Hon. Thos. E. Watson:
Dear Sir—It is not evidence of dissatisfaction with the common
infirmities of the human lot that discussion of the characters
of men in public office assumes the latitude of warning to
society. Servility of understanding reduces the individual
to prostitution of manhood. He can no longer be free, who is
dependent in mind and thought. The duty of the American citizen
is in the defence of his prerogative of “sovereign,” and upon
this principle only may reputation in a public officer become a
convertible term with character in public office.
In the year 1769 “Junius” wrote fifty-four letters to the
_Public Advertiser_, a daily journal of London. The publisher
was indicted. “Junius” continued to write. He wrote to Sir
William Draper; to the Duke of Grafton; to the Ministry; to
King George himself. Who “Junius” was, none knew. The few
declared his writing turbulent and revolutionary; worthless for
the occasion. He held to the record. With indignant invectives
he proved the government corruptions. With high disdain he
declared he asked for no authority, when he had law and reason
on his side, to speak the truth. With keen and pungent retort
he exposed the lapse of society in the evidences of iniquity in
social leaders.
I would not offend by flattering him “who would not flatter
Jove for his power to thunder.” But the beneficiary is ever a
debtor to his benefactor. I may write with confidence where
expression is due.
The modest caption, “Editorials by Thomas E. Watson,” has
already attained to a decisive expectancy in the public mind.
In brief time the words that monthly come to us under it will
shed a wider and widening light.
Revived iniquities which inspired “Junius” are come for
exposure. History repeats itself in facts and interpreters
of facts. “Junius” in immortal energy told the people of the
Gentlemen in the House of Commons, the Judges upon the Bench,
the Lords, and the Dukes, and the Ministry and the King; of
malfeasance in office and of decay in private virtue.
The theme then is the theme now. Patrick Henry caught the
spirit of “Junius”; the “Editorials by Thomas E. Watson” draw
upon the glorious past to shed light upon the living day.
Anxiously we await some words from you upon the most insidious
consumer of free institutions—_the bonded debt of the United
States_. Please answer these questions:
1. Is not the Government interest-bearing bond the true
foundation of the “trust”?
2. Can the “trust” be eliminated from commerce before the
government bonds are paid and extinguished?
3. As long as the bonds remain and money concentrates under
their influence and protection in New York, can money so
concentrated be redistributed from New York in the sources of
industry and commerce by any other process than by “trust”
industries process?
Let me illustrate: In the Birmingham (Ala.) manufacturing
district there are three great iron manufacturers, to wit: The
Tennessee Coal and Iron Company; The Sloss-Sheffield Company;
The Republic Company and the Alabama-Consolidated Company.
Continued effort is made to merge two or all of these powerful
forces. The Pontifex Maximus in the situation, the great bridge
over which the merger, if merger there is to be, must pass,
is a bank of issue—a national bank—willing and also able to
finance the movement in transit and after consummation.
Now, the willing and capable bank in the premises must possess
an adequate supply of non-taxable, interest-bearing Government
bonds, upon which, to their full face value, it may issue paper
money equal to the exigencies of the great merged corporations.
Without the bonds, upon which to issue the money, the bank
could not finance the merger.
If the iron manufactories be merged, the necessary sequence
must be the merging of the railroads that enter Birmingham. In
order to effect the merging of the railroads financing which
would duplicate the original example, here cited, must follow.
Commerce, founded on the public debt, is founded upon
Government mortgages upon universal private industry.
Must not that kind of commerce subvert free institutions?
Yours truly,
(Signed) JOHN WITHERSPOON DU BOSE.
The writer of the letter on the public debt is the author of the “Life
and Times of William L. Yancey,” a book which is a treasure-house of
varied and valuable information.
That this Magazine has made such a favorable impression upon so able and
representative a man, is of itself a great encouragement to us who are
devoting our lives to it.
The question asked by the distinguished Alabamian is a spear-thrust
into the very vitals of our vicious system of Class-Rule and Special
Privileges.
When Alexander Hamilton set out to make our government as English as the
Constitution would admit of, he laid the foundations of his work in the
English system of Protection, the English system of Finance, and the
English system of Funding the Public Debt.
With his Protective system he meant to favor one class of industries at
the expense of others: thus rallying to the support of the government
those who shaped its laws to fill their pockets with the money which
belonged to other people.
With his system of Finance, and his National Bank of issue, he meant
to form a co-partnership between wealth and government. To the favored
few was to be delegated that tremendous power to create currency which
had always been a prerogative of the Crown until Barbara Villiers, the
harlot, wheedled from the dissolute Charles II. that concession to the
bankers.
With his system of Funding the Public Debt, Hamilton meant to mortgage
the Nation, in perpetuity, to the wealthy few, in order that they might
always hold their power over the masses, and their advantage over the
government.
William Pitt is said to have remarked cynically, when he saw our
government copying the British system: “Their independence will not do
them much good if they adopt our system of finance.”
We all remember how bitterly Jefferson combated the Hamilton measures.
We can turn to his writings now, and read the scathing terms in which he
denounced them. We can also read his predictions of the evils which would
come upon us if we allowed Hamilton’s class-law system to develop.
_Haven’t the evils come?_
The great historic renown won by the Democratic Party and its leaders was
gained in combating this class-law system of Alexander Hamilton.
Democrats, and the Democratic Party, _always_ stood in battle array
against the Protective System, contending that it was immoral, unjust,
oppressive, despoiling the many to enrich the few.
Democrats, and the Democratic Party, _always_ went up against the
National Banks to fight them, declaring that such an institution was of
deadly hostility to the spirit of republican government.
Democrats, and the Democratic Party, _always_ clamored against the
Funding System, and demanded that the Public Debt be paid off.
Those were the memorable, historic principles of Democrats in the years
preceding the Civil War—in the years when the Democrats had a mission,
a creed; leaders who had convictions, champions, who loved ideas well
enough to cherish them more dearly than office.
What was President Jefferson’s proud boast?
That he had so cut down Government expenses that the Public Debt would
soon be a thing of the past.
What was Jackson’s proud boast?
_That he paid the Public Debt._
That was the golden era of American history.
The National Bank had been abolished.
The National Debt had been paid off.
The Protective principle had been stricken out of the Tariff, and that
infamous system had been reduced to a moderate revenue basis.
There was hardly a millionaire in the whole country.
There was hardly a pauper in the republic.
The individual citizen amounted to more, _as a man_, than he does
now. Wages were low, but the money commanded a larger amount of the
necessaries of life than the higher wages of today.
Strikes and lockouts were unknown. “WE HAVE NO POOR,” was the
matter-of-fact statement made in Congress by Hugh S. Legaré of South
Carolina.
“THERE ARE NO BEGGARS,” said the English visitor, Charles Dickens.
In the whole world there probably was not a people more contented,
progressive, and generally well-off than we were in the Forties.
_Which were the naturally wealthy sections?_ The South and West.
_Which was the naturally sterile section?_ The East.
Where is the bulk of all the immense wealth that has been produced since
the Civil War? _In the East._
How came it there? _Class-law took it from the sections where it was
produced_, and gave it to those who were more cunning and selfish in
framing national statutes.
[Illustration: “I see signs of life and hope in the awakening of the
people.”]
There is no fouler chapter in the history of crime than that which is
to be written concerning the manipulation of our National Debt. How
many hundreds of millions have been made out of the government by the
rascals who juggled with the bonds, it would stagger faith to state.
The starting point, where Belmont, Rothschild, Sherman and the Bank of
England compelled Congress to depreciate the Greenback, the exchange of
bonds at par for Greenbacks at their full face value, the change of the
terms of the bond from lawful money to coin, and from coin to gold,
the huge commissions paid to favored bankers, the colossal deposits
of public funds to be used in private speculations, the sudden and
mysterious fortunes accumulated by Secretaries of the Treasury, like
Sherman, and by Senators, like Gorman, the stealthy mission of Ernest
Seyd, the covert influence of the Haggard & Buell circulars—all these are
but high-points in a long journey of national shame, legalized robbery,
ruinous prostitution of the powers of government to gorge the few on the
life-blood of the many.
Who does not know that our Public Debt could be paid off at any time if
the ruling class wanted it paid?
Who does not realize the anomaly of the richest nation on earth bearing
a bonded debt as though it were a luxury?
Who does not recognize the grim irony of wearing a bondholder’s chain as
though it were a string of pearls?
Wipe out the Public Debt and there would be no foundation for the
National Banks. One form of privilege having been abolished, the other
would follow. _And then others would follow!_ The bonds are the keystone
to the arch. The Public Debt is the nucleus of the system by means of
which Wealth runs the Government for its own benefit.
Who wants the Government to economize? Not the Privileged. By no means.
If the Government were to economize there would be such a surplus in the
Treasury that the Government, for very shame, _would have to pay itself
out of debt_.
The Privileged are determined to keep the Government in debt, and hence
there will be no economy.
The fields of expenditure shall widen, widen, and be kept on widening.
Salaries shall increase, and increase, and be kept on increasing. Offices
shall be multiplied, and multiplied, and be kept on multiplying.
The Panama Canal can get all it wants; let the Philippines cost what they
may; give more to the Navy; give more to the Army; give more to Rivers
and Harbors; give more to Pensions; give the Railroads four times as much
as it is worth to carry the mails, and then give them a special subsidy
to keep the contract; give $45,000 for carrying mail to the Island Tahiti
when the “cussed foreigner” offered to do it for $3,500; give with so
lavish a hand that even the South will get a pull at the sugar-teat, and
shall join in the Hallelujah Chorus of “O, _ain’t_ it good!”
A child ought to be able to see the profound policy which underlies the
extravagance of the Federal Government.
The Tariff must _not_ be lowered; the Public Debt must _not_ be paid off;
the reign of the Trusts must _not_ be threatened:
“STAND PAT!”
That’s the watchword of heartless Plutocracy which has erected its powers
upon the three bed-rock measures of Alexander Hamilton.
“STAND PAT!”—blares the bugle-note of Class-law leaders, for they know
that _a system_ depends upon all of its component parts. If there should
be a leak in the dike, _anywhere_, the angry ocean might come pouring in.
Where are the Democrats, and the Democratic Party?
What soldiers are pitching their tents upon the historic fields of
Democracy?
What lines of battle are forming under the time-honored banners of
Jefferson and Jackson?
Alas! The mighty strain and struggle of the Democratic Party during these
degenerate days, has been to imitate every bad habit of the Republicans.
Democrats vote with the Republicans to continue the National banks, to
continue the Public Debt, to continue the Protective system, to embark
upon an imperial colonial system, to perpetuate the rule of the Trust, to
multiply objects and amounts of National extravagance.
Where do I see signs of life and hope?
In the rapid awakening of the people to the fact that _in the name
of Party_ they are being stripped of everything that makes for the
independence and prosperity and happiness of the average citizen.
_Talmage in Russia: Fourteen Years Ago_
After the downfall of Beecher, Doctor Talmage became the most conspicuous
preacher in the United States. His sermons and his writings had an
immense audience. “Talmage’s Sermon” was a standing headline, in American
Monday morning newspapers, and they were widely known in Europe also.
No visitor to New York thought of returning home until he had attended
services at the Brooklyn Tabernacle and qualified himself to boast of
the fact that he had “heard Talmage.”
The fact that Doctor Talmage had been engaged to furnish articles to
any periodical, was sufficient to boost its circulation into the tens
of thousands. No Lyceum, no Chautauqua, no Lecture Course was complete
without Talmage. Formal banquets, in quest of oratorical attractions,
never failed to urge the attendance of Doctor Talmage.
Somehow the man became the fashion, the rage. He was the Caucasian Booker
Washington. Everybody having agreed that he was a wonderful man, the ball
kept on rolling by the law of inertia.
Nobody could tell you wherein he was great; nobody could quote anything
remarkable from his writings or his sermons; nobody knew of anything
phenomenal that he had done, or was supposed to be able to do. His
capacity for the benevolent assimilation of an indefinite number of
voluntary donations was strikingly like Booker Washington’s power in the
same direction; but beyond the fact that Talmage preached to a large
congregation, and wrote books which many people read, his greatness was
hard to define.
* * * * *
However, Talmage had his day. He was the fashion. At home and abroad
he was a man whom it was the correct thing to treat with distinguished
consideration. Foreign potentates, princes and powers knew Talmage as a
mighty man of the pen; likewise as a man of infinite capacity for talk;
also as a man who traveled with a photographic outfit. Consequently a man
to be handled with care; “this side up,” as it were.
His progress through a foreign land, was not merely an incident; it was
an event. He was greeted with dress-parade formalities. Foreign princes,
potentates and powers _knew_ that Talmage would write a book about them
when he got home; that the book would be read by hundreds of thousands;
that public opinion would be influenced by it; and that the photographs
of the princes, etc., would appear in the book. Consequently the smiling
faces which were turned toward the Talmage Camera by the helpless
potentates etc., were almost distressing in their laborious amiability.
* * * * *
As to Russia, Doctor Talmage seems to have gone there by imperial
invitation and prearrangement.
“Stepping from the Moscow train on returning to St. Petersburg, an
invitation was put in my hand inviting me to the palace.... I had already
seen the Crown Prince in his palace.... The royal carriage was waiting,
and the two decorated representatives of the palace took me to a building
where a suite of three rooms was appointed me, where I rested, lunched,
examined the flowers and walked under the trees.” Then the royal carriage
came again, took him through the magnificent and beautiful grounds to
the palace of the Czar. During his stay, officials crowded around him,
lavished attentions upon him, stuffed his ears with glowing accounts of
the lovely conditions prevailing in Russia, and made Doctor Talmage feel
good generally.
Russian autocracy laid itself out to capture Talmage, and it captured him
completely.
From a picture on page 408 of his book, I infer that Russian enthusiasm
broke from every restraint, and that he was caught up in the arms of a
delirious populace, and borne triumphantly through the streets, on the
shoulders of his worshipers. The picture represents Russian citizens
(who bear a disconcerting resemblance to New York dandies), waving their
hats wildly—(Derby hats)—and shows Doctor Talmage sitting gracefully
upon the shoulders of two elegantly dressed enthusiasts; and the silk
hat of the Doctor is held aloft in his eloquent right hand, while his
left is extended in what I take to be his favorite gesture. The picture
represents all the Russians with their mouths shut. It also represents
Talmage with his mouth shut—a fact which arouses a suspicion that the
picture is spurious. Under _such_ circumstances, Talmage could no more
have kept his mouth shut than Bryan could.
Other pictures show Doctor Talmage in the act of responding from his
carriage to a street ovation; also of rising to make a few remarks to
a grand gathering in a hall draped with the Stars and Stripes; also of
making a speech on the arrival of a ship from the United States bringing
bread to feed the Russian peasants.
There are, also, pictures showing Talmage seated on one side of a small
table and the Czar seated on the other; Talmage in the act of being
received into the family circle of the Czar; Talmage standing erect in
his carriage, hat outstretched, in the act of returning the salutes
of hat-waving crowds which pause and look pleasant, apparently, until
Talmage’s picture man can draw his focus, spring his slide, and say,
“That’ll do.”
* * * * *
I state all this to show the readers how public opinion is sometimes made
to order. The Russian autocracy knew that Talmage was the best possible
press-agent they could use. He was intensely vain, easily flattered, a
snob to the core, a man whose very soul quivered with delight under the
smile of royalty.
There had been a great deal of abuse heaped upon Russia. The newspapers,
magazines, political pamphlets had been telling the civilized world a
vast deal about the barbarities practiced by the Russian government.
George Kennan, the brave American traveler, had risked all the rigors of
Siberia to see for himself how prisoners were treated there. His reports
had thrilled the hearts of millions with furious indignation against
the Czar, and with profound pity for the victims of imperial tyranny.
Tolstoy, Stepniak, Kropotkin and many others had been heard.
Russian autocracy was in bad odor throughout the Christian world, and
if such a man as Talmage could be enlisted for the defence, it would be
a fine thing to do. His voice would carry weight throughout Europe and
the United States. Therefore, it is reasonably certain that the Russian
government had an axe to grind when it made the Talmage visit an occasion
for a series of ovations.
At any rate, the Russian government got from Talmage when he came
to write his book of travels, a chapter of the most fulsome, least
discriminating praise that you will ever read.
Russia was all right, in every respect. Travelers were _never_ subjected
to vexatious delays or examinations—for Talmage had not been delayed or
vexed. He actually carried into Russia some books which criticised the
government, and the magnanimous officials made no objection. There was no
religious persecution in Russia! On the contrary, Jews and Gentiles, of
all descriptions, could worship God in any manner that pleased them. The
Government never interfered.
If a nobleman conspired against the life of the Czar, he was arrested,
put into a carriage, blindfolded, driven about for many hours to make him
believe that he was on his way to Siberia, and he was then set down, at
his own door, safe, unharmed, free!
If a poet wrote scurrilous verses about the Empress, he was brought into
the family circle of the Czar and asked to read the lines in the hearing
of the lady. That was the worst.
Siberia was described as a country of Italian softness of climate; and
banishment to the Siberian prisons, mines, etc., was altogether better
for criminals than ordinary jails.
Doctor Talmage defended Russian autocracy, Russian police, Russian
prisons, indignantly hurling back upon the slanderers of Russia their
foul accusations.
Listen to him—Talmage:
“But how about the knout, the cruel Russian knout, that comes down on the
bare back of agonized criminals? Why, Russia abolished the knout before
it was abolished from our American navy.”
Think of reading this stuff at a time when the ears of the world are yet
tingling at the sound of the Cossack whips!
Think of reading this _when we know_ that before Talmage’s book was
written, and while it was being written, and ever since it was written,
Russian peasants, by thousands, _have been flogged every year for
non-payment of taxes_!
“The Emperor received me with much heartiness. And at the first glance,
seeing him to be a splendid gentleman, with no airs of pretension and as
artless as any man I ever saw, it seemed to me that we were old friends
from the start.”
Doctor Talmage did not visit the Russian prisons which he defended;
did not go to Siberia, which he compared to Italy; did not make any
investigations of peasant-life; did not go among the working classes; did
not talk with Tolstoy, nor any man of the dissatisfied elements. In fact,
Talmage declares, in effect, that nobody was dissatisfied.
Listen to Doctor Talmage, Page 422:
“He who charges cruelty on the imperial family and _the nobility of
Russia_, belies men and women as gracious and benignant as ever breathed
oxygen.”
Shades of von Plehve!
When we read such lines as the above and recall how that gracious and
benignant nobility have drenched Russia with blood of peasants, Jews,
city workingmen, republican agitators—littering the streets with ghastly
heaps of murdered men and women and children—we may well stand amazed at
the success with which the wool was pulled over the eyes of the Rev. T.
De Witt Talmage, D. D.
“There are no kinder people on earth than the Russians, and to most of
them cruelty is an impossibility.”
[Illustration: “Dr. Talmage did not go to Siberia, which he compared to
Italy.”]
Of the Czar, Doctor Talmage says:
“He’s doing the best things possible for the nation which he loved, and
which as ardently loved him.... Things are going on marvelously well, and
I do not believe that out of 500,000 Russians you will find _more than
one person_ who dislikes the Emperor, and so that Calumny of dread of
assassination drops so flat it can fall no flatter.”
[Illustration: “I prophecy for Nicholas the Second a long and happy
reign.”—Dr. Talmage]
According to Doctor Talmage the story that the Czar dreaded the assassin
was a base Calumny, and he, Talmage, flattened it out in his book “so
flat it can fall no flatter.”
I wonder what the present Czar would feel, think and say if he could
_now_ read Talmage’s comfortable assurances on the subject of “dread of
assassination.”
* * * * *
While in Russia, Doctor Talmage saw the Rulers, and no others. He talked
with the governing class, and no others. He saw a ship from the United
States bringing bread to the Russian farmers, but it never occurred to
his mind that a drouth in one portion of the huge Russian Empire was no
good reason why the New World should have to save Russian peasants from
starvation.
Looking only on the surface, seeing only what his “old friend” the Czar,
wished him to see, he praised the Russian government in terms of the most
unqualified eulogy.
Before the Talmage book was ready for the press, Prince Cantacuzene,
the Russian Minister Plenipotentiary at Washington, summoned Doctor
Talmage to the deck of a Russian man-of-war, in Philadelphia harbor,
and presented to the enraptured American “a complete gold-enameled tea
service accompanied by a message of love which I cannot now think of
without deep emotion, since Emperor Alexander has disappeared from the
palaces of earth to take his place, as I believe, in the palaces of
heaven.”
In behalf of the Czar, the formalities of a trial on Judgment Day, were
waived, it would seem; and the Czar went direct from Peterhof to his
mansion in the skies.
The Emperor Alexander, it is well-known, was succeeded by his son
Nicholas, the reigning Czar.
Talmage’s book was published in 1896. Here is what he predicted:
“_I prophesy for Nicholas the Second a long and happy reign!_”
That was a very natural inspiration. Talmage had delved into Russian
affairs and found conditions ideal. The government was mild, just,
progressive. The people were contented, and devoted to the Czar. There
was no cruelty in the administration, and no suffering among the
peasants, excepting the locality affected by the drought. The bread had
been sent to feed the peasants, and all would be well. The Knout had
been abolished. The serf, freed, was happy. Religious toleration was in
practice; the circulation of political literature unhampered.
There was not a cloud upon the horizon. George Kennan, Stepniak, Tolstoy,
Kropotkin had been slandering vilely the most humane Government of
Europe—a Government which Talmage compared to ours, to our discomfiture
in various respects.
With a Podsnapian wave of his hand, Talmage said to Europe, “_Let this
international defamation of Russia cease._”
With that Royal welcome fresh in his memory, with those public ovations
still ringing in his ears, with that “complete gold-enameled tea service”
gladdening his eye, with the “message of love” conveyed by the Prince
Cantacuzene still warming his heart, how could Doctor Talmage prophesy
otherwise?
The spirit of the occasion demanded prophecy, and there it stands
recorded, page 432:
“_I prophesy for Nicholas the Second a long and happy reign!_”
_A Prophet Whose Voice Was Not Heeded_
Almost in sight of where I live, there is a heap of stones that marks the
spot where stood the hut in which George McDuffie was born.
His folks were “poor folks.” Concerning his ancestry nothing is known.
When I was a boy somebody told me a story to this effect:
Little George McDuffie was at the cowpen where his mother was milking,
and he had a calf by the ears holding it away from the cow. A traveler,
in a buggy, drove up and stopped. Seeing the boy, and not realizing the
absorbing character of the boy’s job, the wayfaring man called out:
“Come here, Bubbie, and hold my horse.”
To which the lad replied: “If you’ll come here and hold my calf, I’ll go
there and hold your horse.”
According to the story, the traveler was so tickled by the boy’s
readiness of wit, that he took a fancy to him and secured him a position
as clerk in a store in the city of Augusta.
Well, George McDuffie wasn’t much of a clerk. He loved to read books
better than to wait upon customers. It came to pass that his fondness for
books attracted the attention of one of the Calhouns—_not_ John C., but
his brother, I believe—and Mr. Calhoun placed the boy at the celebrated
school of Dr. Waddell to be educated.
The balance is history. McDuffie became one of the greatest legal
advocates and political orators this country has ever known.
Later in life he became involved in a newspaper controversy which drew
him into two duels. In one of these he received a wound which injured his
spine and affected his brain.
In his melancholy decline, and not long before his death, McDuffie was
moved by a yearning to come back to Georgia and visit the spot where
his boyhood home had stood. He came from South Carolina by private
conveyance, and spent the night with my grandfather. Next day he went on
down to the Sweet-water Creek neighborhood where the McDuffie hut had
been. My father used to tell me that when they led the broken statesman
to the spot, pointed out the remaining shade tree and the dismantled
chimney, they drew away, leaving him alone with his memories. After
awhile they returned to find Mr. McDuffie sitting upon the stones of the
ruined hearth, crying like a child.
When the boy, George McDuffie, left the store in Augusta and went over
into South Carolina to go to school, he carried all of his earthly
possessions in one little pine box.
When he became a man he made much money, owned large estates and moved as
a peer among the proudest leaders of his day.
But he never parted with the little pine box. It was a souvenir of
the old days of youth and poverty. It was sacred in his eyes, and he
treasured it. When his mind was almost gone, he would put his arms about
the box, and tell again the story of how it had held all that he owned
when he came into South Carolina—a poor boy, on his way to the great
battle-field of life.
Did you know that to this almost forgotten statesman, George McDuffie,
belongs the distinction of having made the most powerful and most
prophetic speech that was ever made in Congress against our damnable
Tariff System?
Well, it does. Such men as Nelson Dingley and Joseph H. Walker were
good judges in such a matter, and they regarded McDuffie’s argument as
the strongest ever made against the New England scheme of enriching its
Capitalists by plundering other sections. Dr. Goldwin Smith should also
be a competent judge, and you will find that McDuffie’s speech is the one
he quotes from in his “Political History of the United States.”
[Illustration: George McDuffie]
Mr. McDuffie’s great speech against the protective system is too long to
be reproduced here; but in the concluding paragraphs he predicted with
such clearness of vision the reign of rotten business and rotten politics
which now afflicts us that his words read like inspired prophecy:
“Sir, when I consider that, by a single bill like the present, millions
of dollars may be transferred annually from one part of the community to
another; when I consider the disguise of disinterested patriotism under
which the basest and most profligate ambition may perpetrate such an act
of injustice and political prostitution, I cannot hesitate, for a moment,
to pronounce this system _the most stupendous instrument of corruption_
ever placed in the hands of public functionaries.
“IT BRINGS AMBITION AND AVARICE AND WEALTH INTO A COMBINATION WHICH IT IS
FEARFUL TO CONTEMPLATE, BECAUSE IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO RESIST.
“Do we not perceive, at this very moment, the extraordinary and
melancholy spectacle of less than one hundred thousand capitalists, by
means of this unhallowed combination, exercising an absolute and despotic
control over the opinions of eight millions of free citizens and the
fortunes and destinies of ten millions?
“Sir, I will not anticipate or forbode evil. _I will not permit myself to
believe that the Presidency of the United States will ever be bought and
sold._ But I must say that there are certain quarters of this Union in
which, if the candidate for the Presidency should come forward with this
Harrisburg tariff in his hand, nothing could resist his pretensions if
his adversary were opposed to this _unjust system of oppression_.”
* * * * *
“Indeed, Sir, when I contemplate the extraordinary infatuation _which a
combination of capitalists and politicians_ have had the heart to diffuse
over more than one-half of this Union—when I see the very victims who
are about to be offered up to satiate the voracious appetite of this
devouring Moloch, paying their ardent and sincere devotions at his
bloody shrine; I confess I have been tempted to doubt whether mankind was
not doomed, even in its most enlightened state to be the dupe of some
form of imposture, and the victim of some form of tyranny.
[Illustration: How American Capital Protects American Labor]
“Sir, in casting my eyes over the history of human idolatry, I can find
nothing, even in the _darkest_ ages of ignorance and superstition,
which surpasses the infatuation by which _a confederated priesthood of
politicians and manufacturers_ have bound the great body of the people of
the farming States of this Union as if by a spell, TO THIS MIGHTY SCHEME
OF FRAUD AND DELUSION.”
* * * * *
Bear in mind that this speech was made in 1824.
Then look around you and see how prophetically Mr. McDuffie pictured the
future.
The Presidency is bought and sold. Congress is bought and sold. The
confederated priesthood of politicians and manufacturers do dominate an
infatuated people whom it deludes and plunders.
The Trusts are nothing in the world but the legitimate children of
Privilege and Protection.
Campaign boodle-funds are nothing in the world but the sop which the
Corrupt Combination of Capitalists pay to renew the lease which they hold
on the Government.
And, as Mr. McDuffie said, the most astounding feature of the whole
diabolical system is the completeness with which the politicians and
the Privileged can dupe the victims of Protection into the belief that
_Privilege_ benefits the unprivileged.
With the doors of immigration standing wide open vomiting into our
industrial world all the cheap white labor of the universe, our Protected
capitalists are still able to convince our wage-earners that American
capital protects American labor from the competition of foreign “pauper”
labor!
Having ground down the price of factory labor to such a low point that
they can undersell foreigners in the foreign market, our Privileged and
Protected Capitalists can nevertheless convince American laborers that
the motive for high tariffs is to enable the Capitalist to pay big wages!
And they swallowed it—the wage-earners swallow it, meekly, blindly,
trustfully.
The record of a Century teaches them nothing.
The evidences of their own senses are ignored.
The very factory hands who at Fall River lived off the soup of the
Salvation Army devoutly believed that if it hadn’t been for the
Protective system they wouldn’t even have got the soup.
The factory girl who is paid five dollars per week, and who, when she
complains that she cannot live on the wage, is sardonically advised to
get a gentleman friend, actually believes that were it not for Privilege
and Protection she would not get the five dollars.
God in heaven! No wonder that George McDuffie expressed his doubt as to
whether the masses could ever be enlightened. No wonder his prophetic
speech vibrated with an undertone of despair.
Less than one-tenth of the laborers of this country own their homes; yet
_they_ have been Protected for a hundred years.
Less than a quarter million men own practically the entire wealth of the
whole United States; yet Privilege and Protection are _not_ for their
benefit.
You go to the millions of Unprivileged and Unprotected citizens and you
point out to them how they are plundered by being made to pay twice as
much as they should on every article which they buy.
They understand it; they admit the fact; but the corrupt politician has
taught them what to say.
This is the lesson:
“Yes; we pay twice as much as the goods are worth, but it is patriotic
and humane, because we thereby enable millions of American wage-earners
to get big wages.”
Fine, isn’t it?
If the man who repeats that little lesson, and believes it, would go
into the districts where Protection is and where the system has been at
work longest he will find himself in precisely the places where wages
are lowest, where Capitalists are harshest, where squalor and vice are
rankest, and where the maddened victims of our soulless wage-system are
nursing in their hearts the passions of hell.
_The Highest Office_
Let seasons come and go, let the sunlight and shadows fall where God’s
pleasure puts them—do your duty as conscience and reason reveal it to
you. Let no other man measure your work or your responsibilities; let no
artful sophistry, in favor of the expedient, veil from your steadfast
eyes the summits of Right. Let parties rise and fall; let time-servers
flop and flounder, let the heedless praise of the hour lay its withering
garlands at the feet of him who will purchase them by bending to every
passing breeze, every popular whim, every local prejudice.
Do thou look higher if joy and strength and peace and pride are to be
thine. In this brief life (hardly worth the living) know this one thing:
that a man’s honor should be just as dear to him as a woman’s virtue is
to her. Did the Roman girls not go gladly to the lions, to the bloody
death in the arena, rather than to recant their Christian faith, or to
accept a lawless lover? Did not the Armenian woman, a few years ago, leap
to death over the precipice, rather than to apostatize or to be violated?
Isn’t the ground still wet with the life-drops of poor Else Kroegler,
who let her white throat be gashed, and gashed, and gashed, by the black
devil who assailed her, till her life was gone, rather than to live
dishonored? And shall a man be less heroic than a woman? Is there nothing
within us that cannot be bought? Is there no Holy of Holies of conviction
and principle, into which the corruptor shall not enter? Is there nothing
that we hold sacred as the citadel of proud, fearless, upright manhood?
Once upon a time a barbarous peasant worked his way upward and onward,
until he wore the imperial purple of Rome; and he said: “I have gained
all the honors and none of them have value.” Did not Cæsar, himself, grow
sick at heart of the eminence he had wickedly won, and say that he had
lived long enough?
If we must bow to what is wrong, flatter what we despise, preach what
we disbelieve, and deny what we feel to be true, is success thus won
anything but a gilded dishonor?
To be a man, such a man as you know God would have you be—manly,
truthful, honest—scorning meanness, hating lies, loathing deceit,
meeting the plain duties of life, and shirking none of its plain
responsibilities—is not that the highest office you can fill?
_Editorial Comment_
The Washington Post is generally accurate in its statements of facts, but
it erred in saying that one of the legal grounds for divorce in Georgia
is insanity occurring _after_ the marriage. Our statute book is not
disgraced by a provision of that kind.
Insanity is a misfortune for which, as a rule, the victim is not to
blame. Besides, it is a disease which is often cured, or a terrible
visitation which sometimes passes away as suddenly as it came.
Suppose the Legislature deprives the afflicted wife of possibly her
only protector by granting the husband a divorce; suppose the wife then
regains her sanity—would not the situation be horrible?
When I reflect upon the shameful things the Wall Street millionaires
have led our Legislature to do, I am by no means certain that some Ryan
or Morgan, tired of his old wife, might secure from the Hamp McWhorter
machine a legislative license to go and buy a fresh one—but such a deal
has not, as yet, been consummated.
* * * * *
Congress is beginning to catch on to the enormous frauds in the weighing
of the mails. In the first issue of this Magazine, I called attention to
the notorious fact that certain Congressmen, who belong to the railroads,
were in the habit of lending to their bosses the frank whose mark on mail
matter entitles it to go through the mails without payment of postage.
For example: Suppose the Southern Railroad wants the use of the frank of
the Honorable Leonidas F. Livingston, whom “the Democratic Party” of the
Atlanta, Ga., District sends to Congress. In that case, the Honorable
Leonidas will lend his bosses his rubber stamp which, being inked and
pressed upon a sack of mail matter, leaves thereon this inscription:
_L. F. Livingston, M. C._
This inscription being placed upon the sack, the postal authorities are
compelled by law to carry the sack to any part of the United States free
of charge. The magic letters “M. C.” which stand, of course, for “Member
of Congress,” are as good as gold in the postal service. Now why does the
Southern Railroad want to use the frank of the Honorable Leonidas?
For this reason:
The Government pays the railroads for carrying the mails, at so much per
pound; to get at the “average” for the whole year, the Government weighs
the mail for ninety days; therefore it is hugely to the advantage of the
railroads to make the “average” as high as possible; and consequently the
railroads themselves crowd into the mails, _during those ninety days_,
every God-blessed piece of old junk they can lay their hands on.
See?
But if the railroads had to pay postage on that old junk, their profits
would be cut down to just that extent. They would have to pay thousands
of dollars to the Government, in postage, during the ninety days.
By getting from the Honorable Leonidas the use of his frank, the railroad
can escape payment of postage on the old junk. By the collusion of the
Honorable Leonidas, the Southern Railroad is not only enabled to swindle
the Government in the creation of a fraudulent “average,” but _they even
unload on the Government the expense of carrying the bogus mail which
constitutes the swindle_.
In the first number of this Magazine, I gave Livingston’s name as that of
one of the rascals who help the railroad swindle the people.
_I give it again._
The Honorable Leonidas is one of the unscrupulous knaves who covers the
multitude of his individual sins with the generous, rubber-coat mantle of
“the Democratic Party.”
The time is rapidly approaching in this country when a scoundrel will
be treated as a scoundrel, regardless of his being a member of the
Democratic Party or the Republican Party. Thieves and corporation
doodles will not forever escape detection and infamy by crying out “I am
a Democrat,” or “I am a Republican.”
* * * * *
The gaping world is told that the Princess Ena, of the Royal House of
Great Britain, is about to marry Alfonso, the decadent lad who is King
of Spain. The Royal House of Great Britain holds the throne upon the
Parliamentary Condition that it shall be Protestant. The Act which
recognized the Hanoverian succession reads: “The Princess Sophia and the
heirs of her body _being Protestants_.”
But the crown of Spain would not be allowed to rest upon the head of a
heretic. No, indeed! The King and Queen of Spain must be Catholics.
But King Alfonso wants the fair Princess Ena, and the ambitious Ena wants
to become Queen of Spain.
Is there any way out? Oh, yes. The Princess Ena, of the Royal House whose
Protestant faith is a matter of Parliamentary measure, being determined
to marry a King whose crown depends upon his being a rigid Catholic,
happily solves the problem by “turning” Catholic.
Very well. If to Henry of Navarre “Paris was well worth a mass,” why
shouldn’t the throne of Spain be worth as much to the fair Princess Ena?
* * * * *
And, by the way, the Princess Ena has had some illustrious examples set
her in the matter of changing one’s creed.
Did not unhappy little Anna Gould “turn” Catholic to ease the conscience
of her precious Castellane?
And did not the daughter of the American “house” of Mackay “turn”
Catholic when she became an Italian princess?
Human motives are pretty much the same everywhere, and to many people
religion is a mere matter of respectable conformity to the manners and
customs of those who make up the environment.
* * * * *
John D. Rockefeller is running about from one hiding place to another,
to keep from being found by the officers of the law. How silly. Why does
he not come into court with a shattered memory and a pack of perjuries
like some of the other high-rolling rascals who have been before the
courts recently?
As to one-third of the things which might land him in the penitentiary,
if he admitted them, he can say, “I decline to answer on advice of
counsel.”
To another third he can say that he does not remember.
To the remaining third, he can make perjured replies.
Then old John will be in line with Rogers, McCall, McCurdy, Depew and
some others who have recently figured in the New York legal proceedings.
* * * * *
While Rockefeller is hiding out like a common criminal, would it not be
appropriate for one of his high-priced preachers to come forth in another
sermon, or interview, or signed article, explaining to us common mortals,
what a good and pious, and benevolent man old John D. is?
The Recording Angel must have a busy time trying to keep straight the
accounts of some of our high-priced city preachers.
There was Bishop Potter, for instance, who choked off the Reverend Mr.
Chew when that subordinate divine wanted to give us a piece of his mind
concerning Life Insurance rottenness in New York. The high-priced Bishop
put himself in the attitude of warding off attack from the robbers of
widows and orphans.
* * * * *
The Constitution of the United States expressly declares that no money
shall be taken from the Treasury without an appropriation by Congress.
Therefore, when Lyman Gage and Leslie Shaw, Secretaries of the Treasury,
took $15,000,000 out of the Treasury and placed it in the Standard Oil
Bank in New York City they violated the supreme law of the land. The
$56,000,000 which Mr. Roosevelt’s administration has been allowing the
National Banks to hold and to use is held and used in violation of the
Constitution. What do our big men care for the law? Nothing. The law is
for the small and the weak.
* * * * *
It was not _your_ mother or sister or wife, _but it might have been_, and
therefore the thing that happened to her should stir your blood.
A lady who is every bit as good, so far as anybody knows or says, as Mrs.
Roosevelt, went to the White House to see the President on business. She
wanted to plead for her husband, who had been arbitrarily thrown out of
a good office at the instance of a very contemptible cur named Hull, who
happened to be a Congressman, and chairman of the House Committee on
Military Affairs.
A swell-head White House official named Barnes, told the lady that the
President was engaged and could not see her.
She remarked that she would wait until the President was disengaged—that
she meant to stay until she _did_ see him.
In other words, she placed herself in the position of “the importunate
widow.” She was desperately in earnest; her husband had been foully
wronged; it was a matter of vital importance to her; and her wifely heart
made her brave the rebuff of asinine Barnes.
Mr. Roosevelt had recently returned to the White House from a “progress”
through the Southern provinces, during which progress he had exhibited
himself to his admiring constituents as the most affable, approachable,
genial and generous of men. What was more natural than for Mrs. Morris to
think that a little persistence on her part would bring the gallant Teddy
to the front, beaming with that glorified grin and extending that cordial
hand which had so recently enraptured the people of the South?
Stage-play, however, is one thing and “business” is another. Teddy is
a genial democrat when playing to the grand-stand, and a bumptious
autocrat in some of his White House moods.
To cut the long story short, the lady was ordered out of the White House,
and when she kept her seat she was seized upon by three white men and one
negro and forcibly dragged out. Her silk dress was torn, her ornaments
scattered, her flesh bruised. The white men pulled her by the arms and
shoulders, the negro held her by the legs; she was dragged through the
mud to a cab, thrown into it like a common criminal and driven off to a
criminal’s resort, the House of Detention.
A more shocking outrage has never been committed at the White House. It
was indecent, it was brutal, it was despotic, it was violative of all
democratic usage and of every human consideration. The poor lady was so
terribly frightened, so rudely handled, subjected to such a public and
unprovoked humiliation that she was thrown into a fever and confined to
her bed for many days.
No—I have already stated that it was not _your_ sister, or _your_ mother
or _your_ wife whose legs were held by Roosevelt’s nigger while his three
white ruffians dragged her, screaming, through the mud, and flung her,
bruised and frantic, into a cab to be driven off as criminals are driven.
_But it might have been._
And when you consider the incident from that point of view you will
admire the courage with which Senator Ben Tillman denounced the outrage,
while you regard with utter scorn the cowardly attitude of the great
majority in both branches of Congress who were afraid to say what they
thought.
Mr. Roosevelt was not originally responsible for the outrage, but
he chose to become so by his refusal to express any regrets at the
occurrence, and by his failure to rebuke the brutes who were guilty of
such needless violence to a respectable visitor at a public office which
belonged as much to her as to anybody else on this earth.
[Illustration: _Maximum and Minimum Benefits, at Least_
_There is talk of congress adopting the maximum and minimum
tariff plan. Haven’t we something of that sort in force now._
_Bart., in Minneapolis Journal_]
[Illustration: _The Builder of the City_
_Tom L. Johnson_—“_That, sir, is the root of all municipal
mischief, and it must be dug out clean!_”
_Bengough, in The Public_]
[Illustration: “EVERYBODY WORKS FOR RYAN”
_F. Opper, in N. Y. American_]
[Illustration: Lookin’ T’wards Home