The advocate. [volume], May 09, 1894, Page 4, Image 4

About The advocate. [volume] (Topeka, Kan.) 1894-1897

Image provided by: Kansas State Historical Society; Topeka, KS

                
4
TIKES ADVOCATE.
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 1894.
BNION? . !riLABO
NINETY-FOUB.
Bealde the glacier's Imperceptible advance.
From the dim heights of legendary time,
Stands the tall eplrlt mailed in spangled
rime,
Who marks the mlllloned motes of mortals
dance
A moment e'er they sink In dreamless trance
Moving, not In the steps of man's brief mime,
But ever with the stately sweep sublime.
Which brings a hundred years ago in France
For the to-morrow of our annals. Here '
Glutted lords of gold to crush the poor
careen,
Hero senates at the starving yeomtn sneer,
And here within some fosae of the moraine,
Blood rusted, gaped, yet still In working gear,
May peep the Veen edge of the guillotine 1
May 3, 1894. 11. M. ti HKENK.
Tux democrats have been laying
all the trouble to McKinleyism, the
republicans have recently charged it
to Clevelandism, and it is now time
for them to act together and charge
it to Coxeyism.
The stereotyped cry of alarm with
which republican editors seek to
frighten fools in these troublous
times is "anarchy" and "socialism;"
and they haven't the remotest idea
of what either socialism or anarchy
is, or of the difference which distin
guish the one from the other. These
fellows are great educators.
The Washington thugs finally got
their oharges against Coxey and
"Browne simmered down to this
"they got on the grass," At the trial
it was shown that even this was not
true of Coxey and that Brown was
driven into the shrubbery to escape
the clubs of the blue-coated brutes
who pose as the guardians of the
peace,
Tee only railroad legislation pro
posed by the republicans in the last
legislature was by Representative
Greenlee of Reno county, and he is
the first man to be turned down in a
republican convention this'year. His
defeat is intentionally made more
than usually humiliating from the
character of the man who i& nomi
nated to succeed him, who is a forger,
a perjurer and an acknowledged all
around rascal. He is one of the pro
posed "redeemers" of Kansas.
EXISTING CONDITIONS.
Acting upon the suggestion of the
Advocate, the Atchison Champion of
May 2 presents in part the views of
its editor respecting the causes that
have brought the country into its
present condition. We find many
things in this article with which we
can heartily agree. On the whole, it
is written in a spirit of fairness, and
on perusing it we have been led to
the inquiry why honest men engaged
in newspaper work cannot always
dismiss their partisanship and discuss
dispassionately the social and eco
nomic questions, the proper solution
of which so nearly concerns us all. If
this could be .done we would be
much nearer the goal of which the
Champion speaks "the Christian
civilization of American citizenship"
than we now are or are likely to be
while partisan bias is permitted to
color our every utterance upon these
momentous questions.
Speaking of the Coxey movement
the Champion says:
It is not the material of which the com
monweal army ia composed that ia really
so important as it ia to know the motives at
the base of the movement, and the causes
which save theoe motives birth. It will not
do to dismiss the subject with the flippant
assertion that it is merely an army of vag
abonds and tramps or a conclave of raga
muffins seeking to live upon the country
without leave, labor or license. Nor will
it answer the question to say that it is an
army of armed ruffians determined upon
pillage and plunder, for all aocounts thus
far agree that in the conflicts with the offi
cers of the law, and with railway officials,
the commonwealers have mostly been
found unarmed. Pick out, without notice,
any five hundred of the oommonwealersand
there are aa few oonoealed weapons among
them as would be found among the five
hundred men you might select, without no
tice, from passengers any day in the year
on the Pullman railway cars. That thou
sands of idlers, adventurers and ohronio
growlers and hair-brained dreamers are at
tracted into the Coxey movement is nat
ural, but, as a rule, the idlers, loafers and
vioiously inclined would not submit to the
rules and regulations imposed upon them
by those I in command of the common
wealers, nor would they endure the long
and wearisome marches and the camping
in the rainy and shelterless night without a
revolt or even a murmur.
The motive behind it all. if the acts and
words of the leaders are to oount for any
thing, is to secure work at living wages.
There are more workmen than are needed
by farmers, builders, contractors or manu
facturers. In every town in the United States are
men who never work when they can possi
bly avoid it. They are constitutional idlers,
natural shirks, who loaf upon the street
corners, grunt and growl, but they toil not,
neither do they spin. But that class, as a
rule, still remains in the towns where they
have been known for years as! the street
corner loafers whose wives sew and wash to
support the worthless "head of the family."
It is certainly refreshing to find
this acknowledgement respecting the
character of the commonweal army
in a republican paper; and it is but
fair to say that the Champion is not
the only one in whose columns such
acknowledgement appears. Nothing
like fairness, of course, is expected of
the Topeka Capital and papers of its
class, but many republican papers
have been candid enough to concede
this modicum of justice and truth.
The only criticism we would wish to
offer in this connection is respecting
the judgment passed upon the opin
ions of the commonwealers and the
lack of conception of the causes tmt
make men reckless and shiftless and
transform them into vagabonds and
tramps. There is still a spirit of in
tolerance running through the Cham
pion's article which forbids the
thought that those who differ from
the editor can by any possibility be
right and he wrong, or that they can
be classed in any other category than
with visionaries and cranks. The
editor also fails to recognize the fact
that enforced idleness and want
would be very likely to transform the
best of men into vagabonds and
tramps. Governor Felt can vastly
improve the spirit of his writings
upon this topic by simply reflecting
upon what he might possibly become
were he to be subjected to the hard
conditions which have made vaga
bonds and tramps of thousands of
just as good men as himself. In the
preliminary preparation of one's self
for the "Christian civilization of
American citizenship," there is noth
ing like putting one's self in the
place of his less-fortunate brother
and imagining what the effect might
possibly be.
Speaking of the causes that have
produced so much enforced idleness
in this country, the Champion has
discovered only a part of the truth,
but that part is fatal to one of the
fundamental doctrines of the republi
can party; and while we do not desire
to inject any partisanship into this
discussion, we cannot refrain from
reference to this fact as a counter
balance to a vein of partisanship run
ning through the - question.
The Champion says:
If a pond will hold only 12 million barrels
of water and you pour in 3 million barrels
more what becomes of the displacement?
The American workman has been and is in
competition with the 3 million foreign la
borers who came to America for better
wages, and secured them. The American
mechanic has been crowded out of the race
because he cannot live upon the European
plan. Britain and Europe send us labor
and Amerioa sends them capital to buy
foreign merchandise. We have had too
muoh free trade in pauper labor from the
Old World.
The above statements are a total ref
utation of the claim that our tariff is
a protection to American labor, but
they embrace only a part of the truth
as to the cause of idleness. The use
of labor-saving machinery to the ad
vantage alone of the capitalist rather
than the laborer has been a far more
important factor in the displacement
of American workingmen than has
immigration. Add to this the fur
ther fact that every man deprived of
the opportunity to work ceases to be
a consumer of the products of other
men's labor and you have the key to
the solution of the causes of the pres
ent enforced idleness. This is the
way it works: The man who is com
pelled to be idle cannot purchase
either the products of the farm or of
the manufacturer. The market for
these failing, not from diminished
demand, but from diminished ability
to buy, there is a surplus remaining
in the hands of farmers and of manu
facturers. This failure of the mar
ket necessitates diminished produc
tion. This throws more men out of
employment who are at once changed
from producers and consumers to
non-producers and non-consumers.
This process goes on continually act
ing and re-acting upon both pro
ducer and consumer, and catching
the laborer both coming and going.
Add to this again the monopoly of
the sources and means of production
which has grown and prospered under
the guardianship and care of a gov
ernment which has never feared pa
ternalism as applied to capital, but
has been affected with cold chills
whenever it has been proposed to
apply it to labor, and we arrive at
something of an understanding of the
causes of "our present situation."
The Champion says:
When oongresa went into partnership
with the "trusts" and "oombines," and the
treasury department beoama merely the
agent of the bankers and stook and bullion
gamblers of Wall and Lombard streets, the
commonweal army was inevitable.
This is quite true but we would re
mind the Champion that this part
nership and this agency were estab
lished at a much earlier date than
that indicated in the article under
consideration. Speaking of the ac
tion of the people in the last election
the Champion says:
In the oontest between God and Mammon
they voted for Cleveland. It was a struggle
between Americanism and Clevelandism
and with the political stupidity born of
oenturiea of habitual hate of the party in
power, the Huns stood in solid phalanx at
the polls as stupid dolta, doing the bidding
of those who would make them slaves.
Are these facts? Was the contest
between God and Mammon? What
real difference was there or is there
to-day between the policies of the
two contending parties? Can the
Champion tell? What has Cleveland
done that Harrison would cot have
done had he been re elected? What
laws have been changed under this
administration and who is responsi
ble for the only change that has been
made? In what manner have the
laws that have been enacted under
republican administrations been en
forced differently from what they
would have been had Mr. Harrison
been re-elected? How can the cli
max of evil which has happened to
culminate under this administration
be charged to Cleveland any more
than to his predecessor? Let us be
fair in this matter. Do not the causes
of our present difficulties date far
back of this administration?
The Champion well observes:
The country is pretty sick. Dr. Cleve
land's British pills have nearly killed the
patient. Careful nursing and radical
change of treatment is all that is necessary
now.
This is all true, but will the Cham
pion tell us how the composition of
the Harrison British pill differs from
that of the Cleveland British pill?
What other or different ingredients
does it contain? In what way would
the treatment of the patient be radi
cally changed under the Harrison
British system of medication and
nursing?
The Champion proposes as the
remedy for existing conditions "the
Christian civilization of American
citizenship." This is all very well,
but before we can think of Christian
izing American citizenship we must
first Christianize our methods of
reasoning, not according to the mod
ern, but the ancient standard. This