One of the most spectacular scenes ever exhibited in this old world of ours is presented by a lot of laboring men howling for what they want and voting for what they don’t want.
When the politicians of the South want to steal something, or do some other mean thing, they dig up the “nigger domination snake” in order to distract the attention of the people from their own meanness.—Morgan’s Buzz Saw.
Reformers make a mistake in thinking all the reform element is outside of the Republican party. The greatest obstruction today in the way of reform is the Democratic party. If it would gently sink to rest as the Whig party did, the forceful men in the Republican party would lead a movement that would give us quick and substantial relief. Seventy-five per cent. of the Republicans have advanced ideas and are anxious for reform. To be sure, the party is in the strong clutch of greed, as much so as the Democratic party was in 1850, but the Whig party had the good sense to die in 1854, and the Free Soil Democrats, the strong men of the then dominant party, came out and formed the Republican party, a party of the people, by the people and for the people. And this party would have given us splendid service in economic reforms had not the great Civil War required its attention; while the nation was torn by this internecine struggle the vampires of greed, who have no politics, fastened themselves upon this grand new party, and long before peace came were so intrenched in power that such men as Lincoln, Morton, Wade, Stevens and a host of other great Republican leaders were compelled to bow in submission. They saw and comprehended the dire results that would follow the machination of these ghoulish hounds of hell, but they were powerless.
Wade and Stevens were moved to tears, Lincoln’s soul was torn by grief. “We submit,” said Stevens, “to save the life of a nation.”
Thus did grasping greed take advantage of our extremity and make the struggle for existence a strife more fierce than war.—The Forum, Denver, Col.
Back of all politics is the System. What the System is we now know fairly well from the exposures of Ida Tarbell, Steffens, Lawson and others. The System is not a political but an industrial form of control. Its rewards and punishments are economic. The greater part of the population of the United States lives under conditions of economic slavery of one kind or another. Political liberty does not in any way mean or guarantee industrial liberty. Hence the impending revolution in this country is not to be political but industrial.—Tomorrow.
A hundred thinkers grow gray a-thinking; a hundred discoverers grow old a-discovering; a financier comes along, grabs the theories and the finds, hires folks to straighten ’em out, and rides in his automobile while the poor fellows of ideas eat mush and water by the roadside. The men who do brain-work get the crust-crumbs which fall from the commercial sponge-cake. Brains are poor collaterals to raise money on.—The Scythe of Progress.