Supposing the owner to be possessed of common sense, his answer will be: "Yes, my friend, the old homestead has served me and my fathers well for a long period of years and I had never intended to irreverently destroy it. But I have discovered that some stranger has already laid an irreverent hand upon our home and broken the locks of our doors and windows. We find that he has cut a hole in the floor of our side closet and effected entrances through the roof and the cellar window. The home which once protected us serves no longer as a protection, because mutilated by an intruder. If the house still protected us as it did our fathers we should be satisfied; but, since others have changed it, we, in self-protection, must adapt ourselves to the changed conditions. It is not the old house that protected our fathers that we are changing, but the new house, the changed house, the mutilated house—this it is that we wish to renovate and re-adapt, so that it may again be made to serve us as did the old one. The same outside framework, the same old flag-pole, brown front and corner stone remain, but many of the foundation stones are gone, the strength of the house, its power to serve and protect us have been taken away so that we are in constant fear of its caving in upon us. Therefore, we shall repair it thoroughly or else remove to another."
Our government for many years served the people well. Its past is sacred. It protected our fathers, made our lives and our fortunes possible and we are tempted to give weight to the arguments of a compatriot when he says to us: "Touch not the ancient landmarks; do not lay irreverent hands on our government; do not seek to change its laws or institutions; it has served us well and we should show our gratitude by protecting it and by opposing innovation."
In answer, however, we are forced to say that, although we have the same flag-pole and flag, the same brown front and corner stone, an enemy has for years been removing one foundation stone after another. He has removed the vital parts from the locks of our doors and windows; made entrances through the roof, the floor and cellar, so that our silver is now disappearing, our jewels and our heirlooms are missing, and our liberty, our lives and our property are in danger.
WE ARE NOT THE INNOVATORS. WE ARE THE VICTIMS OF INNOVATION. We seek to battle against the invaders who have mutilated our government and would destroy us. We strive to make our government, of which now only the shell remains, serve us as it served our forefathers, capable of affording us that shelter and protection, which is the true function of government, and which our forefathers intended we should have.
TWO GOVERNMENTS IN MORTAL COMBAT.
We have two distinct governments in our country, whose interests are antagonistic and irreconcilable. One government is the United States; the other, the United Trusts and Syndicates. The former is democratic; the other despotic. This inner-treasonable despotism controls our industry, commerce and means of life and pleasure. It is using the United States government as a machine to enforce its decrees and extend its dominion, hoping soon to abolish the last vestige of popular rule. It is world-wide in its extent, and only uses local and national governments as means of power.
The United States enacts laws openly. The United trusts and syndicates enacts laws secretly. Disobedience to our state laws is punished only after a public trial, but the merchant who breaks a trust law is ruined without a trial, the laborer who ignores it is secretly blacklisted; the minister who defies it is forced out of the church, and the lawyer disregarding it loses his profitable practice. The nation enacts a law and the trust officers laugh at it so far as it applies to them, and then, by gaining control of the law-enforcing power, use this law as an additional club in the subjugation of their victims.
When the people attempt to defeat a new aggression on the part of the trusts by carrying out the plan of some renowned thinker, known to be uninfluenced by special interests, the emissaries of the trusts scatter the people by crying: "EXPERIMENT." "An untried and Utopian scheme," "Innovators." While the patriots argue as to whether their plan is really an EXPERIMENT, the enemy captures a new position.
The United Trusts and Syndicates, by experimenting constantly and pushing forward all along the line and at the same time by convincing the United States not to EXPERIMENT, succeeds in approaching the same relation to its rival government that a live ant sustains to a dead worm. By incessant and fearless activity, and by using our constitution, traditions and flag as a blind, this irresponsible despotism is fast nearing the time when it hopes to throw off its mask and publicly usurp supreme power. Not a day passes but these organized conspirators try some new EXPERIMENT, attempt some new aggression never dared before, attack some nearer outpost of the people's liberties heretofore thought impregnable.