Gage trying to overrule the desire of more than ninety-nine per cent and put into law the will of less than one per cent of our voting population. And what amount of money do the gold standard people want?
They say they want it safe, uniform and elastic, measured in volume by the need of business. Will you tell me by whose business they wish to measure the volume of money? It cannot be the farmers' business and the merchants' business they would have to measure the volume by, for that would make a double standard of measurement, and they tell us we cannot have but one standard of measurement.
Then I ask, whose business will measure the amount under such a law? To me the answer comes back in reverberating tones repeated with emphasis, measured in volume according to the bankers' business, of course. Our philosophers tell us there are two kinds of elasticity--elasticity by compression and elasticity by expansion. Thus an elastic substance after being either compressed or expanded when released, returns to its original shape and size, so when the bankers want money expanded in volume according to the need of their business, they would expand it, and whenever their business ends are best accomplished by contraction; then, of course, contraction is the program with them. While the government is completely separated from the banking business so they can furnish no relief, we might compare that system with an alligator on the banks of a Louisiana river lying out to sun himself; he gets the bankers' elastic idea in his head, and his upper jaw flies over his back, and his mouth is twice as large as when it is closed, elasticity by expansion. (Laughter.) A sweet substance gathers on his open mouth, and the flies light there to eat it (just as the people will gather around the bankers for money when there is no other place to procure it). The flies gather thicker and thicker, and the mouth gets bigger and bigger, more and more elasticity by expansion; finally the alligator, like the banker, happens to think that there is another kind of elasticity, when down comes the upper jaw on the lower jaw and the flies are caught in the trap, and the Government shall go out of the banking business to furnish no relief or escape (cries of good, and cheers). My friends, if I mistake not, every cry of the Republican party from the time of John C. Fremont until the campaign of 1896 has been against banks issuing paper money except that the Government was strictly in the banking business. Have not they always told us, that when state or other banks issue paper money without the Government in the banking business to back up the issue, such money in case of a failure of the issuing bank became wild-cat money, and did they not say to us wild-cat money made paupers? Now they go squarely back on all they have taught us on the money question, and advocate the wild-cat money system themselves according to their own statements. One thing I will concede is, that the Republicans and gold standard Democrats are certainly on their past statements entitled to the $1,000,000 offered by the United States patent office for the invention of a perpetual motion, would not they have a complete and perpetual motion in their bank issuing money with the Government completely separate from the banking business, for we see the bank issue would be made of paper, so we have the perpetual motion in this simple problem. Rags make paper, paper makes money, money makes banks, banks make paupers, and paupers make rags. Rags make paper, paper makes money (great cheer and laughter).
Now, my friends, let me read you a plank in a platform that contains the spirit upon which our forefathers freed the thirteen American colonies from England, the spirit on which their descendants maintained American liberty and builded from 3,000,000 population along the Atlantic shores in 1781, a nation of 70,000,000 grand Anglo-Americans, with their half a hundred states and territories extending from the rock bound coast of the pine tree state to the golden gates of California, stretching over a vast area of more than 3,000,000 square miles, with great cities, towns, villages and hamlets, with our colleges and universities that are equaled by none in Europe. I will now read you the money plank of the Chicago platform, which contains the spirit represented by the statute at New York, of liberty enlightening the world. It is as follows: "We demand a free and unlimited coinage of both gold and silver at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation. We demand that the standard silver dollar shall be a full legal tender equally with gold, for the payment of all debts public and private, and we favor such legislation as will in the future prevent the demonetization of any kind of legal tender money by private contract."
While bimetallism is the theme this evening, you will excuse me for intruding on your time long enough to briefly comment on the spirit of that plank that shines prominently above all other issues in the Chicago platform--it is these simple words, "Without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation." I want to ask you, what would have been the result if our forefathers in 1776 had adopted any other spirit than this? Does not the answer immediately echo that we would be today English?
History tells us that while the British red coats with their muskets were invading the colonies, a handful of bold liberty loving men met at Philadelphia and signed the Declaration of Independence. You may read that instrument and you will see that it declares for American liberty from an American point of view, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation. When bold old non-international agreement John Hancock read that declaration, he made a speech to the multitude in front of Liberty hall, in which he implored them to throw aside trivial differences, and on the main question of independence, all good liberty loving people should hang together. Benjamin Franklin replied: "Yes, we must all hang together or we will all hang separate." In Franklin's witticism, I think I can see the solution of our present financial trouble--the good people of all parties must solve the problem, then we must all hang together or we will all hang separately to the tail of the old British lion, and while we voters are thus suspended, the cubs of that lion will devour the young Anglo-American eagles before they scarcely have time to scream for mercy.
Not only did that spirit of independence pervade in Philadelphia in 1776, but it was foremost at Bunker Hill. But Benedict Arnold and Major Andre seemed to have taken a different view, and the former fled to English assistance, the latter was executed because of his attempt to do likewise. But the spirit of independence, without waiting for the consent of any other nation, shone forth like a plumed knight or a mighty gladiator on the 19th day of October, 1781, at Yorktown, when the British gave up their swords and surrendered to the liberty loving fathers of America. Do you think Cornwallis would have surrendered to Washington if the Colonial Congress had declared that they would promote independence by international agreement, and until such agreement could be obtained, the existing will of King George must be maintained, and if Washington and his army had fought for English instead of American supremacy?
I want to say to you that it was not the international agreement spirit that won in the war of 1812 at New Orleans. General Jackson told his Kentucky riflemen to keep their powder dry and guns well loaded, and when they were close enough to see the white of the enemies' eyes to shoot directly between them. History tells us that the third volley charmed and the British surrendered to the American army once more without an international agreement.
In the blackest of the dark days of the late rebellion when the possible, and to a certain extent the seeming probable success of the confederacy was spreading like an appalling cloud over our country, we find it on record that the English were preparing their man-of-war and navy to assist the South when the illustrious Lincoln said, "Hands off," and it was so; suppose Mr. Lincoln had said to England, "Let us have an international agreement that you are not to interfere." Why, my friends, I believe England would have signed such an agreement the day after Mr. Lincoln had acknowledged the independence of the Southern States, and not before. We may as well know that the success of a Republican or Democratic form of government is envied by all the monarchies or empires where the people have less self-government. The gold standard monarchies or empires will never, knowingly, do anything to improve times in a republic and thus create among their subjects a desire to throw off the monarchial yoke of oppression.
I know that much has been said against the American republic becoming entangled with the European powers, but I fear that many in treating on this line do not show the real menace of such an entanglement. We all know that the laws of the empires and monarchies are in the interest of the moneyed classes, and we are proud to say that in America our laws are for the masses.
Let me tell you by way of comparison why we should keep out of an international agreement entanglement on the money question. I will use the tariff as an illustration. I care not what your politics may be, you will all agree with me that there was one redeeming feature in the McKinley bill. That some good feature was in the Wilson-Gormon act, and the same quality of goodness today shines forth in the present Dingley tariff law. Do you ask what that feature is? I answer it is this: That law was passed by the independent action of the American Congress. If we do not like it we can repeal it, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation on earth.
Our Government bonds are all payable in coins of the United States of the standard weight and value of July 14, 1870; that weight was 23.22 grains of gold or 371.25 grains of silver to the dollar. The value of those coins was that they were a legal tender in the payment of debts.
If we have an international agreement for bimetallism we can not have it all our own way--the foreigner would be entitled to a voice. Suppose we would fix the ratio at any other than the ratio of July 14th, 1870.
Then our dollars would no longer be of the weight that the bonds call for and the foreigner would have the best of us, for our own coins would not be a legal tender in payment of our bonds. Now suppose we wanted to repeal that law, could we repeal it by international agreement? Well, I guess not. The foreigners would never consent to the repeal of a law that was to their advantage. Therein lies the real menace of an international agreement even if we could get it. The only way we could ever get rid of that agreement would be just to back squarely out, then we might properly be called repudiators.
We often hear it said that the congress of 1792 used great care to put just a dollar's worth of silver in a silver dollar and dollar's worth of gold in the gold dollar. Now while it is true that according to the law of April 12, 1792, a dollar's worth of silver was put in the silver dollar, the amount of silver became worth a dollar as a creature of law, and it is not true that the silver dollar became worth a dollar because of the value of the silver contained in it. That congress made the dollar just as God made man. God said, "Let us make man," and the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. God did not study and bother his mind about taking a man's worth of dust to make a man. No, he took some dust of the ground and formed therefrom a man and by his own authority breathed the breath of life in man's nostrils and man thus became a living soul. God then gave man legal authority over the living creatures of the earth and also gave him authority to replenish the earth. Man's rights came from the power of God.
The constitution says congress shall have power to coin money and regulate the value thereof. So congress made the dollar as God made man, and the American congress formed the dollar of the silver and gold of the earth, put the eagle on one side of the coin and breathed into that coin the legal tender law, and the bimetallic dollar became a living soul of prosperity for eighty-one years as long as the silver and gold were allowed to fly side by side; but when in 1873 the wings were clipped from the silver and the legal tender breath shut off, then the gold had to do all the work; it being too weak to do so, adversity came.
They tell us that law cannot regulate value and that gold never changes in value. Let us for a moment form ourselves into a party of truthseekers and look up the record as to that proposition. The law of April 2nd, 1792, said 371.75 grains of silver could be freely coined into one dollar, or two halves, or four quarters, or ten dimes, each to be a legal tender at its face value, if not worn, for any amount; that law also said 24.75 grains of gold could be coined into coins of the value of the dollar; of course you understand the gold was in higher denominations than the dollar. Now let us watch carefully as to whether or not the law cannot regulate value and that gold never changes. In 1834 the law said 23.20 grains of gold when coined in American money constituted a dollar. Let me see, the gold has changed all at once and the law regulates the amount of gold that goes in a dollar. In 1837, the law requires 23.22 grains of gold to the dollar, another change. In 1853 the law says that no longer shall it require 371.75 grains of silver to make a dollar's worth of fractional coins, but that 342.22 grains of silver would make two halves, four quarters or ten dimes, and they should be a legal tender in the payment of debts for $5. In '73 the coinage of the standard silver dollar was stopped by law, and silver fell in price. In 1878 the Bland-Allison act allowed the coinage of the standard silver dollar. In 1890 the Sherman act called for more silver coinage and the price of silver immediately advanced. In 1893 the coinage of silver was again stopped and the price of silver dropped, hence we see that the law does regulate values, and that gold does change in value so far even as the dollar is concerned. A teacher once told Benjamin Franklin that a boy told him, if he would take a tub weighing 100 pounds and put 500 pounds of water in it, which only about half filled the tub, the tub and water would weigh 600 pounds, but if he would put a live fish weighing 100 pounds in the tub, the tub, water and fish would not weigh more than 600 pounds. Can you explain that curious contradiction of the law of gravity, asked the teacher of Franklin. Whereupon Mr. Franklin requested his interrogator to call at his office next day. Franklin procured a tub weighing 100 pounds, put in it 500 pounds of water, and the weight was 600 pounds, just as the boy had told the teacher; then Mr. Franklin added a 100-pound live fish and the total weight was 700 pounds. The next day the teacher called on Franklin for his solution of the great problem, whereupon Franklin replied, there was but one solution to the question. "What is that?"
anxiously inquired the visitor. "Why," replied Franklin, "the boy lied."
My friends, when they tell us the law cannot regulate value and that gold never changes, and when we examine the records and see that gold does change and that law does regulate value, we say there is but one answer to them, and that is just as Franklin answered the teacher about the boy.
We hear it said by the Republicans that free silver would drive gold out of the country; our Democratic friends tell us that free silver will not drive gold out of the country. So we see on that point people seem to differ in opinion. For my part I believe that free silver either will drive the gold out or else it will not. I want to ask the Republicans to acknowledge for the sake of argument that silver would not drive the gold out. Now, let us examine the question if silver don't drive the gold out, and we have a block of gold large enough to make into $100, and a block of silver sufficiently large to make into a like amount, if the gold-standard Democratic idea prevails, all the money we could coin would be the $100 from the gold, for silver could not be coined, but if bimetallism prevailed we could coin $100 from the gold and $100 from the silver, making $200, that is, if the silver does not drive out the gold. But the Republicans may urge that free silver would drive out the gold by the gold going at a premium over silver, then we would coin the block of silver into 100 legal tender dollars and the gold would be exchanged for a block of silver say 25 per cent larger than the block that drove it out, and we would coin that block into 125 legal tender dollars, adding it to the silver that stayed at home, making 225 dollars, just $25 more than we would have if the gold did not advance to a premium. But they tell us that would be coining the cheapest metal. Now, honor bright, you Republicans cannot complain of that for the reason I will presently explain. We often hear it urged that during the eighty-one years of bimetallism in the United States only about 8,000,000 silver dollars were coined, and that subsequently to 1873 more than 400,000,000 have been coined. True, there were only about 8,000,000 dollar pieces made of the silver metal, but there were more than $8,000,000 made because of the silver, for as France had a ratio of 15-1/2 to 1 against our ratio of 16 to 1 our gold stayed at home and the silver was at a 3 per cent premium over the gold according to the French ratio, then a $100 block of gold drove a $100 block of silver to France, and drove from France to America a block of gold large enough to make $103. So we had our gold made into $100, and the gold that came from France in exchange for silver made into $103, making a total of $203, whereas we could only have had $200 if one metal had not gone at a premium. History, arithmetic and common sense prove the correctness of this proposition.
Abraham Lincoln once said he did not know much about the tariff question, but he thought he knew enough to know that if we bought $20 worth of steel rails of a foreigner the foreigner would have the money and we would have the rails; but if we made the rails in America and bought them of an American, America would have the money and the rails, too. Now, my Republican friends, don't you believe that? I do. I may not know much about the money question, but I think I know enough to know that if under the gold standard we borrow $20,000,000 of a foreigner, when we pay it back the foreigner will have the money and the interest, too, but if we coin the silver, which is an American product, into legal tender dollars, borrow $20,000,000 of an American, when we pay it back it kind of seems to me somehow that America will have the money and the interest, too. What say you, Lincoln Republicans? But another objection is that we would have a great commerce destroying flood of silver in this country. Let us examine that proposition as seekers after the truth. Here comes Mr. Foreigner with a carload or two of silver, the United States mints coin it into legal tender American dollars and hands it back to Mr. Foreigner. Now, Mr. Foreigner will either take that silver money away with him or else he will leave it here. If he takes it away it will not flood this country, will it? Well, if he leaves it here he will either give it to us or buy something with it. Now, if he gives it to us, will not you Republicans be willing to take your share? Won't you Democrats willingly receive your share? And, I ask, is there a gold standard banker in all America who would not, with just a tiny wee bit of persuading, be willing to take the shares of both Republicans and Democrats? Now, if Mr. Foreigner should buy something with this great flood of silver we can see the wisdom of Mr. Gladstone when he said, "If America should adopt bimetallism they would within six weeks control the markets of the world."
A favorite expression of our Republican friends is, that because Mexico does not maintain a parity between gold and silver under bimetallism, the United States cannot. When a man tells us that we should pity him.
If we examine that question by comparison we will see the party making such a statement is either not sincere, or else he is not posted on the relative strength of the United States and Mexico. Records show that Mexico has 700,000 square miles of land, more than one-half of which is nearly or quite barren desert or waste land, leaving only about 350,000 miles of arable land, 4,981 miles of railway, 27,861 miles of telegraph line and a population of 10,000,000 Indians and Spaniards. The United States has 3,460,000 square miles, over two-thirds of which is arable land, and very productive of the staple articles consumed by the most enlightened nations of the world. We have 170,000 miles of railway, 780,000 miles of telegraph line, and a population of 72,000,000 Anglo-Americans; thus we see we have over ten times as much arable land exclusive of Alaska, thirty-four times as much railway, twenty-nine times as much telegraph line, and over seven times the population of Mexico. In size, wealth, commerce and science, Mexico is not to be compared with the United States.
When we compare Mexico with the United States, we are comparing it with the most gigantic country of the nineteenth century. You can form the United States into eighteen states each as large as Spain, or thirty-one states as large as Italy, or sixty-two states as large as England and Wales. What a mighty confederation of land, water, commerce, wealth and people is the United States when we come to think of it. Why, friends, we can take five of the six first-class countries of Europe--France, Great Britain and Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy, then add Mexico--let some mighty smith forge them all together into one vast empire, and you can lay them all down in the United States, west of the Hudson river, twice.
Wittingly has it been said that the United States has the natural basis for the greatest continuous government ever established by man. Mexico has less than 100 miles of inland navigation, while the United States has over 35,000 miles. Steam boats can go up the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio rivers over 2,500 miles from the Gulf, thus carrying our seaboard into the very heart of our continent. As to our resources, the crop of 1879, after feeding our population, furnished for export 283,000,000 bushels of grain. This vast crop was raised on 164,215 square miles, or less than one-twelfth of our arable land. It is estimated that if all our arable land was under the plow, it would feed a population of 1,000,000,000 people, and furnish for export 1,000,000,000 bushels of grain food for export. But what can we say of the people of Mexico and the United States? The difference in our population is not alone the difference between 10,000,000 in Mexico and 72,000,000 in the United States, but the difference between 10,000,000 Indians and Spaniards and 72,000,000 Anglo-Americans.
Mexicans and Indians are but semi-civilized, and the Spaniards are, generally speaking, a sluggardly, non-advancing people, while the Anglo-Americans of the United States are the most highly civilized people on the earth, wide awake and progressive in science, literature and mechanical inventions. At a recent exposition in Paris where the foremost nations of the world were exhibiting for premiums five gold medals were given for the greatest inventions or discoveries, and how many came to the United States? Only five; that is all. Now to say that because Mexico cannot maintain a parity between gold and silver, America cannot, is just about like saying that a Kentucky race horse cannot beat an English horse because a Mexican donkey cannot do so. My friends, our ability to maintain a parity between gold and silver is our ability to absorb money in our daily and yearly business. Give our country the increased volume of money that bimetallism will give us instead of the necessary contracted volume that the gold standard leaves us, and we will have a genuine lasting wave of prosperity moving westward from New England, starting the shops at increased wages. That wave will meet with joy the western prosperity wave that sets in motion the mining and agricultural interests of a patient and patriotic people, the eastern and western wave will shake hands with the southern cotton growers and northern wheat raisers. From the four quarters of our nation prosperity will spring up from an American point of view without waiting for the aid or consent of any other country, and without international agreement. Then will a mighty people standing for humanity and general prosperity, shout aloud, "We lead, let others follow." I thank you for your attention. Good night.
WHAT NEXT?
Patrick Henry, the revolutionist, on March 25th, 1775, said: "I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided and that is the lamp of Experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past."
Patrick, the Irishman, always said, "our hind sight is better than our front sight." Right in the beginning let me say that inasmuch as an open confession is good for the soul, I most emphatically and with one gulp swallow this doctrine in toto. I take it for granted that a vast majority will, without much persuasion, acknowledge that our historical knowledge has been garnered by looking backward.
Experience shows that causes, equal to each other, produce equal effects; hence to arrive at a rational conclusion as to what must we do to be saved from Eastern Imperialism or its equal, Western greed, supported by law, let us look at the United States in retrospect.
My space is limited. I shall bid for your gratitude by being brief.
I consult my watch, a beautiful piece of machinery, and learn that it is three o'clock; it is July 21st, 1902. It has been raining, or rather drizzling for about twenty hours. It is an ideal time for reflection.
Near the window where I sit is a large, vacant lot. The grass is fragrant, its surface is smooth and elevated. I remember viewing the same lot eight years ago, just after a similar rain to the one that is now abating. The lot was then a large pond, eighteen inches deep. What a change labor has made on its surface! Looking another direction, I see a lot, now covered with water as it was eight years ago. I will venture the assertion that it will be covered with water a thousand years hence, unless labor improves it as it has the one just mentioned.
My library contains several volumes devoted entirely to the history of the United States. They all say that four hundred years ago, what is now the United States was a vast territory of uncultivated land, crossed by the mountain ranges and rivers, that still hold forth. There were also people here, and they had a government. We call it tribe rule, and tribal relations. They were savages. Hence, looking backward as far as history permits, we find the United States a tract of land that was the home of Nature, and Natures, beasts. Inhabited by the roaming Indian, whose government and mechanical ability were as widely different from the present style as the City of Chicago is from old Fort Dearborn, in Lake Michigan swamps of 1811.
History recounts that European government had succeeded in governing so that the toiling subjects preferred to come to America, and dwell among Indians, and rule themselves, than to stay in Europe among friends, and be ruled by the old style, European government. Be it remembered that it was not the tangible improvements which were the handiwork of labor, from which the poor of Europe fled. But it was the European laws that oppressed them. It was oppression from which they were fleeing. They did not come to the New Connecticut because it was new, but because it was the only available place for them. They did not come to America because they did not like law, or because they did not want to worship God, but to gain justice and privilege of worship.
The poor came to America to earn a living without kingly interference.
The king sent rulers not to earn a living, but to _get_ a living. The poor said, "I will go to America and eat bread in the sweat of my face." The ruler said, "Where you go, I will go also, and I will eat bread in the sweat of your face." Thus we see that the oppressed came to America to avoid tyranny, while simultaneously the rulers came over to impose the very rule the toilers were seeking to avoid. So successful were they in their purpose that in 1776, the toiling class (who are always in the majority), concluded that they needed no more European rule, and in seven years of war, the idle rulers were driven from America.
In forming the new government, the people, who had so courageously fought to drive out England's "Kingly" rule, commenced to look for formulas for a government. They turned to England for precedents, consequently a government was formed, which in many respects resembled the English government. Especially was this resemblance noticeable in the Supreme Court, for the Judges hold office for life, during good behavior. Right here let me observe that there is no good reason why the inferior courts should not have a life tenure of office, if such a policy is correct for the Supreme Court, and if it is better for inferior courts to hold office for short terms, it is best that the Supreme Court be subject to the same policy. It is ridiculous that our representatives should be made such by popular vote, and the laws they make be construed by a set of judges whose office expires only when the spirit judge has a harp, and the dust judge has a coffin. Popular vote retires the inferior judge, a fashionable funeral retires the supreme judge, but the robe is left as the imperial emblem. It seems to me it is time to abolish the life tenure of office with our Supreme Court, and it is entirely fitting that their robes be hung in the curio hall of some popular museum, as a souvenir of a ridiculous custom no longer desirable in a popular government. Let me here drop a thought. You may have it for what you think it is worth. The expressed will of a majority of the people should be the Supreme Court decision in the United States. Were that the case an income tax would be constitutional, and a tariff between the states and some territory owned and controlled by our government would be unconstitutional.
Since the victory at Yorktown, great questions have been argued and settled by the laboring men and inventors; great questions have been argued, but not settled, by the politicians. Washington used candles, we use electric lights. Washington's four men picked the seed from twenty-five pounds of cotton per day; four men in our generation, gin 25,000 pounds per day; Washington traveled with horses and oxen, thirty miles per day; we travel by steam 1,000 miles per day; Washington sent a letter one hundred miles and waited a week for the answer; we telegraph thousands of miles and get an answer within the hour; Washington's voice could be heard a quarter of a mile; we talk and carry on conversation hundreds of miles. Each of these propositions, and thousands of others have been settled by the inventors and toilers.
In short and in fine, the difference between the United States with her natural resources of 125 years ago, and the United States of today, with her vast farms, great mines, magnificent cities and half a hundred thousand miles of railroad, and other improvements too numerous to mention, all this difference, I say, is co-extensive with America _before and after_ taking the labor treatment. But what can we say of the politician and his doings during these years, stripped of all ambiguity, when we tell the unpolished, but plain truth, we must say he never advanced one iota until he was routed from his old position by the toiling masses. It is curious to note that every new social, political, and ethical idea hatches in the same mind and is developed by the same crowd that contrives the machinery and builds the cities, railroads, farms, mines, etc.
The politicians, except where labor has compelled them to march forward, stand where Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson put them when the Constitution was adopted. Of course there were some steep places in our governmental structure, and where labor has not buoyed up the politician, he has occasionally slid back to the rules of King George the III. As King George had one tax for England at home, and another for the Colonies, so with us, of late, we have one tax for ourselves and another for our possessions. (We should, however, give the politician, due credit for the way he spells colonies.) English style is to commence with a "C." Our modern style necessitates commencing with a "P." Then, the pronunciation is different; in England it is "Colonies," in America, "Possessions." Yet all over the world they mean the same, to-wit, the strong taxing the weak without allowing representation.
It is literally true that Henry, Jefferson, Washington, and the Adams argued the slavery question. As long as we retain the Philippine Islands, that question still faces us, for their advent to our possession brought slavery for us to foster, and we are fostering it.
The money question was argued one hundred years ago, and it is still up for argument.
Politicians still are turning on both wings of the tariff. Republicans hold to the argument that the European manufacturers, because of the low wages paid their workingmen, would undersell our home manufacturers if free trade was adopted by the United States. Democrats contend that Free Trade will work to benefit 99 per cent of our people, where, as they claim, protection benefits only 1 per cent, to the injury of the masses. According to the Chicago Tribune of July 19th, 1902, Europe is afraid that, unless a high tariff law protects it, American manufactures will flood their markets, thus hindering their home industry.
Strange, indeed, that in America we should fear free trade with Europe, because they pay low wages, and Europe fears free trade with us, because we pay higher wages.
Another peculiar thing is shown in the Tribune article, when it mentions that there is not much fear that European nations will agree on a general tariff law, because, as it says, "Austria might want to admit free the very articles that France, Germany or England might want to shut out." Wonder how much the tariff barons of the United States would pay the Tribune editor for an article in favor of a high protective tariff that would say, "There is not much danger of a general tariff law continuing in the United States, because Texas or Kansas might want to admit free the very things that Massachusetts or Connecticut might want a high tariff imposed on."
Let us acknowledge the truth. Tariff laws are class legislation. It is odd, indeed, that we should have such great regard for the interest of the foreigner on the money question, and then so utterly ignore his interests on the tariff question. If our hind sight were not better than our fore sight, it would seem queer to hear politicians advocate the gold standard and a high tariff, and with the same breath rage against the trusts, when the trust is simply the fruit of these two laws.
It were as logical to send a highwayman, train robber or an incendiary to Congress to break up bank robbings and general stealing as to send an advocate of the gold standard and protective tariff to Congress to break up the trusts.
The inventor and laborer are a congenial team and, under their influence, the world improves and enriches.
The politician and money power are another well mated team, and under their rule they get the wealth that the other team produces.
The people elect the Representatives; the money power gets the legislation. Lincoln called the United States a government "of the people, for the people, and by the people." We have outgrown Lincoln's time, and there is a suspicion that we are a government of the Trusts, and for the Trusts, by the Representatives.
I suggest that inasmuch as our Representatives have become misrepresentatives for the masses, and tools for the classes, it would be wise to adopt pure Democracy and make our laws by direct legislation.
Then we will have a government of _all_ the people, by _all_ the people, and for _all_ the people.--If not this plan, what next?