tor the Devil only knows what reason. A criminal without tnoMve or temptation. The people who speculate on Wall street, and who are fleeced, are no better in purpose than the men who fleeced them. The same spirit actuates all. All want riches without forking., AU want the Jlabor of other men's THE BLOOD OF THE PEOPLE BY JOHN EOYLE o'REILLEY O, blood of the people ! changeless tide, through century, creed and race ! Still one as the great salt sea is one, though tempered by sun and place; The same as the ocan currents, and the same as the sheltered seas, Forever the fountain of common hopes and kindly sympathies; Indian and Negro, Saxon , and Celt, Teuton and Latin and Caul ' Mere surface shadow and sunshine, while the sounding unifies all! 4 One love, one hope, one duty theirs! No matter the time or ken, There never was a separate heartbreak in all the races of men. Thank God for a land where pride Is clipped, where arrogance stalks apart; Where law and song and loathing of wrong are words of the common heart; Where the masses honor straightforward strength, and know when veins and bled. That the bluest blood IS putrid blood that the people's blood' . is red. - .i ' ' .' 1 hands, the sweat of other men's brows, the blood of other men's hearts, without return. Society seems to have organized government with a view to making criminals. Society en virons her boys with the saloon; knowing that the saloon will accomplish no good,' but will lead to a vast amount of evil.. We literally, in our cities, have localities that may fairly be termed schools in which people are trained for a life of crime. Municipalities are boodle schools, and legislators reap golden harvests of votes. We punish the so-called bread thief, and let defaulters, embezzlers, land-grabbers, bribers, extortioners and boodlers escape, either with out punishment or with a very light Sentence. The Bible says "the love 'of tnouey is the root of all evil." The love of riches, judged by the usual standard, is not only sane, but right at the top of the excellent aspirations. But may it not be that of all the insane tend encies, the inordinate love of money is the most dangerous in that it leads to the under mining of the best that is in civilization, and hindering the perfect development of that which is best in the human race? Dark as is the outlook, we note that outside the circle of the money-grabbers, there is a mighty army of farmers, miners, factory and railroad employes, teachers, preachers and doctors who are willing to give cent for cent, thought for thought, love for love, self-denial for self-denial. This army is the chief corner-stone of soci ety the eternal reck upon which civilization rests and advances. Generally, it is a ery common people. No monuments mark the graves of their ancestors, and few criminals have sprung from their rauks. The army of working people is too bus)-, if it cared, to "plunge" in Wall street or "cor ner" wheat in Chicago. It doesn't care. With it, the honest dollar is the dollar earned. Its members have no franchise-grabbing scheme that embraces a bribe and a steal, and no per sonal advantage, not common to all, to gain by buying legislatures. This army is busy turn ing out and transporting goods, mining ore, raising coin, wheat and cattle, alleviattnei suf fering and training minds. Its environment is the home. Clean, honest mothers and fathers glory in manly boys and womanly girls: tor the boys and girls are the pride and the hope of a na tion, or they are its curse and despair. Convert a whole people into a wealth-producing, wealth-bestowing people, with no motive for gaining wealth but the common good, and no motive for bestowing wealth but human happiness, and crime would cease for want of fuel on which to feed, and the so-called crim inal would be found to be a lunatic. The criminals are at the top or at the bottom. The bottom criminals are made so by the criminals at the top. Rockefeller is not the product ot heredity. Lust tor wealth cultivated till it is the ruling passion of Rockefeller's mind and soul. No doubt he justifies himself, Other people were getting rich. Contractors and quartermasters were robbing the army and government. Jay Gould was wateting stocks and wrecking rail roads. The money-changers had cornered gold. Everybody but honest people was get ting tich, and honest people were lied to. Satan never deceived himself, but there is a lie somewhere behind all wrong, from Adam to King Boodler. Satan lied to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve might be excused. How were they to know that Satan lied? They bad al ways lived in a garden, and chose wrong be cause they were ignorant. Civilized people cannot assume to be ignorant. When,, we choose the saloon, with its concomitants, we know, absolutely, that it will send a lot of people down to perdition. In the light of his tory, we know, absolutely, that a nation ruled by wealth-grabbing corporations eventually degrades and destroys the working classes. The home-builders are harrassed and baffled by the home-wreckers. Parents, send boys and girls of good charac ter odt into the world to have their lives wreck ed by some monster bred and fattened by soci ety, the allurement always resting upon some devil' lie. , , ;.Two.thiU oi frh fU ..1.. r i tentiaries are the victims of other and shrewder people who are criminals at the top. Civiliza tion has only advanced far euough to catch the criminal at the bottom, and is not wise enough as yet to treat causes instead of treating effect. WILL NOT SLUMP. The Twice-a-Week Capital of recent date asks the question, "Will the People Slump?" Our answer is that the people never slump. It is the politician who slumps. Half of the political life of the politician is passed in slumping and seeking personal preferment or boodle. The Capital assumes that the popular upris ing in Kansas, and elsewhere, is a kind of wind that, after a time, will blow out, and things will drop back to where they were. The Capital assumes that the present wave of indignation is so transient that, after a while, the people will permit the corporations to rule and rob to their hearts' content. Does the, Capital take the people for mere clods, yokels and serfs? Does tuc Capital, or any one else, imagine that it is possible for the people to ever let up in their war on corporations until every corporation has taken its ptoper and le gitimate place in society and government? It so, there will be some surprises. No revo lution in the interest of human rights ever went back and died out. The rose that has started to bloom does so. In time, it develops. The people can't slump. Nothing is to be gained, for the people, in a slump, but much is to be lost. The people may right and lose, and be no worse off. They may fight aud win, and be immense gainers. It is only a question of time when, under present greed of corpora tions, the people' will lose everything but a" mere existence. As well be exhausted in a battle in which honor and courage and man hood are vindicated as to lie down and be run over and have nothing not even character. The people will not slump. They may be deceived may be led into endorsing compro mises may even be fools enough to let the politicians an corporations fleece them for a longer time, but some of the people will neither be deceived or go back. Present-day sentiment was held by Populists years and years ago. The seed sown is bear ing fruit. The whole nation is becoming Populistic in some things. Sooner or later, the nation will become Populistic in all things. It is only three-quarters of a century since there were a few Abolitionists. Now, not one man in ten thousand believes in chattel slavery. The people are not only moving, but moving rapidly. People think. Many people are ed ucated. People read, and have ceased to wor ship men. A crown is not half as sacred as a cradle, and a title to nobility cuts about as much of a figure as a professorship in a dance hall. Blind leadership of men is losing its grip. People don't have to depend on the pol itician for their politics, nor on preachers for their religion. Reason has more rule, and statecraft and priestcraft less rule. Friendly leadership is coming. It is here. We will match brains to brains, schejies to schemes, countermine to mine; strike blow for blow. As long as we have Roosevelt, Folk, La Fol lette, Deneen, and even our own Hocb, there will be no slumping. The mere boodle politician will slump sure to if there is any inouey iu it. Newspapers may slump, and some of them probably will. Preachers may slump away from the gospel. Professors in universities and presidents of col leges may slump, but the great plain, intelli gent, common people of America will not slump or show the white feather till the rela tions between the capitalist and the working people are so adjusted that the laborer shall be rewarded according to his deeds. EAT AT THE RED LIGHT . 1 ! LET us do your-Job Printing. NDERTAKINU Calls answered day or night. Hearse fur nished free. Located at Vaughn's Furnitur. Store. Reience teteobone.29. V, . ; U