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' Do not hesitate to take this pa-' per out of the Postofllee. If it is sent you some arrangement. has been made ami you will not be asked to pay for it. "No. 41. nUS!M<GS "T:nQSSBACK. Independent Comment on Current Conditions By A Dyed-in-The-Wool Calamity Howler. - Mby^ MINNESOTA man who was ■LA \ $25,000 short |had, accord- WM/C-\\ m£ to a local paper, "no bad flflrr; lA habits." Maybe not. lam IKiot at present in touch with the Mm BBiesota idea, but out in this neck of Bite woods we make-a distinction be fßtwecri grand larceny and Christian i-jM. To call an opponent in argument -ignorant may silence him, but con- MVincc him—never. Ten to one he will ■■refuse to take your word for it. KB A youth ol 18 attempted suicide in IBphehalis, this state. He ought to |Biave read the gold-bug republican ■papers and thus have kept posted on ■he great opportunities open to in- us try and integrity. H Competition between the states for ■divorce businese is the latest fad. Home of the central states are vying ■with each other in shortening the res ■idence of divorcees to catch their ■trade and attorney's fees. .^"S. X If you don't believe oar competitive Hpystcm is almost- divine, take a. red jfcx-iica' and mark tit.'!; of the crimes jKtnd suicides as they appear in any ie ■uc ol one of our great dailies. Every ■thing is all right, you bet. y R[ "Abide cheerfully by the will of the Bjgnnjority.'' Abide cheerfully by the B^'ili of a mud hen! When "has" con- Ktrol of the spirit in which we take ■our medicine been added to the sa- Hcred and divine rights of majorities? • K. Some of our plutocratic exchanges ■are becoming alarmed lest the trusts ■shall point the way to cooperation and socialism. Of course they will, E deary, and your little penny-a-iine X scares will delay the process not a bit. I In Massachusetts, where large g. bounties arc paid for the destruction I of the gypsy-moth, it has; been ;!:: fl:covered "that the exterminators [put ||| in a proper proportion of their time in •ropagating the pest, in order not to •ir; exterminate themselves out of a job. feiThsre's nothing like the "incentive to jfjftn.". lllfA good brother ill Seattle—as good AS they make 'em, as I can attest from personal acquaintance—sent me Some barber tools with instructions hi to loan them to the colony. This I ../•have done and .our delighted barber ff proceeded to shave everyone a month ?;»in advance, and to cut their hair into • the middle of next September. fS«The second act in the "war for, hu manity" opened 'when hostilities be gun between j the Americans and the & insurgents. 'The' Sttbjugtion of an alien race, occupying non-contiguous : Hiritory is the most radical depar ture from the precedent of our govern- Jpnent ever inn'ugrated. The beginning 't'jjf the end, even, is not in sight. ■Just what form the socialist move ment will, or should, take in the next campaign is largely problematical. But we can sow the good seed. The Hie is favorable for its genninatfon. It is a time for education rather than org a 1 ■ tion. It is no time to dis courage any movement, howetercon servaiive. ii the directs 1 of the cc opei; itivft commonwealth, Tb' ro nor a 0 1 w'ny Unola Sam's uni form , in which \ hi- soldiers ■:■ • to march »nd l U'ht, should ba purchased where they HMir.iwu together like cheap, ready-made ooUt i garments fur workinjruio.i.—iShi<rli:iui epubllran. Hir.t every reason, I suppose, why the lothes" of the workingrnan, who (st produoc it all, should be thrown ther of cheap cotton. Ban!; > R [ether of cotton. Bahl doing j valued exchange, which is doing inn service iii socialist propagan- I is insistent in the declaration that H^H'iaie 1 colony is an impossibility, « right, comrade, have your own rarv way about it. If colonies cah furnish a safe harbor in which to dc out the competitive storm that is strewing the commercial coast with .lamiticss wrecks; centers of propganda toflprcad the gospel of cooperation, they will do a grand work, even if lincerc and earnest friend should cho. »se to call them gold-bug rcpubli- I'rise to remark, and as usual in the *t of rising w ill probably get sat jwn upon, thf't tbepcople who have i most faith tl liquidity tire here, lirking to v .lie that future a sue -I^% institutions. saying anything, I rise to tx.ui.ll and as usual in the k «,l rising U probably get sat Kvn upon, »' 1 thepeople who have imostfaith 11 Equality arc here, Irkim: t that future a sue- L Xltej not saying a > thing, & the* arc sawing"wood." It is ■lisp'}. . Mit to those who have * J'cold feet*| and quit to .ay they |ye to do a certain a .mount m fcocjkin's" to justify tb. action, lus unfavorable report* may get at INDUSTRIAL FREEDOM large. Personal investigation is the most satisfactory, and the cheapest for .-ill concerned in the long run. Direct legislation, Public Owner ship and Public Employment for the unemployed arc the coming political issues, and "he who is not with us is against us". There is some hope of reaching men by socialist propaganda now, but as soon as a campaign beeins they will draw their heads into their partisan shells, all samce turtle, and you can't touch 'cm with a ten foot pole. The number of great journals and leaders who arc advocating some form of public ownership is increasing rap idly. lam willing to meet them a lit tle more than half way, and try to turn their public ownership into so cialist channels, I am not throwing any boquets at Filigree, Altgelt, et al, "I can't help but think that many of these radical old party leaders know upon which side their bread ii buttered. They're doing a work that has to be done, thot-.gh, and their attitude i bows the direction of public sentiment. After March -J, Washington will not take a back scat for any. of the stales in her representation in the per house millionaires, "Money makes the r.iare go." It-also sent Addison 0. Foster to the United States Senate. "Improperly used?" Why no. It would take a vivid imagination to conceive of the improper use of money in a senatorial campaign, unless it was in failing to use enough of it. My experience with the weather department was highly unsatisfac tory. It sent me last year's report. If it imagines that I have the nerve to attack the strongly intrenched Wo man's Column with Bitch an ancient weapon.,it^is away off. They,having kept at it tin (ll'iej t:ir.u S vTt--<.iirS usual rainy season into a veritable Klondike, are happy, and j-oitr ser vant is out-classed at all points. We are engaged in no cheap cam paign for temporary class advantage. The cause we advocate is a mighty revolution which shall work a radi cal change in the history of mankind. A day or two of hard work, a week's discomfort, some slight personal sac rifice is as nothing in the great strug gle. Socialists should- be made of sterner stuff than to consider such trifles. j If the editor of Industrial Freedom or the board of the B C C docs not "cut me off at the pockets" (in Which event I shall endeavor to find some other medium .through which to ex press my thoughts, some other source to supply the wants of my family and myself) l shall devote my at en tion principally to the political situa tion. That way lie my inclinations; there is the great battle-ground. I have no desire to disparage coloniza tion, "as a means to an end" as Mrs. < iilcll so forcibly puts it. All I can do in that line will be cheerfully done, but I feel that there are others who can cover that field much better than one so thoroughly convinced as myself that ; litical action is the prin cipal yray -at. Qui! a number of the good people here in Equality have been walking on my frame with their hob-nailed shoes/figuratively speaking, because I said that "brotherly love" had noth ing to do with cooperation. So 1 wish to take it back? Not on your photo. In the first place, I am net built that way; in the second, what I aid is an indisputable fact. If anyone cannot agree with me I am very glad to know that they disagree. Conse quently I have only the kiddlicst of feeling for those who are certain that lam dei wrong. I wish to re-iter ate that cooperation as a plain busi ness proposition is practicable; that it is not necessary to found it upon so intangible a thing as mere sentiment, I firmly believe that the sooner this, or any other, colony, comes down to tn- point which divorces" sentiment and business (real business, not the cut-throat proposition of the compel; ititive world) the more successful it will be. I can say this the more frankly inasmuch as" it is none of my business. Much as ! desire the es teem, the brotherly love, if you will have it so, of mv fellow-men, l cannot keep silent upon this, to me import ant basic truth, that cooperation, lo cal, state; national or world-wide, is as exact a science as the multiplica tion table, anil that we need not wait , until men are evojutcd into angels to ' "'it it lata rracti.'aTopcratio-. ... ;: * ' ' """" BIGH Pt)l>V. EDISON, SKAGIT COUNTY, WASH., SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1899. Plogrce ©m TrostSo There is no feature of our times that should so alarm the patroit, nor is there any so well catenated to j drive the well-meaning legislator to I (pair, as that which confronts as on sides in the rapid concentration o; tilt the productive energies of the nation in the hands of overgrown corporations, or multiple corporations called trusts: or, where 1 lore solid combinations cannot be efiected.by means of inter corporate agreements for the purpose of limiting competition and controll ing prices. The process began with the means of transportation and Sntercommuni cation-namely, the railroads, tele graph lines and telephones. In spite of the feeble effort of the Federal Inter state Commerce law to cheek the ten dency, it has continued almost uninter ruptedly, and promises to continue in the future. Indeed, the process of concentration of ownership and managment has pro ceeded much more rapidly sim that law was passed that before. Where purchases or leases could not be effec ted, traffic agreements have been entered into which accomplish the pur pose almost as effectively. Where these agreements have been open aiid public, the commission has in some instances interposed a check, but such interruptions to the process have only driven the promo to more ingen ious'and secret devices to evade the law. It is no extravagance of despair,to anticipate the time in the not distant future when the passenger and freight rates on every train traversing "the country, when the charges for;.tele graph and telephone services in every State, an 1 the ownership and control of every street car line and suburban railroad shall be centred in am great office in the city cfNew irk, i 3 the hands of one board of managers, an I possibly iv the hands of one man who may have the genial and power to control his fellows. It has invaded other fields w ith the power of a glacier and the rapidity of a torrent. by one each of the gre.-i aap.v.'. v. ■ . 1 . _ saries of life i-.-. falling into the hand;; of its special syndicate, or trust, or trade combine, which are but other namee for men, dominated by one man of superior force the genius, into whose single hands, is concentrated more power than any king possesses, and in comparison to whom the rob ber barons of feudal ages were pig mies in their capacity tor extortion and oppression. The anti-trust laws of the Federal Government have fallen powerless be fore them. Constitutional restric tions have been interpreted by the courts so as practically to make those laws a dead letter. Indeed, no period of our history has witnessed so rapid and noxious a growth of trusts and combines as the few years since the National Congress undertook tore strain them» .'i: These combines formed or reorgan ized since the Anti-Trust law waspasa cd by Congress in 1890, and controll ed by a compi rativiy few men, con trol a capital of nearly three and a half billions cf dollars", equal to 20 per cent of the entire wealth of the seven millions of agricultural popu lation scattered over more than four and a half millions cA farms, a captial more than twice the aggregate of the entire circulating medium the coun try. Nor.is this by any means the sum of the trust and combine element in the cruntry; Hundreds cf articles are governed in theif price by secret agree ments which do mlit make their ap pearance 1 in the form of legally organ ized companies, ' If jyou inquire care full you will discpfer that you can sccarccly make a p|irchase in which the price is not dictated by a combi nation over which the marchaut deal with has no control. Each of these grcajt trusts now aims for the most part to] control but one staple," al though 'some of them reach out for many. The ontrolof the iron and steel andof the coal beds of the country is slowly drifting toward a single centre. As she organisations grow mote power,ii, all related in dustries will be jibined in one con trol for .... 1 tent class, as in the case of iron and coal. Even in the small I ading of our cities the process of coi entration is only too apparent, On- cities no longer present the once amillar asp 1 of miles of busy str cts, occupied by thousands of" simi 1 but respectable merchants,'each lug a modest but satisfactory trade i ith his more imme diate neighbors, aid in a fine to which he had been trained >y long experience, looking toward t< the accumulation of a modest compel .'nee for his old age, and to the transmission to his heirs of an Honored name md reputation for . fair 'dealing, whiei was us much a family property as his house or his goods. There are no longer any merchants, or ifatfew of the old sort remain, they are rapidly passing away. In their place a great eoaporation is organ ized, which builds or rents a vast pile often or twenty stories. In this are gathered the stocks of ten, twenty 1 Or one hundred ordinary merchants in various lines, and as ■ many small merchants disappear from trade and reapper in time as the hired clerks, floor walkers and laborers of the corpo ration. All around this great center, scores of small buildings, once the homes of honesty and thrift,become empty and deserted, and monuments to a class once the bulwark of our trade, the conservative safeguard of our commu nities. Having no longer a stake in the community or the country, their very intelligence becomes a menace to society by rearon of their degradation from a position they have no hope of recovering. While the trusts have neither soul nor hearts, they are ruled by men,not angels, men, too, who, in their greed toward theconsumer, and their heart lessness toward the laborer, are freed altogether from the personal respon sibility whith, in spite of himself, con trols and modifies the selfishness of the individual manufacturer aad em ployer. No employer whe doea buiness in his own name dare stand before the coiimunity in vvbfoh he lives and in which his reputation is pari of las capital for such heartlessness toward labor as the very small man will ealrr.lv and even conscientiously ex ercise toward ];'..; dependents when speaking and acting as the representa tive of a corporation toward which he regaards it as his duty to grind the hist penny for the benefit of the stock holders. When the process of concentration has worked '.' elf out to completion, the law which governs both prices and wages will assert itself with irre sistible force. The consumer will be charged the highest price that can be squeezed out of him; the laborer will be paid the lowest wages upon wich * .rr—: —r l-.' V' '*^* *»v»o.tn.rl:i.,in_lM..»—U-cvslac i-.v perform -his dally" task. --" This result has not yet been quite accompli bed, but it is sure as that night foFows day, as certaa as the law of human selfishness. There is no salvation for the con sumer expect in the free competition; there is no dignity, no manhood for the labor except in comparative independence he derives through the free competition of many employers who seek his services. When then shall be but one source fsom which the consumer can obtain his supplies.but one employer to whom the laborer eon offer his services, both consumer and laborer will be slaves. When each great staple shall have passed into the hands of one corpora- . tion or trust, those who have that control will have become masters, not alone of the price to'the consumer and the wages to the laborer, but, what is almost as appalling, of the price which they mut pay to such indivi dual pr< '.'.'' of raw materials as may still remain in the country, in cluding, possibly; the farmer. When a thousand men make 10,000, 000, the meney is scattered and the wants of a thousand families at 1 to be gratified,*? and others arc making profit in catering to their wants, but when one man accumulates this amount, there is but one family whose want are to be supplied, but ona family to look to for the consumption of the products of labor, and the other 999 become laborers themselves. fake, for instance, the money ac cumulated by John I). Rockefeller. If th thee hundred millions of profit that has been extorted from the p-. of this .-try had been divided among 20, 000 scatered over the United States.the efieet would not have been so disastrous. No one ofthem would have sufficient cap ital to control the iron mines and the lake-carrying trade, to crush out and destroy thoes with small captial in vested in mines and boats, and to turn loose thousands of men in search of other employment. Capital becomes more powerful as it increases in volume, and more dan gerous as it decomes more powerful. Aman backed by $300,000,000, in fluenced by ambition greed or avarice, ' holds in his hands the fortunes and happiness of tens of thousands of people^ and he should not be permitt ed to increase this wealth and power by continued extortion, if the power of the State , an prevent it. There must be remedies. The law was made for the people, not the peo ple for the law, We hayed one greater things' betore. Other people have ac complished reforms which seemed quite as difficult to the law; - and the com 1 ..li technical construction of the Con-. ■ -. ■; ■ ■■-.... ~* — —_,~^™-^ —t Take our paper and rend ii and get others within the circle of your influence to da the same. It tells bo* to get free homes and steady employment. 50 Cents per Yeah. stitution stands in our way, the Con stitution can be amended,or a more summary method may be adoptee by electing and appointing;judges who will const! these instruments ac cording to the eternal law of justice and humanity. One of the great political parties of this country has already made this latter suggestion in a national plat form, only to have it denounced by the promoters of the people's degrada tion as anarchy and revolution. There may be those «■. ho will so denounce me for intimating that there is no divinity-hedging about Judges which makes them superior to their masters, the sovereign people. I, am content to suffer this penalty if I must, but no penalty shall restrain me from raising my voice on all proper • casion?, even against courts which foster what I I ebve to be a danger to the freedom and welfare of the people. —From the massage of Hazcn S.Pin gree, Republican Governor of Michi gian. m imtmTmmm. "This is an age of concentration in all tilings, and the formation of pri vate monopolies in particular. Com petition has been wiped oat. In bar-' mony with la wan it hasjitaod for cen turies, we have denounaed this, but to no purpose; we havele-psiaied against it, bat in -raid. W'hai tkey could hot defeat kgislatioh by bribery tbey went basore worn.' sjbsarvi-ant federal judge UfcJ hail it declared unconstitu tional. Oar remedy has failed. Pri vate moaopoly is as injurious and as muck ot a eruae as crer, and we can not stop its birth; we mast change out tactic:, and convert private monopo lies. Give thi whole 'public the benefits of the monopolies instead of a few in dividual*. Let the govcrx««^iit ttdie them. This is not state saaialism; it is simply protecting th? people and therefore ii dcauocracy in its broadest sense. The European people light socialism, but get the greatest benefit from collective ownership. "There seems to be no other way to protect the public and it involves our very existence i.> a party. The Dem« the great inasaei or else have no mis* si');l. The Republican party stands for pri rat; monopolies and rot enness, and the monopolies will alw; ys sup port it and try to crush us. it is a light a it ci- for humanity but for our very existence. "We ire in a crisis. Ihe liberties of a mighty people are at stake. There is no neutral ground; trimming and trading can no longer be tolerated: The world demands earnestness nd candor.' 1 do not believe the black flag; give every honorable enemy quar-. ter. But we have a sacred black motto which we must keep to the front, and.that is: 'Woe unto him who trifles with the American democracy.' Grover Cleveland is dei d, and,he left no friends to whom to send the obit* ti:.ry notice:-. Scores of wabbling statesmen are today looking through the fence into the graveyard for a burial place, because they were hit by the wrath of a deceived people. Each . age furnishes a weapon for the people. , The weapon for this age is the initia tive and referendum; Through it we can restore democracy. "Then till our people with the spirit of Andrew Jackson, nd the corn tion of Hamiltonism, as well as the hypocrisy of Mc I\inlc\ ism. will no longer threaten or disgrace our land. —Etract from ex-Gov. Atgcld's Jack-' 1 son Day speech. WHOSE BATTLE? Editor Industrial Freedom: In [an. 2Sth, issue ol Industrial Freedom, the article licaced: "Whose battle is this?" has touched the chord rind here is the re 1-tilt. I did not know there was an Equality colony in exis tence until about three months ago.' Mv husband took our clock to San ta Aha to ret it mended, and the tink er gave him a copy of Industrial Free dom to read. Alter reading it 1 re solved right away that we would sub scribe for it, and I would like to tell you how much pleasure I have cad ing it, but words arc inadequate, I have got so much interested in the colony notes thatitisjust like getting a letter from one's friends every week. I am so glad there is a woman's column. It is the first thing that I dive for, and the locals are the next. Equality colony must not lV.il for I am going to do all 1 can to help bcralong. A Farmers Wife. When a man thinks that all who do not vote his parte ticket are fools, it is bard tqundcrstai d why he wishes to get the fools into ! i party. The interests of the great mass of the American people are identical JfcP-d they shonld get' together and take carl-of those interna