_Wilshire’s Magazine_
The two types represented in the above caption are brought into vivid
contrast by the visit of Prince Henry to our democratic domain and the
hysterical demonstrations that assail him as he is whirled from point to
point in his royal carousal among the plebeians. According to reports
the royalty of the old world has been totally eclipsed by the democracy
of the new, and his deputy imperial majesty is fairly dazzled and
bewildered by the fast and furious display in his honor. At the opera in
New York he was surrounded by a palpitating wall of nude flesh, ablaze
with diamonds—a scene of gorgeous, glittering splendor compared with
which the courts of kings are dim as dirt.
And this is but an incident among a thousand in which our democratic (?)
people of every rank and station, save Socialistic alone, abase
themselves in vulgar fawning at the feet of tyranny. Shall the titled
snob be blamed for holding all such flunkeys in contempt?
Who is this royal lion in the democratic den? A total stranger from an
alien land. What has he done to command the reverence of a god? Ask
yourself if you can answer. It is not then to the man—for he’s
unknown—but to the Prince that Uncle Sam gets down full length into the
dust and spreads the Stars and Stripes for royal feet to tread upon.
What difference is there between the monarchy of William and the
republic of Roosevelt? Could the Lick telescope discover it?
Bear in mind that here “we” are the people; “we” live in “the land of
the free and the home of the brave”; “we” are all sovereigns; “we” have
no classes; “we” scorn royal snobs; “we” love liberty and despise
display; “we” hold “divine right to rule” in contempt; “we”—
The simple truth is we are like the rest—we have prince and pauper,
power and poverty, money and misery in our capitalist republic, just as
they have in their capitalist monarchy across the water.
Chauncey M. Depew has 150 pairs of creased trousers; many of his
sovereign constituents have patches on their only pair of pants.
In our great eastern cities more than half the people live in tenements
unfit for habitation, and thousands of babes, denied fresh air, die
every year.
The sweating dens are packed with human vermin, but Henry, by the grace
of God, will not behold the reeking ballast of the “ship of state.”
A few rods from the Waldorf in New York and the Auditorium in Chicago,
are the districts of the doomed and damned. The squares of squalor and
miles of misery inspire in men, instead of “Hoch der Kaiser,” the wish
“to hear the nightingale sing new marseillaises” and revive the ominous
notes of “La Carmagnole.”
“Thus fares the land, by luxury betray’d;
In nature’s simplest charms at first array’d,
But verging to decline, its splendors rise,
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise;
While, scourged by famine from the smiling land,
The mournful toiler leads his humble band;
And while he sinks, without one arm to save,
The country blooms—a garden, and a grave.”
Not long ago the millionaires and labor leaders had a feast in New York;
they met as one, and declared that henceforth they were “one and
inseparable, now and forever.” President Roosevelt ratified the compact
by dining the leaders at the White House. But where are labor’s
representatives to the Prince Henry banquets and receptions? Have they
been lost in the shuffle? Can it be that they are not fit to meet a
prince? Absurd! This is a Republic; labor here is royal and wears the
imperial crown. So, at least, Mr. Hanna and other poor and oppressed
capitalists tell us, and surely they should know the working kings who
rule them.
But again, where are the representatives of labor at these courtly
social functions? Why is no American workingman allowed near the prince
except as menial and spaniel, to guard his noble majesty and do slavish
obeisance to his every whim?
Why is there no inch of room for labor in any house or hall, or park, or
boat in all this vaunted Republic when a “prince” is guest?
Why are the working class excluded from such “public” functions as
rigidly as if they wore the stripes of convicts?
Why must a prince be guarded?
On “great occasions,” such as the presence of a royal guest, the streets
and alleys are reserved for the working class, and in these
thoroughfares the dead-lines of the common herd are guarded with
policemen’s clubs.
How melancholy to see shivering humans, packed together like cattle in a
car, rend one another in mad strife to honor those who look upon them as
unclean and hold them in supreme contempt!
The working class of the United States, with few exceptions, cheered and
shouted for the prince as though he had been their lord and savior. He
cares no more for them, this pampered prince, than if they were so many
sheep or swine, for he believes that royal blood, by God’s decree, flows
through his veins and that common humans are but beasts of burden.
Not long ago Ben Tillett came from England as the representative of
labor. All his life he worked to help the men of toil. In point of
honest worth Ben Tillett far outweighs ten thousand blooded princes. Yet
workingmen, except the few, ignored him, and the scant regard they
showed him is to their disgrace.
The point I make is, that from the time the ship that brought the prince
touched our shore until it left again no workingman was tolerated in any
banquet or reception tendered him in the name of the American people.
Office-holders and politicians spouted, while capitalists lined the
tables and wined and dined themselves—all of which simply proves that
there are no classes in the United States, and that Socialism has no
business in a republic.
The envoys for the coronation of King Edward have been announced by
President Roosevelt. There will be no hornyhanded prince of labor there.
Whitelaw Reid, known only for being the opposite of Horace Greeley, and
as small as he was great, will be our knee-breeched, official flunkey at
the crowning of the king.
Of course it would not be consistent for our president to drop a crumb
of comfort to the Boers.
Let it not be understood that I have the slightest feeling against Henry
of Prussia; it is the prince I have no use for. Personally, he may be a
good fellow, and I am inclined to believe he is, and if he were in
trouble and I had it in my power to help he would find in me a friend.
The amputation of his title would relieve him of his royal affliction
and elevate him to the dignity of a man.
This is a necessary part of the mission of Socialism, and the
revolutionary movement is sweeping over the United States as well as
Germany.
It means the end of princes, the end of paupers and the beginning of
Man.
“To ears attuned, the victor’s shouts
Are crossing o’er the sea;
Resounding like Jove’s thunder peals
The working class are free.”