Watch Yourself Go By

by Al. G. Field

"The demagogues array their hearers against wealth. They leave the impression that all who are so fortunate as to possess a little more of this world's goods than the poorest, are dishonest; that it is dishonorable to be of the moneyed class. They never tell the people it is but natural and necessary that some should be richer than others. These conditions have always prevailed and could only be changed by a gross violation of rights, held inviolate since the beginning of civilization. Since the world began, industry and frugality have been rewarded by wealth.

"These demagogues never tell the people that the opportunities are ever open that have made others rich. They never tell the boys growing up that ten or twenty years hence, they the boys of today, will be the business men, the moneyed class of this country.

"To be prosperous is not to be superior. Wealth should form no barrier between men. The only distinction that should be recognized is as between integrity and corruption.

"The present day fads are only the revival of the brain throbs of demagogues gone before. Read Jewett's translation of politics. Aristotle, who dealt wisely with many momentous questions, designated the initiative, referendum and recall, as the fifth form of democracy, in which not the law but the multitude, have the superior power and supersede the law by their decrees. Homer says that 'it is not good to have a rule of many.'

"As I said before, there will be no revolution. The patriotic people of this country will attend to this. But we will be compelled to do a little deporting and perhaps a little disciplining. The American people will attend to this sooner or later. The red flag has no place in this country. Curb the trusts, curtail combinations in restraint of trade, let all men get an even start in the race and the deserving will win. I am not a rich man; I'm a poor man. I've worked all my life. I am happy and contented. Insofar as riches are concerned, I would like to possess them, but damned if I want them if I've got to rob others who have labored more diligently and with more intelligence than I have."

"Now, Uncle Madison, what's your cure for the political and social upheavals?"

"Patriotism, loyalty to our country, to our flag, to our institutions, to the principles that have made us what we are."

"Uncle Madison, you were a Confederate soldier."

"Yes, and I'm proud of it. I fought for what I believed to be right. We of the south lived under conditions that had grown upon us, been forced upon us; I refer to slavery. I'm not defending slavery, I'm glad it's done, but we had lived under a government that guaranteed to protect our rights and property. No matter if slavery was wrong—was it right for one-half of the people of a country to insist the other half impoverish themselves—give up all their possessions?

"Slavery was handed down to us and—well, there's nothing in threshing this matter over; slavery was the cause of the war, the negro was the issue. If the negro had been a commercial product in the north there would have been no war. The south lost because it was ordained they should lose. That does not lessen my pride in the fact that I fought for the cause I thought was right; we were right in the fact that we fought for the property this government promised to protect us in, and that's just what the north would have done if conditions had been reversed."