When a Republican member of the House arose to move the usual
adjournment for the holidays, there was a storm of hisses and cries of
“No, no!”
Said the leader of the House, amid deafening plaudits: “We are the
servants of the people. Our work is not yet complete. There must be no
play for us while coal barons stand with their feet on the ashes of the
poor man’s hearthstone, and weeds and thorns cumber the fields of the
farmer for lack of money to buy seed and implements. There must be no
play for us while railway magnates press from the pockets of the
laboring man six and eight per cent. return on thrice watered stocks,
and rapacious landlords, enriched by inheritance, grind the faces of the
poor. There must be no play for us while enemies of the human kind are,
by means of trust and combination and ‘corners,’ engaged in drawing
their unholy millions from the very life-blood of the nation, paralyzing
its best efforts and setting the blight of intemperance and indifference
upon it, by making life but one long struggle for existence, without a
gleam of rest and comfort in old age. No, Mr. Speaker, we must not
adjourn, but by our efforts in these halls of legislation let the nation
know that we are at work for its emancipation, and by these means let
the monopolists and money-changers be brought to a realizing sense that
the Reign of the Common People has really been entered upon, and then
the bells will ring out a happier, gladder New Year than has ever dawned
upon this Republic.”
The opposition fairly quailed before the vigor and earnestness of the
“new dispensation.” There were soon before the House and pressed well on
toward final passage a number of important measures calculated to awaken
an intense feeling of enthusiasm among the working classes. Among these
was an Act establishing a Loan Commission for the loaning of certain
moneys of the United States to Farmers and Planters without interest; an
Act for the establishment of a permanent Department of Public Works, its
head to be styled Secretary of Public Works, rank as a cabinet officer,
and supervise the expenditure of all public moneys for the construction
of public buildings and the improvement of rivers and harbors; an Act
making it a felony, punishable with imprisonment for life, for any
citizen or combination of citizens to enter into any trust or agreement
to stifle, suppress or in any way interfere with full, open and fair
competition in trade and manufacture among the States, or to make use of
any inter-State railroads, waterways or canals for the transportation of
any food products or goods, wares or merchandise which may have been
“cornered,” stored or withheld with a view to enhance the value thereof;
and, most important of all, a preliminary Act having for its object the
appointment of Commissioners for the purchase by the Federal Government
of all inter-State railway and telegraph lines, and in the meantime the
strict regulation of all fares and charges by a Government Commission,
from whose established schedules there shall be no appeal.
On Washington’s Birthday the President issued an Address of
Congratulation to the People of the United States, from which the
following is extracted:
“The malicious prognostications of our political opponents have proven
themselves to be but empty sound and fury. Although not quite one year
has elapsed since I, agreeable to your mandate, restored to you the
money of the Constitution, yet from every section of our Union comes the
glad tidings of renewed activity and prosperity. The workingman no
longer sits cold and hungry beside a cheerless hearthstone; the farmer
has taken heart and resumed work; the wheels of the factory are in
motion again; the shops and stores of the legitimate dealer and trader
are full of bustle and action. There is content everywhere, save in the
counting-room of the money-changer, for which thank God and the common
people of this Republic. The free coinage of that metal which the
Creator, in His wisdom, stored with so lavish a hand in the subterranean
vaults of our glorious mountain ranges, has proven a rich and manifold
blessing for our people. It is in every sense of the word the ‘people’s
money,’ and already the envious world looks on in amazement that we have
shown our ability to do without ‘foreign cooperation.’ The Congress of
our Republic has been in almost continuous session since I took my oath
of office, and the administration members deserve your deepest and most
heartfelt gratitude. They are rearing for themselves a monument more
lasting than chiseled bronze or polished monolith. They knew no rest,
they asked for no respite from their labors until, at my earnest
request, they adjourned over to join their fellow citizens in the
observance of this sacred anniversary.
“Fellow citizens, remember the bonds which a wicked and selfish class of
usurers and speculators fastened upon you, and on this anniversary of
the birth of the Father of our Country, let us renew our pledges to undo
completely and absolutely their infamous work, and in public assembly
and family circle, let us by new vows confirm our love of right and
justice, so that the great gain may not slip away from us, but go on
increasing so long as the statute books contain a single trace of the
record of our enslavement. As for me, I have but one ambition, and that
is to deserve so well of you that when you come to write my epitaph, you
set beneath my name the single line:
“Here lies a Friend of the Common People.”