Thus we have a naked view of two classes of men—the anthracite coal operators and their victims. The coal operators are conscienceless robbers. They hold within the hollows of their hands the anthracite coal supply of this country. They own it or control it as you own or control a gas range that you have bought or rented. The coal supply of this country is their property. And though you must draw upon it or freeze in winter, you cannot have a pound of coal except at their price. And their price is always all they believe they can get out of you without a riot. The cost of production does not matter. Your necessities do not matter. They want all they can get.
These naked millionaires are not attractive persons. Who would be an attractive person if he had their power? Are you so sure you would be an attractive person if you had their power? Do not be too sure. Give any man such an opportunity to squeeze millions out of a people and it is very likely that he will squeeze them. There is little or nothing in this “good man,” “bad man” theory. The blackest Coal Trust magnate is just what you and the Coal Trust have made him. If anything, you are more to blame than he. He gets all of his power from the laws. And the men whom you elect make the laws. They make the laws which say that a few men—or, so far as that is concerned, one man—may own all of the anthracite coal mines in the country.
These laws are certainly very comfortable for the Coal Trust gentlemen. If you are satisfied, they are. If you don’t move to change them, they will never move to change them. But, if you are fit to cast a ballot, you know that the present conditions can never be changed until the laws that made the conditions are changed.
Let us now take a close view of the Coal Trust victims. You are one of them. You are tired of the Coal Trust. You have no sort of notion that it is anything except the robber concern that everybody believes it to be. You would be much better pleased if the government owned the mines. You would be still better pleased if the government owned not only the mines but the railroads that carry coal from the mines. You know that in the Panama Canal Zone, where the government sells all of the supplies, the cost of living is much less than it is here. You believe all of this and more. But what are you doing to translate your belief into accomplished fact?
You are doing nothing. The only way in which you can translate this belief into accomplished fact is to express your belief in political action. You must vote for that which you believe. You must support a political party that advocates the ownership by the government of the coal mines and the railroads. If you vote for a party that believes in permitting the ownership of the coal mines and the railroads to remain where it is you are voting for the Coal Trust. How long do you believe it will take you to beat the Coal Trust by voting for the Coal Trust? Do you know of any way in which the Coal Trust can be beaten except by voting against it?
Of course, the newspapers that you read will tell you there are other ways of beating the robber Coal Trust than by voting against it. They will tell you that the Coal Trust can be “regulated” or indicted and convicted into decency. Ask your newspapers what makes them think so. We have many great trusts in this country—has a single one of them ever been regulated into decency? Have they been so ruthlessly pursued in court that they were willing to be decent? You know the answer. You know there is not a decent great trust in the country. You know that every attempt to drive them into decency has failed. Yet your newspapers have the impudence to tell you that it is not necessary that the government should own the anthracite mines and the railroads.
It would be difficult to imagine a more amazing situation. Here we have in this country two sharply contrasted classes of opinion.
One opinion is that institutions like the Coal Trust should be regulated or destroyed—compelled to go back to competition.
The other opinion is that institutions like the Coal Trust can neither be regulated nor compelled to break up into small parts and compete.
The men who hold the first opinion can not point to a single instance wherein their belief has been justified by events. The men who hold the second opinion have only common sense with which to back up their assertion that, if the government owned the coal mines and the railroads, Coal Trust magnates and railway multi-millionaires could not rob us.