Addresses: by John A. Martin. Delivered in Kansas.

by John Alexander Martin

THE CONFESSION OF AN ANARCHIST.

One of the most prominent men in this State told me, some months ago, of a conversation he had with a well-known New York socialist. The Kansas man said to the New Yorker: “You claim you desire to elevate humanity. You know, as every intelligent man does, that for a very large proportion of all the poverty, crime and woe of this world the liquor traffic is responsible. Why, then, don’t you endeavor to close the saloons of this city?” The reply was prompt and conclusive. Said the New Yorker: “Close the saloons? Why, if that was done we should have no meeting-places. We find and make most of our converts in the saloons!”

Here, then, in the saloons, where poverty, vice, crime and suffering are bred and nurtured, are the haunts, and homes, and recruiting offices of the dynamiter and bomb-thrower. From the saloons come the miscreants who parade with red flags, and who revile and denounce the brave old banner of the “Stars and Stripes.” From the saloon issue the wild-eyed and crack-brained enthusiasts, and the brutal and vicious emissaries of envy and hate, who want to substitute for a republic of reason, order, security, liberty, and law, the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, and arbitrary government of the mob.

THE LABOR QUESTION.

Another prominent question upon which the two platforms express opinions, is that of labor and capital. And in discussing this question, as all others, the Republican party deals not in vague promises or glittering generalities, but in definite statements. It points to what it has done; it presents accomplished facts to sustain its assertion that it will honestly favor “all legislation tending to secure to the laborers their just proportion of the proceeds of their work, to protect them against the encroachments of organized capital, and to provide easy and speedy redress for all wrongs suffered by them, or threatened to them.”

A political party making professions of devotion to the interests of any class of the people should be able to show by its record, that when in position to control legislation, it originated or adopted some policy beneficial to that class. Can the Democratic party present such evidence of friendliness for or sympathy with the laboring masses? For nearly thirty years it had supreme control of the National Government. Did it, during that time, devise or perfect any measure or policy to ameliorate the condition of the laboring classes, or shape and direct legislation to the end that human selfishness or rapacity should be held in check, and the opportunities of all men be equalized?

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY THE ENEMY OF HONEST LABOR.

No, it did not. On the contrary, during that period every measure of the Democratic party was directly against the interests of laboring men. The homestead law was repeatedly defeated by Democratic Congressmen, and was never enacted until the Republicans came into power. Every attempt of the Democratic party to legislate on the subject of the tariff was made in the interest of foreign capital and low-priced labor, and against home enterprise and American workingmen. The Democratic party formed an alliance, offensive and defensive, with an aristocratic oligarchy which held to the monstrous doctrine that capital should own its own laborers—own and buy and sell them as cattle are owned, bought and sold. The stronghold of the Democratic party was and is to-day this community of great planters, and the favorite candidates of the Democratic party are men with “bar’ls”—monopolists and millionaires, who are expected to buy their way to place and power.

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ALWAYS THE HELPFUL FRIEND OF THE WORKINGMEN.

On the other hand, the Republican party has always been the real, practical and helpful friend of the poor man. Before it had been in power a year it had opened the public domain to the people, by the passage of the homestead law, giving land to the landless and free homes to the homeless. It has changed 4,000,000 of slaves into freemen and paid laborers, thus relieving every workingman and woman, North and South, from the ruinous competition of slave labor. It has steadily insisted on protecting American enterprise and industry against foreign competition and the poorly-paid labor of Europe. It has insisted, at all times and under all circumstances, that the real, pressing need of the country was not cheap manufactured goods of any kind, but prosperous and contented mechanics. It destroyed the great landed aristocracy that was built upon the ownership of labor, and has raised another and humbler class of men to power. Its candidates have been taken from the people. Its first President was a flat-boatman, a rail-splitter, a poor country lawyer, who was the architect of his own fortunes. Its second was a poor tailor whose wife had taught him to read. Its third President, the son of a poor tanner, lived for years in obscurity, and knew the bitterness of poverty and friendlessness. He filled the world with the glory of his achievements, but preserved to the end the simple manhood of a modest citizen. Its fourth President was also a man of the people. After him came a man who had been a carpenter and a schoolmaster; and then followed the son of a poor Irish minister. Its last candidate was another self-made man of the people, who had been in turn, schoolmaster, reporter, editor, Congressman, Senator, and Secretary. Not one of the Republican candidates for President was born to the purple. One and all, they came up, by their own exertions, from the humblest walks of life. Working-people themselves, they have understood and sympathized with the aspirations, the interests, the well-being of the real working-people.