M. I \ .#+&« £ <&&f The Pullman Assessment 425 Speech at Mattoon, on Political Issues 428 Speech at Aurora Turner Hall, Chicago, on the Political Parties . . 444 Address to the National Grange : 450 The Cause of Democratic Defeat in November, 1894 454 Gn Change of Management in State Institutions 457 ** United States Supreme Court in Debs Case 459 The Medical Practice Act of Illinois 462 On Need of Great State University 463 The Supreme Court, and the Income Tax '. 464 "Letter on General Grant 466 Letter to Ela on Grover Cleveland 467 The Silver Convention of June, 1895 468 Suggestions for New Buildings 470 Suggestions to Insert in Contracts with Contractors or Builders. . 471 -Comments on the President's Letter on Silver 471 Unveiling Statue of Illinois 473 How to Make a Million 476 Speech at Galesburg to the American Railway Trainmen 476 Chauncey M. Depew 482 Installation of Dr. Draper as President of the University of Illinois 484 4 CONTENTS. Letter to Governor Stone on Position of Democratic Party on Money Question 486 Speech at Milwaukee, in August, 1895 488 Speech on the Battlefield of Chickamauga 49° Drift of the Republican Party 496 Laying the Corner- Stone of the New Normal University at De- kalb, Illinois 497 Care of Dependent Children 5 01 Lincoln Park Extension 5°3 Instructions Given to Coal Mine Inspectors 5°5 What Shall We Substitute for Competition? 5°^ Achievements of the New South ■ • 5 11 Letter to Mr. Giles on the Pardoning of McNulta and Chapman. 516' Lack of Patriotism among Business Interests 521 A Letter to the Christian Endeavorites S 22 /The Presidential Bee 5 2 5 Objections to Nominating a Republican at Chicago for President 526 ■ Olney for President 527 111 Fortune of the Democratic Party ; 528 Spanish Barbarities in Cuba 530 Comments on Secretary Carlisle's Chicago Speech 531 Spurned the Endorsement of Gold Standard Men 536 Gold Democrats and the Primary Election 537 Non-Partisan Speech on Money Question 541 Interview for New York World 570 Speech at Peoria Democratic State Convention 577 Speech in the National Democratic Convention at Chicago, 1896. 585 Speech at Girard, Illinois, Opening the Campaign 591 Letter to William S. Forman, East St. Louis 604 Laying of the Corner-Stone of the New Hospital for the Insane, at Rock Island 608 Answer to Schurz and Cochran | . 612 Speech at Cooper Union, New York 647 The Election of 1896 Qq I The Mission of a Minority Party , _ 693 Retiring Speech, January 11, 1897 607 Reception Speech at Tremont House 70I Election Frauds of 1896 - g > The Civil Service Law 722 Speech at Brooklyn, N. Y 7 ,, The New York City Campaign 74q Speech at Philadelphia 7 c CONTENTS. 5 Problems that Confront Us 774 Restricting Freedom of Speech in Colleges 775 Memorial Address on Henry George 775 ■Size of Conventions, Letter to St. Clair McKelway 781 Jefferson and Cleveland 783 The War and Expansion 799 Speech to Illinois Democratic Convention on National Issues. . . . 809 Crimes Against the State and Nation Exposed 826 Reply to Professor Laughlin on the Banking Bill 85 1 Omaha Speech — The Situation 870 APPENDIX. Useless Offices — Message to House of Representatives 893 The Courts of Chicago — Message to House of Representatives. . 894 Veto of Bill to Enlarge Asylums 895 General Message on Assembly of Legislature, 1895 897 Special Message on Leasing School Property of Chicago 938 Veto of the Monopoly Bills 940 Veto of Bill Declaring Policy of the State as to Waterways 943 Veto of Bill Authorizing Consolidation of Certain Corporations. . 945 Veto of Bill to Stop the Making of Cigars in Penitentiary 94^ Proclamation 947 ./Biennial Message to Legislature 950 OUR PENAL MACHINERY AND ITS VICTIMS. FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1884. PART FIRST. CHAPTER I. ARRESTS.— NUMBER IN JAILS.— NUMBER IN PENITENTIARIES.— DEPENDENTS AFFECTED. According to the report of the superintendent of police of the city of Chicago for the year 1882, there were 32,800 arrests made by the police of this city during that year, a number equal to about five per cent of the population.* This does not include the arrests made by constables and other State officers, nor those made by the local police in the adjoining suburbs of Chicago ; neither does it include the arrests made by the Federal officers. Just how many of the above were actually incarcerated in prison it is difficult to estimate; but it is safe to say that the majority were actually locked up, even though some of them were bailed out soon after. Supposing that fifty per cent of the above, which, as will be seen, is nearly right, were what are called "repeaters" — that is, per- sons who had been arrested before — it would still leave the number of new arrests, that is, the number of persons arrested for the first time, at 16,400. Then, assuming that the population will remain the same, * The number of arrests by the police of Chicago for the year 1884 was 39>433, of whom 30,887 were males, and 8,547 were females; and the general condition of these as well as the proportion of each class, as it regards age, prior arrests, occupation, etc., etc., was substantially the same as that of those arrested in 1882. 7 8 LIVE QUESTIONS. and multiplying this number by 33, the number of years of the aver- age lifetime, we find the astounding aggregate of 541,200 persons arrested during each generation by the police of Chicago alone. The number of arrests in proportion to the population is not greater in Chicago than in the other large cities of America; in fact, it falls far below that of some cities. It is true that many of the above did not actually live in Chicago, and it is also true that the number arrested in proportion to population in small towns and in the country is much smaller than in large cities. Now, while we have no means of ascertaining the exact number of arrests made each year throughout the entire country, still, if we add the arrests made by con- stables, sheriffs, and other officials, State and Federal, it will be found that the above estimate of five per cent will, when applied to the whole country, be not far out of the, way. Assuming, then, that we have in the United States 50,000,000 population, it follows that there are in the neighborhood of 2,500,000 arrests every year (some writers estimate the number much higher); and assuming, further, that forty per cent of these were repeaters (this is sufficiently large when the whole country is included, for outside of cities their number is much smaller), it will still leave 1,500,000 as the number of persons arrested each year for the first time. That is, one million and a half human beings are annually broken into what may be called a criminal experi- ence. If an average lifetime is thirty-three years, and the population should not increase, there will be, according to the above, in each generation about 49,500,000 different human beings in this country arrested and subjected to a criminal experience. NUMBER IN JAILS. So much for arrests. It is impossible to tell how many persons are actually incarcerated in the police prisons, variously called station- houses, calabooses, etc.; but aside from these, there is a jail in nearly every county in the United States, making in all about 2,140. At the time of taking the census of 1880 there were actually confined in these jails 12,815 prisoners. The average length of confinement in jails is generally from thirty to forty days; so that, if the number of inmates is to remain the same, the above number must be renewed a little over ten times every year. This would make the total number of committals to the county jails in that year 128,150. Allowing for in- crease of population, it would make the annual number now (1883-4) 160,150. If from the above forty per cent be deducted for repeaters, we shall NUMBER IN PRISONS. § have a result of 96,090, representing the number of persons that are annually put into jail for the first time. NUMBER IN PENITENTIARIES OR STATE-PRISONS. In addition to the above, there are in the United States upward of fifty state-prisons and work-houses, generally called houses of correction, in which those actually convicted are confined, and in which the prisoners are required to work, as the convict-labor system has been introduced into and now prevails in all the state-prisons and houses of correction in the United States, except in Delaware. In the last state-prisoners do not work. It should be explained that the so-called houses of correction, or bridewells, are, in fact, miniature penitentiaries; the chief difference being that to the former are committed those that are convicted of the minor offenses and sentenced for a short term, as well as those that are unable to pay a fine imposed by some police magistrate. These houses are generally situated near large cities, and frequently draw inmates from no other source. According to the report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of Illi- nois, made to the legislature of that State, about 50,000 convicts were confined in 1880 in the various penitentiaries and houses of correction in the United States in which prison labor was performed. The aver- age length of confinement in the penitentiaries varies greatly from time to time, but is generally from two and one-half to nearly four years, while in the houses of correction it is generally from thirty to forty days. As we do not know the precise average length of con- finement in state-prisons, we cannot tell exactly how many enter these institutions every year for the first time. Allowance must here also be made for repeaters, who in some state-prisons make up twenty-five per cent of the inmates. But, after making all allowance, it is apparent that the number of men — and a great majority are young men — annually added to the miserable throng is very large; and if we multiply this number by the number of years constituting the average lifetime, we can form some idea of the number of victims which each generation contributes to this altar. DEPENDENTS AFFECTED. Pursuing the subject a little farther, we find we have only touched a small part of it. I will not here discuss the moral effect of arrest, imprisonment, etc., on the prisoner himself, but simply on those standing in close relationship to him, as father, mother, sister, brother, child, etc. The disgrace, the odium, the pain, reach out remorselessly io LIVE QUESTIONS. to them, and to a greater or less extent they suffer on account 01 his fate. It is safe to say that there are, on an average, at least five, persons that stand in this relation to every man who is wearing striped clothing and responding to a number in a state-prison — to every one that is breathing the corroding air of the county jail, as well as to him who, for the first time, feels the ignominy of having rough hands laid on him and of being deprived of his liberty. Multiply, now, the foregoing numbers by five, and then behold the multitude who are directly affected — who feel the shock, the quiver of every blow that is struck by our penal machinery. Consider for a moment that for the 50,000 beings confined in the penitentiaries there are at least 250,000 others that are suffering. Leave out the repeaters, if you like, as being past the pale of sympathy ; take the annual 96,090 new cases of imprisonment in the county jails, and reflect that there are 480,450 others that are feeling the blow. Then take the 1,500,000 persons arrested each year for the first time, and remember that there are annually 7,500,000 different human be- ings, and these of the poorer and weaker classes, who are shoved downward instead of being helped by our penal machinery. CHAPTER II. NUMBER OF MEN EMPLOYED.— COST.— RESULTS. Again, look at the number of men employed by this system. There are the thousands of regular policemen in our cities, the thous- ands of special policemen, the thousands of so-called detectives, both public and private. Then there are in the neighborhood of 50,000 constables in this country, and about as many magistrates. Then there are nearly 2,200 sheriffs, and perhaps 10,000 deputy-sheriffs. Then come grand juries — for most of the States still retain this system — meeting on an average three times a year, and composed, usually, of eighteen men each; then the petit juries for about 2,200 counties, meeting as often as the grand juries, and, including talesmen, composed of about the same number of men; then, lawyers for the State; next, judges for the trial and appellate courts, clerks for these courts, keepers for police-stations, keepers for about 2,200 jails, keepers for' all the penitentiaries, to say nothing about witnesses for the State and de- fense. In all these you behold a vast multitude of men, numbering nearly a million, all forming a part of this machinery, many giving it all their time, some getting salaries, and others relying on the fees MEN EMPLOYED.— COST.— RESULTS. U they can collect from those arrested — actually getting their living, or trying to get it, out of the shortcomings and the transgressions of their fellow-men. So much for a glance at the size of this machinery. COST. Turning for a moment from the size to the "cost of the thing," we find that the sums expended are more than any man can count. It is impossible to estimate the amount now actually invested in prison "buildings and equipments throughout the land. There are nearly fifty large penitentiaries supplied with workshops, machinery, etc. Then there are nearly 2,200 jails, besides numerous police prisons. Perhaps $400,000,000 would be a low estimate of the cost of all these improvements. This is all dead capital. Nobody thinks of getting any return on it — even in those prisons that are said to be self-support- ing, nobody thinks of paying interest on the investment. Placed at five per cent the interest on this sum alone would be $20,000,000 per annum. The above sinks into insignificance when compared with the yearly expenses. While a few of the penitentiaries have, for short intervals, been "self-supporting," the most of them must apply annually to the legislature for large appropriations. Then the expense of keeping up the jails, the smaller prisons, and the police force may be called a dead loss. In 1880 the average cost in Illinois of every prisoner in jail, includ- ing expense of arrest, etc., was about $27. Assuming this to be a fair average, it would make, on the present basis of population, a total yearly expense of $4,087,800 for jail prisoners. For the year 1882 the expense of the police department of Chicago was a little over $800,000, making an average of about $24 for each of the 32,800 arrests. As the police department of Chicago is run as economically and the force is as effective and well-managed as any in the land, this is a low average, and yet if this sum were multipied by the total arrests throughout the land, it would make $36,000,000 as the amount paid annually by the government simply for arrests ; and to this amount most of the jail expenses — the costs of prosecution and of confinement in the larger prisons — must yet be added. These sums are large; and yet they represent only a part of the expense. They approximate only the amounts paid directly in the shape of taxes; they do not include the large sums paid as costs by those convicted, nor do they include the large sums expended in various other ways in connection with our criminal procedure. 12 uvn QUESTIONS. RESULTS. Such is the size and the cost which a mere glance at our penal machinery reveals. It is immense, it is costly, and its victims are counted by millions. Surely one would suppose that in this country crime were repressed, that life and property were protected; and as the terrors of the law are scattered so profusely in the shape of numerous arrests, one would suppose that the hardened criminal were perfectly restrained, and the young deterred from the paths of crime. But, strange to say, quite the opposite seems to be the case. The young are not deterred, nor are the vicious repressed. Revolting crimes are of most frequent occurrence in all parts of the land, and the feeling is spreading that from some cause our penal system does not protect society. In short, it does not seem to be a success. It does not deter the young offender, and it seems not to reform nor to restrain the old offender. This being so, one is naturally led to ask whether there is not something wrong with the system; whether it is not based on a mis- taken principle; whether it is not a great mill which, in one way or another, supplies its own grist, a maelstrom which draws from the outside, and then keeps its victims moving in a circle until swallowed in the vortex. For it seems, first, to make criminals out of many that are not naturally so ; and, second, to render it difficult for those once convicted ever to be anything else than criminals; and, third, to fail to repress those that do not want to be anything but criminals. CHAPTER III. CRIME-PRODUCING CONDITIONS. WHO ARE THOSE ARRESTED.— OCCUPATIONS OF MALES.— OCCUPATIONS OF FEMALES.— AGE.— PARENTAGE.— HOME INFLUENCES.— SCHOOL PRIVILEGES.— HABITS, ETC. Let us first see whence comes this multitude — from what strata of society is it drawn? Is it composed of the strong, the well- raised, well-trained, well-housed, and well-fed class, and must it there- fore be regarded as willfully criminal? or is it largely made up of the poor, the unfortunate, the squalid, and those that are the victims of their environment? We need not go far for an answer. Taking the report of the superintendent of the house of correction (bridewell) of Chicago, we find that of 7,566 persons imprisoned in that institution CRIME-PRODUCING CONDITIONS. 13 during the year 1882, all but 190 were incarcerated for non-payment of fines. That is, 7,376 had been fined for some small offense, and, being unable to pay the fine, had been sent to the house of correction to work it out. This shows that nearly all those there confined were of the very poor classes. OCCUPATIONS OF MALES. Glancing at the reports of their occupations, we find that 306 re- ported no occupations, 1,460 claimed to be common laborers, 214 sailors, 327 teamsters, 190 hostlers, 167 railroad employes, 96 waiters, 99 printers, 64 peddlers, 176 painters and glaziers, m shoemakers, 99 puddlers, no cooks, yy firemen, 109 packers, 64 machinists, 80 apprentices, 87 barbers, 61 blacksmiths, 150 carpenters, 149 butchers, 43 chair-makers, 44 cigarmakers, 157 clerks, 48 bricklayers, 36 bar- tenders, 65 bootblacks, 23 boilermakers, 59 farmhands, 82 molders. OCCUPATIONS OF FEMALES. Of the 1,809 females committed to the same institution during the year mentioned, 359 were reported prostitutes, 871 servants, 121 wash- women, 52 seamstresses, 26 scrubbers, 99 cooks, 24 dressmakers, 114 laundresses, etc., showing that the women likewise were of the poorer classes, almost one-half being servants. AGE. Looking at their ages, we find they ran as follows: Eight years old, 1 ; nine years old, 5; ten years, 14; eleven years, 25; twelve years, 47; thirteen years, 68; fourteen years, 103; fifteen years, 95; sixteen years, 150; seventeen years, 185; eighteen years, 285; nineteen years, 231; twenty years, 234; twenty-one years, 310; twenty-two to twenty- five yeajs, 1,184; twenty-six to thirty years, 1,343; thirty-one to thirty-five years, 960; thirty-six to forty years, 978; forty-one to fifty years, 921; fifty-one to sixty years, 358; sixty-one to seventy years, 74; seventy-one to eighty years, 16; eighty-one to ninety years, 9. Showing that 508 were under sixteen years of age; 1,413 were under twenty-one; 2,907 were under twenty-six; and 4,241 were under thirty years of age. PARENTAGE. "Again, it appears from the same report that of the 7,566 incar- cerated during said year, 3,460, or almost half, had no parents living; 1,105 na d only mother living; 529 had only father living — making 5,094, or five-sevenths of all, whose home conditions were bad, while almost half of the whole number committed had no home at all. 14 'LIVE QUESTIONS. The same conditions are found in the larger prisons, as will be seen by examining the following table prepared by Fred. L. Thompson, chaplain of the Southern Illinois Penitentiary at Chester. It throws a •flood of light on this subject. TABLE SHOWING PRIME CAUSES OF CRIME, ON A BASIS OF FIVE HUNDRED MEN. HOME INFLUENCES. Lost father at 5 years and under 65 " 10 " " over S 20 " 15 " " over 10 7 Lost mother at 5 years and under 42 " 10 " " over S 29 " 15 " " over 10 28 Lost both parents at 5 years and under 24 10 " " over 5 28 Never knew a home , 38 Left home at 10 years and under 49 IS " " over 10 167 18 " " " IS ...165 20 " " " 18 47 21 " " upward 34 Without home influence at 18 years and under 419 SCHOOL PRIVILEGES. Never went to school 218 Went to school 2 years and less. 104 " S " " over 2 99 " 10 " " " 5 79 Illiterate 1S3 Read and write very imperfectly., 189 Read and write with higher attainments 188 Learned to read and write in prison 32 % HABITS. Frequented saloons 406 Drunken habits 121 Drunk at time crime was committed 115 Gambled 246 Carried concealed weapons , 208 AGE AT FIRST PENITENTIARY CRIME. 20 years and under v 150 25 " " over 20 140 30 " " " 25 90 4° " " " 30 70 So " " " 40 24- 60 " " " so 21 70 " " " 60 s CRIME-PRODUCING CONDITIONS. ig In his report accompanying this table Mr. Thompson says: "I have read every available thing on crime, its cause and cure; on prisons, their discipline, etc. I have talked freely with the convicts as to their early lives, their home influences, their early opportunities, and their habits; and I have come to the conclusion that there are two prime causes of crime — the wanfof proper home influence in childhood, and the lack of thorough, well-disciplined education in early life. Of the first, there are at least five classes: Those who never knew a home; those who lost parents, one or both, while young; those who had vicious homes; those who ran away from home in the formative period of life; and those who were over indulged in their homes. Of the second there are those who never went to school; those who went but very little ; and those who played truant, or were idle and refractory in school. The lack of this early influence and training at home, and of this discipline and learning at school, has left the individuals morally and mentally weak, the easy subjects of bad habits, vicious appetites, and designing men. "These drift into the tide of bad associations, trashy and then vicious reading, to places of carnal amusements, to saloons, gaming- houses, houses of ill-fame, to the society of the vulgar and criminal, to the committing of crimes — small at first, but bolder at last — and then into the penitentiary. The current of this stream is as traceable, and its sweep as powerful and merciless, as the channel of the Mississippi River. As the latter, unmolested, sweeps its drift into the Gulf of Mexico, so certainly the former sweeps its drift into the penitentiary or" some other form of penal service, unless the strong arm of society is in some way put forth to the rescue. That you and others may see and feel this as I do, I have visited five hundred prisoners, taken in succession, and put to them uniform questions, the answers to which I have carefully noted, tabulated, and present with this report. When you have studied this table, I am certain you will be convinced of the position I have taken as to the prime causes of crime. No one has a better opportunity to see the discipline of the prison, and study its effects upon the convicts, than the chaplain." Looking a moment at Mr. Thompson's table, we see that of the 500 convicts examined, 419, or upward of four-fifths, were without home influence when at the age of eighteen years, and under. This shows where the multitude comes from. It also appears that of the same 500, 218 never had attended school; and that only 188, or less than two-fifths, had what is usually called a good, fair education. It also appears that more than half were under twenty-six years of age. 16 LIVE QUESTIONS. •This showing is not exceptional to that penitentiary; on the con- trary, these conditions are substantially the same in all the large prisons in the country. I have examined the reports of nearly all the large prisons in the United States, and find a remarkable similarity in them all, in so far as they treat of the question here under con- sideration. The truth is, that the great multitudes annually arrested for the first time are of the poor, the unfortunate, the young and neglected; of those that are weak and, to a great extent, are the victims of unfavorable environments. In short, our penal machinery seems to recruit its victims from among those that are fighting an unequal fight in the struggle for existence. The subject of crime-producing conditions has received but little attention in the past, and is only now beginning to be discussed. It has always been assumed, in our treatment of offenders, that all had the strength, regardless of prior training and surroundings, to go out into the world and do absolutely right if they wished, and that if any one did wrong it was because he chose to depart from good and to do evil. Only recently have we begun to recognize the fact that every man is to a great extent what his heredity and his early environment have made him, and that the law of cause and effect applies here as well as in nature. CANNOT SAY "NO." Nor have we thus far sufficiently considered the fact that a large proportion of the human family cannot say "no" at all times when they should. How common it is for people of education and character to do things which they know at the time to be injurious. Yet an influence which somehow they cannot resist impels them, and they act, as it were, under protest — often doing things which at the very time fill them with dread. This is true of many that have had excellent training, while among the less fortunate there are multitudes, with fair intelligence and in- dustry, who want to do right, but who suddenly find themselves within the power of an evil influence, exerted by pretended friends, which they dread — which drags them down, often leads them, against." their will, into crime, and from which, unaided, they cannot free, themselves. They are morally weak, not naturally bad. They are tools, not masters — mere instruments, not principals, and, so far as it concerns moral responsibility, might as well be inanimate and un- conscious. Yet we treat them as if they were masters. REPEATERS. 17 CHAPTER IV. REPEATERS. In the -Milwaukee house of correction there were committed, during the year ending December 31, 1881, 1,420 prisoners; of these 58.52 per cent, were committed for the first time, while 41.48 per cent., or less than half, had been imprisoned before. During the year 1882 there were committed in the Chicago house of correction, or bridewell, 7,566 prisoners; of these, 3,923, or a little over half, admitted that they had been imprisoned before. These two institutions may be taken as showing the average of re-committals in similar institutions throughout the country, which may be set down as 50 per cent.; that is, one-half of all imprisoned admit that they have been in prison before. But it must be remembered that all those imprisoned because of inability to pay a fine imposed by some police magistrate, as well as those convicted of the smaller offenses only, are sent to these insti- tutions; hence the average of re-committals is much higher than in the other prisons. For example, in the Illinois penitentiary at Joliet, there were committed, during the year ending September 30, 1882, 747 convicts. Of these, 121, or 16.20 per cent., admitted that they had been im- prisoned in the penitentiary before. In some years the average is higher. It varies a little in all the penitentiaries, but in many it is 25 per cent. ; and if we include the Southern States, where negroes are frequently re-committed for rather trivial offenses, it will average 30 per cent. No doubt a great many are re-committed without the knowledge of the prison officers, and consequently the number of re-committals really exceeds the above estimate. Of the 121 mentioned above, 88 were committed for a second term, 29 for a third, 5 for a fourth, 3 for a fifth, and 1 for a sixth. No doubt the average given above of 50 per cent, in houses of correction, and 30 per cent, for penitentiaries, would be much higher still, if it were not for the fact that the average lifetime of the chronic criminal is short; exposure and misery carry him to an early grave. But this average is much higher than it should be. The idea that one-half of the several millions annually arrested must go on and become chronic criminals has about it something appalling. And when we consider that it is from this throng that the majority of the desperate and vicious criminals come, the question again suggests itself 3 i8 LIVE QUESTIONS. whether there is not something the matter with the system; whether the system is not responsible for a part of this result; whether, in fact, the system we now have, instead of being reformatory and preventive, is not, in reality, debasing and productive. Having taken a general survey of its size, cost, and results, and having seen who are its victims, let us consider its operations a little further, especially so far as the effect on the young, on the innocent, and on the first offenders is concerned. And for this purpose it is important that we have at least some general ideas as to the character of the average police prisons or lockups. CHAPTER V. LOCK-UPS. Of these Wines, in his great work on prisons, says: "There is another class of prisons, little known or thought of, but very numer- ous and often extremely crowded, namely, the city prison — station- houses, or lock-ups, as they are variously called. They almost need a John Howard for their sole reformation. * * * It would seem, at first thought, to be a matter of slight importance where arrested persons are put for a single night or day, or how treated, or under what circumstances of discomfort kept. It is urged, 'Make the place intolerable and they will keep out of it!' If they would, the case would be different, and there would be less to say. If crime were more effectually prevented by cruel treatment of the criminal, that would be some excuse for it. But all experience proves the con- trary. Brutal treatment brutalizes the wrong-doer and prepares him for worse offenses. * * * In studying what character to give to a lock-up, we must consider that among the occupants there will always be a number who are there for the first time and the first offense. They have been caught in bad company, or been guilty of some disorder, or found sleeping out-of-doors, having no in-doors where to sleep ; or accused by the blunder of a policeman, or held on groundless suspicion. "Just at that point not a few of these take their first step in a downward course. Probably not less than ten per cent, of all confined nightly in this class of prisons are there - for the first and trifling offense, or for no punishable offense at all; and the aggregate number every night shut up in them, throughout the entire country, can hardly be less than from ten t9 fifteen thousand, Think of it! Not less than LOCK-UPS. 19 a thousand every night in the year locked up for the first time for a small offense or for no offense. Not a few of them children — boys and girls under fifteen years of age, whose chief fault is that they have never known a parent's love, never enjoyed the blessings of a home, never felt the warm presence of Christian care and kindness. Truly, human justice is a clumsy machine, and often deserves the punishment which it inflicts." Dr. Eliot, of St. Louis, contributed, in 1876, a paper to the New York prison congress, in which he describes one of these lock-ups in St. Louis, in which each cell is twelve feet long by eight feet wide and ten feet high, with no windows and no ventilation, all the light and air being admitted through grated doors opening into a passage. The usual nightly average of occupants to each cell is four or five, on Sunday nights often going up to eight or ten. Dr. Eliot says: "What school-houses of crime are these! The city's public schools of vice and profligacy, open for men, women and children, every day in the year, with a doubly accumulated crowd for the Lord's day! Go through the lock-ups of any large city on Sunday night, and you will see where no small part of the primary instruction in crime — yes, and advanced instruction, too— is given, and who the learners are." I cannot add anything to the above, and if anyone doubts the correctness of the picture, I simply say to him : Go and see for your- self, and be convinced; and bear in mind that the above condition is not, an exception, for these stations, or lock-ups, are very much alike all over the country. (See Jails and Remedy.) CHAPTER VI. COUNTY JAILS. Mr. Charles E. Felton, the superintendent of the Chicago house of correction, who has had a wide experience in prison management, has written the following concerning county jails: / "If there is a school for teaching vice and crime, it is the ordhfLry county jails, in which prisoners are herded in cells, and are allowed to congregate in the halls, without the least discrimination being made as to cause of detention, habits of life, physical condition, or previous moral character. This fact as to jails comes from what would be called heredity if applied to the peculiarities in human character; but as touching jail construction and management, it would be as a 20 'LIVE QUESTIONS. resultant of common habit. From the earliest days down to the present time, jails have been constructed without a seeming thought being given to any other end than that of safety from escape of their inmates; and in their management, with few exceptions, there seems to have been but one additional thought, and that was, 'How can the most money be made through the care of their inmates?' Now that is about the status of the jail question to-day. That our jails are nurseries of vice and crime is a recognized fact — one which jail officials seldom, if ever, deny; and in writing thus of them, it is not the inten- tion to point toward any one in particular of the more than twenty-five hundred in this country; nor to exclude but few as being different from the others." That eminent authority upon prison and reformatory work, Rev. Fred. H. Wines, lately said of the jail system: "It is a system of the association of the clean with the unclean; of the old and the young; of the innocent and the guilty; and, in some jails, of men and women, because men and women are not separated in some jails. In a jail in this State, I have known men and women to have the liberty of the entire jail, without any interference on the part of the jailers. I suppose they were locked tip at night, but they were together all the day. Then, again, the jail is a place of absolute idle- ness. No work is provided for the inmates. In the third place, it is a system in which the State ignores its own responsibility, and throws the men for whom it is responsible into the hands of incompetent county boards. If there is an iniquity in this land to-day, it is the county jail system. I do not know of any greater iniquity perpetrated to-day in the world than the jail system of the United States. It 'originated in the primitive days of society ; and there is no reason for its continuance, except that the people have not awakened to its enormity. There is no reason for it in law, morals, or public policy; there is no reason for it unless, as I have heard suggested, it is kept up, as it is in some cases, I suppose, by the sheriffs, who receive fees ' for looking after the prisoners, and get an allowance for dieting them, and they are not willing to give up their perquisites." So much for their character. As to the remedy: The most experienced managers and reformers now agree that none should be confined in county jails except prisoners that are awaiting trial and are charged with offenses of a character so grave as to require confinement before conviction. And these should not be permitted to congregate together, but be kept in separate cells- well lighted, but so arranged that one prisoner cannot see any other —so that those that may be discharged cannot contract any contamina- IMPROPER ARRESTS. 21 tion while in jail, the prisoner being permitted to converse only with the keeper and with such visitors as may be admitted. I am informed by General Brinkerhoff, of Mansfield, Ohio, that several jails have been built and are managed on this plan in that State, and the result is found to be so satisfactory, both to keepers and to the better class of prisoners, that the general adoption of the system is most earnestly advocated by all who are familiar with its workings. I will add that all that can be said in favor of such a plan for a county jail applies with' greater force to lock-ups. CHAPTER VII. EFFECTS OF IMPRISONMENT.— ARRESTS A MATTER OF PRIDE.— PRISON PRINCIPLES.— ALL TREATED ALIKE.— NO GOOD RESULTS. What effect do arrest and imprisonment have on those arrested, more particularly on the young? When we consider the great number annually arrested and im- prisoned, and when we realize that of all these a large majority are under twenty-six years of age, that a very large proportion of them are under twenty years of age, and that in some instances one-fifth of them- are females; and, still further, that almost all are of the poor — of the class that needs encouragement more than almost anything else — then does the effect of arrest and imprisonment become a most important question. However great an improvement it may be on the past (and nobody disputes that it is), still it is not a success. Turning now again to the report of the chief of police of Chicago, we find that of the 32,800 arrested, 10,743 were discharged by the police magistrates, to say nothing of those that were bound over to the grand jury and then discharged. So that during the one year there were in that one city upward of 10,000 young persons, who, without having committed any crime, were yet condemned to undergo a regular criminal experience. Think of this a moment. And if so many in one city, what a multitude must there be throughout the land! Mind, these were not even offenders. But what was the treatment which they received? Why, precisely the same as if they had been criminals. They were arrested, some of them clubbed, some of them handcuffed, marched through the streets in charge of officers, treated gruffly, jostled around. At the police station the name and a com- plete description of the person of each were written on the prison 22 LIVE QUESTIONS. records, there to remain. Some of the unhappy creatures were bailed out, while the remainder were shoved into cells and forced to spend a night, and sometimes a week there, forced to stand around with criminals, before they were discharged. Now, what effect will this treatment have on them? Will not every one of them feel the in- dignity to which he or she was subjected while life lasts? Will they all not abhor the men who perpetrated what is felt to be an outrage? Will they not look on this whole machinery as their enemy and take a secret delight in seeing it thwarted? Will they not almost unconsciously sympathize with those that defy this whole system, and are they not thus suddenly brought a whole length nearer crime than they were before? And will not those that were already weak, and were having a hard struggle for existence, be further weakened, and therefore more liable soon to become actual offenders than they otherwise would have been? "Remember, brutal treatment brutalizes, and thus prepares for crime. ARRESTS A MATTER OF PRIDE. At present, to make numerous arrests is a matter of pride with many policemen. In fact, in many places their efficiency, their stand- ing as peace officers, actually depends on and is determined by the number of arrests they make. And the chiefs of police in many villages, in preparing their reports, take great pride in being able to report a large number of arrests. There often exists even. a rivalry in this respect between different policemen on the same squad, each being anxious to get the credit of "running in" some poor wretch. I recently heard a policeman boast of his magnanimity toward a brother officer, whom he allowed to make four different arrests and thus get his standing improved, when the speaker could just as well have made them himself. Now this is wrong. It begets the wrong kind of efficiency. It encourages unnecessary arrests. In the enforcement of the law, every unnecessary indignity in- flicted, whether by word or act, especially in the case of first offenders, only makes matters worse. The person having to submit to it is ' thereby made the enemy of the officers and of the law. In reality, the police and other officers of the law should be pro- tectors and friends of the poor and the weak, and these should natur- ally fly to the former, as a child to a parent, for assistance and pro- tection. But almost the opposite of this is too often the case. It is the poor and the weak who are afraid of the officers, and avoid them whenever possible. This i§ not as it should be. The trouble IMPROPER ARRESTS. 23 is that too many officers (there are noble exceptions) like to assert their authority when there is no necessity for doing so. They are too anxious to act the master, when they should act rather as friends and assistants. As an illustration, take the following case, reported in the daily papers among the proceedings of the police courts: OFFICER 'S ASSAILANT. "Officer M. D , charged with assault and battery by Addie M , took a change of venue when his case came up before Justice Prindeville yesterday, and went before Justice Hammer. The evi- dence was not materially different from the facts as published the day after the issuance of the warrants by Justice Prindeville, January 3d. "Addie M and Rosa L were arrested the day before, charged with disorderly conduct, and were discharged January 3d by Justice Prindeville, on payment of costs. When they stepped out- side the court-room, Officer tried to arrest Addie M for an attempted assault with a deadly weapon on him when he had Rosa L under arrest the day before, though he had not known any- thing about the assault until he was told of it afterward by Officer S , who took a pocketknife from Addie M 's hand. Justice Hammer said he thought it a little singular that a man should have to be told about an assault on himself, and said the arrest at the court- room door, without a warrant, was unauthorized under the circum- stances, and fined him three dollars, the lowest fine for this offense. "There are some facts in regard to Officer and his fight against this woman which were not brought out in evidence. A few nights ago he arrested her on a charge of disorderly conduct, but, as nothing was proved against her, she was discharged by Justice Prinde- ville. Having gained the animosity of this officer, she will have a lively time, for the whole police force is now arrayed against her. A police official said yesterday that she would leave the South Side if she knew what was good for her." One would think that such an incident as the above would cause the immediate discharge of the police officer concerned; but nothing of the kind is even dreamed of — on the contrary, so trifling is the mat- ter regarded that the smallest fine possible is inflicted. Think a moment about this condition of things. Even if it were true that the woman was not of good repute — though nothing of the kind was proven — would her case not be sad enough already? Ought she not, at least, to be let alone until she actually commits an offense? What possible good can result from having a brutal police officer seize her whenever he gets sight of her, and forcibly drag her off to 24 LIVE QUESTIONS. the lock-up and make her spend the night there, for no other reason than that the police officer thinks she is not a chaste woman? I re- peat, suppose she was disreputable, what possible good can come of such treatment? Is it not alone sufficient to ruin her, even if she were an angel at the beginning? If this were an isolated case, it might not deserve much attention; but it is simply a specimen of what is happening every day in every large city in this country. Again, every year, hundreds of persons, generally boys, are "run in" by the police, simply because they have been found sleeping in sheds, stables, and other like places, and have been unable to give a satisfactory account of themselves. When their case is called by the police magistrate, they are charged with being vagrants, or with being disorderly; a fine is imposed, which they, of course, are not able to pay, and then they are sent to the bridewell to work out their fines. Here they remain from ten days to six months. See how tenderly we care for the homeless. If a boy who- has nowhere to go when nature is exhausted ventures to lie down in a shed, we seize him with the strong arm of the law, as if he had committed a murder, and forthwith send him to prison. Now, what effect does all this have? The sentences are short, for, as the un- fortunate beings were not charged with anything in particular, the sentence could not well be long. They are imprisoned "for the fun of it," as it were, "just to keep them out of mischief, you know." But what will they do when they get out? Why, nothing is left then but to do the same thing and make the same prison rounds. Would it not be madness even to imagine that any good could come of this? Experience has shown over and over that just the opposite follows; that this process produces exactly those results which society is anxious to prevent. As early as 1822, the Hon. Hugh' Maxwell, District Attorney of New York, speaking of this class of cases, said: "None of these have actually been charged with crime, or indicted and arraigned for trial. It includes those only who are taken up as vagrants, who can give no satisfactory account of themselves-; children who profess to have no homes, or whose parents had turned them out- of-doors and taken 110 care of them; beggars and other persons dis- covered in situations which imply the intention of stealing, and num- bers who were sleeping in the streets or stables. These miserable objects are brought to the police office under suspicious circumstances, and, according to the result of their examinations, they are sentenced as before mentioned. Many of these are young people, on whom the charge of crime cannot be fastened, and whose only fault is that they IMPROPER ARRESTS. 25 have no one on earth to take care of them, and that they are. incapable of providing for themselves. Hundreds, it is believed, thus circum- stanced, eventually have recourse to petty thefts, and commit the mis- demeanors in order to save themselves from the pinching assaults of cold and hunger. That many of these might be saved from con- tinued transgression, no one can doubt who will examine the records of the police office. Many notorious thieves now infesting the city were, at first, idle, vagrant boys, imprisoned for a short period to keep them from mischief; a second and third imprisonment is inflicted, the prison becomes familiar and agreeable, and at the expiration of their sentences they come out accomplished in iniquity." Since Maxwell wrote the above, more than sixty years have con- firmed his observations and shown that the above treatment defeats its purpose and produces not only the repeaters for our prisons, but the thieves and dangerous criminals we so much dread. Is it not time to try something else? The Inspectors of the Penitentiary for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in their report for 1881, say on this head: "Yearly the crime-cause of youths is developing; yearly the temp- tations to crime are increasing; yearly it is more and more apparent that the State has utterly neglected provision for a large number of minors who are moving in the direction of crime, because there is no adequate prevention presented. Congregating youth in a place of detention, more of a prison than a refuge — for loss of liberty by com- pulsion, and detention by force, is all that a prison pretends to be — is too often making criminals of some who else might be restored to good conduct and made useful citizens. It is congregation under such circumstances that produces the mischief. Congregating, asso- ciating youth, deprived of their freedom as a penalty for some offense of omission or commission, is but training them by such associations for no higher aim in after-life. The stigma — the fact of a quasi-prison graduation — does not tend to lift up the man out of the degradation of such youthful associations." THE PRISON PRINCIPLE. The superintendent of the Michigan State Reform School, in his report for 1880, says: "The prison principle is hateful to the adult delinquent; to the youthful offender it is abhorrent. The prison principle in reform peculiarly outrages the nature of child life; the shock penetrates his being, and body and soul rise up against it in fiercest antagonism. * * * To the boy, the bolted door, the barred window, the walled 26 LIVE QUESTIONS. yard, and other contrivances of brute force, are enemies that he will resist with all the force of his nature, though he is apparently rendered helpless against them. I believe that these barriers against the crav- ings of his child nature, instead of tending to his reform, have rather a contrary effect, and will hastily develop any criminal germs which may exist in his nature. The question does not naturally occur to him, 'How shall I reform through these agencies?' but rather, 'How may I escape from them?' and to the solution of this question his best energies are devoted. * * * It frequently causes expressions of surprise to see children of such tender age and innocent appearance brought to our institution, and the question, 'What could he have. done?' is asked, very often; and yet it is of common occurrence for a powerful officer to present himself at our office, having in his cus- tody a frail lad who has scarcely seen ten summers, bound with handcuffs to prevent him from escaping or from making an assault on his brave custodian." What is here said about the effect of the prison principle on a boy applies with equal force to the adult who is not yet inured to crime. ALL TREATED ALIKE. At present, so far as personal treatment is concerned, all offenders are treated precisely alike, with the one exception of the length of sentence imposed at the time of conviction. And even herein strange things are done. But, as already stated, the personal treatment is the same in all cases. The man entirely innocent, as well as the boy arrested for some trifling offense, is treated from first to last like the midnight burglar, the highway robber, or the chronic criminal. Ar- rested on the street, and not infrequently clubbed, often handcuffed, and led in irons to the police station, he is there pushed into a cell as if he were a dumb brute. He spends a night with the vicious of every kind. In the morning the police magistrate goes, as a matter of business — and, if it-were a matter of conscience, he could not, under existing laws, do much better — to the station to dispatch the ten to forty cases that have been put on his docket since the previous morn- ing, and, being anxious to get away, he performs his task in the short- est order possible. The cases are called, one after another, in rapid succession, as if they represented so many bundles of merchandise to be shipped, and, as each is called, the police officer who has'made the arrest makes his statement; the prisoner may say something if he wishes, and this is generally all there is of the trial. In this pro- ceeding, the boy mentioned fares precisely like the old offender with a heinous crime. He takes his position on the saw-dust in the bull- EFFECTS OF IMPRISONMENT. 2? pen till his case is called, and, if discharged, goes free (and it appears that in 1882 over 10,000 were discharged in one city by the police mag- istrates alone, showing that nearly one-third of all those arrested were wrongfully arrested). If not discharged, and the charge be one which the grand jury must consider, he is bound over, and, failing to give bond, is sent to jail. There he is weighed and measured, the color of his hair and eyes is set down — in short, a complete description is taken of him. Then he is hustled off among a number of other prisoners, the iron door is shut behind him, and he stays there for weeks — some- times for many months — before his case is reached. Then, perhaps the grand jury refuses to find an indictment (for nearly one-fourth of those bound over are not indicted), and in this case he is discharged. Should he be indicted, he is arraigned and sent back to jail. In the course of weeks, sometimes months, his case is tried. If then acquitted by a jury, he goes free; if not, he is sentenced to a further period in jail, or is sent to the house of correction, where he is set to work among several hundred prisoners, some of whom are of the most abandoned sort. Having served out his sentence, he is set free. If, however, the offense for which he was arrested is one for which the police magistrate can impose a fine, then, instead of being sent to jail and going the round mentioned above, he is fined; and, having no money to pay, is put, with a great many others, into an omnibus, or "Black Maria," with iron bars at windows and door, and is then driven to the house of correction — a short term penitentiary — to serve out his fine. Of course, if he has friends who will bail him out or pay his fine, he will escape a part of the imprisonment. In the meantime, the vicious and hardened criminal, arrested for burglary, for highway robbery, or for some other equally heinous crime, is treated precisely like the boy whose case we have been con- sidering, except that when taken from the jail he is taken to the peni- tentiary and is sentenced for a longer term of imprisonment. NO GOOD RESULTS. Now, does anybody suppose that a boy or a man, either innocent or guilty of only a trifling offense, will be benefited by this kind of treatment? Does clubbing a man reform him? Does brutal treat- ment elevate his thoughts? Does handcuffing fill him with good re- solves? Stop right here, and for a moment imagine yourself forced to submit to being handcuffed, and see what kind of feelings will be aroused in you. Submission to that one act of degradation prepares many a young man for a career of crime. It destroys the self-respect of others and makes them the easy victims of vice. Even the morally 28 LIVE QUESTIONS. strong will look back with hatred to the day on which they were subjected to outrage, and, down deep in their souls, they will hate the system and the men who wronged them. Every man is sensitive about the treatment of his person, and feels that he is injured when he is rudely jostled about, or forced into humil- iating surroundings. Is it, then, reasonable to suppose that the re- mainder of the treatment above mentioned — the thrusting into a cell with old criminals, the standing in the so-called bull-pen, or prisoner's dock — will not injure those who are innocent, or that it can possibly have any reformatory influence upon the young man, who, although he has violated some law, is not yet depraved, has not yet lost his self- respect, and is yet desirous of living an honorable life? Nay, if he has any ambition at all, will it not have just the opposite influence? Will he not wish to be avenged? Will he not consider this whole machinery as his foe, and will he not be more ready than ever before to commit crime, if he can but escape detection? I claim, therefore, that imprisonment for trifling offenses before convictions, except in ex- treme cases, is wrong in principle, and works a great injury not only to those imprisoned, but to society itself. To save the weak and neglected from becoming criminals, the all- important thing is to develop and to build up their self-respect — their manhood and womanhood. So long as this is wanting, their natural course is downward; and any act that tends to crush this only pushes them lower down. In October, 1870, there was held at Cincinnati, Ohio, a National Prison Reform Convention. It met in pursuance of a call signed by a large proportion of the governors of the States and upward of one hundred persons eminent in the cause of reform. The conven- tion was composed of several hundred members from all parts of the Union, and was presided over by the governor of Ohio. Being largely made up of persons familiar with the practical management of prisons and deeply interested in the subject of prison reform, its proceedings were distinguished for marked ability. It continued in session six days, and did a great amount of work. As a result of its delibera- tions, it formulated and adopted, with almost entire unanimity, a declaration of principles, thirty-seven in number, of which the sixth is so apposite to the point now under consideration that I give a part of it here : "Sixth. It is essential to a reformatory prison treatment that the self-respect of the prisoner should be cultivated to the utmost extent, and that every effort be made to give back to Mm his manhood. Hence all disciplinary punishment that inflicts unnecessary pain or EFFECTS OF CRUEL TREATMENT. 29 humiliation should be abolished as of evil influence. * * * There is no greater mistake in the whole compass of penal discipline than its studied imposition of degradation as a part of punishment. Such imposition destroys every better impulse and aspiration ; it crushes the weak, irritates the strong, and indisposes all to submission and reform. It is trampling where we ought to raise, and is therefore as unchristian in principle as it is unwise in policy." If the imposition of degradation has, on actual convicts, the effect described above, what effect must it have on the innocent, and on the thousands who are daily dragged into our police prisons not even charged with a crime, but simply with being disorderly? Incredible as it may seem, we now daily take thousands who are not criminals and subject them to almost every kind of degradation — do what we can to crush the weak and to irritate the strong — do what we can to destroy the self-respect of all and send them from bad to worse; and -when they finally land in the penitentiary, then we discover that in order to restore them to society we must undo everything we have done. CHAPTER VIII. TREATMENT IN HIGHER PRISONS.— CRUELTY NEVER EFFECTED A CONVERSION.— THE WONDER IS THAT ANY SURVIVE. Recently there have been some revolts in several penitentiaries, and precisely those in which, according to report, the greatest cruelty is practiced — notably in one of the penitentiaries of New York, in that of Missouri, and in that of Arkansas. In the last State, the con- victs are leased and the lessees manage the institution as a close corporation, refusing to give anybody any information in regard to the condition of the convicts. Concerning this prison, Mr. Wines, in his great work on prisons, at page 200, says: "The lease system of prison labor in Arkansas has been weighed in the balance by a joint legislative committee, and clearly found wanting by the evidence as well as by seven of the sixteen members of the committee. The evidence, as is commonly the case in such inquiries, was not a little contradictory; but to my conception the following points were established: That the prisoners were not properly nour- ished, being fed mostly on beef and corn breads with vegetable occa- sionally, but not commonly — the beef being so poor, so devoid of nutritive qualities, and so indigestible, that its introduction into the 30 LIVE QUESTIONS. human stomach proves an irritant which generates the larger part of the diseases, such as diarrhoea, dropsy, etc., known in the institution. That the prisoners are overworked, the hours of labor being usually more than twelve per day, and those who work on a farm five miles from the penitentiary being often forced to walk or trot rapidly, especially in returning after work, thereby inducing over-heat, hemor- rhages, heart disease, and other forms of sickness. That shocking cruelties are practiced upon the prisoners to get work out of them, as well as to maintain discipline, so that many bear marks of violence upon their persons for months after its infliction. That the hospital is unfit for its purpose, being extremely filthy and noisome; sheets and pillow-cases often dirty or wholly wanting; food unsuited to the needs of such persons, proper stimulants deficient and hard to get — the whole being more likely to intensify and even generate disease than to serve as an agent in its cure. And that, to sum up all in a word, the penitentiary is turned into a speculative establishment, in which the convicts are the stock in trade of the lessee, in the prosecution of whose business they are so many mechanical contrivances, to be used for the accumulation of wealth, and operated with little regard to the fact that they are children of the same Father, or even that they are, blood and tissue, vitalized and controlled by the same physio- logical laws of waste and repair common to all mankind." On the other hand, in those institutions which have been managed most successfully, where the best results have been achieved, equally in maintaining discipline, in making the prison self-sustaining, and in reforming the prisoner, kindness has been the most conspicuous factor in the treatment. Quoting again from Mr. Wines : "Cruel treatment was once generally esteemed the most sure, just; and only fitting method of penal discipline. But the period is well passed when the interior of a prison is to be the arena for the exercise of brutalizing forces upon erring and wicked men. The thought and action of the present have emerged from the dark shadows of the last century. Surely, all means of penal control which are severally re- strictive of the mental, moral and physical good of the convicted criminal, and manifestly tyrannical, simply because an opportunity is afforded or created, do not conserve the high purpose of calm, helpful justice. The government which works out the best results for its subject secures therefrom something more than a machine-like obedience. Submission to rules, and the concurrence in an enforced task, which are not beyond reason, can be secured in the vast majority of cases, in well-regulated prisons, by means which are at hand and which are far removed from cruelty. In so doing, the prisoner's self- EFFECTS OF CRUEL TREATMENT. 31 control is evoked, and habits of industry acquired, which can never be brought about by the crushing process so much lauded by con- ceited and inexperienced prison reformers." On this point, the inspectors of the Maine penitentiary say: "For many years the discipline of the prison has not been as strict as at many other prisons ; it has not degraded the prisoners below the brute creation, but has recognized them as men, and taught them to believe that the State had an interest in them beyond their term of imprisonment. For this reason I believe that a large majority of them have left the prison- without bitter and revengeful feelings, and with a determination to live better and more useful lives. To this state of affairs is largely attributable the fact that there is very much less of crime in Maine, in proportion to its population, than in any other State." CRUELTY NEVER EFFECTED A CONVERSION. In the entire history of the human race there is not a single in- stance in which cruelty effected a genuine reformation. It can crush, but it cannot improve. It can restrain, but as soon as the restraint is removed the subject is worse than before. The human mind is so constituted that it must be led toward the good, and can be driven only in one direction, and that is toward ruin. Florian J. Ries, inspector of the house of correction of Milwaukee, in the management of which he achieved a signal success, says, in his report for 1880: "The subject of reforming convicts is one that ought to be entitled to the very first consideration in the management of a prison. The idea that a prison is solely an institution for the punishment of vio- lators of the law is fast becoming obsolete, and one more humane and in keeping with our advanced civilization is taking its place. Ex- perience has taught, and humanity demands, that the discipline of a prison be directed more toward the moral improvement of its inmates than to punishment or to torture." And in his report for 1881 he says: "As to the management of prisoners, I have very little to add to my report of last year; my experience has fully convinced me that by kind treatment and by appealing to the better instincts of human nature, better results can be obtained than in any other way." He then adds: "Yet all that may be accomplished with the prisoner in this manner, inside the prison, will be of little avail after he is dis- charged unless he finds friends who are willing to lend him a helping hand and encourage him in his effort to lead a better life." But this only demonstrates the necessity of letting him earn something for %$. live. QUESTIONS. himself before discharge, so that he can maintain himself, as ex- plained under the head of Prison Labor. THE WONDER IS THAT ANY SURVIVE. The real wonder is, not that so large a percentage of those once arrested and imprisoned become hardened and inured to crime, but that comparatively so few do. The wonder is that any are able to outlive and overcome the effects of their degrading experience; and the fact that over half of them do so shows that human nature is not so depraved. For all these live respectable lives, not by reason of, but in spite of, their experience. As the American Colonies pros- pered in spite of, and not by reason of, the protection Great Britain had given them — the protection having been wholly of a kind that • tended to impoverish the Colonies — so the large percentage of men once arrested who do well, do so in spite of, and not by reason of, their hated experience. The principle and love of right, the longing to be respectable and to live honorable lives, was so strong in them that it overcame the degrading influences to which they had been subjected. Herein lies one of the objections to our present system. It applies the crushing process to those that are already down, while the crafty criminal — especially if he be rich — is gently dealt with. CHAPTER IX. PUNISHMENT MUST BE, FIRST, NECESSARY; AND, SECONDLY, CALCULATED TO PRODUCE THE DESIRED RESULT— EX- AMPLES UNDER THE PRESENT SYSTEM. Society never has claimed and does not now claim the right to punish for an infraction of the moral law. The right to chastise for an act which has been a violation of the eternal principles of right and justice has always been and still is conceded to be the exclusive prerogative of the Almighty. Society never claimed more than the right to punish for a violation of its laws; and this right has always been and still is based on the benefit to be done to the whole. The fundamental principle upon which man assumes the right to punish his fellow-man is that society as a whole may be protected. It is therefore clear that the imposing of any punishment that is not necessary for the protection of society is unwarranted and wrong; is absolutely indefensible upon any ground whatever; is nothing less than a deliberate injury, done by the strong to the weak, and is there- PUNISHMENT. 33 fore in the highest degree cowardly; and no man can participate in such an act without becoming morally accountable for the injury thus done to another. Secondly, it is also clear that any penalty thus imposed which does not tend to protect society must be indefensible, and, like the other, a wrong inflicted by the strong upon the weak, for which there can be no excuse. True, society has to learn by experiment, and it therefore may be excused for some things done in the hope that they will result in protecting the whole. But whenever experience shows that certain things do not answer the purpose for which they were intended, then the right to continue them ceases. That is, whenever it becomes ap- parent that certain acts done for purposes of punishment do not serve the purposes for which they were intended — i. e., do not tend to protect society — then the right to continue or to repeat them ceases, and any further repetition of them will be simply a wrong done by society to one of its members, an injury inflicted by the strong upon the weak; and it is no excuse to say that the member had first in- jured society, for one wrong never justifies another. If society has been injured, it may punish the offender in order to prevent a repe- tition of the offense, either on his part or on the part of others; but it must prescribe a punishment or treatment that will be likely to produce this result, and it has no right whatever to do an act which it has found does not serve this purpose. As an example under the first head, take the case of a cigar-maker in a small country town who is arrested by a United States marshal, taken seventy or eighty miles for an examination before a United States commissioner, then bound over to the grand jury, and, being unable to give bail, is put into prison for from one to six months, until that body meets. Then he is indicted and kept in jail some time longer until he can be tried, and when tried he is convicted, is fined from ten to one hundred dol- lars — and all this not because he is really a vicious man, not because he is a dangerous man, not because he had stolen something or injured somebody, but simply because he had failed to put a dollar revenue- stamp on a small box of cigars which he had manufactured and sold. He may be an industrious, sober man, struggling to the best of his ability to make his family respectable and comfortable. But all this counts for nothing. Some United States detective has been prying into the little shop; a technical violation of the revenue law has been discovered; there is a chance for the detective to win some credit for alertness, and for the United States marshal, United States com- missioner, and prosecuting attorney to make some fees. So the. man 3 34 LIVE QUESTIONS. is arrested, dragged away from his family, who are frequently left without any means of support in the meantime, and is treated pre- cisely as if he had committed a murder or a highway robbery. Could anything possibly be more absurd? Granting that the law had been violated, and that it was proper to inflict some punishment when the man was convicted, will anybody claim that it was necessary to arrest him and to keep him in jail a long time before he was convicted? — and if it was not necessary, then it was not justifiable. As the offense was trivial, and the danger of escape therefore slight, he should not have been deprived of his liberty until convicted. For, mark you, wealthy offenders are never thus dealt with, they are always able to give bail; so that it is only the poor who are thus made to suffer. Cases of similar wrongs are of much more frequent occurrence under the State and municipal laws. Almost daily there are arrests on trivial charges, where, in case of conviction, the punishment generally is only a fine, and therefore there is no danger of escape; yet, as the persons arrested are not able to give bond for their appearance, there is no alternative but to send them to jail, there to remain for weeks, frequently for months, before they can be tried. And when tried, if convicted, they are simply fined, or possibly have a short jail sentence imposed. Now, in nearly all these cases it is unnecessary to make arrests in the first instance, as a civil proceeding would answer every purpose until the trial; then, if the fine is not paid it is early enough to introduce the jail. Arrests, in the first instance, in this class of cases being unnecessary, they are, as above shown, unjustifiable, and are productive of much harm with- out any compensating good. Again, things are daily done in the name of punishment which common sense condemns, which all experience has shown to be pro- ductive of just the opposite results from those designed and desired, and which society has therefore no right to continue doing. Thus, of the 7,566 prisoners committed to the house of correction at Chicago during 1882, 4,787 were simply charged with breach of the peace. Granting that some of these had committed grave offenses and the charge was changed, still could anything be more unreasonable than- every year to subject over 4,000 human beings to a regular criminal treatment, as heretofore described, simply because they had been guilty of hilarious or disorderly conduct? IMPRISONING WOMEN. 35 CHAPTER X. IMPRISONING WOMEN. It appears from the report of the superintendent of police of Chi- cago that in 1882 6,835* women were arrested and taken to the police prisons in Chicago, and that, during that year, 1,800 women were incarcerated in the Chicago house of correction, mostly for non-pay- ment of fines which had been imposed. Of the latter number, 359 were reported prostitutes, 871 were servants, 114 were launders, and all were poor. Now, can any good come of thus treating unfortunate women? What are they to do when released? Can anybody tell? The 359 whom the officers call prostitutes, and think that a sufficient accusation to excuse any kind of treatment, were not the petted chil- dren of sin, not those that live in gilded palaces and dress in silks and satins, for these are rarely disturbed; they were the poor, unfor- tunate, and forlorn creatures who, without friends, without sympathy, without money, often hungry, and without sufficient clothing to pro- tect them from the cold winds, wander out on the streets, not so much wantonly as from necessity, literally trying to sell their souls for a morsel of bread, dealing in shame, not from choice, but because every Christian door is shut against them, because there is no place where they can work and find shelter. Now, in what condition are they when they have gone through the above experience? What are they to do when again set at liberty? Experience has answered this a hun- dred times. They return to their old ways, because there is nothing else that they can do; the only difference being that they have become more degraded, more brutalized, by the treatment which they have received, and from which no good ever has or ever can come. Is it, therefore, reasonable to continue it? Take the other 1,450 women who in 1882 were incarcerated in the Chicago house of correction; what is to become of them when re- leased? What can they do? For what has the prison fitted them? Some of them, no doubt, have homes to which they can go; but they will enter these more degraded because of the experience they have had, and instead of being better prepared to resist temptations than formerly, they are weaker and more liable to go downward than otherwise. As to the remainder- — those that have no homes where they can be received and taken care of — what are they to do? Where will they be admitted? How can they make an honest living? There is no answer to these questions, and the probability is that the great *The number has been increasing every year with the number of arrests. 36 LIVE QUESTIONS. majority will be literally driven to get their bread by the wages of sin, and go down the path of vice and misery, dragging out an exist- ence that will long for death. Now, wherein has society been bene- fited or protected by the above treatment? Clearly, in no way. On the contrary, it has done to itself an injury, and to the wretched beings, who were charged only with slight offenses, a great wrong. It is both unnecessary and unsuitable. In the reports of the proceedings in the city police courts, as pub- lished in the daily papers, you can see, almost every day, items like the following: "The seventy vagrant and disreputable women corraled in the basement pen of the Desplaines Street Police Station, Wednesday night, were brought before Justice C. J. White yesterday in a lump. Sin-hardened, sad, poor, and unhappy, the haggard crew presented a sickening sight. Most of them escaped with light fines, the justice recognizing that these wrecks of human beings deserved merciful con- sideration." "Bridget Smith, a poor woman whose path through this world has led her through several terms in the bridewell, was found drunk, in the snow, Sunday night, at the corner of Desplaines and Adams streets. For this mistaken idea of getting enjoyment out of life, Jus- tice C. J. White sentenced her to another short term in the said insti- tution and a ten-dollar fine." And at another time the following: "There seems to have been a general raid by the West Side police on the disreputable women found on the streets. At all events, twenty of the poor creatures were before Justice White yesterday, and four- teen were arraigned in Justice Woodman's court. ■ They were mostly a dissipated, worn-looking lot, most of them shabbily dressed, but three of them were young and rosy, and one was a mere child, hardly fifteen years of age. Fines ranging from one to five dollars were in- flicted, and the poor, misguided mortals passed out of court." Reflect on this a moment! Was it necessary to drag in these un- fortunate creatures every few weeks and corral them like cattle? And wherein has society been benefited by the whole proceeding? What object was there in all this? Certainly none can be perceived, except to make a large amount of fees for the police justices. Several dollars' cost, in each case in which the fine is paid, extracted from these mis- erable people, may be satisfactory to the police justice, but what is to become of the women? One of the accounts says, "they passed out of court." Of course they did, but where? Where did they go? Whither? Why, a great many of them to the bridewell, because they RESULTS OF FINING. 37 did not have three or five dollars in the world, nor any friend to pay the amount for them. And when they get out of the bridewell, what are they to do? Is there any other course open than to make the same round? Mind you, they were not the gay and luxurious sirens, for these, though numerous, were not disturbed. Now, if it were even conceded that some measures were necessary in the matter, it certainly cannot be claimed that the proceedings given above were necessary, much less that society is benefited by them. This being so, where is the justification for these proceedings? Take the woman found drunk in the snow. She is sent to prison time after time — simply to lie down again in the snow. The very frequency of the sentences shows that they only aggravate the case, and serve no good purpose; then why continue repeating them? Take the following item from the police-court proceedings: "The officers of the Humane Society brought William Hogan, his wife, and four children into Justice R 's court yesterday for dis- position. They had been existing in a hovel at the corner of Stave Street and Armitage Avenue, in the most squalid poverty and destitu- tion. There was no food or fuel in the place, and little or no bedding. The family were in rags, were dirty, and were all covered with vermin. Their condition, as they appeared in the court-room, was at once dis- gusting and pitiable. Mr. and Mrs. Hogan were sent to the bride- well, and the children, aged five, seven, nine, and eleven years, were sent to the Home for the Friendless." Think of a system that will send a woman to a penitentiary simply because she is the mother of four small children and has a husband who either cannot or will not support her! As to the husband, if he was unable to do anything, he should not have been sent to the bride- well; and if able, then he should be required to earn something for his family. We have already too long kept up the practice of crowding our prisons with those that ought not to be there, and as a conse- quence, we find that prisons no longer have any terrors for those that should be there. CHAPTER XL THE PRESENT INDISCRIMINATE FINING LEADS TO NO GOOD RESULTS. If any person wants an accurate idea of the manner in which this system is carried on, let him attend one of our so-called police courts on some .morning when from ten to thirty miserable beings, many filthy and squalid, are "trotted through." The charges are usually of 38 LIVE QUESTIONS. the minor sort — "drunk," "disorderly," etc. Generally a fine of from five to one hundred dollars is imposed; and what then? Well, if the unfortunate creatures cannot pay it they are packed into the omnibus and taken to the house of correction, as already mentioned, and there they "work it out," as heretofore explained, the time required for this purpose being from ten days to six months; and when they get out, the conditions in which they lived before having in no way improved, on the contrary generally having become worse, they almost immedi- ately make the same rounds again, and then again, getting a little worse every time, until they land in the penitentiary. But in many cases the fine is paid, often even after commitment to the house of correction; and of course the prisoner is discharged. But who generally pays this fine? Here is the vital question. Usually the prisoner does not pay it, for as a rule he has nothing but the rags on his back. Well, then, who pays it? Why, generally his squalid family. The wife pawns whatever she may have left in order to get her husband out; or more often it is the mother, who already is unable properly to feed and clothe her smaller children, and who is suffering from the ailments, both physical and mental, that a life of poverty and misfortune entails, but who will yet, by heroic effort, scrape together enough pennies to pay her child's fine and get him out. Well, the fine being paid, then what? Why, the conditions being all the same, the companionship the same, there having been nothing reformatory or elevating in the experience through which the offender has gone, he is in no wise better, is no more industrious, no more sober; and, instead of being morally stronger, and better able to overcome the weakness that got him into trouble, his prison experience has, if anything, lowered him; he is less able now to cope with the world than he was before, and the almost invariable result is that he goes the same round time after time, becoming constantly more vicious, and in the end swells the number of hardened criminals. Take the hundreds of poor women fined in the police courts; if they themselves pay their fines it takes usually their last penny, and not infrequently the very money with which they pay the fine is the earn- ings of shame. So that while the law with one hand prohibits vice, it pockets the earnings of vice with the other. Now every time a fine is paid in any of the cases mentioned, the "crime-producing conditions have been aggravated; the want existing before has been intensified ; the offender has not been benefited, while his family has been injured. Fines should therefore be imposed only in exceptional cases, where nothing of a reformatory character is required. INEQUALITY OF SENTENCES. 39 CHAPTER XII. FORMALITY.— INEQUALITY OF SENTENCES. The present system is formal, iron-bound, and superficial; every case has to go through the same steps, no matter how much the cir- cumstances may differ; the proceedings must be the same, no matter how trifling the charge; the accused must be arrested, must then either give bond or be locked up until he can be tried and the fact ascer- tained whether he is even guilty of the trifling offense charged or not, and, if found guilty, then, no matter what the condition of the accused may be, whether old or young, vicious or merely weak, male or female, there is but one course open, and this for all alike; that is, to impose a fine, and, if this is not paid, to send the accused to the jail or to the bridewell. The magistrate is not to blame; it is the law, the system, which is at fault. If the State were to enforce a system of medical practice, and were to provide that but one prescription should be given for all the ills that afflict the flesh, it would not be more absurd than is the pres- ent system of treating offenders. INEQUALITY OF SENTENCES. In the Fifth Biennial Report of the Michigan State Board of Cor- rections and Charities, 1879-80, the subject of "Inequality of Sen- tences" is thus considered : "Having still in view our analogy between crime and mental dis- ease, which analogy we do not claim to be one that is perfect and holding at all points, yet holding sufficiently to justify what we have said and what we shall say, we shall conclude this paper by a few moments' commentary upon the sentences of the courts. "We can stay but for a single example of the inequality of sen- tences, growing out of qualifying circumstances and the inability of judges to see things alike, or, as in the case of the one referred to, form opinions even for themselves. "Assault with intent to commit murder, intention being the gauge of crime, necessarily implies the guilt of murder. "In Michigan, during the year ending September 30, 1877, there were eight convicts sent to the state-prison for assault with intent to commit murder — one for forty-five years, one for twenty-five years, one for .fifteen years, one for nine years, one for six years, one for five years, one for two years, and one for one year. 40 LIVE QUESTIONS. "It is supposable that these eight men, so sentenced for the same technical offense, may have been seen in prison working in the same department, eating at the same table, listening to the same prayers in the chapel, with occasional opportunities for surreptitious exchange of notes as to their respective allotments of justice and their progress in reformation — reformation being agreed upon, in all such confer- ences as this, as one of the chief ends, if not the chief end, of punish- ment. "This inequality of sentences runs through all the courts. Cases like this (an actual case) occur somewhere in the United States every month in the year. At the same term of the court, a bank-teller, for a theft of five hundred dollars from his employers or from a customer, is released on a nominal or suspended sentence, while a boy of seventeen is sentenced to prison for three years for stealing a second-hand suit of clothes worth less than twenty dollars; producing in appearance distortions of justice a little like Lord Dundreary's distortion of proverbs when he says, 'One man is hanged for looking a gift horse in the mouth, while another may see the whole animal over a hedge and get clear.' "The damage to society of a given offense can be approximately estimated; the guilt of the transaction is beyond man's power of meas- urement. "Then why not better to cut the Gordian knot and proceed for the good of society; estimate the offense according to its damage and danger to society, and at once remove the offender, not for one, two, ten, or forty-five years, but until he is apparently restored to such condition, whether mental or moral, or both, as will give the public reasonable assurance of safety? "If there were high courts or commissions in lunacy and they were to commit eight maniacs who had attempted murder, from one State, in a single year, to an insane hospital for terms varying from one to forty-five years, it would at once be apparent to all that the high court itself was wildly insane. If, on the contrary, the would-be mur- derers were sent to a hospital until wholly restored to reason, the conduct would appear to be reasonable. "But if the criminals are put under restraint by a similar seclusion in buildings suitable for the purpose, that is, in prisons properly pro- vided and graded, it may be asked: How shall it be ascertained with certainty when they are so far reformed as to make their enlargement safe to society? "The answer is, that we cannot know with certainty, but it can be known at least equally well in this case as in the cases of insanity. INEQUALITY OF SENTENCES. 41 Some insane patients are discharged apparently cured, three, five, or ten times, but are still found dangerous to society, and have to be returned to the hospitals, and ultimately die without recovery. There will be mistakes, incident to imperfect human knowledge. "Criminals sentenced for limited terms are discharged and re-com- mitted over and over again, with this difference against the good sense of the proceeding, that there is, in the majority of cases, no appearance of reformation, but, on the contrary, perfect knowledge on the part of the authorities that they are turned out more and more dangerous to society at each successive time." The table on pages 42 and 43, from the report of the commissioners of the Illinois penitentiary at Joliet, for the year ending September 30, 1882, shows what incredible difference there is in the length of sentences imposed for the same offense in the State of Illinois. A~ glance at this table shows that sentences imposed for the same offense range all the way from one to twenty years. Of course, allow- ance must be made for the fact that some of the crimes were com- mitted under more atrocious circumstances than others of the same class; still, the great diversity, after all, is due to the fact that the different cases are tried before different juries and different judges. For it not infrequently happens that in the same court a man who has deliberately committed a crime under circumstances showing great depravity will be sentenced for a much shorter time than another who has committed the same offense under circumstances showing far less depravity. So that, practically, we have the same law sentencing the hardened offender to a short term, and the less dangerous to a long term for the same offense. Now, if fixed sentences were entirely abol- ished and indeterminate sentences (to be presently discussed) were substituted, this would not happen so frequently. 42 uvn QUESTIONS. Comparative Table of Sentences and Crimes, showing their relative connection with the number of convicts in the Illinois State Penitentiary, September 30, 1882. SENTENCES. •o a CRIMES. 2 -a c c .2 « o £ 2 « •a * B <* C m « « s « TO <-4-l " "2 O pq 2 00 « c c ** > a H W E O i-l B « C o o H . /voauction 1 . . . . 1 Arson I . . 2 . . . . 1 3 2.... Assault, etc 2 Assault to commit burglary 1 .. .. 1 Assault to commit felony 1 I Assault to commit larceny I .. .. 1 Assault to do bodily injury 1 1 Assault to kill 5 . .. 4 2 1 6 7 2 . . . . Assault to murder 2264364621 Assault to rape '1 3 1 1 2 7 1 3.. Assault to rob 3 2 . . 1 Attempt to procure abortion 1 1 Being found in post-office with intent to steal 2 Bigamy 2 . . 1 Buggery t 1 Burglary 73 16 87 49 19 33 33 10 411 Burglary and larceny 42 5 45 39 16 22 15 5 2 2 Burglary, larceny and arson 1 1 1 1 1 Burglary and larceny and assault to kill 2 Burglary and larceny as bailee 1 Burglary, murder, assault to kill 1 2 9 2 2 2 2 2 27 36 19 6 2 2 3 1 335 193 5 3 1 1 Burglary with intent to steal 1 I Confidence game 1 3 4 Conspiracy 3 4 Conspiracy and larceny , 1 '■ ■• 2 15 7 1 Conspiracy to commit offense 1 1 Counterfeiting 2 . . 1 1 1.. 1 . . . . 6 Crime against nature 1 1 Cruelty to children 1 1 Embezzlement I .. 1 .. .. 1 .. 1 4 False affidavit to procure money 1 > 1 INEQUALITY OF SENTENCES. 43 SENTENCES. • re co* c t"> CO u and fractions, nclusive. ess than life. X co C c CO tr, •a to O 4J O cO S co C CRIMES. *-> u CO co CO CO CO CO .>> . X c CO en U CO •a c CO co CO ?1 en •a c CO 00 c< 1- *0 C CO CO I-. CO OJ >> en to fourtee en to twenty twenty yeai -0 c CO C C c 3 3 112 7 1 1 Total 249 48 265 239 85 155 138 70 56 59 29 56 1449 44 LIVE QUESTIONS. CHAPTER XIII. REMEDY. I am aware that it is difficult for one man to see all sides of a com- plicated question, and that all new remedies are apt to prove crude and more or less impracticable when attempted to be applied — for the perfect remedy is the outgrowth of experiment. Still, every im- provement must have a beginning, crude though it be; therefore, I venture to give my views freely, and leave it to those who have exam- ined and considered the subject more thoroughly to suggest some- thing better. In discussing a remedy, it is important to keep in mind the exact difficulties to be remedied, or that are capable of being remedied, which in the present case are: First. That many are . imprisoned, before trial and after, and broken into the prison life and brought into contact with the criminal atmosphere, and thus started on the downward road, who ought not to have been imprisoned at all, and who, had they been differently treated, might have made good citizens. Second. That the pole star of the present system seems to be punishment, whereas the protection of society should be its sole object, and as punishment never made a sincere convert, and as the multitude of first offenders comes from the weaker class, they should be treated rather as wards, whom it may be necessary to confine, but whom it is - yet necessary to train and educate, if possible, into good citizens. Third. That at present our prisons do not, as a rule, reform the prisoners, but turn them loose, at the expiration of sentence, in a condition which soon returns a great per cent of them to prison. Fourth. That the really vicious and dangerous criminals are treated like the good-intentioned, but weak; are not, at the beginning, convicted with promptness; are discharged after short terms of im- prisonment when they ought not to be, and that in a condition which almost precludes their doing anything but committing crime. Keeping the foregoing in mind, I would suggest : First. The abolishing of the fee system, so that no petty officials will be directly interested in having arrests made for the sake of earn- ing a few dollars of money; the State should pay all officials a salary for discharging their duties. The Maryland legislature, by acts passed in 1880 and 1882, sub- stantially abolished the fee system in criminal cases, so far as it related REMEDY. 45 to proceedings before magistrates in the city of Baltimore, and the result was a falling off in the number of arrests in that city from up- ward of twelve thousand to about seven thousand, or almost half, in one year. Second. Arrest and imprisonment before conviction should be permitted by law only in those instances where it is shown that the offender is a dangerous person, or that the offense with which he is charged is of a character so heinous as to require his arrest and in- carceration, or the placing under bonds until he can be tried. This would reduce the incredibly large number of impromptu ar- rests by police and other officers. As heretofore shown, of the 32,800 persons arrested by the police of Chicago in 1882, over 10,000 were discharged because they were not shown to have been guilty of any offense whatever. It would also prevent imprisonment for trifling offenses, as is now the practice. Thus, of the 7,566 committed to the Chicago house of correction in 1882, 4,787 were simply charged with a breach of the peace, 1,171 with drunkenness, 673 with vagrancy, 169 with being inmates of disorderly houses, 222 with the violation of miscellaneous city ordinances, and 354 with violating village ordi- nances. The remainder of the 7,566 were charged with the following offenses: Robbery, 12; burglary, 29; horse stealing, 1; assault with intent to kill, 21 ; assault with intent to do bodily injury, 3; conspiracy, 1 ; rescuing prisoners, I ; obtaining goods under false pretenses, 1 ; passing counterfeit bank notes, 4; vagabondage, 4- larceny, 113. So that it will be seen that out of a total of 7,566 committed, only 190 were charged with crimes; and of these 190 the large number of 113 was charged with larceny, or petty theft, whether the thing stolen was worth fifty cents or ten dollars. But the great majority were not criminals, and society would have been better off if it had not arrested and incarcerated them. Deducting the 190 charged with offenses that are considered crim- inal, it leaves 7,376 that should have been differently dealt with. No blame is attached to the officers, for they simply carried out existing laws. But these laws should be changed. There is no doubt that in very many cases of drunkenness and of disorderly conduct, if the parties were taken directly to their homes by the officers, and nothing further done for the first offense except a memorandum of the fact made by the officers for future reference in case of a repetition, it would have a better effect than arrest and incarceration. And where proceedings are had, there should, except in extreme cases, be no arrest until the trial is ended and a sentence is imposed. This treat- ment of first offenders would have all the benefit that can be got from 46 LIVE QUESTIONS. a scare or the terror of the law, and none of the degrading and harden- ing effects that produce stolidity and hatred. I refer more particularly to the young and to those, charged for the first time with any offense. Hardened cases would, under the plan about to be discussed, soon be weeded out, and be situated where it was, at least, possible for them to reform. In this connection, the city should be divided into small police districts, with a competent man in each, who should acquaint him- self with the condition of every offender, and use his best efforts to induce him to quit bad associations, and who should also find out the homeless and try to have them cared for. This would be a great preventive of the small offenses which are the initiatives of criminal careers. Every one knows how valuable is a little timely encourage- ment. This system of a public agent to look after all cases of first arrests for minor offenses has been tried for a number of years in Massachusetts, with most satisfactory results. A gentleman who once filled the position of agent, and is now at the head of one of the excellent reformatory institutions of that State, recently stated that they had found it necessary actually to imprison only a little over one-fourth of those who fell into the hands of the police. In most cases they procured better homes for the young offenders, and found that they did well thereafter. In Baltimore, as I am informed, the same plan has been tried on a smaller scale, but with most- gratifying results. The present neglect is productive of crime. In those cases that prove incorrigible, and in which something must be done, and it becomes necessary to try a party for the commission of further offenses of a light character, the suit should, except in extreme cases, be begun by civil process. Then, this man should either directly assist the magistrate by sitting with him, or at least should testify to the result of his efforts in the case, giving fully the character, habits, surround- ings, history, and associations of the accused, and also show whether, from all the information obtainable, there is a reasonable prospect of the offender's yet reforming and living an industrious, orderly life if the sentence were suspended. And if the magistrate is of opinion that there is yet a reasonable prospect of reformation, sentence should be suspended and the offender let go, with the understanding that he is, to a certain extent, under the supervision of the superintendent of the district, and that he can at any time be taken into custody. But Few Women would be Imprisoned. — It is safe to say that under such a regulation very few women would ever have to be in- carcerated, and the present diabolical practice of annually arresting thousands of friendless and helpless creatures for trivial offenses — REMEDY. tf in ttiatly cases for no offense at all — and locking them up like so many cattle in cells, and then fining them and sending them to the bridewell, would cease. If, however, the magistrate is of opinion that from all the informa- tion obtainable there is no prospect of reformation, then the offender should be sentenced generally to the house of correction, not for a few days or for a few months, as is now the practice, from which no good comes, nor can come, but simply to the house of correction, the maxi- mum time of confinement there to be fixed by law, and to be not less than several years, but the actual time of confinement to be determined in each case by the conduct of the offender, as hereafter explained. The house of correction should be conducted with some modifica- tions upon the principle obtaining in the reformatory at Elmira, N. Y. This institution, as a reformatory, appears to be far in advance of any institution of the kind- in this country, and to be productive of the most gratifying results. The principle upon which it is con- ducted, and upon which offenders are confined there, is, in brief, this: The prisoner enters for no definite time, except that the maximum time is fixed by law, and that he must stay at least one year. And while treated with firmness he is yet treated kindly, and an effort is made to develop his self-respect; he is given to understand that it is largely for his own good that he is confined, and that the length of confinement will depend on himself; that as soon as he shows that he is able to govern himself, and that he can safely be trusted to make an honest living and live an orderly life, he will not only be given his liberty, but an effort will be made to find him employment. Then, as a part of his prison duties, every prisoner must attend a school conducted within the prison-walls, and take a regular course of in- struction, while, at the same time, he is required to do a given amount of work every clay; thus, in fact, a great many acquire there a good education, and a preparation for the duties of life which they never would have got elsewhere. The conduct and development of the prisoner are watched from day to day, and when the board of in- spectors, who at the same time are put in possession of all the facts relating to the previous history and condition of the prisoner, are of opinion that he can maintain himself against his evil propensities or surroundings, they secure him employment, and send him out, as it were, on a probationary parole, they continuing, for at least six months, to look after him, by corresponding with his employer and otherwise. Should he do well during his probationary period, he is dropped; if not, then the inspectors have the power to take him again into custody. So different is the treatment of prisoners in this institu- 48 LIVE QUESTIONS. tion from that in the ordinary prison, that such a thing as an attempt to escape is almost unknown, although the prisoners are trusted to an extent which could not be even thought of in other institutions. And in several instances where probationers were unlucky in losing their jobs, and were not able to get other work, rather than commit crimes they came back and voluntarily entered the prison until another job was secured, when they again went out and got along well. In connection with such a system as this, the prisoner should be not only permitted, but required, to earn something for himself while in prison, over and above the actual expense of keeping him, as will be more fully explained in discussing Prison Labor. Under this system none would be subjected to the prison in- fluences except those whose character, vicious inclination, or con- firmed habits rendered their restraint necessary for the best interests of society, and this number would be -reduced to a minimum; and these, being the vicious, could be held in restraint until it was thought safe to liberate them, or until the maximum time fixed by law ex- pired. Third. As to the lighter offenses that are yet classed with crime, such as petty thefts, etc., the treatment, instead of being alike in all cases, as at present, should be varied to meet each particular case; instead of being bound over to the grand jury, as now, they should be tried at once by magistrate and jury. The treatment described under the last head should, to a great extent, be followed. The super- intendent should investigate the previous character, habits, condition, and associations of the offender, and the magistrate or jury should determine, in each case, first, whether the accused is guilty of the offense charged, and secondly, the magistrate should determine whether sentence should be suspended as discussed above. There is no doubt that offenses of the character now under con- sideration are often committed by parties who are not criminals, and who, if properly treated, would never again be guilty of any offense, the simple detection 'alone being sufficient for all purposes of reform, while additional prison treatment would only harden and debase. Fourth. As to those guilty of the graver offenses, and all those cases that show a deliberate criminal intent, they should be tried at once, directly upon information of the prosecuting attorney, or upon warrant sworn out by private parties, instead of being sent by the circuitous grand jury route as now. And on the trial all that can be learned about the previous condition, character, habits, etc., of the prisoner should be shown, not simply by his' friends, but by the prose- cution, the jury to determine whether the prisoner is guilty of the REMEDY. 49 offense charged, but nothing more. In fixing sentence, the prisoner, if young and the offense is his first, should be sentenced generally to the house of correction. If not, or if he has shown strong criminal propensities, he should be sent to the penitentiary under an indeter- minate sentence; the maximum as well as the minimum time of con- finement being fixed by law. There he should be not only permitted, but required, to earn something to be carried to his credit before being again discharged, as will be explained hereafter; so that when again set free he will not be in a condition in which he can scarcely do anything except beg, starve, or steal. NOTE. — The law of Massachusetts, just referred to, provides for the appointment of probation officers, who shall examine the conditions of every person arrested, and, if they think best, endeavor to save him from imprison- ment. This law has produced results so astonishing that I here give its most important features, and also a summary of the results of the first ten years' experience under it in and about Boston. Having provided for the appoint- ment of probation officers — one in each district — and for the manner in which notice shall be given them of every arrest, among other things it says: "Section 75. Such probation officer shall carefully inquire into the char- acter and offense of every person arrested for crime in his city or town, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the accused may reasonably be expected to reform without punishment, and shall keep a full record of the results of his investigations. "Section 76. Such probation officer, if satisfied, upon investigation, that the best interests of the public and of the accused would be subserved by placing him upon probation, shall recommend the same to the court trying the case, and the court may permit the accused to be placed upon probation, upon such terms as it may deem best, having regard to his reformation. [When probation is recommended by the officer, the prisoner is practically released on his own bond.] "Section 78. He shall attend the sessions of the courts held within said county for criminal business, investigate the cases of persons accused or con- victed of crimes and misdemeanors, and recommend to the courts the placing on probation of such persons as may reasonably be expected to reform without punishment. He shall have a place in the office of the superintendent of police. When he deems it advisable for any person placed on probation to be sent out of the State at the expense of the city, the city council may make the necessary appropriation for the purpose, to be expended by him, under the direction of ,the superintendent of police, and he shall render an account of such expendi- tures, with the items, quarterly, to said superintendent. He shall also, as far as practicable, visit the offenders placed on probation by the court, at his suggestion, and render such assistance and encouragement as will tend to prevent their again offending. Any person placed upon probation, upon his recommendation, may be re-arrested by him, upon approval of the superin- tendent of police, without further warrant, and again brought before the court; and the court may thereupon proceed to sentence, or may make any other lawful disposition of the case." 4 50 LIVE QUESTIONS. The law was passed in 1878, and on January 1, 1889, Mr. Edward H. Savage, probation officer for the central district of Boston, made a report of his work for the year 1888, showing that during the year there had been referred to him 1,056 cases in his district, which were disposed of as follows: Done well and were dismissed 473 Sent to their country homes 3 2 9 Sent to charity homes J 3° Sailors sent to sea 49 Died before term of probation expired 3 . Did not improve and were surrendered for sentence 5 2 Ran away l2 Total I0 5 6 Of these, 880 would have been imprisoned, except for the provi- sions of this law; and the minimum time of imprisonment in all these cases put together would have amounted to 2,334 months, or nearly 200 years, which was practically saved to both the persons arrested and to society, for, had the accused been imprisoned, they would probably not have earned anything for themselves or for society. Be- sides, there was saved to the public $22,978 in prison expenses. The offenses charged ranged from forgery to vagrancy. Under the head of work done by agent, appears the following: Visits to homes of persons on probation 1061 Visits at office by persons on probation 1467 Reports from persons sent to country homes 337 Reports from persons sent to private charity homes. .;. . 208 Investigations for persons charged with crime 3673 Places of employment secured for persons on probation. . 64 Temperance pledges taken by persons on probation 557 Investigations on applications for release from prison. ... 53 (In reference to the last item, it should be stated that this law provides that persons already imprisoned may, under certain condi- tions, be released.) A summary of the ten years' experience is also given as follows: 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 Whole number taken on pro- bation 430 376 418 549 788 846 797 852 827 1056 Did well and were dis- charged 375,335 377 489 718 757 74 2 790 784 992 Proved incorrigible 55 41 41 60 70 89 55 62 43 64 The report also shows that, had there been no probation, all those that were saved must have been sentenced and imprisoned, and their REMEDY. 51 sentences during the ten years, when put together, would have amounted to 1,715 years and ten months, or an average of 171 years and seven months of time each year, all this having been saved to the accused and their families, as well as to society; for in prison their time would have been substantially a dead loss, while the extra prison expense to the public during the ten years would have been $210,856. But all this sinks into insignificance when compared with the loss which would have followed when the imprisonment was over. For in most cases the discharged convict would have been unable to make a living; in fact, he would have been a ruined man or boy, who would never do much for himself or for society, but in many cases would be almost forced into a criminal career to prey upon society. I have thus far given only the results in one probation district, but the results in other districts in and about Boston were of the same gratifying character. Mr. George N. Parker, the officer for the South Boston district, summarizes his report as follows: "About ninety-three per cent, of the persons placed under my care have done well and have been discharged. On account of their poverty all would have had to go to prison had they been sentenced on the day of trial. But, as probation was intervened, many of them have since lived good, orderly lives; have been a blessing to their families; have kept their homes from being broken up and their children sent to charitable institutions. So that the workings of probation have in many cases been twofold, viz:, reformed the parents and saved the children." In his report for 1889, Mr. Savage says: "In the 1,125 cases dis- posed of during the year, 1,065, or ninety-four per cent., were ac- credited with doing well, while 60, or less than six per cent., proved incorrigible. * * * Of the 315 persons sent home, a majority were strangers in the city — had been convicted of some minor offense and were without means. They were sent home to save them from prison. Among them were forty-nine young women convicted the first time, and were sent to parents or relatives to save them not only from prison, but a probable life of infamy. * * * Probation, by securing op- portunity for hundreds of unfortunate specimens of human frailty who show an honest desire to reform; by restoring to destitute and suffering families those on whom they were dependent for the neces- saries of life ; and by aiding to stay the increase of the criminal classes — renders a service that outweighs any pecuniary consideration." Mr. Wm. F. Reed, probation officer for the Roxbury district, closes his report for the year 1888 as follows: ''Probation has saved many of both sexes from exposure, shame, and loss of situation, in cases 52 LIVE QUESTIONS. where they had committed their first offense, and not only saved them for the time being, but for all times." I will simply add to the above that I am informed that boys and young women have almost entirely disappeared from the prisons of Massachusetts. The method of procedure is simply to continue a case for three months, and then to continue it again as often as may be deemed necessary. If the accused does well, he is finally discharged. If he does not do well, he can be sentenced at any time. Few Run Away. — It is a most remarkable circumstance that so few run away. Thus, out of 1,056 placed on probation in one district in one year, only 12 ran away, and, on the whole, the average of run- aways is scarcely one and one-half per cent. CHAPTER XIV. INDETERMINATE SENTENCES. The idea of having the maximum length of confinement fixed by law, and then sentencing offenders generally and letting their actual confinement be determined by certain conditions, though compara- tively new, is meeting with general approval by men who have given this subject much thought. W. D. Patterson, superintendent of the Cleveland house of correction, in his report for the year 1881, says on this point: "It is worse than folly to attempt or expect the reformation of such old-time chronic offenders as frequent our police courts every week or every month when they are out of confinement, by the infliction of such penalties as an imprisonment of five, ten, or thirty days, or by the imposition of a fine and costs. The object sought to be accom- plished by such a course, however good the intention of the law, or however correct the motives of those whose duty it is to enforce the same, must end in an expensive failure, and the offenders con- tinue in their degradation and debauchery and bestial inebriety, not- withstanding the law and the courts and the prison. Instead, as now, let them be committed as children are to the house of refuge, or as prisoners are now committed to the New York State Reformatory at Elmira, until their reformation is accomplished. An imprisonment in such cases as the above would not only be wise and beneficial to the offenders, but would be of especial advantage to the community financially." In the report of the committee on prisons, made in 1881, to the legislature of California, with some reflection on prison discipline INDETERMINATE SENTENCES, 53 and management, the question of "indeterminate sentences' is thus discussed: "By indeterminate sentences is meant that all persons in a State who are convicted of crimes or offenses before a competent court shall be deemed wards of the State and shall be committed to a board of guardians, until, in their judgment, they may be returned to society with ordinary safety, and in accord with' their own highest welfare. If this principle be adopted, the confinement of a prisoner will depend upon his own exertions to earn promotion and eventual freedom. The duration of confinement is placed under the control, and is de- termined' by the conduct, of the convict himself. The advantages of an indeterminate sentence are: "1. It supplants the law of force by the law of love. "2. It secures certainty of restraint and continued treatment, which operate to prevent crime, as severity does not. "3. It makes possible the arrest and right training of that whole brood of beginners, before great depravity is reached and character is irretrievably fixed. "4. It utilizes for reformatory ends the motive that is always the strongest — the desire to be released, the love of liberty. "5. It removes the occasion, and so mollifies the feeling of ani- mosity usually felt toward the law and its officers, puts the personal interest of the prisoner plainly in obedience to the rules of discipline, and leads him to co-operate with those laboring for his welfare." Again, under the head of "classifications," the report continues: "It is self-evident that the young offender should be disassociated from the old criminal; that the person who has committed the first offense, perhaps venial, should be separated from the hardened villain; that the comparatively innocent should not be associated with the pronounced guilty. The real classification is one based on character, conduct, and merit, as shown in the daily routine of prison life." In the report of the special commission of the State of Connecti- cut on contract convict labor, with accompanying papers, 1880, the reformatory at Elmira, N. Y., is thus commented upon : "There are several peculiarities about this prison, which, so far as your committee is aware, are not found at any other in this country, and which tend largely to its success. It is strictly a reformatory, and as such is graded into three classes. No prisoner is received over thirty years of age, and all only for the first offense. Special laws have been enacted, all of wnich are in the interest of reform, and to enable the proposers of this experiment to give the plan a full and fair trial. The prisoners are not sentenced to a definite, fixed period, 54 LIVE QUESTIONS. but for a maximum term. Upon entering the prison they are received into the second grade, from which they are promoted to the first for good conduct, or degraded into the third for bad. * * * As a reformatory, the prison, so far, is a success. All the power of hope, love, ambition, pride, and shame is brought to bear upon each indi- vidual; every possibility of a speedy liberation and success in the future is held up to the prisoner — of places of respect and honor in society and confidence in business, if by well-doing they deserve respect and confidence; or shame, poverty, and a prison, if, by a return to criminal practices, they again forfeit their right to liberty. Such treatment can have but one result. Whenever, in the opinion of the superintendent and board of managers, a prisoner has shown, by long-continued good conduct, that he is fit to be trusted with liberty, he is given a leave of absence, during which time he must keep the superintendent informed of his whereabouts, and of his con- dition and prospects, until, after a time of trial, having proved his reformation by his conduct, he is given a full discharge. Out of twenty-four liberated on parole, twenty-two earned their discharge by showing their fitness for liberty, one was returned to prison to serve out the full length of his sentence, and one left the country. The same motives which induce these prisoners to strive for the highest grade also induce them to do the most and best work." The following extract is taken from the message of Governor Hoyt to the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, January 4, 1881 : "What can be done for the very young, up to the age of sixteen jears, who, by commitments by courts and magistrates, have fallen into the hands of the law, for various offenses, has been well exem- plified by the house of refuge in Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania reform school at Morganza. Amid some controversy over these schools, and the methods at the bottom of them, it is too late now to question thei" value and service, although neither has as yet reached an equipment necessary for the best work. The purpose of their ex- istence, and the aim of their managers, is to rescue their inmates from the evil associations out of which they have come and to reform them. Pew of these waifs have responsible parentage or guardianship. They are quite sure to become State charges. The State, co-operating with private benefactors, proposes to return them, self-supporting, to society, under the best auspices the case will admit. Within the limits of the school they are moulded, intellectually and morally, by com- petent, careful teachers, and instructed, trained and drilled to some trade or industrial pursuit. The effort is to reproduce, within the inclosure, the exact condition of society they will encounter when they INDETERMINATE SENTENCES. 55 fetum to the world. This requires time, and the inmates are re- tained until-the work is more or less completely done. The process goes upon the correct and safe assumption that it is impossible to reform the conduct of a child or man without first measurably reform- ing his nature. The scheme is no longer an experiment, as it has been faithfully worked out in England, France, Germany, and many of the States of our Union. This leads up to an extension of the general method, which, in the judgment of political economists of the very highest authority, promises the most beneficial results. This will include all the first offenders, except of the most brutal type, under the age say of thirty years. The purpose of the process is also to return them to society, with the preparation and discipline best fitted to enable them to earn an honest livelihood, permit them to retain their self-respect, and fit them to resume their places among their fellow-men, if they so choose, without the brand of infamous punishment or penal servitude upon them. The aim and scope is to give the convict intellectual, moral, and industrial training, systematic habits, and definite purposes, in a reformatory school, and not in a penitentiary; to afford him another chance in life; in short, to help him to help himself. "In the discretion of the court rendering the sentence, defendants convicted of a first offense of such magnitude as to justify adequate imprisonment, and under # the age of thirty years, are committed to such an intermediate prison. They go without a determinate sentence, but cannot be held for a period longer than the maximum term fixed by law for the offense. Under a proper system of grades and classes and marks, every motive to shorten the period of detention is pre- sented. That period will lie in the discretion of the proper officers of the institution. Positions in life are found for them, and they may then be conditionally discharged on parole, reporting from time to time thereafter their behavior and surroundings ; or, in default thereof, or of good conduct for a prescribed period, they may be liable to be returned to the institution. It has been found by experience that the prisoners thus discharged have been well received again by society, and in one of the largest institutions of this kind in our land it is officially reported that less than seven per cent, of the number dis- charged have failed to maintain their promise of good conduct. I refer to the reformatory at Elmira, N. Y. The acts creating it, and the practical management there carried out, are worthy of attention and study." "In accordance with Governor Hoyt's recommendation, a com- -mfttee composed of members of the Senate and House of Repre- 56 LIVE QUESTIONS. sentatives visited Elmira, made a thorough inspection of the practice pursued at the reformatory, and subsequently submitted a report, unanimously advising the erection, in the State of Pennsylvania, of buildings in conformity with the principles there in operation. A commission from the State of New Jersey also inspected the reformatory at Elmira, and made a like recommendation to the legis- lature of that commonwealth. The Tenth Annual Report of the Commissioners of Prisons of Massachusetts, January, 1881, devotes considerable space to the con- sideration of "Indeterminate Sentences," in the following language: "Whatever plan may be adopted to afford the best opportunities for accomplishing the reformation of criminals, the highest results can never be attained while the present system of imposing definite sentences for crime is in force. This was long ago recognized as true in the treatment of young offenders, and for many years children have been sentenced to the reform schools for their minority, no time- sentences being imposed, the power to release them when they are deemed to be reformed being given to the authorities in charge of the schools. "There are many reasons for applying the same principle in the treatment of adult criminals. The present system holds out no inducement to the convict to reform. His sentence is a fixed one, and expires on a day certain, regardless of his conduct or of his char- acter. The one thing he keeps more constantly in mind than any other is the day of his release. He knows that this will not be much' delayed by anything he may do, and cannot be materially hastened by good behavior or by any change of character. He learns to look upon his punishment as wholly retributive ; and, when he comes out of the prison, he feels that he has 'wiped out' the record against him, and is to begin again. During his trial, his main effort, and that of his counsel, is to secure as light a sentence as is possible, and often, with no conception of the gravity of his offense, he harbors a spite against the government for punishing him too severely. "It may be necessary to continue for the present this system for most offenders, as a change from fixed sentences to indefinite ones involves a change in the whole system of prison management and dis- cipline. But for an institution whose first aim is the reformation of criminals, indefinite sentences must eventually prevail. Under such a system, a convict would be confined until he was deemed to be re- formed, be it a short or long time. This throws around the prisoner every possible inducement for self-improvement. He realizes that his future is in his own hands. He sees that the State is not punishing INDETERMINATE SENTENCES. 57 him arbitrarily for his crimes, but is interested in his welfare; that he is deprived of his liberty not so much on account of his acts as on account of his character; and that his right to freedom is dependent upon his reformation, which in turn depends upon his own use of his opportunities. "With such a view of his offenses, of the results they have brought, and of the way of obtaining his liberty, he has every inducement to do his, best. Some, with their future thus in their own hands, will speedily change their habit of life, and make resolute endeavors to build up better characters, and can soon be released. Others will come to such endeavors very slowly, and some, possibly, not at all. Some of those who begin the struggle will fail; but, as a rule, they will try again and again, until they attain some degree of success. "In determining when a convict has reformed, a great responsi- bility rests upon those who have his training in charge. They will sometimes be deceived; and sometimes one who has within the prison really reformed, will fall under temptations in a life of freedom, and return to a criminal life. But this is equally true of other wards of the State. A large percentage' of those discharged from our asylums for the insane as cured return again for treatment, the physicians hav- ing been mistaken in regard to the cure, or having over-estimated its permanency when the patient came in contact with the world. But these mistakes would not lead any one to suggest a fixed term of confinement for the insane with a discharge at its end, regardless of the condition of the person. "If an indefinite sentence, to be ended only by his own reforma- tion, be deemed too severe, the indeterminate sentence now imposed in New York upon those wh6 are sent to the State reformatory at Elmira ought certainly to be tried. A convict is there sentenced to the reformatory for the longest period for which he could possibly be sentenced for his offense. For instance, under our criminal code, a person may be sentenced to the State prison for five years for larceny from the person, or he may be sent to jail for a lesser term. Under the New York statutes, a person sent, to the reformatory for this offense would merely be sentenced to that institution, and regardless of the amount stolen, or of the circumstances, he could be held for five years, unless sooner reformed. In the reformatory he is sub- jected to the closest surveillance and the most careful training. He wins his release by his deportment and by his character. Whenever he is thought to be reformed, he may be released upon parole. He continues under the control of the board of managers until the ex- piration of five years, unless they sooner discharge him, precisely as SS LIVE QUESTIONS. minors released from the reform schools in this State do. He may be returned to the reformatory for misbehavior at any time during his sentence. "It will be seen that this plan holds out to the convict the strongest possible inducements for reformation, both in confinement and after release. If anything in the way of legislation will secure a change of life, this will; for it takes advantage of every motive which usually moves a rational being, and makes full use of the means which are most likely to change a criminal into a good citizen. The system has produced excellent results in the Elmira reformatory; and we recom- mend that it be adopted in sentences to the reformatory prison for women, and to the reformatory for men, which we have suggested, if it shall be thought wise to send a part of the prisoners to it directly from the courts, instead of transferring them from the county prisons." In the report from the Joint Committee of the Senate and As- sembly, appointed to investigate the affairs of the New York State reformatory, submitted April 27, 1881, to the questions, "Is the re- formatory doing the work for which it was intended? Is it reform- ing young men? Is it a success?" the following reply was presented: "We take pleasure in commending the management for the excel- lent condition in which the buildings and grounds are being main- tained, and for the skill, thoroughness, and efficiency with which the work of reforming and reclaiming the inmates is being carried on. The prisoners are all young men, between sixteen and thirty years of age when sentenced and convicted of their first offense. The prison was suggested, planned, and is erected and operated, with a view to the reformation of this class of offenders. We are convinced that its object is being attained to a greater degree than its best friends antici- pated. The strupture has cost nearly, or quite, a million and a half of dollars, but the State has something to show for its money. The buildings are large and substantial, well lighted and ventilated, and models of cleanliness and good order. The five hundred cells are of good size and comfortable, each being furnished with a bed, a chair, a small cupboard or bookcase, .and a crude writing-desk; and each is lighted with gas. The food supplied to prisoners appears to be plentiful and wholesome, and, the clothing is all that is required. Books and writing materials are supplied as needed. In the arrange- ment of the buildings, as well as in the management of the prison, everything compatible with reformatory discipline seems to have been done with a view to the comfort of those who are so unfortunate as to be incarcerated within its walls. The prisoners are kept hard at work throughout the day, and attend school during three alternate INDETERMINATE SENTENCES. 59 evenings of each week; the intervening evenings being occupied in study. It was the privilege of the committee to attend the schools, which we found in the hands of competent instructors. The work bore every evidence of substance and thoroughness, while the ad- vanced studies taught, and the brightness and the proficiency of the pupils, quite surprised us. "As is well known to the legislature, if not to the people, the in- mates of the reformatory are sentenced to the institution for an in- definite period of time, the law only providing that they shall not be imprisoned for a longer period than already authorized by law in a State prison or penitentiary for a like offense. Aside from this pro- vision, the time of their imprisonment depends upon their industry, good conduct, and proficiency in studies. They are made to under- stand that they can regain a place in society by deserving it.. The pride, self-respect, and ambition of the inmates is encouraged and stimulated by a system of marks most skillfully arranged, which re- sults in classifying them into different grades, thus entitling them, as they advance, to enlarged privileges, greater confidence, and better and more attractive clothing, and, finally, to release upon parole. The committee was struck with the frankness, cheerfulness, and manly conduct of the inmates, and the entire absence of that sullen and dogged indifference and abandonment so universal in prison life. "In general, we have none but words of commendation for the reformatory work of the State reformatory. The experiment is being proved a success. Young men who have fallen into bad ways are being saved to homes, friends, and society, instead of being crushed in spirit and prepared for deeper shame and greater crimes. The prin- ciple upon which the reformatory is conducted should, in our judg- ment,, be persevered in, developed, and extended into the other penal institutions of the State." In 1881, Mr. Langmuir, inspector of prisons in Canada, in com- pany with a number of Canadian officials, visited the prisons in several of the States of the Union, and, on his return, in an interview pub- lished in the Toronto Globe, gave his opinion of the system in vogue at Elmira, as follows: "Q. Did you see any- new methods which might be introduced here in whole or in part? "A. Yes, we did. At the New York State reformatory for adult males, at Elmira, I found certain features of prison management de- cidedly in advance of our views. The system has been in operation five years. The building is a fine one, and is furnished throughout with all the modern conveniences of prisons. Instead of the prisoners 60 LIFE QUESTIONS. being associated together, as they are, without regard to the differ- ences in their character and conduct, there are four large dormitories which provide sleeping room for four different classes of prisoners. The distinction made is not on account of the offense for which they were committed, or the length of the term of imprisonment to which they are liable. There are three grades, and entrance to the higher of these depends entirely on the conduct of the prisoner while in prison. Offenders sent to this prison are not sentenced for definite periods, as with us. The State law provides a maximum period of confinement for the different classes of crimes, and no minimum. This applies only to the Elmira prison. What the real duration of the sentence shall be depends on the prisoner. All enter in the same grade, and their conduct is observed carefully from the very first, and marks of merit and demerit are given. By good conduct a prisoner may earn promotion to the first grade, which has certain privileges attaching to it. Here good conduct still further promotes the interest of the prisoner, and if the signs of reformation which led to his promotion from the second grade are still manifest, the superintendent and prison managers may release him on a probation, which generally lasts six inonths. The friends of the prisoner are corresponded with, and their wishes consulted. Arrangements are also made with farmers and others in a part of the State where the prisoner is not known, and there he is sent to earn his living. Great care is exercised in securing respectable employers, who, of course, are confidentially informed of all the antecedents of the prisoner. The employer makes a report at the end of the time on the probationer's conduct and sincerity in his efforts for reformation. The prisoner also reports every month. A comparison is made between these reports, and the superintendent and board of managers may then decide on an unconditional discharge. In this way a prisoner is encouraged to reform, by the prospect of shortening his term of prison life, which may in some cases last ten years, to five or six years, or even to two or three. Good conduct insures confidence and promotion. Some of the prisoners are even employed as monitors, and some are intrusted with the keys to various apartments. * * * I never saw a prison in which the inmates had less of a convict expression. They were cheerful, and wore an ex- pression of openness and candor I have never seen in any other penal institution. The great encouragement given to right conduct has a very salutary effect, both in securing good conduct and encouraging good habits and desires. A prisoner told me that he could scarcely sleep at night, thinking what he could do the next day to merit a good mark. There are other excellent features associated with the INDETERMINATE SENTENCES. 61 system. The superintendent, instead of addressing the prisoners as a mass, must become personally familiar with the disposition and con- duct of each man. He is brought into contact with each, and this contact has the effect of individualizing the prisoner. Of course, no pains are spared to make each man, while retaining his manliness,- submit his will to subordination." I have cited at length from the reports relating to the Elmira reformatory — not for the purpose of praising it, however excellent it may be — but to show the opinion our leading public men who have examined the subject entertain in regard to indeterminate sentences. Sir Frederick Hill, who obtained great reputation in the suc- cessful management of Scottish prisons, said that the chief reliance of a prisoner is on hope. "This," he says, "secures the hearty co- operation of the prisoners, without which there can be little expectation of real reform. I set a high value on the arrangement in convict prisons by which it is granted to a prisoner, by. great self-control, in- dustry, and exertion for moral improvement, to materially abridge the length of his confinement." Dr. Despine, an eminent physician and philosopher of France, made a profound study of the criminal from the standpoint of psy- chology, and, after showing that criminals are, as a rule, morally weak and in an abnormal state, says: "If these men who are the subjects of a real moral idiocy are dan- gerous, they are, at the same time, deserving of our pity. To shield ourselves from danger we have to separate them from society. This is in itself a punishment. But the treatment which aims only to . punish is dangerous both to society and the criminal. It rarely im- proves the latter, but often makes him worse. In France it pro- duces from forty to forty-five per cent, of repeaters. This is because, having taken as our guides only fear and vengeance, and not scientific data, we have never studied the moral state which leads a man to crime; we have ignored this abnormal condition. If the criminal is different, in a moral point, from other men, the best way to prevent crime is to cause this difference to cease — not wholly, which is im- possible, but near enough to render him a safe member of society. In this view, it is the first duty to segregate them, not, however, for a fixed period determined in advance by the nature of the crime com- mitted. It is rather the moral state of the criminal that is to be taken into account. "Here we have the first point in reference to the treatment of crim- inals, that of the time of sequestration established by science, which is thoroughly in accord with what is demanded by common sense. 62 LIVE QUESTIONS. Under the system which fixes the time in advance, we see daily set loose in society a multitude of malefactors who are known to be dangerous. Does not such a mode of action wear absurdity on its^ face? "In taking, as a starting point, the principle that we have here to deal with persons afflicted with a moral anomaly in the nature of a disease, it is evident that to cure or at least lessen this malady should be the supreme aim in their treatment. It is to this end that all the means employed ought to converge. Further, as the moral anomaly with which criminals are attacked varies almost indefinitely, it is as irrational to treat all these varieties in the same manner as it would be to treat all the ailments of the body alike." To what is said above about indeterminate sentences, I will add that, in my opinion, the convict should be required to earn some money for himself, as explained hereafter, before he is permitted to leave the prison, in order that he may not be absolutely dependent, should he fail in either getting or keeping work. For, granting that he has completely reformed, and is anxious to lead an honorable life, he is then still no better, nor can he possibly be morally stronger, than the honest man who never was in prison; and even such a man would be in great danger of becoming a criminal should he suddenly be left without money, without work, without friends, with nothing to eat, and nowhere to go when night comes. So long as a man is able to pay his way, he preserves his self- respect and is comparatively free from danger. CHAPTER XV. GRAND JURIES. Grand juries should be abolished. They work a great injury to the innocent, and greatly assist the guilty. For the delays incident to the action of the grand jury keep hundreds in jail, who are, on exam- ination, discharged. At the same time, the great delay incidental to their action is of the greatest advantage to the real criminals. They thus gain time, frequently many months, till the public has lost inter- est in their case, and further delays have become easy to procure. At present, there is an examination before a justice of the peace, where a number of continuances are generally obtained. Then the offender is bound over to await the action of the grand jury, and if he cannot give bail he has to go to jail, and the worst criminals often are GRAND JURIES. 63 able to give bail, while the poor, wrongfully arrested, frequently are not. Owing to the number of cases, trifling and otherwise, requiring their action, it frequently takes a number of months before the grand jury reaches the case. Then the prosecution is required again to produce all its witnesses. If an indictment is found, it again takes months before it can be reached for trial, when the whole agony has cnce more to be gone through with. Surely, no system better calcu- lated to defend criminals and injure the innocent could well be devised. Courts should always be open for the trials of criminals, so that a continuance would be but for a few days, and not for a number of months to the next term, as now. Then the accused should be tried on information, so that a trial could take place immediately after the offense. This would protect the innocent, and at once bring to justice the guilty. The speedy trial is what the guilty always dread. PART SECOND. PRISON LABOR. CHAPTER I. PRISON LABOR.— KIND OF WORK DONE.— EARNINGS AND COST OF PRISONERS.— LOSS TO SOCIETY.— INNOCENT SUFFER WITH GUILTY.— REASON 'OF LOW AVERAGE.— NO INTEREST IN LABOR MAKES POOR WORKMEN.— LEAVES HIM IN HELPLESS CONDITION.— INDUSTRIES LIMITED. There are in vogue four methods of working prisoners: By the first of these; called the Public Account System, the State furnishes material, and then sells the goods made. By the second, which is known as the Contract System, the services of a specified number of convicts are hired out or contracted to one contractor for a fixed time, and at a fixed price per day, and the money thus made goes to the State; by this method the State keeps control of the prisoners and feeds and clothes them. The third is the Piece Price System, by which outsiders supply the material, and often some of the machinery, and the State manufactures the desired articles at a fixed price per piece. These three systems are in vogue in the Northern States, except Delaware; in that State the prisoners do not work. By the fourth' method the convicts are leased out, and, as they are thenceforth clothed and fed by the lessee, they receive from the State scarcely any further attention. This system prevails in many of the Southern States, and^ is by far the most objectionable of all. Under it, there is scarcely a possibility of the reformation of a prisoner. The lessee wants to make as much money, and give as little in return, as possible; and, in some cases, the condition of the prisoner is said to be far worse than that of the most cruelly treated slave. KIND OF WORK DONE. The work done in prisons varies. In the Northern States it is generally confined to manufacturing; the making of boots, shoes, and chairs being carried on to a greater extent than the making of any 64 PRISON LABOR. 65 other article, though a great many prisoners work at stone-cutting. In some of the Southern States mines are worked and plantations managed by prisoners. EARNINGS AND COST OF PRISONERS. The average earnings of prisoners in the best managed State prisons is fifty cents per day for every man engaged in what might be called productive labor, skilled and unskilled. The average for all, including those that do prison duties, is about thirty-five cents per day per man. Thus, in the penitentiary at Joliet, Illinois, which, in this respect, is one of the best managed in the country, the average contract price per man per day for year ending September 30, 1881, was 46.83 cents, and for year ending September 30, 1882, was 52.52 cents; and the average earnings, including working days, Sundays, and holidays, was 33.91 cents and 39.42 cents during said years. It will strike any one at a glance that this is an exceedingly low average; that it is less than half what a man should earn and less than half what a free laborer will earn on an average. But, notwithstanding this, many prisons in which the inmates labor are self-sustaining; some require appropriations by the State; while some actually have a surplus; the total average cost of keeping (in- cluding guarding, clothing, etc.) each convict in the various peni- tentiaries being from twenty-eight to thirty-five cents per day. LOSS TO SOCIETY. It will be seen by the above that in the case of every convict there is an actual dead loss to society of over half of his productive powers. That is, over half of his ability to support not himself simply, but others, is absolutely lost. His time is passing, he has so many less months or years to live. But he is contributing less than half of what he should contribute as a free man. Society is so constituted that it requires every able-bodied man to contribute a proportionate share toward the support of the whole. This he usually does in supporting his family or those depending on him. And whenever, from any cause, he fails to do this, there is a loss to society, and the burden of the remainder is proportionately increased. This increased burden is felt in various ways, and is just as real as though the whole of the loss had to be collected in increased taxes every year. In fact, to a certain extent it is, for as the num- ber of those paying taxes is diminished, the burden of the remainder increases, and what is paid directly and indirectly for charitable pur- poses, to feed and clothe those that are dependent for support on those 5 66 LIVE QUESTIONS. confined in prison, might as well be paid in the shape of taxes. Fur- ther, in so far as those dependent on a convict are more poorly cared for, thotlgh not actually objects of charity, they become poorer citi- zens, and are more likely to be a bill of expense than a source of as- sistance, to society in the future. Even in the case of the convict who has absolutely no one depending on him society sustains this dead loss, for his time is lost, his best days are passing, he is accumulating nothing, he is not equipping himself for the struggle of life that is before him; he cannot, therefore, after he becomes free, accomplish , what he otherwise might have done — nay, all the chances are against him, and his life liable to be a failure; thus society will lose not only his assistance, but will actually find in him, at some time in the future, a burden. INNOCENT SUFFER WITH GUILTY. Under the present system, the innocent are punished with the guilty. The law intends that its penalties shall fall only on those that actually violate it; but at present, in many cases the consequences of a conviction fall with equal severity upon the innocent and dependent, for it in effect takes away their bread. When, therefore, a man is con- victed, those dependent on him are at once left without support, be- sides having to bear the terrible social blight which settles upon fami- lies of convicts, isolating them from the rest of mankind and making them objects of aversion, for which it is hard to suggest a remedy, and which cannot well be avoided. But to be deprived of the means with which to procure the necessaries of life is an uncalled-for hardship ; for the man is not dead, his strength is not destroyed, he is as able as ever to work, and in very many cases would gladly work harder than ever before, if thereby he could do anything for those he leaves be- hind. And why should he not be permitted to do so — nay, why should he not be actually required to do so? He has violated the law, ii is true, but his family have not; he ought to be punished, but they ought not to be. While, therefore, he must be deprived of his liberty, , must be isolated from society and bear the hardships of prison life, he should still be not only permitted, but required, to contribute to the support of those that are absolutely dependent on him. True, the State may require that he first work enough for it to pay the expense of feeding, clothing, guarding, and superintending him; but this, in most penitentiaries, is only from twenty-eight to thirty-two cents per day, while he is capable of earning, perhaps, three times as much. Upon this subject, W. Searles, chaplain of the penitentiary at Auburn, N. Y., in his report, says: "An agreeable and profitable intercourse with the inmates of the PRISON LABOR. 67 prison, which I enjoy, arises out of their social correspondence, which it falls to my lot to conduct. The prisoners are permitted to visit my office during the week to obtain permission to write, or for advice, or to transact such necessary business, or ask for such favors as rules will permit. I read, record, and direct all letters that go out, and also read all that come in. This opens up my way to their most tender and susceptible moral feelings and family sympathies. The letters received by the prisoners from their almost broken-hearted wives, mothers, sisters, and friends, enjoining upon them repentance, reformation, and obedience to the prison rules, that they may the sooner be reunited, must have a great influence upon them, both for their present and future good. And, sir, it is the perusal of these letters from the poor old mother, the broken-hearted wife, the suffering children, the griev- ing brothers and sisters, that enforces upon my mind the lesson that no man liveth to himself alone. In the vast majority of cases, these mothers, wives, and children are poor, and were dependent upon the son, the husband, and the father for the actual necessaries of life. In consequence of his imprisonment they must suffer. While it is the duty of society to protect itself against the inroads of the criminals, let me inquire, is it not equally the duty of society to protect from want and suffering the innocent wife and child? As I have hereto- fore suggested, permit me again to express the hope that the incoming legislature will make some provision by which a portion, however small, of the convict's earnings may be set apart for his own or his family's benefit." This system, therefore, works a great injustice to the innocent, and, in the long run, entails a heavy burden on society ; for where the family of a convict is left without support, the burden of providing falls directly on society. It is immaterial whether this burden be dis- charged in taxes or in charity, or in the loss of goods stolen: it still comes from the public. Further than this, the children of a convict thus situated, having no regular source to look to for bread, are liable to grow up violators of the law from the sheer force of their surroundings ; for squalor and misery are hot-beds of crime. So that, instead of extirpating crime by the punishment inflicted, we create anew the conditions out of which it grows — that is, we constantly create the conditions that will be certain, in due time, to bring forth new criminals, with all the expense to the public that is incident to arresting, prosecuting, and confining law-breakers. In fact, it would be much cheaper for the public, and certainly much better even to charge the convict nothing for guarding, superintend- 68 LIVE QUESTIONS. ing, feeding, and clothing him, than to pursue the system now pur- sued; for the results just described will, in the end, cost the public much more than thirty cents per day. But as already stated, if given an opportunity, he could pay the State and contribute toward the sup- port of his family besides ; and as thirty cents per day is as little as he could be clothed and fed for at home, he could -in reality pay the State for his keeping and contribute almost as much to the support of his family as if he were free. In fact, in many cases he could be required to contribute much more than he would if free. But I shall consider this subject hereafter. REASON OF LOW AVERAGE. The chief cause of the low average earnings of convicts lies in the fact that it is unwilling labor. A man while free will earn more than double what he will earn as a convict. Of course, much depends on the skill of the foreman in managing the prisoners, and getting much work out of them. But the chief reason of a low average is apparent. NO INTEREST IN LABOR MAKES POOR WORKMEN. A convict has no interest whatever in his work. It does him no good to do a large amount of work in a day, for it will benefit neither him nor any one dear to him. Men are generally impelled to work by a desire to benefit themselves or those dependent upon or dear to them. But the convict has none of these incentives. He may be anxious to earn and save a pittance, so that when he regains his free- dom he will be able to support himself for a time even though he fail to get work. Or he may be eager to earn something for the assistance of those that are without bread because of his acts and absence; but all in vain. If he does more work than he is required to do, the profits go generally into the pockets of wealthy contractors, while he is simply wearing himself out. In short, he has no heart in his work. It is involuntary servitude, which rarely accomplishes more than half what voluntary service will. At present, the convict's work is to him a treadmill affair, from which he is to get no benefit. He goes to his task because forced to go ; works only while forced to work ; studies to slight his work rather than to do it well; tries to get along by doing as little as possible. Indeed, how could it be otherwise? Outside of prisons men study to do as little as possible of that in which they feel no interest and from which they are to get no benefit, and surely we cannot expect to find more virtue inside of prison than out. PRISON LABOR. 69 The effect is, therefore, to make a man a slow workman, and in many cases an indifferent and careless one; and in time these habits will become natural, especially where they are long continued. There- fore, instead of becoming an expert and skilled workman, he is more apt to become a slow botcher, and is therefore not well equipped to make an honest living when he regains his liberty. And if the effect of his confinement has been to make him a poor workman instead of an expert, the chances are against his being able to get along and the probability is increased of his drifting, with his family, among the criminal classes. Few have any conception of the expense entailed on the public by the relapse of a convict, especially when the depreda- tions committed before he is again incarcerated are included. In 1872 Mr. Tallack, at the request of the Howard Association and of the Central Committee of the International Prison Congress, collected a vast amount of information on the subject of prison management, prison labor, and the reformation of prisoners. On this point he says: "Prisoners, if discharged untaught and untrained, soon re- lapse, and cost the public £159 per annum (nearly $800), at a low esti- mate, by their robberies." LEAVES HIM IN HELPLESS CONDITION. But by far the most serious defect in the present system lies in the fact that when a man has spent years in prison, on again going out into the world he is absolutely dependent; he has no money and gen- erally no friends who will help him; he may be anxious to work and earn an honest living, but often cannot get work. Now what is to be expected in such a case — bearing in mind that in the first instance he succumbed to evil influences and violated the law, and that a man not a convict and with friends, but who has nothing but his labor on which to rely, has a very hard lot of it? I ask what can with reason now be expected? He is under a ban. He is an outcast. Everybody's door is shut against him. He may be full of good resolves, but he cannot live on them. He may again long to be respectable and inde- pendent; but he must be housed, fed, clothed, and if work is not to be had, what can he do? Florian J. Ries, one of the most successful prison managers, in his report of the Milwaukee house of correction for 1880, in speaking of this subject, says: "Many, doubtless, leave the prison with a strong determination to lead honorable lives in the future; but here the question arises, How will they accomplish this? With all boasted philanthropy and all pretended kindly feeling toward these persons, how does society To LIVE QUESTIONS. meet them when the prison door has closed behind them? As long as people demand that prisons must be self-sustaining, these persons will receive but a pittance upon their discharge. With this they venture out upon the world, seeking employment; and, if they are frank, and admit that they have just been discharged from prison, who will employ them? Without employment, without money, with- out friends, what are they to do? Is it not perfectly natural, under these circumstances, that they should seek and find their former asso- ciates in crime? Here, then, is a wide field for humanitarians, a field in which, perhaps, the practical reformation of many of these persons could be accomplished. What can the prison officials accomplish by assuring those prisoners that if they will only show the good-will to reform, society will receive them and forgive past transgressions, when, after their actual discharge, there is no one to extend a helping hand? I believe that a 'prisoners' aid society' could do an incalcul- able amount of good in the way of advising and assisting such per- sons. This is a subject which should receive the earnest consideration, not only of our legislature, but of all true humanitarians." The follojwing forcible remarks are from the report of William H. Hill, moral instructor of the California state-prison. In enumerating the conditions necessary for the reformation of prisoners, he says: "Second. The prisoners must desire and determine to reform. "Third. The officers in charge should help in the work of refor- mation. "Fourth. Christians and philanthropists in the world outside should also help, and not by cold looks and colder actions drive the discharged prisoners again into crime. "As to the second element, there is a great misapprehension on the part of the people generally. It seems to be taken for granted that all who are here deserve their punishment, and should be kept from further harm by indefinite imprisonment. This is a great mistake. Some of the inmates here are undoubtedly innocent, having been the victims of perjury or mistaken identity. These may be few in num- ber. The great majority of the prisoners, however, are here for the first time — at least three-fourths of the whole number. A mistaken impression is abroad as to this. It is not true, as often asserted and believed, that a large, or even any, majority return for the second, third or fourth time. Not one-fourth do so. This would seem to be proof positive that the majority not only resolved to lead a different life after release, but carried their intention into practice. And facts are always more conclusive than fiction. •"As to the third requisite, I can bear testimony that the officers PRISON LABOR. 71 do their duty, and wish to help the prisoners to do well, not only in the prison, but out. And if their efforts were as earnestly seconded by outsiders there would be little necessity to ask any of the above- . named questions. And right here is met the greatest obstacle in the way of reform of prisoners; for I must answer the question involved in the fourth position by saying that Christians and philanthropists out- side, though plentiful in lip-service, do not help the prisoners to re- form, but passively, if not directly, lend their influence to drive them back to crime and punishment. This is a bold charge, I know; but unfortunately it is true. No matter how well an inmate may conduct himself while in prison, nor how sincere he may be in his efforts and determination to reform and lead a better life, he goes out with the prison taint upon him. He applies for work, and honestly tells where he has been. With very few exceptions, he is immediately rebuffed. In vain does he plead his reformation and determination, and show his certificate of good conduct from the prison officers. 'I pray thee, have me excused,' is what he hears on every side.' Tempters to crime are neither scarce nor fastidious; and thus repulsed by those who claim, morally, to be the better class, it is not strange if he is again drawn aside from the right path, and returns here more hardened than ever, on account of his repulse by those from whom he had a right to expect better things. That is one obstacle in the way of his reform. "But suppose, to avoid this, he simply conceals the fact that he has been an inmate of the state-prison. He secures work as a mechanic, or clerk, or laborer, and is honest, industrious, and faithful. A short time only elapses before he is 'spotted' by some depraved ex-convict, and 'blackmail' is demanded on threat of exposure. If he resists the claim, and is still trusted, notwithstanding the exposure made as threatened, it is well. But how often is that likely to be the case? Not one time in twenty, I am sorry to say. If he submits to the de- mand of the ex-convict, then he is at his mercy, and will be driven to desperation, if not to suicide, by further and still more exacting de- mands. Nor is this the other side of the picture. Can he escape Scylla and not fall into Charybdis? "And I am sorry to say there are some — not all — of the police in San Francisco and other large cities who seem to take a delight in pointing out these poor unfortunates as 'state-prison birds,' and thus drive them from honest work into crime. What wonder, then, that the percentage of real and permanent reform is not as large as could be desired? I feel like saying to these outside, fault-finding philan- thropists, 'Physicians, heal yourselves,' ere throwing upon the prison officers or directors the blame of failure in efforts to reform. Let 72 LIVE QUESTIONS. outsiders do their duty as men and Christians, and I believe that nearly all of those sent here for the first time would reform and lead honest, if not true, godly, Christian lives, when restored to liberty. I hope to live to see the day when this shall be the actual fact, and not merely a picture of the imagination." Upon the same subject W. C. Gunn, chaplain and teacher of the Iowa state-prison, who has interested himself greatly in the welfare of discharged convicts, says, in his report: "What becomes of the discharged convicts is a question that is frequently asked. That depends very much upon how they are treated after they are discharged. And here let me emphasize what I said two years ago. Perhaps none, unless connected with a prison, and but few even of those, have the remotest idea of the difficulties which a discharged convict, without friends, has to meet before he obtains employment. Many, when liberated, do not wish to return to the place from which they were sent; why, I know not, unless, realizing their disgrace, they are unwilling to go back where it is known. Many have no friends or relatives, and, as a rule, not only prefer to go, but do go, where they are unknown. The stigma of the peni- tentiary resting- upon them, the strength of public opinion against them, and nearly penniless, they are almost compelled to do one of three things : beg, starve, or steal ; and, alas for the weakness of good resolutions, the latter at times is resorted to. What are discipline and teaching and reformation in prison, unles.s society sustains the effort outside of the prison? Cannot society afford to try the discharged convict once more? I know that the cloud of the penitentiary hangs heavily over him. But what if it does? Should not Christian men, philanthropic men, and especially neighbors, do what they can to save the erring? Let the following letter, received from one of the 'unfortunates,' tell — and it is only one out of several in my possession: " 'M , Iowa, January 28, 1881. "'Rev. Gunn, Dear Chaplain: — I am encouraged to address you by the remembrance of the kind and undeserved interest you manifested in my wel- fare during my stay in Ft. Madison. I have been at home now five months, and I am beginning to experience the difficulties which attend a man in his effort to regain the position he held in the estimation of his fellows before departing from the path of rectitude. My professions of intent to lead a life of honesty are distrusted, and I am tempted to relinquish any other life than that almost forced upon me by my treatment at the hands of my neighbors. Your appreciated efforts to reclaim the fallen emboldens me to turn to you for advice and encouragement,' etc. "While that unfortunate man was in the penitentiary, he was bolted in; now that he is on the outside world he is bolted out— PRISON LABOR. 73 bolted out from the sympathy and confidence of his neighbors, bolted out from the workshop, bolted out from farm labor. I therefore most heartily recommend that a State-prison Aid Association be organized, with a branch in every county, and that persons with large sympathy and warm hearts be encouraged to assist in this noble enter- prise, thus procuring, for all who desire to reform, places to work, where they can earn an honest living, by this means shielding them from idleness and from the merciless attacks of unkind and evil- disposed persons. "Kindness oftentimes may be scarce toward a discharged convict, but it is not wholly dead. There are some who are not afraid to take them by the hand and succor them in time of need. During the three years and one month of my chaplaincy, I have found good homes for three hundred and five out of the six hundred and forty-six discharged. Only two of these were discharged by their employers on account of dissatisfaction — one in Des Moines County, for not earning his wages, and the o"ther in Marshall County, for smoking too frequently. Both have done well since. But what became of the three hundred and forty-one for whom no homes were found? As far as I am able to learn, thirty-nine of them are in the penitentiary, seven are living by gambling, and two are 'fugitives from justice.' " The prisoners' aid societies mentioned above, which have in late years been formed by kind-hearted and philanthropic people, are do- ing a great good, but they have, after all, the nature of a palliative and not of a cure. INDUSTRIES LIMITED. Keeping all prisoners entirely within prison walls, as is now done, greatly limits the industries which they can pursue, and the result is that too many are forced to take up particular trades, which they would not have taken up as free men; and this is a direct injury to the honest free laborers who, with their families, are dependent for their living upon that particular trade. These laborers have no right to complain of men working at a particular .trade in prison, provided it appears that the parties working at such trade in prison would have worked at it had they never been imprisoned, and provided, further, that the effects of this prison labor do not reduce their wages any more than they would have been reduced had the prisoners remained free men and followed the same trade as they do in prison. For every one has a right to follow any trade that he may wish. A free laborer cannot object to other men choosing whatever trades they prefer. A fair competition between parties similarly situated is not 74 LIFE QUESTIONS. objected to, but the overcrowding of certain trades by purely arbitrary and unnatural means is doing an injustice to those that have volun- tarily selected those trades as a means of livelihood. If the prisoners could be divided, and those that have long sen- tences to serve, or that are guilty of heinous crimes, be kept within prison walls and divided among such trades as can well be carried on there, the number assigned to each would be small, and, probably, not in excess of the number that would have selected the same trades as free men. And, if a system were adopted whereby the temptation to escape would be greatly reduced, then the remainder of the prisoners could be taken out to labor at such work as they would, to a great extent, have chosen had they labored as, free men. By this means, prison labor could be assigned to many more branches of industry than is possible at present. Besides, the moral effect would, under proper regulations, be much better. As it is, a great number of men are set at the same kind of work, without regard to their adapta- tion for it. Instead, therefore, of learning trades or Occupations which they could follow when again free, they find, upon regaining their freedom, that they have, in fact, no occupation at all, as the work at which they have been engaged was not the kind for which they were adapted or which they could successfully follow. Further, the objections to convict labor now so strenuously urged in so many quarters could be removed without increasing the burdens of the public. It will be noted that the objection is more to the method of conducting the convict labor, and of bringing it into com- petition with free tabor, than to the working of convicts at all. In fact, no objection could be urged against this, for every man has a right to pursue some kind of labor. Nay, it is his duty to do so. When, therefore, convicts work in prisons, they are doing no more than they would have done, or at least should have done, as good citizens. But besides the forcing of large numbers of men to perform a particular kind of labor which they otherwise would not have per- formed, the objection to convict labor, as now managed in most prisons, is, that it is contracted out at such figures that the honest free laborers are reduced to starvation in the necessary competition which ensues; -or, in case 'the convicts work under the public-account system, that their products are sold cheaper than the same kind of goods can be made by free labor at living wages. That goods manufactured on public account for the State are sold at lower prices than the like goods manufactured by free labor is, I believe, not generally true, and certainly ought not to be permitted, PRISON LABOR. ?$ for the State ought not to enter into competition with its own citizens. But that convicts are contracted out in great numbers, at average prices (forty to fifty-five cents per day) that appear on their face to be ruinous to free labor, is true. At present there is much ground for complaint, especially in re- gard to certain kinds of skilled labor that can be carried on in a prison as well as elsewhere. Thus, there is no doubt that the making of shoes, saddlery, cigars, and a number of other articles requiring skilled labor by convicts, under the contract system, at present injuri- ously affects the free laborers in these branches of industry, and it affects them most injuriously in dull times; for in good times, when the demand is equal to the production of the entire country, all find em- ployment, and that the contractor of prison labor is making excessive profits is not generally noticed. But when times are dull and the demand limited and prices low, then, inasmuch as the product of the convict labor must continue to be the same — as the contracts usually run for a term of years — free labor has to suffer; for, should the de- mand be no greater than can be supplied by the prisons, then free labor would either have to seek other employment or accept such wages as would enable it to compete with convict labor. Of course wages would still be greater than the convict's wages, for, being much more productive, free labor would inevitably command higher wages ; but still they would be lower for the prison competition. On the other hand, the prison contractor also finds his profits reduced in dull times, for he pays the same wages as when times were good, and must pay these right along, whether he can sell his products or not. Now, if a system were introduced .by which convicts could be con- verted into voluntary laborers, and paid something near the wages paid voluntary laborers, convict labor would never undersell free labor, and the prisoners could be set at labor for which they are adapted, and thus the overcrowding of certain branches of industry by convicts could be avoided. True, it may be said that by changing involuntary into voluntary labor, the products would be greater than at present, and must still more affect prices. But the answer is, that there are no more men at work than would be, or at least should be, at work if there were no convicts at all; and, as their labor would not undersell free labor, there could be no moral ground of objection. ■ And further, the real trouble now with convict labor is, not that all industry is affected by it, but that a few branches of industry are overstocked ' by it. 76 LIFE QUESTIONS. CHAPTER II. REMEDY. If the practice recommended in chapter thirteen of Part First, page 44, were adopted, it is safe to say that after a short period, in which the more hardened characters would be weeded out, the annual commitments to prison would be diminished by more than half, and the prison-labor question would thus be solved to that extent. Then, if those in prison were permitted to earn something daily for them- selves, so as to give them an interest in their work, and thus remove the temptation from all except those confined for long terms to desert, most of the prisoners could be set at work outside of prison walls, so that comparatively few would be crowded into the trades where they come into competition with skilled labor, who would not otherwise have pursued the same calling. It is safe to say that there would soon be no question of prison labor to agitate the public. The idea of working prisoners outside of prison walls is not new. It has been tried, successfully, even under existing laws, which, by depriving the prisoner of almost all hope, may be said to encourage desertion. But unfortunately the only States where this plan has thus far been tried are those in which the lease system prevails, under which the most shocking barbarities have been practiced, on account of which many good men have become prejudiced against the idea of letting prisoners work outside of prison at all. It must, however, be borne in mind that cruelty may be practiced as well under one system as under another, and that there is no more excuse for its infliction where prisoners work outside of prisons than where they do not. The warden of the Northern Penitentiary of Illinois — an institution having nearly sixteen hundred inmates — recently stated to the writer that he was in favor of the purchase by the State of a large tract of land lying near the prison, which would enable him to carry on farm- ing and gardening with the prisoners, for the purpose of supplying the prison with farm and garden products, and he added that he be- lieved the project to be entirely practicable. To carry out the foregoing, and also to overcome the objections to the present system considered in the last chapter, it will be necessary to change involuntary into voluntary labor, which can be done by - paying each convict wages nearly equal to the current wages paid to t free men for like work, and then to charge the convict with the total . expense of his keeping, including guarding, superintending, cloth- ing, feeding, etc. As the average cost of keeping a convict is usually REMEDY. 77 not much over thirty cents per day, and as he could, if laboring voluntarily, earn much more, there would soon be a surplus in his favor. This surplus should be placed to his credit and be applied toward the support and education of his family or other dependents, if there are any, and if there are none, then to be held on deposit until his discharge; and when he is discharged he should be paid a small portion of his money — say enough for transportation to the point which he may desire to reach, and for his support for a month or longer, until he shall have again become accustomed to the ways of the world and have had time to determine what he shall go at for a living, and then he should be paid the remainder. He will thus have saved something out of the years of his confinement, and will have something to start on. He will not be driven at once to beg, steal, or starve, and will not be likely soon to find himself again on the way to the penitentiary. This would be salvation to all those that really wanted to live re- spectable and useful lives, and it would have a good influence on even the abandoned; for nothing is so adapted to steady a man as first training him to work and then letting him accumulate some property. As soon as he has something to call his own, he begins to grow con- servative; there is aroused in him a desire to better his condition, and he will avoid the vicious from a sense of self-protection, if for no other reason. Under this system almost every convict would become willing and eager to work, and the present stolid indifference of some prisoners, who care for nothing but to drag through the weary days, the hope- less despair of others, and the desperation of still others, would give way to hope in most, and to comfort and satisfaction in all; for even they who know that their days must end in prison would feel that they could make some beings comfortable, if not happy, by contribut- ing something to support those to whom they should have been protectors. I am aware that the State cannot carry on business as economically as private individuals — or, at least, rarely does — but it will be noticed, the State has very much of an advantage to start with. It is not re- quired to pay rent or interest on the investment in buildings, ma- chinery, etc., for even in those institutions which under the present system boast that they have become self-sustaining, no allowance is made for rent or interest on investment. This is certainly a large item, and one would suppose it alone would be sufficient to enable the State to pay the same wages (not necessarily per day, but for work done) that is paid by private parties, and come out whole. 7« LIVE QUESTIONS. But as shown heretofore, under the present system the State an- nually loses, directly and indirectly, very large sums of money, besides the loss, both financial and of a higher character, that will result from the evil effects upon a large proportion of her citizens; so that if the State were, under the proposed system, to lose money, it is doubtful whether she could by any possibility suffer as much in the long run as she now suffers. However, as there would be at least twice the amount of work done as there is now, it is difficult to see how the State could possibly lose anything. Should the contract system be preferred to the public-account sys- tem, the matter can be easily arranged by requiring the contractor to pay the prisoner for what he does — that is, in all cases where pos- sible, to pay him by the piece; where this cannot be done, to pay him for a full day's work when he does it. All the contractor asks is to have the work done. If, therefore, a convict is willing and able to do as much in one day as he formerly did in two, the contractor should not hesitate to pay him double the wages. Nay, he could, in that case, pay more than double the wages, because he saves the expense of superintendence and of furnishing power, and of other incidentals for one day — that is, in that case one-half of what he now pays for the last-named items would be saved to him, and he could afford to pay more than double the wages he now pays. Besides, the work would be done better, for a willing man always does his work better than an unwilling one, and his goods will therefore command a higher price in the market. But the "piece-price" system of managing convict labor is the best thus far devised. Under it the contractor simply fur- nishes the material and agrees to pay a stipulated price for having it manufactured. His agents have nothing to do with the prisoners, as now, and the State neither buys material nor sells manufactured products. CHAPTER III. THE OBJECTION THAT CRIMINALS WILL NOT WORK.— MAKE TIME OF DISCHARGE DEPEND IN PART ON SURPLUS EARN- INGS.— AIDS IN PRESERVING DISCIPLINE.— TOO MUCH PRISON LABOR.— WORKING OUTSIDE PRISON WALLS.— WASTE OF SENTIMENT— LABOR AS A PART OF THE PUN- ISHMENT—RESULTS. It will, however, be objected by those with whom the reformation of criminals is no object, who see nothing worthy of consideration about any person in prison, that the criminal classes do not work except when compelled; that the chance of earning some wages over RESULTS. 79 and above the expense of their keeping would not induce them to make any extra effort; and that therefore the proposed system would fail. To this I reply that, supposing the objection to be good, supposing it to be true that many convicts would not do any more than they were compelled to do, and consequently would not earn anything over and above the total expense of their keeping, then there will still *be nothing lost. Society will still be as well off as now, for that is all that the best are now made to do, on the average. But the objection is not well taken, for it has been found that the majority are eager to earn something, if only given a chance. Thus, in the Michigan state-prison, where the contract system prevails, and where no provision is made for giving the convicts an opportunity to earn something for themselves, but where, nevertheless, those that worked by the piece were not prohibited from overwork, it appears, from the report of the inspectors, that during the year 1881 this class of convicts earned, over and above what they had to do, $9,485.85; and during the year 1882 they earned $11,154.75 by voluntary over- work. Referring to this, the inspectors say: "This sum has been paid by the contractors to the prison, and been credited to the convicts in proportion to their several earnings. This money is in many cases remitted by the convict to his family, and what remains, if anything, is paid to him at the expiration of his term. It is not unreasonable to suppose that some, at least, have in this way done more for the comfort of their families than they would have done had they remained outside." This was earned in spite of the fact that no provision had been made for them to earn anything for themselves. Will anybody deny that had there been regulations permitting, nay, requiring all con- victs, including those that were not assigned to piece-work, to earn something for their families or for themselves, that they would not have done it, especially if they had known that they could not be set at liberty until they had made certain provisions of this kind? In the inspectors' report of the Western Penitentiary of Pennsyl- vania, I find the following: "In the shops we aim to have order and silence; unruly conduct is punished, and excellence of labor performed is rewarded by a pro- portionate division of profit with the prisoners, in the shape of over- work. In this way many of the convicts are enabled to make weekly or monthly remittances to their homes, thus contributing toward the support and comfort of the dependent ones, made so by their indis- 8o LIVE QUESTIONS. cretions. During the past two years, $26,080 have been earned in this way, and for the most part distributed as stated." In Minnesota the convict in the state-prison is allowed, for good conduct, six days every month, for which he receives the same rate that is paid by the contractors to the State. The money thus earned may be paid by the prison authorities to the convict's family, if needy, and when not thus paid, it is given to the convict on being dis- charged; many convicts on leaving the prison have had upward of one hundred and fifty dollars to their credit, with which to start again in life. Are these not more likely to do well than if they had not a cent? In 1876 Mr. Richard Vaux, president of the board of directors of the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania — one of the very best insti- tutions of the kind in this country — in speaking of the work done there, said: "Manufacturing material is bought at market prices, and the goods manufactured are sold at the same; so that there is no unfair com- petition with manufacturers who employ honest men. The convicts are allowed pay for overtime. One man supported a wife and fa?nily outside of prison by overwork done in prison. The prisoners cost about thirty-four cents a day per capita. Labor is not farmed out, nor let out by contract. We are not self-supporting, and I trust we never shall be. When a prison becomes self-supporting, it is just what prisons are not intended to do." "(The italics are mine.) The inspectors of the same prison, in their report for 1881, say: "As a reformatory agency, intended also to stimulate the self- respect, strengthen and preserve the ties of father and husband and family, the system of overwork has been adopted in this institution. The task of each prisoner able to work after he has been taught is fixed. All the prisoners are included in this provision. When the task has been completed, then whatever excess of work is done by the prisoner is divided; one-half is given to the county sending the individual, and the other half is credited to him on the books of the clerk. He can give orders for his share to his wife and family. These orders are in printed forms, signed by the prisoner and attested by his overseer, and entered into a separate account kept for each pris- oner. When these orders are presented to the clerk, they are paid, and the receipt indorsed on the order. If no orders are given, the prisoner receives his share on his discharge. During the year over $10,000 have been gained by the convicts and paid to them or their respective families. It is believed that decided good results from this plan, and even in an economic view, it is of decided advantage. Labor RESULTS. 81 thus applied . . . gives to convict labor a phase that neither de- grades the laborer nor adds a stigma as an inflicted punishment." William Kunz, superintendent of the St. Louis work-house, says: "By carefully studying the habits and inclinations of the prisoners, I arrived at the conclusion that a greater amount of work could be obtained from them by offering a reward to the industrious prisoners than by exacting work from them under the threat of .punishment. With the consent of the Board of Public Improvements, and the ap- proval of his Honor the Mayor, I established task-work for all such labor as the possibilities would allow, whereby a prisoner inclined to be industrious has the opportunity afforded him of materially shortening his imprisonment by making overtime. Of this a great many prisoners have availed themselves. To others, to whom, from the nature of their employment, no regular task could be assigned, I have held out the promise of executive clemency as a reward for their industriousness, and it has frequently been earned, and, after a proper investigation, has been granted by his Honor the Mayor. The sys- tem works very satisfactorily; the foremen in charge of the various gangs have fewer complaints of indolence of prisoners; cases of pun- ishment for failure to perform the amount of work expected are becoming rare, and the production of the institution has been ma- terially increased." Wines, in his exhaustive treatise on Prisons, in referring to Amer- ica, says: "In a few of our prisons, the convicts are allowed some small share of their earnings; and the influence of this is admirable, indeed almost magical." Again he says: "The practice of allowing prisoners a share of their earnings has not been extensively adopted in America. But whenever the principle has been introduced, its effect has been excellent. Let me cite an example: The Allegheny County Work- house, at Claremont, Pennsylvania, a correctional prison for persons guilty of minor offenses, has introduced this principle into its admin- istration. Its chief industry is the manufacture of kerosene-oil barrels, which is carried on in two large workshops, in the same building, one above the other. At a certain point in the manufacture the casks are passed from the lower to the upper shop, and the prisoner receiv- ing them at this point is required to finish seven for the institution, without any gain to himself, after which, for each additional barrel completed, he gets five cents for himself. The average day's work outside, for a free laborer, is about fourteen. Under this stimulus, I saw prisoners making twenty-four barrels a day, and the average daily production is from sixteen to eighteen, equal to one and one- 6 82 LIVE QUESTIONS. fifth day's work of ordinary workmen in free shops outside. At first the proprietors of the petroleum refineries laughed the superintendent to scorn for thinking that he could utilize the labor of his short- term men on such a manufacture at all, the average sentence being a little over two months. But the laugh is now on the other side, for the prison-made barrels actually command five cents apiece more in the market than those made in the outside factories. Most of the work done in the lower shop is unskilled, and for a time the prisoners working there received no part of their earnings. At length the superintendent hit upon the plan of giving to each prisoner against whom there was no complaint at the end of the day a credit of ten cents for that day. The effect of this was magical. I visited the establishment three or four months after the plan went into effect, and not a man in the shop had received a single black mark. All had regularly gained their credits of ten cents a day. The daily amount of work performed in that shop had also very sensibly increased." The same author has traced the history of the struggle of prison reformation in Europe, amid the corruption, brutality, and officialism of the past, and cites several instances of success that merit attention. Speaking of Belgium, he says: "Near the middle of the eighteenth century all Europe was deso- lated by the scourge of innumerable tramps. . . . Out of this fact grew a remarkable reform in penitentiary science and practice in that part of Europe which now forms the kingdom of Belgium. . . . Prince Charles, then (1765) Governor-General of Flanders, called attention of the Privy Council at Vienna to the inefficiency of whipping, branding, and torturing for the repression of the evil. . . . But the most important agent in this work of reform was Viscount Vilain XIV. . . . He was the founder of the Great Central Convict Prison at Ghent. . . . Here, then, we find at Ghent, already applied, nearly all the great principles which the world is, even to-day, but slowly and painfully seeking to introduce into prison management. What are they? Reformation as a primary end to be kept in view; hope as the great regenerative force; industrial labor as another of the vital forces to the same end; education, reli- gious and literary, as a third essential agency; abbreviation of sen- tence and participation in earnings as incentives to diligence, obedi- ence, and self-improvement ; the enlistment of the will of the criminal, etc." The result of this management was a remarkable success. Again he says: "Among the most remarkable of the early experi- ments in prison discipline was that of Colonel Montesino in the prison of Valencia, Spain, containing from one thousand, to fifteen hundred. RESULTS. 83 prisoners. This experiment covered the period from 1835 to 1850. Previously the re-committals had run up to forty, fifty, sixty, and even seventy per cent. For the first two years no impression. was made upon these figures, but after that they fell rapidly, coming down in the end to nearly, or quite, zero. To what was this remarkable decrease owing? Mainly to the use of moral force, instead of phys- ical, in the government of the prison. He introduced a great variety of trades, about forty in all, and allowed the prisoner to choose the one he would learn. . . . He seized those great principles which the Creator has impressed upon the human soul, and moulded them to his purpose. He aimed to develop manhood, not to crush it; to gain the will, not simply to coerce the body. He employed the law of love, and found it the most powerful of all laws. . . . He ex- cited the prisoners to diligence by allowing them a by no means inconsiderable portion of their earnings. He enabled them to raise their position, step by step, by their own industry and good conduct. . . . Mr. Hoskins, an intelligent English traveler, after giving an extended account of the prison, adds this conclusion: 'The success attending the reformation of the prisoners in this establishment seems really a miracle.' " Wines also records one other remarkable case, and that in a country where it was least to be expected — Russia. It appears that Count Sollohub introduced a system into the house of correction in Moscow, similar in its general features to that last described. So long as a convict remained an apprentice he got no part of the product of his labor; but as soon as he was adjudged to be a master-workman, he received a proportion equal to two-thirds of his entire earnings, the greater -part of which was reserved for him as a little capital to begin life with again after his liberation. So effectual was the power of hope thus applied, that in some instances the convict apprentices learned their trade and became master-workmen in two months. Nine-tenths of all learned their trade so thoroughly that, on their re- lease, they could fill the position of foreman in other shops. And fur- ther, there were scarce any relapses; so that of 2,128 persons released during the first six years, only nine were returned to prison. But the times were not ripe for such a reform in either of the countries mentioned. Corrupt and rapacious officialism, which sought only to make money out of the prisoners, soon managed to get other men in charge of the prisons, with whom reformation was no object; and as in each case the systems which had been productive of such good results were not supported by law, but had depended on the 84 LIVE QUESTIONS. overseer alone, they retired with him, and the old order of things continued. MAKE TIME OF DISCHARGE DEPEND IN PART ON SURPLUS EARNINGS. But as a most powerful incentive to work that can be thought of, if such a thing is necessary to induce some prisoners to work, let the law provide that no prisoner shall be set free or given his liberty until he has earned .a certain sum with which to start out again in life — except where he has been supporting his family out of extra earnings. There is no doubt that this would transform almost every con- vict into a most anxious and energetic laborer. For no matter how averse the worst man may be to labor, the anxiety to get free again, which is powerful with all prisoners, would overcome the aversion. AIDS IN PRESERVING DISCIPLINE. Under such a system, it would be a comparatively easy matter to keep up the strictest discipline. Corporal punishment, or confine- ment in dark cells, etc., would rarely, if ever, need to be resorted to; for the fear of having his surplus earnings diminished by very small fines, as well as having his term of imprisonment lengthened, would make almost every prisoner willing and obedient. TOO MUCH PRISON LABOR. If it is objected that there would then be too much prison labor performed, by which free labor would be injured, I answer that, in the first place, there would be no more men at work than there would be, or at least should.be at work, if there were no prisons; and, as the prison labor is no cheaper than the free labor, no injustice would be done to the free laborer. In fact, one great cause of complaint that now exists — viz., the cheapness of prison labor — would be done away with. And further, as the temptation to desert would be but slight, the prisoners could be divided; so that while the vicious, and those that had long terms to serve, were kept within the walls, the remainder could more generally be set at work for which they were adapted, both inside and outside of the prison. Instead of being confined to the few trades that can be successfully carried on inside prison walls, prisoners could be set at almost every kind of manual labor; and, instead of having to crowd them all into a few branches of industry, as is now done, thus overstocking them, they would be distributed RESULTS. 85 more nearly as they would have been had eacfh selected work from choice as a free man. Surely no fault can be found with this. In all cases in which a young man who is imprisoned for a term of years desires to learn a trade by accepting lower wages for a time, he should be permitted to do so. In other cases the prisoners should, as nearly as may be, be set at such work as they are adapted for, or as they followed before conviction, and can successfully follow after they are again set free. Especially should those that had no honest vocation before conviction be set at work which they could successfully follow when again set free; for it is idle to expect a man to be industrious and make an honest living if he has no means of becoming the one or of doing the other. WORKING OUTSIDE PRISON WALLS. The idea of working prisoners outside of prison walls, when pos- sible, has been tried and found to be highly beneficial. In fact, this is about the only thing that is urged in favor of the leasing system which now prevails in many of the Southern States, under which pris- oners work plantations, work mines, build railroads, etc. True, there it has been marred by the brutality practiced; the lessees, and not the State, having charge of the prisoner, and feeling no interest in him except as a machine, to be worked as hard as possible, at the least possible outlay, so that the convict soon becomes worse than a slave, and almost destitute of hope ; for the master of a slave had an interest in his preservation as so much property, and saw to it that he was at least properly fed, housed, and cared for. But not so with the lessee of a convict. He has no interest in the convict, except for the work he can get out of him. But if the State were to keep charge of the prisoner, and give him an interest in his work, the whole would be changed. Not many would think of deserting, and perhaps the majority of all those now confined could be set to work at various things outside. As some convicts (working at skilled labor) would get higher wages than those that worked at unskilled labor, it would, perhaps, be proper to charge the skilled laborer a little more for his keeping than the common laborer, in order to prevent too great a difference between them in this respect. But, as heretofore stated, in all cases of young convicts they should be required to learn a trade, and that a trade, if possible, that they would have selected as free men. But, in any event, the employments should be diversified as much as possible. In this connection, I quote from the report of the Bureau of 86 LIVE QUESTIONS. Labor Statistics, made to the legislature of Illinois for the year ending January 12, 1881, which is a remarkably full and able document. The Bureau had availed itself of the reports of the committees ap- pointed by different States, particularly Massachusetts and New York, to investigate the question of prison labor. Among other recom- mendations are the following: "Fifth. Increased diversity of employment in penal institutions tends not only to lessen whatever competition now exists, but has an excellent reformatory effect on the prisoners." Again, the same report recommends: "That, whenever possible, farms shall be carried on by the prison administration for the supply of the institution." WASTE OF SENTIMENT. But there are some who will pronounce all talk about humane treatment of convicts a waste of sentiment, because, say they, "these fellows are criminals, and are not entitled to any consideration, and would neither do better nor reform if they could." This objection is ill-considered; for, as heretofore stated, the most of them are weak rather than criminal, and, secondly, experience has shown that the great majority of convicts are capable of reformation, and that the chances of their reforming are always in proportion to the humane treatment received. Under the old* system and in the old prisons, as in the existing prisons of this country, where brutality is still the reigning deity and cruelty the only disciplinarian, there is no hope for the prisoners; few if any of them ever reform. Even if they possessed both self-respect and a desire to do better at the time of entering the prison, the treatment received either forever breaks their spirits or makes them desperate; and they leave the prison, if they survive at all, either total wrecks or desperate enemies, bound to be avenged upon that society which they feel has not simply punished them for their misdeeds, but has greatly wronged, if not ruined them. (See Chapters VII. and VIII., of Part First.) LABOR AS PART OF THE PUNISHMENT. Again, it will be objected by some that the labor of the convict is a part of his punishment, and therefore to give him the benefit of a part of his labor would be to reduce his punishment. This objec- tion grows out of a misapprehension of the objects for which labor was introduced into the larger prisons. This was not as a punish- ment; but as a sanitary and humane measure. Its object was to bene- fit the prisoners, to give exercise to the body, and to employ the RESULTS. 87 mind. For it was found that when men are. doomed to a long period of enforced inaction they break down, both physically and mentally, so that the death-rate in the old prisons was fearfully large, and what may be called the insanity rate was still larger. There are prisons for the convicted where the prisoners do not work. Yet in the eye of the law the punishment is the same. The punishment consists in the disgrace of conviction, and in the imprisonment, i. e., being de- prived of their freedom. The idea of the State making money out of the earnings of the prisoners was an afterthought, and it is only in recent years that this has been considered. While in some States it has been thought quite an achievement to make the penitentiaries self-supporting, in others, where the subject was more carefully con- sidered, this has been made a secondary matter, and the reformation or moral development of the prisoners is considered the matter of greatest moment. Thus, Governor Hoyt, of Pennsylvania, in his last message to the legislature of that State, expressed himself as follows, on this subject: "In neither of the penitentiaries of this State has there ever been an attempt yet made to administer them on the vulgar, wicked, un- worthy consideration of making them self-sustaining. In neither of them has it been forgotten that even the convict is a human being, and that his body and soul are not so the property of the State that both may be crushed out in the effort to reimburse the State the cost of his scanty food, and at the end of his term what then is left of him be dismissed, an enemy of human society." But all that could possibly be claimed for the State in any event is that it should be paid out of the earnings of the convict the actual cost of keeping him. It has no right to make a slave of him. It has no right to take his services from him without paying him, any more than it has a right to take his property from him without making compensation for it. When, therefore, as at present, the State pro- hibits him from earning anything over and above the expense of keep- ing him, it is forcibly taking something valuable from him without making compensation. For it might as well take his property as his time. While it has the legal right to take both to an extent suf- ficient to make good its outlay, it has no right to take any more. This is no part of the legal punishment. The idea of the State trying to make money, over and above the outlay, out of its convicts is monstrous; and the righ't to do so has never yet been claimed. See report of inspectors of Pennsylvania penitentiary on this subject, as follows : "There is a broader, more scientific, and far more important vifw 88 • LIVE QUESTIONS. to be taken of the duty society owes to itself, and to those convicted for crimes against its security and welfare, than that narrow, selfish, and pecuniary consideration which is satisfied in proclaiming that the State has made a money profit out of the crimes of its citizens." The plan suggested gives the State everything it is entitled to; and, I will add, it is a serious question whether the State would not better forego even the right to deduct the cost of keeping, in some cases, in order that the prisoner may be the more certain to be self- supporting when -again free, than to take the chance of having to re-arrest and re-incarcerate him. RESULTS. I therefore claim that by the proposed change:- First. Discipline could be easily maintained. Second. There would be no loss in productive labor to society; in fact there would be an increase, for those that have never been taught to work, and consequently prey upon the community, would not only be compelled to work as much as they are now, but most of them would, under the conditions mentioned above, work to the best of their abilities, so that in effect there would be restored to society a vast amount of productive labor which is now lost. Third. The innocent, i. e., the family and dependents of the con- vict, would not be punished by being deprived of his support, as they now are, but would be supported by his earnings — not only as well as, but in many cases, where he was dissolute, very much better than, when he was a free man. Fourth. The kinds of labor that could then be carried on being greatly increased, the convict being put to work at something for which he was adapted, and which he could follow when again released, would, as a rule, learn to do his work well; and further, would learn to work rapidly, and thus, instead of being turned out a stolid and desperate man, who for years has trained himself simply to put in his time without regard to results, and is, consequently, not prepared to do a full day's work, he would be able to do as much work as any- body, and therefore much more likely to get along. Fifth. When again set free, if his money has not been used to support his family, he would, in many cases, be comparatively inde- pendent; he would not find himself without money and without friends, shunned by everybody and unable to get work, and thus at once driven to beg or steal; but would have money enough, not only to support him for some time until he could find something to go at, but in many cases, where the best years of his life have been spent in UNNECESSARY IMPRISONMENT. 89 prison, he would have means enough to enable him to do a small business for himself. Sixth. All convicts would not then be forced into a few trades, and the present objections to convict labor would be at least in part removed. Seventh. All the chances of reformation arid development of moral character would be in favor of the convict, instead of being almost entirely against him, as now. UNNECESSARY IMPRISONMENT. [An Address delivered before the National Prison Reform Association at Detroit, Mich., October 21, 1885.] Early in this century Sir Samuel Romilly, after years of disap- pointment, succeeded in effecting what was regarded as a great re- form in the criminal law of England. But his reforms were limited in their scope, and related only to the punishment to be inflicted after trial and conviction in certain classes of felonies. He stopped the practice of inflicting inhuman barbarities in the name of punishment in certain cases; and so great was the opposition that it took all his life to accomplish this. He had no time to insist that the punishment inflicted on the poor, who cannot pay a fine and are guilty, say, of a breach of the peace, should differ not only in degree, but also in character from that meted to those guilty of heinous crimes — that the former should be treated rather as moral patients who needed treat- ment than malefactors to be punished. He had not the time to point out that it was monstrous to treat all that may chance to be taken into custody precisely alike until after trial and conviction (unless they can give bail), whether they have committed a felony or simply shouted too loud upon the streets. In these two particulars, at least, the criminal law has undergone but little, if any, change; it stands to-day substantially as it did cen- turies ago, and may be said to be mediaeval, not only in origin but in character. And the various criminal codes of this country are, with some slight modifications, simply enactments of the criminal law of England as left by Romilly; and most of the cities and municipalities, in framing their ordinances in relation to minor offenses, have blindly followed the codes in this respect. So that young men and boys, and even girls, accused of violating some city ordinance are treated by the police and the police magistrates, in the first instance, in the same manner as the hardened criminal. They are arrested, not infrequently 90 ' LIVE QUESTIONS. clubbed, sometimes handcuffed, marched through the streets in charge of an officer to the station, which in many cases is worse than a jail, where a full description of each is written down opposite their respec- tive names, and then they are required to give bail for their appear- ance at some time in the future when the magistrate can hear their case. If they cannot furnish the bond instantly — and generally they cannot — they are shoved into a cell, and frequently occupy the same cell for a night, and sometimes for a week, with the most desperate of criminals. The station-keeper is not to blame for this, for the law has made no other provision and left no alternative but to lock them up. Attend a session of the police court in any of our large cities, on almost any morning, and you will see on the sawdust in the pris- oners' pen a miscellaneous crowd of human beings of both sexes, ranging from middle life down to tender years, nearly all from the less fortunate class in life — poor, more or less ragged, with misery stamped deep into their faces, weak, with little or no training, no steady habits, without homes worthy of the name, and raised in an atmos- phere destitute of good and pregnant with vicious influences. As their cases are called, you learn that about one out of twelve is charged with a serious offense, about five-twelfths are charged with minor offenses, but there is something about the appearance of the accused which tells you they have made this round before. The remaining half are also charged with minor offenses, such as drunkenness, dis- orderliness, etc., but you soon become satisfied that they are not yet thoroughly depraved; that while they may have violated some ordi- nance, they yet have the stuff in them to make good citizens, if given a little better chance; and, as you look at them, the conviction settles in your mind that it was unnecessary, and therefore wrong, to drag them in and corral them like so many-cattle, and that neither they nor anybody else will be benefited by such treatment. If you ask the magistrate why they were thus treated before they had even been tried to see if they were guilty, he will tell you that the law required this; that under the law no other course was open. You sit down while their cases are heard, and to your surprise find that about one-third are discharged by the magistrate because the evidence fails to show that they were guilty of any offense what- ever. (The police reports show that nearly one-third of all that are arrested are discharged by the magistrate.) Turning then to those not discharged, you find that a few, being shown to be probably guilty of the graver offenses, are bound over for the action of the grand jury, while the great majority are shown to have violated some UNNECESSARY IMPRISONMENT. 91 ordinance, and are fined; and as the fines are not paid at once in many cases, you see men, women, and often children, crowded into an omnibus with iron grating at windows and door, and driven to the work-house or to the bridewell (which may properly be called a short- term penitentiary) to work out the fine, or, in the absence of a work- house, they are led back to jail to serve out the fine at so much a day. Dismissing from your mind those bound over for the action of the grand jury, and calming your feelings by saying that the security of society requires that those shown to be even probably guilty of serious offenses against property or human life should not be permitted to roam at large, you turn to consider the omnibus load of ragged humanity — some thoroughly vicious, some simply besotted, some almost innocent. Children, women, men, all thoroughly wretched, going to the bridewell — some for twenty, some for sixty, some for ninety days, and a few for even a longer time, for having violated some city ordinance; and as you wonder what is ultimately to become of these people, you find yourself both asking and then answering ques- tions after this fashion: "Will these people be any better when they regain their liberty?" "No; for there is nothing in this treatment that is adapted to make anybody better." "Will they be more intelligent or better educated?" "No." "Will the idle be more industrious?" "No." "Will the in- dustrious be more able to get employment?" "No; on the contrary, this stigma will be in their way." "Will the untrained be masters of a trade?" "No." "Will they have better homes?" "No." "Bet- ter friends?" "No." "Better surroundings?" "No; if anything, poorer surroundings." "Will those that now have no homes then have places to which they can go?" "No." "Will society extend them a helping hand?" "No." "Will there be any Christian door open to receive the women and children on their return?" "Scarcely." "Will the self-respect of any be raised, and they therefore be stronger?" "No; on the contrary, the self-respect of all will be lowered, and they will therefore be weaker." "Will the good-intentioned, but weak, be better off?"* "No." "Will the viciously inclined be more subdued?" "No; on the contrary, they will be a little more desperate." "Will those without homes have any money when they leave the prison with which to maintain themselves until they can find a home or something to do?" "No; not money enough to pay for a night's lodging." "If men who have not been imprisoned find it very difficult to get employ- ment, will these people find it easier?" "No; on the contrary, they will find it harder." "Then what are many of them to do?" "Well, they can beg, starve, or steal." "How will the police treat them?" £2 LIVE QUESTIONS. "Well, the police call them jail-birds, or bridewell-birds, and seem to take delight in 'running them in' again at the earliest possible oppor- tunity." "Then will many. of these people make this round again soon?" "Yes; experience teaches that they will, and that they will become a little more vicious and desperate as they do so." "Referring to those not yet vicious or criminal — the boys, the women, and first offenders generally — whence does society derive its power thus to incarcerate them?" "From the right of self-protec- tion." "Was it, then, necessary for the immediate protection of society thus to treat these first offenders?" "Oh, no; but this is done to enforce respect for the majesty of the law, and thus prevent others from violating it." "How long has this been going on?" "Oh, sev- eral hundred years." "Well, then, how has it worked; does this prac- tice actually deter others, and are there really fewer arrests now in proportion to population than formerly?" "No; to tell the truth, there are more." "Can this practice, then, be truly said to protect society?" "Well, no." "But suppose that arrest and imprisonment had a repressive influence on outsiders; would you not get enough of it by the arrest and incarceration of the actual criminals and hard cases, and do you not destroy the efficacy of your remedy — in fact, rob it of its influence — by applying it so indiscriminately and makings it so common?" "Well, the results indicate that this is so." Finally: "Does society get any benefit from this treatment of its first offend- ers?" "On the contrary, to say nothing of the expense, it is a question whether this practice of imprisoning people for trifling offenses does not constitute the training which crushes the self-respect, and by degrees forms those desperate characters whose crimes all over the land make men shudder." Now I ask, if — instead of this superficial, and, in a sense, unjust system, which requires a conviction if a technical offense be proven, and after conviction allows some that can pay a fine to escape incar- ceration while it sends the poor to the bridewell, no matter what their physical or moral conditions may be, and no matter what the past history of the accused may be, and without reference to the question as to whether such a course is necessary for the well-being of society — it would not be better in all minor offenses to adopt a practice which would require, not only proof of a technical offense, but also an inquiry into the moral condition of the accused, his habits, associa- tions, etc., and then, except in extreme cases, permit, if you please, a suspension of sentence, and release the accused with the understanding that if his conduct in the future gives no offense he will not be dis- turbed, but that otherwise he will be taken into custody? This would UNNECESSARY IMPRISONMENT. 93 have none of the degrading influence of actual imprisonment, while at the same time it would be a most powerful incentive to good con- duct. Then it should be the duty of some officer to assist the delin- quent, as far as possible, in getting employment, finding a home, etc. This latter plan has been tried both in Massachusetts and in Baltimore, with the most happy results. And in extreme cases, or cases in which repetition of offense re- quires a sentence of imprisonment, would it not be better to adopt the indeterminate sentence system, whereby the maximum time of impris- onment would be fixed, but the actual term would be determined by the conduct of the accused, and his probable ability to become a law- abiding citizen? And supplement this not only with educational in- fluences that shall develop his character, but also with a provision requiring him to work, and at the same time give him an interest in his work, so that a certain per cent, of what he earns every day shall be carried to his credit, and be applied either to the support of his family or paid to him, not at, but after, the time of his discharge. And further provide that in no case shall a prisoner be discharged until he has earned a sufficient sum to his credit, so that on regaining his liberty he will not be an outcast or in a position in which about the only alternative he has is tc steal or starve. The experiment of giving prisoners a part of their earnings has worked almost like magic where it has been fairly tried, and if the provision were added requiring them to have something ahead before they could be set at liberty, almost every prisoner would be a willing laborer, which is the very first requisite affecting his reformation and developing character. Under such a system only the incorrigible would ever need to be imprisoned, and when they are imprisoned, instead of being discharged in twenty or sixty days, as is now the case, simply to make the same round again, they would be held for such a length of time and under such conditions as would make it at least possible to create habits of industry and develop character, so that, when finally released, there would be at least ground to hope for reform. The large class of repeaters, loafers, and known hard cases would soon be weeded out and subjected to a course of training, which would not only tend to make them steady and self-supporting, but would free society from their presence and put an end to the farce of perpetual re-conviction. THOSE DISCHARGED BY THE MAGISTRATE. Turning now to those that were discharged: what about them? Well, most of what has been said about those not discharged will 94 LIVE. QUESTIONS. apply, if possible, with greater force to these; for most of them were innocent, yet they have been imprisoned; their names and a complete description of their persons are on the prison records. They have been wronged, and will feel the indignity to which they were sub- jected as long as they live. They have been shoved 'down in the struggle to rise. They will hate and keep out of the way of the police. Many will sympathize with those that circumvent and defy the police. They will be more ready to slink into dark places ; and as they become accustomed to dark places, they will become familiar with dark deeds, and many of them will soon make the round with those in the omnibus, and in time form a part of that ubiquitous horde against which we bolt our doors at night, and whose nocturnal visits we dread worse than the plague. Society, in making war on these people without cause, has wronged them, and, at the same time, made enemies of such as are certain to be avenged. But some one will ask whether there is enough in all these things to make much fuss necessary. In reply, I will refer to the report of the superintendent of police of Chicago, for 1884; and I take this because in Chicago the present system is found at its best, Chicago having one of the finest and best managed police forces in the country, and the proportion of arrests to population is, if anything, smaller there than in other large cities. According to the report, the whole number arrested in that city by the police, to say nothing of the arrests by State and county officials, during the year, was 39,434. Of these, 16,260, or considerably more than one-third, were discharged by the magistrates; about 2,000, or five per cent, of all arrested, were held for the action of the grand jury on criminal charges; about 900, or one out of forty, were sent to hospitals or asylums; and about 20,000, or a little over half of all arrested, were fined by the magistrates; 8,547, or about one-fifth of all arrested, were females ; 17,566, or nearly half of all arrested, were without any occupations. Of the whole number arrested, over 23,000, or considerably over half, were orig- inally only charged with being either drunk or disorderly; and the fact that out of nearly 40,000 arrested only about 2,000 were held on criminal charges, shows that ninety-five per cent, were arrested for the minor offenses. Of these, 6,532 were sent to the bridewell for non-payment of fines, which shows that they were of the very poor. As already stated, in many sections of the country the proportion of arrests to the population is greater than in Chicago. It is therefore safe to say that during that year there were, including repeaters, nearly two millions and a half people arrested in the United States, of whom about three-fourths of a million were discharged by the UNNECESSARY IMPRISONMENT. 95 magistrates because it was not proven that they had violated any law, and therefore should not have been arrested. Notwithstanding the appallingly large number of arrests, crime seems to be on the increase, and careful observers are asking the question whether our penal sys- tem, instead of being a success, is not, through the needless arrests and the blind application of brute force, actually swelling the number of criminals in the land. We fancy that the Constitution of the United States is a great bulwark of liberty, but you would be aston- ished to see with what ease a policeman and a police magistrate will brush it all away when dealing with the poor. The question may now be asked: "Why should people be arrested and locked up before there has been an examination to see if they are guilty of any offense?" In reply, we say that it is right that per- sons charged with crimes which indicate a wanton disregard of human life or of the property rights of others, on the part of the accused, should be restrained as long as there is even a probability of their guilt; that the safety of society may require this. But I submit that in all those cases where the offense charged is simply a misdemeanor, and where there is nothing to indicate that society will in some way suffer or be endangered before a trial can be had unless the accused is placed in custody or put under bonds, he should not be deprived of his liberty until shown to be guilty. "Oh, but," says some one, "if that were the practice, every one in danger of being convicted of a misdemeanor would run off, so that by the time you had your trial there would be nobody to be fined or to collect costs from." Well, suppose for the moment that this were true, who would suffer by it? Mind you, those that we are consider- ing are not criminals. There is nothing in their case to indicate that if they were to go away and settle in some other community they would endanger the lives or property, or even the peace, of others. And this is the only ground upon which society has the right to de- prive a citizen of his liberty before conviction. Furthermore, if those charged simply with the- more trivial offenses were to leave the country before conviction, never to return, would not this, of itself, be as severe a punishment for them as could be inflicted? The thought of being obliged suddenly and forever to leave the community in which one has his abode, is, to most people, horrible — so much so, in fact, that the probability of escape before conviction would be slight. Society derives its power in the matter solely from the necessity of protection; therefore, in all cases of this grade in which the safety of society does not require the confinement 96 LIVE QUESTIONS. of the accused before trial, society has no right to deprive him of his liberty until after conviction. The practice of imprisoning before triai, in cases where some trifling offense was charged, never came into existence as the result of a careful consideration of the best interests of society, but had its origin in that mediaeval barbarism -which regarded every kind of violation of law as a source of profit — a source of revenue at first for the feudal lord, and later for the magistrates, jailers, and other small officials. The more numerous the charges and the more protracted and complicated the proceedings, the fatter these officials got. And \ et they were more consistent than we are. They understood that the liberty of an Englishman meant the liberty of the rich, and that the term was merely a beautiful" fiction when applied to the poor; while we incorporate lengthy provisions about liberty in our fundamental laws, guarantee it to every man, woman, and child, and then we adopt a system and permit a practice which robs the fiction even of its beauty — a system and a practice which gave more suffering, more misery, and more degradation to the poor of England than all her wars. Strange as it may seem, we not only still follow mediaeval ways — blindly make local applications of brute force for ills that require constitutional treatment — but we still make the failings and wrong- doings of a part of our people a source of revenue for others. In almost every city and town there are men who expect to support their families on the toll to be collected in the shape of fees from those that may, from time to time, be accused of some violation of law. Think of a band of officials, men in good standing in the community, directly interested in having the law violated, and who would starve if there should suddenly be a cessation of wrong-doing! Many of them watch with whetted appetites for an opportunity to have some wretch brought before them, no matter on what charge. If he gives bond, there is an extra fee for the bond; if he is sent to jail, there is an extra fee for the magistrate, an extra fee for the constable, and an extra fee for the jailer. What is it to them that they are crushing the self-respect of a man and casting on him and his family a stigma which may ruin him? The law permits it, and they are making money out of it, and that is enough. I am informed that the legis- lature of Maryland, in 1882, abolished the "fee system," in so far as it related to Baltimore, and the result was a falling off in the number of arrests for minor offenses in that city, in one year, from 12,000 to 7,000, or almost half; thus showing that the "fee system" had been responsible for nearly half of the arrests theretofore made. In addition to this there prevails too widely the notion among UNNECESSARY IMPRISONMENT. 97 policemen that their standing and efficiency as peace officers are to be determined by the number of people that they "run in." Hence the eagerness of many policemen to make arrests, especially in cases where they do not apprehend much danger. There was a time in the history of education in this country when some people seemed to think that the efficiency of a school teacher was to be determined largely by the number of pupils he flogged — as if flogging and not teaching was the main object of the school — and when there was in many schools a suppressed but constant hostility between pupils and teacher, and a perpetual effort on the part of the pupils to deceive or outwit the teacher, and on the part of the teacher to detect the pupils ; and as a result, offenses of all kinds against the rules of the school were frequent, and flogging was a matter of daily occurrence. But now we have got to a point where we consider teaching, and not flogging, the chief end of the school, and we have discovered that to have a feeling of confidence, and even affection, between teacher and pupil, is productive of far better results, and that a very little use of the rod is sufficient in most cases. Now, society demands protection, to life and property and a pre- servation of the peace. That is all that it has any right to ask. It has no authority to sit in judgment on the sins of its members. This is a function which the Almighty has thus far reserved to Himself. It is with a view to protection solely that peace officers are created, and their chief object should be to keep the peace; but, owing to the fee system and the false notion with reference to efficiency, a practice just the opposite in spirit has always prevailed. Arrests appear to be the prime object, and to protect life and property seems a sec- ondary matter. Read the report of some chief of police, and see with what genuine satisfaction he speaks of the large number of arrests; it shows that the force has been doing something. There is something spectacular, something almost brilliant, about our system ; it makes a large showing so far as numbers are concerned. Sir Astley Cooper, the great Eng- lish surgeon, when once in conversation with another surgeon, who boasted of his own brilliant performances, was asked how many brilliant operations he, Cooper, had performed in his professional career — that is, operations requiring a rare union of nerve, dexterity, and skill — to which Cooper replied that he had performed thirteen operations which he considered of that character. "Thirteen!" ex- claimed the other surgeon; "why, I have performed one hundred and fifty most brilliant operations; how many did you save out of your thirteen?" "Well," replied Cooper, "I saved the lives of eleven out Of 7 98 LIVE QUESTIONS. the thirteen; how many did you save out of the one hundred and fifty?" "Oh," was the answer, "they all died; but the operations were very brilliant." Now, our peace keeping establishment points with pride to millions of annual arrests, but when we ask how many are saved to society by reason of these operations, we learn that all the patients grow worse, except such as have sufficient moral vitality to recover in spite of the treatment they receive. If we think most of that teacher who can teach a good school with but little flogging, why should we not think most of that police- man who can keep the peace, can protect society, and yet make but few arrests? We have found that mutual confidence and affection between teacher and pupil, which follows kind treatment, is pro- ductive of better results in the school than mutual hostility. Can anybody doubt that a kindly feeling between the police and, not the criminals, but the poor and the outcast, would produce better results than the mutual hostility which now exists? "Oh, but," says some one, "there is too much sentiment about this ; those people are violators of the law and ought to be punished; they have done wrong and ought to suffer; and it doesn't make any differ- ence what becomes of them." To this I first demur, and then answer: I demur because it does not lie in the mouth of any person not possessed of a perfectly white soul to raise this objection, and if none other raise it, we shall hear little of it in this world, for none of us are perfectly pure, and none other has a right to sit in moral judgment on his fellow-man; very likely even the objector, if judged by the principles of eternal justice, would himself be in the lock-up. And I answer that, in the first place, it is not correct, because, as already shown, over one-third of all arrested by the police are discharged, because not shown to be guilty of any offense whatever; and, further, if it is true, as competent observers assert, that notwithstanding our numerous arrests crime is on the increase, that our present system makes criminals of many that otherwise would not become such, then it should be changed; and, as we have been trying brute force and the crushing policy with such unsatisfactory results, let us stop locking up the young before conviction, and dispense with a little of the brute force, and in those cases in which something must be done, try a system of development which, while it will protect society better than the present system, will also make it at least possible for the accused to come out with more character, moral strength, and self-respect, than he had when taken into custody. ' WHAT TO DO WITH CRIMINALS. 99 WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH OUR CRIMINALS? [An Address delivered before the Sunset Club of Chicago, March 27, i8go.] No man can examine the great penal system of this country without being astounded at its magnitude, its cost, and its unsatisfactory re- sults. There are in the United States upward of 2,200 county jails, several hundred lock-ups, or police stations, between fifty and sixty penitentiaries, with workshops, machinery, etc. The first cost of erec- tion of all these buildings and shops has been estimated at upward of $500,000,000, which is dead capital — the interest, at five per cent., upon which sum alone, would annually amount to $25,000,000. To this must be added the sums annually appropriated out of the treasury to feed the prisoners, pay the officers, judicial and executive, and keep up and maintain all these institutions, which sums have been esti- mated at upward of $50,000,000, to say nothing of the costs paid by the accused; there are, in addition to the many thousands of police- men and detectives, about 70,000 constables in this country, and about as many magistrates. There are upwards of 2,200 sheriffs, and in the neighborhood of 12,000 deputy sheriffs. Then come the grand juries, petit juries, judges, and lawyers; next the keepers and their numerous assistants for all these prisons. On the whole, there are about a million of men partly or wholly supporting their families from this source, and as I am on the list, I may speak with freedom, and say that, as a rule, they are comfortable, are anxious to hold on, and ready to defend the system which gives them and their families bread. A glance at this system almost suggests the question whether society has any other object to care for, or mission to accomplish, than simply to maintain this machinery. Looking at its workings, we find that there are in the neighborhood of 75,000 convicts in the various penitentiaries. As the average sentence is about two years and one- half, the whole number, on the average, is therefore renewed once every two years and one-half; so that there are in the neighborhood of three-quarters of a million of men living in our midst who have had a penitentiary experience. We next see that upward of five per cent, of the entire population is arrested by the police and other officials every year; so that there are about three million people arrested and "run in" every year. Assuming that one-third of them are what are called "repeaters" — that is, have been arrested before — it would still leave two millions who are for the first time each year broken into what may be called a prison experience; and yet, notwithstanding the vast army of men employed, the millions annually expended, the numerous arrests, the large number imprisoned, crime is said to be ioo LIVE QUESTIONS. increasing, and our whole penal system is pronounced to be a failure, both in this country and in Europe, where, they have similar systems. And the question is asked by thoughtful men: "What shall be done? Society must be protected. If the present system is a failure, what shall we substitute?" It has been but a few years since the gen- eral public gave this question any consideration. Heretofore the only remedy ever suggested or thought of was the application of brute force. In all the past centuries, and in every country on the globe, methods of punishment for the prevention of crime have prevailed which were the embodiment of brutality and of fiendish cruelty. The prisoners were often transformed into either raving maniacs or wild beasts, while the keepers of prisons became fiends in human form; and in all times, and in every country on the globe, this system of human torture was a failure. Brutality never yet protected society or helped humanity. There was a time in England when men were hanged or burned for trivial offenses ; but instead of deterring, the very shadow of the gallows seemed to produce a crop of fresh offenders, and the glow of human embers invited new victims to the stake. One difficulty with our system is that it proceeds on the idea of expiation — that is, paying for having violated the law. In feudal times every violation of law was a source of revenue to the feudal lord, or to the king. The fine was paid to him, or whatever penalty was paid went to him, the more serious of offenses being followed by a confiscation of property. The imposition, then, of a fine was one of the means employed by the strong to plunder the weak. Now we have advanced until theoretically we declare that crime should not be a source of revenue, and that it is only for the protection of society that punishment can be inflicted; yet when we come to impose penal- ties, we proceed upon the theory that if the offender pays for or expiates the violation, then that ends all. He can go right on and violate the law a second time, and if he pays the penalty all is wiped out. Instead of inquiring into the history, the environment, and. the character of the offender, and then applying a treatment which will in reality protect society, we simply fix a price upon each infraction ; and we treat those who are not vicious, but have been unfortunate, and have been guilty of some slight offense, in almost the same manner that we treat the vicious who have been guilty of graver offenses; and we put both in a condition in which it is next to impossible for either to make "an honest living when they have been once imprisoned. I desire to consider the subject rather from a practical than from a theoretical standpoint. The first important question that arises when we are brought face to face with the workings of our system is, Where WHAT TO DO WITH CRIMINALS. 101 do all these people who are arrested come from? What is the en- vironment which produces them? As we have not the time to inquire extensively into home conditions, or the training of the youth, we will start at once at the point where they are first brought to our view, and that is in the police court, and we will soon see where they come from. The report of the superintendent of police of Chicago for the year 1888 shows that in that year the police officers of Chicago alone ar- rested and carried to the lock-up 50,432 people, 40,867 of whom were males, 9,565 of whom were females. The great majority of them were under thirty years of age; nearly 9,000 were under twenty years of age; a little over 30,000 of them were American-born; the others were made up of various nationalities. The same report shows that 10,263 were common laborers; 18,336 had no occupation; 1,975 were housekeepers. Some of you may ask: "What were these people arrested for, and what was done with them?" Well, the same report shows that upward of 15,000, or nearly one-third, were discharged in the police court because it was not proven that they had violated any law or ordinance; and out of the whole number arrested, only 2,192 were held over on criminal charges. The rest were fined for a violation of some ordinance, generally on the charge of disorderly conduct. The police magistrate having no power to try a charge of crime or grave misdemeanor, it follows that every case of that nature had to be sent to the grand jury; and I repeat that, out of the whole 50,000, only a little over 2,000 were held over; and the records of the criminal court show that, of these, more than two-thirds fell to the ground because no offense could be proven. Bearing in mind that those arrested were young, that they came from the poorer classes, from those who are already fighting an unequal fight in the struggle for existence, I ask you what effect do you suppose the act of arresting them upon the street, possibly club- bing them, then marching them to the lock-up, and shoving them into a cell — what effect did all this have upon the 15,000 who were not shown to have been guilty of any offense, who had violated neither law of God nor statutes of man? They were treated while under arrest as if guilty of highway robbery. Did this treatment strengthen them and make them better able to hold their heads up, or did it tend to break their self-respect, to weaken them? Did it not embitter them against society and a system which had done them this wrong? Will they not feel the humiliation and degradation as long as they live; and will that very treatment not mark the beginning in many cases of a downward criminal career? 102 LIVE QUESTIONS. But we will follow the subject a little further. You are aware that when a fine is imposed in the police court, if it is not paid the defend- ant is taken to the house of correction — that is, the bridewell, which for all practical purposes is a penitentiary. It has for many years been in charge of Mr. Charles E. Felton, who is one of the most experienced and most intelligent prison managers in the United States. In his report for that year he says: "In the year 1888 the number of pris- oners was 10,717, the average daily number imprisoned was 7^4i> the average duration of imprisonment was but 26.1 days. Of the above who were received during the year all save ninety-six were con- victed for petty offenses, the executions under which they were im- prisoned showing their offense to have been chiefly disorderly con- duct, or other violation of municipal or town of village ordinance, mere petty misdemeanors, punishable by fine only, the imprisonment being the result of the non-payment of the fine." Reflect upon this a moment: 10,717 were imprisoned during the year, and out of this number only ninety-six were convicted of crim- inal offenses. The others, in the language of Mr. Felton, were guilty of mere petty misdemeanors, punishable by fine only, and they were imprisoned because they could not pay this fine. Of these 10,717, 1,670 were women and girls. Speaking of their social relations, Mr. Felton's report says that 2,744 were married; 7,184 claimed to be single; 2,121 had children. It also shows that nearly 4,000 had no parents living; upward of 1,600 had only a mother living, and 822 had only a father living, showing that one-half were without proper parental supervision. Several years ago Mr. Fred. L. Thompson, chaplain of the peni- tentiary at Chester, Illinois, made a personal inquiry of 500 convicts in regard to their early environment, and the result showed that 419, or upward of four-fifths, were parentless, or without proper home influence before reaching eighteen years of age. Also that 218 never had attended school. Mr. Thompson sums up an interesting report in these words: "I have come to the conclusion that there are two prime causes of crime; first, the want of proper home influence in childhood, and, second, the lack of thorough, well-disciplined training in early life." I will only add, it is the boy and girl who grow up on the streets or amid squalor and misery at home whose path seems forever to wind toward the prison door, and whatever system will train the youth, or will let light into the hovels, cellars, and garrets where children are growing up, will reduce the ranks of criminals. The fact that all save ninety-six of the inmates of the bridewell for that year were there because they could not pay a fine, shows that they WHAT TO DO WITH CRIMINALS. 103 came from the poor, the very poor, the unfortunate. And as they had not been charged with, any serious offense, and as the treatment which they got in the bridewell in twenty-six and one-tenth days would not build up or strengthen character, could not educate the mind or train the hand; and inasmuch as the treatment there, as in all prisons, of necessity tends to weaken self-respect, and as all these had to go cut of the prison absolutely penniless and friendless — for they were sent there because they were penniless and friendless — I ask, What were these people to do when they came out? What could they do to make an honest living? Take the 1,670 women and girls who were sent there because they had not the money with which to pay a small fine, and had not a friend upon earth to pay "it for them; can any of you suggest what they could go at when they were turned out of the bridewell and found themselves on the corner of Twenty-sixth Street and California Avenue? There was absolutely nothing left for them except to go back to their old haunts — go anywhere where they could get something to eat and a night's lodging. And the prison expe- rience they had had only degraded them, weakened them, and sank them lower into depravity. The same may be said of the men and boys confined there. The city is full of men who have not been imprisoned, and who, during a large part of the year, can get nothing to do. It was estimated that this winter there were 60,000 men in Chicago out of employment. This being so, what show is there for a boy or a young man coming out of the bridewell to earn an honest living? And if imprisonment in the bridewell has not helped them, but, on the contrary, has, as a rule, injured them, wherein has society been benefited by the fact that it imprisoned 10,717 people on an average of twenty-six and one- tenth days, because they had committed trivial offenses? But some of you will ask, "Well, what have you to suggest? Society must be protected. We must preserve order." To which I reply, unques- tionably society must be protected at all hazards, and we must pre- serve order and protect life and property. But I insist, to begin with, that it is unnecessary to arrest and lock up people who have com- mitted no offense merely to preserve order; that the 15,000 who were not shown to have committed any offense in that year should never have been arrested and "run in" by the police; that arresting them neither tended to protect society nor to preserve order, but was a wrong — in many cases an outrage — for which society, in the end, must suffer; that the trouble is, that there has grown up in our police force a feeling that their efficiency is to be determined largely by the num- ber of people they "run in," which is all wrong. Again, police officers 104 LIVE QUESTIONS. too frequently feel that when they have arrested somebody, that it is then incumbent upon them to make a case against him, and hence are .reckless in their swearing; so that it frequently happens that juries in criminal courts decline to give much credit to the testimony of a policeman. Policemen should feel that their standing is not to be determined by the number of people whom they may happen to arrest, but rather from their ability to preserve law and order; to protect life and property, by making but few arrests. I am satisfied, further, that it would have been better if a great majority of the 28,000 who were fined in the police court had been let go, the offenses being so trivial that, in fact, it would have been better for society in the long run if no arrest at all had been made. Then, in my judgment, we should adopt here a system which has been in operation in Massachusetts for over ten years, whereby the city is divided into districts, called probation districts, and in each district there is appointed a probation officer, whose duty it is to visit the prison every day in his district; get the name of the prisoner; go to his residence; see his family; acquaint himself, as far as is possible, with the history and character of the prisoner, his home influences and general environment, and if it is found that he is not vicious, and if the charge against him is not of such a heinous character as to require that he be confined, the probation officer recommends to the justice or to the judge, as the case may be, that if the accused is guilty, instead of sentence being pronounced, the case be continued from term to term, for the period of a year, sometimes more. This done, he is released; the probation officer assists him in getting employment, where this is practicable; assists him with counsel and advice; keeps a supervision over him for the period of a year, requiring him to report from time to time, and if he does not do well, the probation officer orders him arrested, and he is then sentenced. This system has been in operation in Boston for upward of ten years. The city of Boston was divided, as I understand it, into three districts, and I have here the reports of the probation officers covering a period of ten years. In one district, during the year 1888, 1,139 prisoners were taken charge of by the probation officer. Of this num- ber, twelve ran away, or about one per cent. ; fifty-two had to be sur- rendered, because they did not do well; but all the remainder did well — led sober and industrious lives. During ten years in one district 7,251 prisoners were taken charge of by the probation officer. Of this entire number, during the ten years, only 107 ran away, a very remarkable fact, which is to be borne in mind in considering the best method of dealing with people who have violated the law. Only a WHAT TO DO WITH CRIMINALS. 105 little over one per cent, ran away. Of the 7,251, 473 had to be returned for sentence. All the remainder did well. I will simply say that the results in the other probation districts of Boston were of the same character. In speaking of the saving to both the prisoner and to society by this method of treatment, the officer reports that, had the lowest sen- tence possible been imposed, the aggregate time of all the prisoners which must have been spent in prison during the ten years would have amounted to 1,715 years, which was saved to society and to the ac- cused, while the saving in expense to the public bv not imprisoning amounted to many thousands of dollars per annum. The fact of having an intelligent and humane man acting as probation officer, visiting the home of the accused and assisting his family with counsel and advice, can scarcely be over-estimated; in many cases it will save not only the children, but also the parents from a criminal career. One of the probation officers of Boston, in speaking of those who were saved from imprisonment in his district, says: "Generally they have since lived good, orderly lives, and have been a blessing to their fam- ilies, and where they were married, kept their homes from being broken up and their children from being sent to charitable institutions. In many cases they have changed from lives of vice and crime to become good citizens." If we were to make our system what the law really intends it should be, and that is, protect society against crime, and would put a stop to the practice of arresting and breaking into prison experiences those who have been guilty of no offense, and would, further, put a stop to the practice of "running in" all who may have been guilty of some trivial offense, and would apply the Massachusetts system of probation in cases where the officer felt it could be safely done — for in many cases it could not be done — we would so greatly reduce the number who would have "to be sent to prison that they could then be detained, not for twenty-six and one-tenth days in the bridewell, or from one to three years in the penitentiary, and not under the conditions that exist now in our prisons, where reformation and instruction are almost impossible; but they could be detained until, in the judgment of a competent board, the accused had acquired such habits of industry and had developed sufficient strength of character to go out and make his way in the world, and then he should be assisted in getting a posi- tion, so that he would not at once find himself penniless,_ friendless, and homeless. They should be sent to prison on an indeterminate sen- tence, nearly in accord with the system that has now for a number of years been in vogue in the Elmira prison in the State of New York, 106 LIVE QUESTIONS. where prisoners must remain at least a year, and can be kept a number of years, if, in the judgment of the board, it is not safe to let them at large. Here prisoners go through a regular course of instruction, having regular hours of labor, and the treatment is of such a character as is calculated to develop and build up the man. And the manage- ment, instead of knowing nothing about the man, as is the case now with us, is put in possession of his whole history, all the information that can be gathered in regard to it, and whenever it becomes satisfied that the accused can with safety be given his liberty, the management first secures him employment, and exercises, for a period of at least six months, a sort of general supervision over him. If he does not do well they can take him back. If he loses his place they assist him in getting another; and if he does well for a period of a year he is discharged. And at different times men who have been discharged and then suddenly found themselves out of employment, rather than beg or steal voluntarily came back to the institution and asked to be taken in until they could get another job; and here, again, there were scarcely any desertions by those who were on parole. Under such a system as this, hardened and dangerous criminals would not be set at liberty every two or three years, as they are now, to go out and prey upon society; but they would be kept confined until they could be safely set at liberty; while, on the other hand, the good intentioned who had got into trouble would not need to be confined behind brick walls until they became hardened, stolid, and desperate, as is now the case. In addition to this, there should, in my judgment, be given every convict in prison an opportunity to earn something over and above the cost of keeping him. I know this involves difficulties, but none that cannot be overcome. He should be not only permitted to earn something, but he should be required to earn something to carry to his credit before he is again set ' at liberty ; so that when he leaves the prison doors he will have something to sus- tain him for a while; and this should not be paid him at once, but in installments, so that he cannot lose it at once; or, if he has a family to support, he not only should be permitted to work, but required to earn something while in prison for the support of his family. You will see, by such a system as I have outlined, the number whom we would have in the end to imprison would be greatly reduced ; and these, too, could be so separated that the great majority could be set to work, if necessary, outside of the prison. They could farm; could be made to work the roads; could be made to do any kind of work, because the temptation to desert would then be practically WHAT TO DO WITH CRIMINALS. 107 taken away. I must say, however, that the temptation to desert is not so great at any time as many people suppose. Major McClaughrey, who was for many years warden at the Joliet penitentiary, several years ago told me that he was then carrying on a small farm near the penitentiary, and working it with convicts, and they had had no trouble at all upon this point, and that he had repeatedly urged the State to buy him three or four hundred acres, and said if it would do so he could work the farm with the prisoners, and could raise not only what was needed for his institution, but for other State institutions, and that he had no fear at all of desertion. If that is true at present, then under a system whereby the prisoner was made to feel that he was doing something for himself instead of simply wearing his life out for the benefit of some wealthy contractor, very little would need to be feared upon that point, and the number of prisoners who were serving long sentences, and who would be or were considered dangerous, and therefore have to be kept at work in the prison, would be so small by the time they were divided up among,the various industries which are now carried on inside of the prison, the number in each industry would be so small that we would hear no more about prison-made goods coming in competition with free labor. The question of prison labor would solve itself. We would thus save thousands of boys from a prison experience, and a possible criminal career. We would put an end to the practice of degrading and breaking down women and girls by repeated im- prisonments for trivial offenses, which never does any good. We would prevent the really vicious and hardened criminals from being turned loose upon society every year or two. Both the convict and society would be the gainers. PROTECTION OF NON-COMBATANTS; OR, ARBITRATION OF STRIKES. (Published in the Chicago "Evening Mail.") Can the State enforce arbitration in a strike? This question at once resolves itself into two : First : Has the State the right or the constitutional power to com- pel arbitration independent of the will of the contending parties ? Secondly : If it has the right, is it feasible to exercise it, and in what manner and how far can it enforce its award ? 108 LIVE QUESTIONS. It is assumed by many in this country that in a strike the State is powerless as a mediator ; that its sole function in such a time is to keep the public peace, and that so long as the latter is not disturbed the State must remain an idle spectator ; that every person has the right to do as he likes with his property or with his labor ; that the employer has the right in all cases to employ and to discharge whom he thinks proper, and when he thinks proper, and to pay what wages he pleases ; and that the laborer has the right in all cases to work when and for whom he thinks best ; and that neither employer nor employe stands in such a relation to society at large as to give the State, as the conservator of all classes and interests, any right in case of a strike to interfere without the express consent of the parties to the dispute. As strikes are often of such magnitude as to affect the entire country, if long continued, this doctrine in effect affirms the following propositions : i. That the rights which a man has in a state of nature are not greatly modified or limited by his becoming a member of our complex society; that although all of the members of the latter are interde- pendent, each being affected by the conduct of the others, yet that a limited number of these members have the constitutional right to pursue a course which is not only injurious to the whole, but which, if persisted in sufficiently long, must result in a dissolution of society ; that the remainder, although they may constitute ninety per cent, of the whole, have no constitutional right to protect themselves from the con- sequences of such conduct. In short, that the State, as the embodi- ment of society, has no power to prevent or to remove those condi- tions which, if left alone, would lead to its own overthrow. 2. That although great changes in the method of production and of transportation in this country have altered the natural order of things as it existed one hundred years ago ; have already destroyed and tend more and more to destroy independent occupations ; and although great corporations have grown up with thousands of men in their employ, who are almost at their mercy ; and although business is tend- ing more and more to be centralized and controlled by a few; and although it is vital to the very existence of society, as now constituted, that business in its various forms should go on regularly and without great interruption; and that these corporations, particularly public carriers, should be not only required, but also enabled, to do their work without delay, for every interruption of their operations subjects the public to serious loss and inconvenience ; yet, as the relation between employer and employe is one of contract, the State can in no case inter- fere to protect the interests of the public at large, notwithstanding the ARBITRATION OP STRIKES. 109 fact that the highest courts of the land have, in other cases of contract, held that the State can interfere for the protection of the public. For example, in those cases relating to the rate of interest which may be charged, the amount of toll which may be charged,, the rate of fare which may be charged, and the rate which may be charged for storing grain. 3. That although this is an age of great division of labor, by reason of which thousands of men in one line of industry are dependent for work, and consequently for the means of subsistence, on the in- dustry of others, yet, if in consequence of a dispute between employer and employe in any one line all other industries should become para- lyzed (for example, during the recent strike of the coke-makers in Pennsylvania, many large iron mills had to shut down for want of coke, thus throwing the iron workers out of employment, while through these in turn other industries were affected),* the State has no power to in- quire into the nature of the difficulty, and dare, under no circumstances, interfere for the protection of the non-combatants, but must stand by idle and helpless while its very existence is being jeopardized. In short, that the doctrine that was supposed to lie at the foundation of all civil society, viz., that every man can do as he pleases with what is his own so long only as his conduct does not injuriously affect others, has no application here. 4. That while the State must bear the burden of suppressing crime and of supporting paupers, yet it derives from this duty no correspond- ing right or power to arrest or to remove those conditions which are certain to breed both criminals and paupers. 5. That an individual or corporation may interfere with the natural distribution of population, and cause several thousand laborers with their families to settle in a location where they would otherwise not have settled, and where there are no opportunities of earning a living except what are furnished by such individual or corporation as em- ployer, and that the State has no right to see that these people shall not become a burden to the State by thus being made either paupers or criminals, but that when they are, as it were, in the hands of the employer, and have it not in their power to go and make a living else- where, the employer may, in case of a disagreement, lock them all out, and may bring on several thousand more (who otherwise would not have come there), and put these in place of the former, and in case of * Note. — Since publishing the above there has been a number of instances of whole communities of non-combatants being almost paralyzed, because the regular operations of great corporations were interrupted by strikes — notably the strikes on the Gould and on the Burlington systems of railroads. no LIVE QUESTIONS. a second disagreement may bring on a third lot, and so on, each time leaving his former workmen and their families without the means of subsistence, and in a condition in which they are certain to become a burden on the State, part as criminals, and part as paupers. And yet the State has no right or power to interfere, notwithstanding the fact that but for the action of such employer these people would not have settled in that locality, but would have distributed themselves over the country more nearly in proportion to the natural means of subsistence offered, and would not have become a burden on the State. 6. Or that several hundred employes may impose terms upon an employer with which he cannot comply without actual loss ; and if he declines to accede they can prevent him from employing other men, and thus force him to shut down, although by so doing a whole series of other manufacturing establishments are obliged to stop work and their men to be idle because they need the goods made by the first; so that in the end all industries will become paralyzed, the public gen- erally put to great inconvenience, thousands of men everywhere who have no trouble with their employers will be thrown out of work, and those conditions which breed crime and pauperism are created in a most aggravated form. Yet the State must stand idly by simply because the parties that originated the quarrel are too stubborn to compromise or to agree to arbitrate. The bare statement of these propositions is all the refutation they need. Every duty imposed upon the State implies a corresponding right. The duty of the State is not simply to protect life and property, but also to enable all those agencies that are necessary to the existence of modern society to perform their functions properly. Besides, every government possesses the inherent right of self-preserva- tion, at least so far as that it may, by all means within its power, resist those antagonistic or disintegrating forces which tend to its destruc- tion. It can resist foreign invasion, can suppress internal rebellion, and can suppress and punish crime. It can do things without number which are designed for the benefit of the entire public, although in doing them it may in a measure modify or curtail what have been sup- posed to be the natural rights of man. To hold, therefore, that it can- not inquire into or remove those conditions which not only breed crime and pauperism, but which, if left alone, must in time bring about the ruin of society and the overthrow of the government, would be an absurdity. It is the duty of the government to conserve and protect all interests, and, being its duty, there can be no question about its power. The objections so commonly urged against paternal government ARBITRATION OF STRIKES. lit have here no application. For in all cases where it is found to exist, as in the countries of the Old World, or in the imposition of protective duties in this country, the State steps in at the beginning and regulates affairs without first giving individuals an opportunity to get along without State interference, while here the State allows employer and employe to manage their own affairs, and claims the right to interpose only after they have failed ; and then only in cases where the interests of the public are being injuriously affected in consequence of such failure. The question is, Can there lawfully be any government or public agency to regulate -or control this condition of affairs? As to nearly all other conditions or disturbances which injuriously affect society, no one questions the right of the State to interfere. Now, why should it not interfere in this instance ? That the machinery or form of government adopted to meet troubles of this character must be "of the people, for the people, and by the people," in order to be successful, is unquestionably true. But that it is as much the duty of the State to prevent injuries to the public at large from strikes as it is its duty to prevent injuries from any other cause is equally true. BUT, ADMITTING THE RIGHT, IS IT PRACTICABLE TO ENFORCE IT? This is a serious question. The first inquiry one hears is : "Well, what can," or "what shall the State do ?" And the answer frequently heard is : "Create boards of arbitration to settle all these disputes between employer and employe." Yes, that is all right, so far, but, having got the board created, let us see what, from the nature of things, it can and cannot do. At the threshold it meets some natural limitations which no legisla- tion can overcome. i. The board cannot compel the employer to run his mill, for he may not be able to do it, or may think that it cannot be run without loss, or for a number of reasons he may not desire to run it. And, I repeat, the board cannot run it for him. 2. The board cannot impose terms which would make it impos- sible for the employer to continue his business without actual loss, for to do this would be to render his property employed in his business worthless ; would practically destroy it without making compensation for it, which, according to the settled principles of American jurispru- dence, cannot be done. 3. The board cannot force a man or a large number of men to 112 LIVE QUESTIONS. enter a factory and go to work and to continue to work against their will. With these limitations in view, let us set the board in motion. A strike, with its usual accompaniments, exists in the neighborhood. The board takes cognizance of it, inquires into the trouble according to rules of procedure which it has established, and it finds that the employer is in the wrong, and it so decides. It fixes a price which he shall pay or determines in other respects what he shall do. Now, if he elects not to run his mill, that is the end of the matter. But if he desires, either then or in the future, to go on, then the board can require him to do so on the terms it laid down, and can further pro- vide that he shall not employ any new men until he has given his old employes an opportunity to go to work on the terms fixed by the board. If he objects that he should not be interfered with in his busi- ness, it may be replied that there was no interference until there was such a condition of affairs about his premises as was injuriously-affect- ing the good order or well-being of society. And if he objects that he should be permitted to employ whom he pleases, it may be answered that he had interfered with the natural distribution of population, and had led a large number of people, i. e., his former employes, to settle around him, who otherwise might not have settled there, and that it would be against the well-being of society that these should all at once be thrown out of employment and their places filled with others, as they would thus be in danger of becoming a burden on the public ; that if he desires to make a change it must be done gradually, so that there will be no danger of the public peace being disturbed or of the public burdens being increased. It is clear that in this case it is feasible to carry out the decree or the award of the board. But we now accompany the board to another strike. Here, after careful inquiry, the board decides that the employes are in the wrong, and it fixes the terms upon which they shall return to work. Now, if they all decline to go, then, as already stated, the board cannot com- pel them. But it is scarcely necessary to consider such a contingency, for it is not likely to happen. All experience points the other way. As a rule the employes have no alternative — they have no other means of getting bread for themselves or their children. It is true that at present they sometimes hold out to the point of starvation, but this is because they have got themselves into a situation where they cannot gracefully or with self-respect back down, whereas a decision of a properly constituted tribunal would help them out of this dilemma. It must also be borne in mind that, at present, public sentiment ARBITRATION OF STRIKES. 113 is frequently with the strikers, and it is the force of this in many cases which prevents them from going to work; whereas, in a case where they refused to abide by the decision of a properly constituted tribunal, public sentiment would be against the strikers, and this alone would operate powerfully to dissolve the strike. Again, in nearly all cases, many of the men who first stop work are opposed to a strike, and are only deterred from resuming by the fear of being expelled from their union, in which they are interested in insurance funds, benevolent funds, etc. ; and if the law were to pro- tect them against expulsion, where no other ground existed than their compliance with the award of the board, they would go to work at once. Further, it is worthy of note that in nearly all labor troubles in the past it was the laboring men who were the most willing to submit to arbitration, and I believe there is not a case of this kind on record in which an arbitration was fairly entered into that the award was not promptly accepted by the men. It may therefore be safely assumed that if this board were so constituted as to command the confidence of employes in regard to its integrity and fairness, there would never be any trouble about enforcing its awards against them. Should experience, however, demonstrate that something more was necessary to insure compliance with the award of the board, by either employer or employes, it might be provided that if an employer refused to carry out the award, he should forfeit say six days' wages to each of his employes ; or if the employes refused to abide by an award, they shall forfeit say six days' wages to the employer. Of course, to make this provision enforcible against the men, it would be necessary for the employer always to be six days in arrears in paying them. But this is the case now with most large employers, especially railroad corpora- tions, and in the case supposed it would further have to be provided that during a strike no judgment should be rendered in favor of an employe for such specified arrearage. The board should further have power to inquire into a case where the employer has discharged all the striking employes and is filling their places with others ; for it is the bringing on of others, and thus increasing the population of that locality beyond the means there pro- vided for earning a living, that vitally interests the public. It is at present a matter of common occurrence that men are hired and taken from one end of the country to another, to fill the places of striking employes, when, but for such beginning, they would never have thought of going to the points where they thus swell the population. But it is safe to say that if a law for compulsory arbitration were 8 114 'LIVE QUESTIONS. . passed there would not only be very few arbitrations under it, but there would be very few strikes. For the consciousness that arbitration can be forced upon them would induce both employer and employe to get together and to try to adjust their own differences, and this nearly always results in a settlement, the difficulty at present being that many employers will not talk with or meet their men. Consequently, the employer does not understand the men nor the men the employer, and thus trifles frequently lead to trouble, when, with a better understanding, they would be unnoticed; so that any measure which will make the relations between employer and employe more familiar will be productive of much good. Even a board which had full power to make a thorough investiga- tion without the consent of the parties, but had no power at all to enforce its award, would prevent a great deal of trouble ; for the con- sciousness that a full investigation can be made and the result pub- lished to the world, showing who is in the wrong, will alone lead to an effort at adjustment. BOARD— HOW CREATED. It is apparent that the method of creating this board is of the great- est importance, and that both employers and employes must be given a voice, if they desire, in selecting the board in each case. For, if the board were to be constituted by the usual political agencies, or if there were to be one permanent board it would not command the absolute confidence of the parties, and would soon be regarded as many of our courts, whether rightfully or wrongfully, are now regarded, i. e., with more or less distrust. Therefore, in each case where there is dissatisfaction, or a dispute liable to result in a strike, a separate board should be created by the employes selecting one member, the employer one member, and the two thus selected agreeing upon the third. This is the practice now in vogue in nearly all cases of this character wherein arbitration is now resorted to. There should be a provision authorizing some court, on application of either employer or a fixed proportion of the whole number of employes, or in case of an actual strike, where neither employer nor employes apply, on •application of a specified number of citizens, to select such member of the beard for any party to the dispute that de- clines to select his own. But this should not be done until after notice is given to either the employer or a named proportion of the employes, as the case may be. This Would place it within the power of either party, as well as the public, to secure a prompt settlement of all disputes in reference to the rate of wages, etc. As the authority ARBITRATION OF STRIKES. 115 of the State to interfere is based chiefly on its duty to prevent public inconvenience and s&cial disturbances, as well as to prevent increase of public burdens, this board could not take cognizance of cases where there are but few employes. The line having to be drawn somewhere, the minimum might be fixed at say ten. The rules of procedure by the board are matters of detail which present no insurmountable dif- ficulties. BOARD OF APPEALS. As a board of appeals would necessarily be distant from the scene of the trouble in most cases, and a hearing before it accompanied with much expense and cause much delay, which delay alone would tend to destroy all the benefits to be derived from arbitration, and perhaps bring the whole system into disrepute, I believe it would be a mistake to create such a board ; for one of the strongest arguments in favor of arbitration is, that there can be a speedy adjustment of difficulties. Besides, only the strong could avail themselves of the services of a board of appeals. Should such a board, however, be created, then there should be a provision requiring the decision of the local board to be accepted and carried out, until it is reversed or modified by the board of appeals ; otherwise, every party dissatisfied with the finding of the local board would appeal merely to get delay, and it would not be long until the whole system would not only be rendered abortive, but be brought into disrepute. COSTS. The costs of an arbitration should be taxed very much as they are now in lawsuits. At present the public pays the judge, the jurors, and furnishes a court-house, and requires the parties to pay the wit- nesses, the sheriff and the clerk. As the public is just as much inter- ested in the settlements of disputes between employer and employed as it is in the average lawsuit, it should bear at least the same pro- portion of costs. The arbitrators, in particular, should be paid by the public, so that they may never be suspected of considering the cer- tainty of getting their fees in rendering a decision.- Provision might be made requiring a bond for costs to be given by the party applying for an arbitration, and the board should have power to apportion costs in proper cases. Upon the question of arbitration there has until recently been a wide divergence of opinion between employer and employes. The pub- lic, it may be noted, nearly always favors arbitration without stopping to inquire carefully into the matter. As a rule, employes favor arbi- tration, but until recently employers have generally been opposed n6 LIVE QUESTIONS. to any outside interference. But a great change has already taken place in this regard in the minds of employers, and many of them are now advocating compulsory arbitration. Not that they like to have the State step in between them and their men, but because this is the only way in which they can be protected from the consequences of strikes on the part of their neighbor's employes. At present, many strikes force the shutting down on the part of employers who have no trouble with their men, and cause thousands of men to quit work who have no complaint against their. employers ; the only way in which these troubles can be limited to the original parties to the quarrel is to provide for creating in each case a board of arbitration, with full power to inquire into the trouble, whether the parties consent or not. As already stated, the public, which is always interested, and fre- quently a direct sufferer, favors arbitration. As a rule employes favor it, and employers are beginning to see that it is to the interest of every employer who has no trouble with his men to have such a board, for he can then seldom be made to suffer because of the wrong-doing of some other employers, or of the folly of other employes. We may therefore reasonably expect soon to see laws enacted creating boards of arbitration similar in character to those that we have been consid- ering. ^ JOHN P. ALtGELD. Chicago, April 26, 1886. PENSION'S FOR SOLDIERS. (Published in the "Comrade," Chicago.) A REVIEW OF THE RELATIONSHIP EXISTING BETWEEN THE EX-UNION SOLDIER AND THE GOVERNMENT— HOW PEN- SIONS ARE EARNED AND THE WAY THEY SHOULD BE ADJUSTED AND PAID. Editor of the "Comrade" : Sir : Your note asking, "What does the government owe its sol- diers of the late war and have they any claims that should be settled in dollars and cents? If so, how?" is at hand. As you wish me to give reasons for any opinion I may express, I submit the following as the result of such reflection as I have been able, amid the press of other business, to give the subject. .In considering this question we must regard the government as being the American people, so that the question is: "What do the American people owe the Union soldiers of the late war, and have the soldiers a claim against the people that can or should be settled in dollars and cents?" And it is only the latter half of this question, viz., PENSIONS FOR SOLDIERS. 117 whether there is a claim that should be settled in dollars and cents — about which there can be any controversy or great difference of opin- ion. All admit that the brave men who imperiled (if they did not all actually sacrifice) their lives to save our institutions are entitled to the affectionate regard and the everlasting gratitude and homage of a free people. But can the people discharge the whole claim merely with gratitude and homage? Or has this claim a dual character, being in part for the debt due to lofty patriotism and heroic devotion — a debt which is above money, and cannot be estimated in dollars — and being in part for actual loss of money and material sacrifices made which can be estimated and liquidated in dollars and cents ? One of the bravest and most patriotic men who fought through the late war, in speaking on this subject, said : "We stand on higher ground. There are debts that cannot be settled across the counter. The most sacred obligations are those that can never be paid, and the only partial compensation possible is a return in kind. Of this nature is the debt which a saved nation owes to its defenders." I have no doubt that these views are held by many of the soldiers, and, so far as it relates to compensation or pay for lofty patriotism, devotion to country, or sturdy discharge of duty, they are clearly right. Money cannot pay for those. And it may be added that the willingness to leave family and friends and rush to the defense of your country when danger threatens, without waiting to see whether there can ever be any compensation ; the readiness to imperil and even sacrifice your life for a cause ; the unflinching discharge of duty however hard — all come within the list of deeds that are above money. And it is upon these that the safety and perpetuity of a nation depend. Whenever these virtues have to be purchased in advance with money, then the end is near. To quote again from the soldier referred to : "If future citizens of this republic will not come freely to their country's defense in the hour of need except for such (moneyed) inducements, then efface from your banners the honored colors and emblems and let the dollar of your daddies on a golden ground be their flag to lead them to battle and to deserved defeat. Then will this republic go the way of all republics, and fall, from sheer inability to stand up longer in its own rottenness." This is strong language,- and every syllable of it is true when applied to the purchase of patriotism. But it does not cover the whole case. A patriot may make material sacrifices which can be, should be and are paid for in dollars and cents. If the government takes a man's property, nobody questions for a moment his right to compensation, u8 LIVE QUESTIONS. Cannot a man's time be placed on the same footing with property? Some rely on property for their support, others rely on their time ; if, then, the latter is taken, why should there not be compensation ? Sup- pose the man enters the army and serves through the war without receiving any compensation, would he not be entitled to pay in dollars and cents for his time ? And if the government paid him for this, could it be claimed that it was paying him for his patriotism? Clearly not. It would only be settling the money part of the claim. The debt properly chargeable to patriotism would remain unpaid. So if he had been paid half what his time was reasonably worth, there could be no question but in equity he should be paid the other half, and if he were, it would not be paying for patriotism. Therefore it seems to me that the question is: Has the soldier made any material sacrifices of time, property, or health, for which he has not been compensated, and if he has, does common justice re- quire that he should be compensated ? Before considering this in detail, I will simply notice : Public Policy. — It is claimed, and with reason, that in a country like ours, wherein no standing army is maintained, and no burden imposed for a permanent military establishment, and where the govern- ment has to rely absolutely on the patriotism of its citizens to repel for- eign invasions or suppress domestic insurrections, public policy alone would require a very liberal and comprehensive spirit in dealing with the. soldier. That if the government were even to be lavish, and go be- yond the strict requirements of justice, it would be, from a political standpoint, a good investment, because it would tend to insure a ready response to any call the government may make when in distress here- after, and would tend to stimulate the men while serving. It would be a sort of premium paid to insure the safety of our homes and our institutions in the future. So that it would be in accord with a wise pub- lic policy with the government not only to do simple jusice to the sol- dier — that is, to pay him what it morally owes him — but to go beyond this, and even do more than it is in strict justice bound to do. WHAT, THEN, DOES COMMON JUSTICE DEMAND? Other Governments. — It is urged by some that our government has already dealt more liberally with its soldiers than any other govern- ment on earth, and therefore nothing further should be asked. Now, it is not necessary to inquire whether this is true or not, for it makes no difference what other governments have done. Most of the gov- ernments of the world are founded on despotic principles, and treat both the lives and the property of the common people as if they existed PENSIONS FOR SOLDIERS. 119 only to serve the pleasure or the ambition of the rulers. And the soldiers are treated as so many fighting cattle, that are left by the roadside or in a poor-house to die when they are no longer of use. But that is not the case here. Our government is said to be of the people, for them, and by them; and all the people are supposed to have an equal interest in maintaining it, and when it is threatened with danger it is the common duty of all to march to its defense. The burden rests on all, and when, therefore, some go and some do not, some make sacrifices and some do not, common justice requires that those that make the sacrifice, and thus save the government, should be in some way recompensed or made whole for what they have done over and above what their neighbors did, for inasmuch as the duty rested equally on all, the bur- den should be borne equally by all. To illustrate : It is admitted that when our institutions are threat- ened it is the duty of all to assist in protecting them ; that all should pay taxes in proportion to the property they own, and all should give their time and personal services to the common cause. The man with property having a double interest in preserving the government — i. e., to protect his property and also his person and family — must therefore both pay taxes and give his time and personal service to the government, while the man without property, being interested only in the protection of himself and family, must give his time and personal service only. Now, if all citizens had an equal amount of property and all entered the service of the government, and after a victorious war all were fortunate enough to return alive and in good ' health, it is clear none would in common jus- tice be entitled to a pension or extra pay, because all had contributed equally and all had derived an equal benefit from the result. But if in the case just stated one tenth are slain or die from exposure, and one tenth more are maimed or rendered unable to make a living or carry on their business as before, then inequalities arise ; the dead and also the maimed have given more than their neighbors to the common cause. The family of the dead have given up their support. Whether that support consisted of brains and muscle or of a farm can make no difference in the scale of justice. It has been given to save the country, and they have, therefore, given more than their neigh- bors, and justice demands that they be compensated for the excess they have given. Likewise the maimed or disabled. They have been deprived of their ability to carry on business or use their limbe as before, and to this extent have given more than their neighbors, and justice requires that they should be compensated. 120 LIVE QUESTIONS. The government could in each of the cases given above institute an inquiry as it does when it seeks to take a farm — ascertain the amount of damage the individual has sustained in excess of his neighbors, and pay this in a lump, or it can provide for paying it in installments during the life of the party injured, and call it a pension. But in either case it will be simply making compensation ; it will not be giving away anything ; it will be simply doing justice — for let it be clearly under- stood that a pension is not a charity ; it is a payment made in consider- ation of services which the government acknowledges having received. Let us now go farther. If, instead of every man entering the serv- ice, as we have supposed above, only a part go (as is always the case), then if they all return in as good condition as they went, and if while away they were paid wages equal to what they could have earned in their respective callings had they remained at home, and they do not have to commence anew when they come back, then they have con- tributed no more than their neighbors, and are not entitled to any compensation except perhaps for the exposure and hardships endured. On the other hand if the wages paid them are not equal to what they could have earned in their respective callings had they remained at home — if they had to give up business, and when they returned had to commence anew; in short, if they are in any way worse off after returning than they would have been had they remained, or if they endured inconveniences which their neighbors did not, then they have given just that much in what has money value over and above what their neighbors who did not go have given, and common justice demands that to that extent they should receive compensation; and when they do, it is not payment for their patriotic deedsj but simply compensation for what can and should be adjusted in money. What are the Facts ? — It is true that all men of the North did not go into the army — some did stay at home. Therefore, if those that did go earned less money while away than they would have earned had they remained at home, or endured hardships which they other- wise would not have endured, or if after their return they were in any way worse off than they would have been had they remained at home, then, to .say nothing about patriotism in so promptly responding to their country's call, to that extent they have contributed more than their neighbors, and in justice and in good conscience are entitled to compensation. I think it will have to be admitted in all quarters that those that entered the army (I speak of the privates) were not paid, as a rule, what they could have earned at home; that they endured hardships which they would not have had at home ; and that they returned far PENSIONS FOR SOLDIERS. 121 worse off than they would have been had they remained at home. I am speaking now only from a financial standpoint, assuming that they all returned healthy and sound. Thirteen and sixteen dollars per month and finding were the wages paid to the privates in the late war. This was, if anything, less than was paid to common farm-hands at the same time, so that those that could perform only the commonest kind of labor could earn more by staying at home than by serving their country, to say nothing of the privations and hardships which the soldiers had to endure. Even if the wages paid had been equal to that paid for common labor at the time, then, to the extent that the soldier suffered privations and endured hardships, has he contributed more to his country's defense than the man who stayed at home? If this is true of the common laborer who served, it follows that every mechanic or skilled man of any kind who entered the army as a private could have earned from two to four times as much by staying at home, and the difference between what he was actually paid and what he would have earned had he stayed — added to the privations, exposure, and hardships of a sol- dier's life — constitute what he has contributed of that which can be estimated in money to defend the country over and above what those gave that stayed at home. So the man who gave up a business or the opportunity of making money and served in the army has — if the business or the opportunity was worth more than the wages actually paid him — contributed the difference to save his country. That is, he has contributed that much more, from a money standpoint, than the man who stayed at home. Taxes paid. — It is no answer to say that the man who stayed at home paid taxes, because the soldier, if he had any property, had to pay taxes just the same. Besides, as heretofore stated, the man with property had a double interest in saving the country — one on account of himself and family, and the other to save the value of his property. In fact, the latter may in some cases have been the greater, because, while the destruction of the government might not affect him person- ally, it might destroy the value of his property. Therefore, taxes paid by those not entering the army must be con- sidered as being simply the contributions which property makes to save the government, and thus to save itself. As long as taxes are paid only on property, they are in no sense a substitute for personal service in the army, and their payment cannot in any way discharge the obli- gation that the man who pays them is under to serve personally in the army the same as every other citizen. It may be said that it was necessary that some should stay at home 122 -LIVE QUESTIONS. and carry on the industries of the country, and that when doing so they were serving their country just as effectually as if they were in the field. This is only in part true. True if he who stayed at home could make no more at home than in the field ; and if the danger and hardship were equal in both cases, then it is clear that the man who served in the field contributed no more to save the country than the man who stayed at home. If, on the other hand, by staying at home he can make more money than by taking the field — if, in fact, he sells his products, whatever they are, to the very government which is in , danger at the highest price he can possibly obtain, so that in fact he gives the government nothing directly; and if the danger and the hardship at home are not equal to those in the field, then it is clear that the man in the field contributes more than the man at home, and it is equally clear that whatever the excess may be, common justice requires that he should be compensated for it. The question is not whether it is necessary that some shall remain at home. The question is, Has one contributed more to save the country than the other? and if yea, then, inasmuch as it is admitted that all should contribute equally, does justice demand that compensa- tion be made to him who contributed the excess — that is, the excess of what can be estimated in money ? Patriotism, courage, devotion to duty, prompt response to the call of one's country, and the willingness to take the risk of losing life should be regarded as being above money value, and to be compensated for only by the gratitude of one's coun- try. Health. — I have thus far assumed that all that returned from the war were as sound physically as they would have been had they stayed at home, and we have found that even if this were so the soldier contrib- uted more than the man who did not go into the army, and that this ex- cess had an actual moneyed value. But it is a well-established fact that comparatively few returned from the army sound men. In most cases where they were apparently well, exposure had sown the seeds of disease which sometimes did not develop for years, but which did finally develop, and not only cause them suffering, but also greatly cripple their ability to do business or make a living, and consequently they have to be regarded very much as if they had actually been maimed on the field. Yet they cannot now furnish sufficient evidence to get a pension under our laws. So that no matter from what standpoint the subject is considered, it soon becomes apparent that the soldier contributed more to save the country than the citizen, and is entitled to compensation. How, then, shall this be paid? In a lump or in installments by way of pensions? Here practical difficulties arise. PENSIONS FOR SOLDIERS. 123 To determine the exact amount due each soldier is impracticable; even if it were not, the total would be so large that the treasury could not meet it, so that whatever is paid must be paid in installments in the shape of pensions. But how ? On what basis ? These are difficult questions. No plan that will do exact justice can be devised. All that is possible is to approximate. Several systems are advocated which I will consider. Service Pensions. — Bythis term I understand to be meant a pension for service rendered, as distinguished from simple enlistment, the idea being to pay for services performed or sacrifices made, and to pay nothing where no service was rendered or no sacrifice made. Of course there will be difficulty in drawing the line, but this has nothing to do with the principle involved. Bear in mind that a pension is not a charity nor a gift; it is simply a payment in discharge of a debt which, instead of being paid in a lump, is paid in installments. And the principle involved here is simply one of making compensation. We have seen that in common justice the soldier is entitled to com- pensation for what he contributed over and above what his neighbor contributed. Now, how shall this be ascertained and paid? If it had been practicable to do so, and if it had been insisted on, justice might have required the government to institute a separate inquiry in each case, and if anything was found to be equitably due, to pay it. But owing to the great number this was not practicable. Whatever the cause, it has not been insisted on. Now, one way of adjusting a claim is to confer with the claimant, and if possible, arrive at an agreement. The claimants in this case are the men who served in the war, and if they are willing to accept compensation in installments instead of in a lump, and the government recognizes the justice of their claims, that is certainly the easiest way of arranging it. But a pension made uni- form for a certain length of service would not do justice, because it would hardly ever be the case that any two men had made precisely equal sacrifices in order to serve in the army. To meet this objection the advocates of a service pension propose a graduated scale, giving to the man who served only three months a small sum, to the man who served a year a larger amount, and to the man who served three years or more a still larger sum — payment to begin when the soldier reaches the age of say fifty-five years. This plan, it is claimed, would lighten the burden on the treasury, as only about one fourth of the living soldiers would begin to draw pensions at once, and then these would begin to die off as new ones are added. This plan recognizes the impossibility of devising anv way to do exact justice ; it does not even try to approximate it but seems primarily to aim at making pro- m LIVE QUESTIONS. visions for the old age of the soldier, and in this view strikes me favorably. It is free from the objection urged against indigent pen- sions, for to'obtain the latter the soldier must almost proclaim himself a pauper, and, as the brave are usually sensitive, they should not be subjected to this humiliation. Upon the whole, this plan, as thus limited, seems reasonable and moderate, and if the soldiers are satisfied therewith, the government should be. The government has at different times placed all the survivors of former wars on the pension list ; it is true it usually waited until they were nearly all dead. But still it recognized the principle that the government should care for the old soldiers, and, if the principle is right, then I say the government should not wait until most are dead, but should extend its hand the moment they arrive at a specified age. Objections. — It is objected in some quarters that to allow a service pension would make enormous demands on the treasury, and to that extent would increase the burdens of the people. But this has nothing to do with the question. If these men have just claims against the government, and that government is able to pay them, then justice demands that they be paid, whether it take a large or a small sum out of the treasury. Who are the Objectors? — It is a curious fact that this objection is urged most strongly by men many of whom have made fortunes out of the government. It is urged by what are commonly called "Wall Street influences" — by men who, when the government was in the greatest distress, would not enter the service themselves, or render patriotic assistance, but bought the government bonds at sixty cents on the dollar and then were paid interest on the full face of the bonds, and at their maturity insisted on having the face of the bonds paid in gold, which at that time was worth a premium, so that they were paid nearly two dollars (besides interest) for every dollar they advanced the government. . They gave their country very much the same kind of assistance that a pawnbroker gives a poor man that has met with an accident — cautiously makes some advances, takes the best security he can get, and then tries to get two dollars for every one. he advanced. One might suppose that after having reaped their harvest they would be satisfied. But not so. For now, when it is proposed that the government shall do simple justice to those that left their business and their homes, and risked their lives to save the government, and prevent even the very bonds of which we have spoken from becoming worth- less, these Wall Street influences are exerted against the ex-soldiers. There are people who imagine that brains and muscle and human life should at least be placed on as high a plane as money ; that if the PENSIONS FOR SOLDIERS. 125 man who loaned the government money to carry on the war is paid nearly two dollars for every dollar loaned, then the man who gives up his business and his home, and risks his life and endures the hardships of war, should be recompensed in the same liberal manner for the sacrifices he has made. But the ex-soldiers do not go this far in their demands. They do not ask for double compensation ; they only ask that the government which was saved through their efforts and which is now great and powerful, shall make them whole — simply recompense them for the sacrifice they have made — and will feel grateful if they are but made whole. Frauds. — No doubt it is true that great frauds have been per- petrated on the pension department, and that many are getting pen- sions that should not ; but will anybody claim that therefore those that in justice are entitled to a pension should be kept out of it ? Private Pensions. — I must admit that I favor general rather than special or private pensions ; I believe in putting all belonging to the same class on an equal footing. Private pensions are invidious and undemocratic. They are only for a fortunate or a favored few. Only those that have influence with some Congressman or "have a friend at court" can hope to get a private pension, and these are not always the most worthy. A very large number of special or private pension acts has been passed at every session of Congress for a great many years on the ground that the general laws were so framed and construed that many worthy and invalid soldiers who deserved a pension could not prove their claims under them so as to have a pension allowed. Now this should be otherwise. The pension laws should be so framed, construed, and executed that every soldier who has any just claim to a pension can readily get it under a general law, and not be required to secure a special act of Congress before he can get what he is justly entitled to. Gen. Oliver Edwards, of Warsaw, 111., hit the mark when he said : "I believe private pension bills, as a rule, are an injustice to most of us, on the ground that very few old soldiers have sufficient political influ- ence to secure a private pension." Indigent Soldier's Pension. — Careful inquiry has recently brought out the fact that there are at present upward of ten thousand ex-Union soldiers in the various alms- or»poor-houses of the United States; at times their number has reached nearly twenty thousand. How many soldiers have already died there and been buried in the potter's field is not known, but as the average death-rate in alms-houses is from ten to fifteen per cent, a year, it is safe to say that every year for a number 126 LIVE QUESTIONS. of years over one thousand of the old Union soldiers have died amid the squalor of the poor-house, away from friend and family, and been buried in the field set apart for strangers. But the ten thousand represent but a small portion of the indigents, because only a small portion of the poor of any class actually enter the alms-house. Usually friends intervene and support them. So that it is, perhaps, within bounds to say that for every soldier in the poor-house there are at least five who are being supported as objects of charity by friends. If this is correct, then we have the humiliating spectacle of the most powerful, most wealthy, and most enlightened government on earth, after a victorious war, in which its very existence was at stake, allowing upward of fifty thousand of the men who rescued it from destruction to be supported by private charity ; upward of ten thousand, besides many thousands soldiers' orphans, to be confined in the public poor- houses of the land, and over one thousand to be buried every year as paupers. There may be people who can view this spectacle with composure, but there are those who feel that it is a shame and a dis- grace. . It matters not whether they are in the poor-house because the pension actually paid is so small that it will not half support them, which is the case with some, or whether they have not been able, under existing laws, to secure any pension, which is true of most of them. In either case the great patriotic masses of the American people do not want to see the soldiers who fought to save the Union, thus, as it were, left by the roadside to die. We have seen that those who actually served in the army have a just claim against the government which has not yet been paid. Then there are thousands of men who left the army apparently well, but in whose systems exposure had planted the seeds of disease, which after- ward slowly developed, so that they could not make a living, and yet, under the strict proof required by our existing laws, which practically require the applicant to prove his claim beyond a doubt, they are unable to satisfy the pension office, and so get nothing. In fact, so eager do some pension officials seem to be to defeat a pension when they can, that in cases where the proof satisfied the law and showed the appli- cant to be entitled to a pension, they have written to some postmaster in the locality where the applicant resided, to see if they could not get some information that would defeat the pension. We can form some idea of the large number of men who in justice are entitled to pensions, and who have been unable to secure one, by considering the number of private pension bills annually passed by Congress, bearing in mind that there is not one private soldier in a PENSIONS FOR SOLDIERS. 12; hundred who has sufficient influence to get Congress to pass a special bill in his favor. And yet, during the first two years of Cleveland's administration, not only did Congress pass, but President Cleveland actually approved, eight hundred and sixty-three bills. In addition to these there were a number passed by Congress which were vetoed by the President. That these eight hundred and sixty-three bills were founded on justice is shown by the fact that they received the approval of the President, who is not charged with being partial to private bills. If we consider how much, time and effort it requires to get any measure passed by Congress — how very few of the bills introduced ever are passed — and that not one private soldier in a hundred has sufficient influence to enable him to get Congress to pass any measure, and then reflect that during two years Congress actually passed and the Presi- dent approved eight hundred and sixty-three private pension bills, we can see that there are many thousands of poor soldiers who in justice are entitled to a pension, but are unable to get it, and who, if they have no other means of support, must depend on private charity or else make their bed in the poor-house. But if this were not so — if the men who served in the army had no just claim to compensation, and the indigent soldier of whom we have been speaking had no just claim to a pension — would not an enlightened and a wise public policy require that the government see to it that those that imperiled their lives in order to save it from destruction should not, in their old age, have to eat the bread of charity, draw their last breath in an alms-house, or be buried in a pau- per's graveyard ? On March 18, 1818, just thirty-five years after the close of the Revolutionary War, and only four years after the close of a second exhaustive war with Great Britain, at a time when the country was poor and had not yet fully recovered from the effects of the last war, Congress passed a law granting pensions to all that had served in the army of the Revolution "for a period of nine months or longer at any period of the war, and who, by reason of reduced circumstances, shall stand in need of assistance from their country for support." Here the principle that the government should assist those that imperiled their lives for its preservation, and that are in need of assist- ance for support, is distinctly recognized and acted on. Can any good reason be given why the powerful government of 1887 should pursue a less liberal policy toward the soldiers than the exhausted government of 1818? Invalid and Disabled. — I have thus far noticed only those that do 128 LIVE QUESTIONS. not receive any pension, and will add a few words in regard to those to whom pensions have been granted. According to the reports of the pension office, the whole number of people in the United States in 1886 drawing pensions was 265,855 ; since that time the number has been slightly increased. The following table shows the sums paid per month for the dif- ferent kinds of injury: Total deafness $13 00 Inability to perform manual labor 30 00 Loss of a hand or foot. 30 00 Total disability jn one hand and one foot 36 00 Loss of one hand and one foot 36 00 Amputation at or above elbow or knee 40 00 Amputation at hip or shoulder joint 45 00 Loss of both hands 72 00 Loss of both feet 72 00 Loss of both eyes 72 00 Need of regular aid and attendance 72 00 Widow and dependent relatives 12 00 Child 2 00 Anchylosis of elbow or knee-joint 10 00 Anchylosis of ankle or wrist 8 00 Loss of the sight of one eye 8 00 Total deafness of one ear. 2 00 Slight deafness in both ears 4 00 Severe deafness in both ears. 8 00 Loss of hand except thumb 17 00 Loss of thumb 8 00 Loss of index finger • • • 4 00 Loss of any other finger, without complication 2 00 Loss of all the toes of one foot: 10 00 Etc., the table being long. ' The following table shows the number drawing the different sums ; 29,247 $1 00 to $2 00 per month. 66,421 . . • -. 2 00 to 4 00 39,578 4 00 to 6 00 51,722 6 00 to 8 00 12,992 8 00 to 10 00 19,383 10 00 to 1200 " 4,804 12 00 to 14 00 " 8,878 14 00 to 1600 " 3,557 16 00 to 1800 1,626.... ■ 18 00 to 2000 " 15,963 20 00 to 24 00 " 9,007 24 00 to 30 00 647 30 00 to 40 00 1,046 40 00 to 50 00 983 59 00 to 75 00 1 100 00 " PENSION'S FOR -SOLDIERS. 129 By glancing at these tables it will be seen that the amount paid each pensioner is very small. Over one third of all get from one to four dollars per month. Comparatively few get as high as twelve dollars per month. Any one can see that the pensions paid to disabled soldiers are in most cases not only inadequate to their support, but inadequate to make compensation for the sacrifice they made over and above that made by their neighbors to save the government. Take the man who through exposure has become totally deaf. Will anybody claim that to pay him thirteen dollars per month will be a just compensation? Take the man who, when he entered the service, was robust. He was then able not only to make a living and support a family, but get something ahead; now he is totally unable to perform manual labor. Can it be claimed that thirty dollars a month is a just compensation to him? So of many of the other sums, without reviewing them in detail. They are inadequate to make compensation, and inadequate in many cases to support the pensioner or his children, so that it is no wonder our poor-houses are filling up with the old soldiers and their children. As already pointed out, it makes no difference what other governments do. We must proceed on a different principle. With us all should contribute equally to the protection and support of our institutions, and when some have to give more than others they are justly entitled to compensation for the excess. JOHN P. ALTGELD. Chicago, January 3, 1888. JUSTICE TO THE DEAF SOLDIER. (Published in the "American Tribune," Indianapolis, Dec. 27, 1889.) Captain Wallace Foster : Mr Dear Mr. Foster: Your favor of the 25th ult., stating that "a deaf soldier has no show to enter the civil service, while the amputa- tion cases are found in every department at Washington," reached me some days ago, and confirms what my own observation had already led me to believe. It is remarkable that the government of this great republic should discriminate against the deaf soldier. But there has always been against him a discrimination invidious and unjust, tending to create a feeling of bitterness. Until about a year ago, the pension paid to a totally deaf soldier was only thirteen dollars per month. Think of thirteen dollars per month for a man totally deaf, while at the same time those that were disabled by reason of a loss or disability of limb or limbs 9 130 LIVE QUESTIONS. were paid from two to three times this amount, and more. Under the law of August 27, 1888, the totally deaf soldier is paid thirty dol- lars per month, while soldiers suffering from other disabilities may receive as high as seventy-two dollars per month, the loss of only one arm or of one leg entitling the pensioner to receive thirty-six dollars per month ; and yet experience has long shown that such a man can get employment where a totally deaf man cannot, and certainly in point of suffering that of the latter is infinitely greater than that of the former. The rules of the civil service and the practice thereunder to which you refer simply show that the same condition of things exists in the Federal service that is found in the world outside. The deaf soldier has little show of getting a job in either. It is fair to assume that the men who framed the rules, and the men who from time to time con- trolled the appointments, were honest, intelligent, and humane, and certainly as ready to assist the deaf soldier as any private employer would be. And the fact that the former has had little show in securing or holding positions in the Federal service simply demonstrates how unreasonable it is to expect him to get work from private employers, and how unjust it is to discriminate against him in fixing the pension to be paid him. No private employer will from choice select a deaf man. • If he employs him at all it is as a matter of charity, and he will keep him only as long as he feels that charity requires him to. So that even while doing the little work which may be given him, he must feel himself an object of charity; instead of receiving a cold potato at the kitchen door, a pittance is doled out to him in the shop. This is all wrong. Our country should not force such a humiliation on those of its defenders that were unfortunate. The American people are liberal, and, above all things, want to ,see justice done. The dif- ficulty grows out of the fact that the full extent of the disability and suffering resulting from total deafness is not at once perceived. When a man has lost a leg, or an arm, or his eyesight, the character of the affliction can be seen, and while not fully, it is still more nearly appreciated. But the deaf man can walk and see, so that at first view he does not seem to be so badly off as the other. It is not till after- ward that we discover that it is almost impossible for him to get any- thing to do. Particularly is this true now, when thousands of men who are in possession of all their faculties find it very difficult to earn a living, and nobody but himself and his God can fully understand how severe is the suffering that comes from the utter isolation from all man- kind into which he is forced. No voice of wife or child can gladden him ; no spoken word of friend can cheer him ; as a rule he must for- JUSTICE TO THE DEAF SOLDIER. 131 ever sit down alone, and can commune only with his own sad thoughts, and it seems to me that the government should see to it that these thoughts are not embittered by the feeling that the country which he helped to rescue when it was in peril, and in whose service he was disabled, now neglects him in the days of its greatness and of his misery. What is necessary is to make the public once understand the full meaning of your affliction. This once accomplished, you will be fairly dealt With. You and your comrades have already done very much in this direction, and I hope soon to see full justice done you. With kind regards, I am very truly yours, JOHN P. ALTGELD. Indianapolis, November 14, 1889. THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN CHICAGO. (Published in the Chicago Papers.) Hon. Sherwood Dixon, House of Representatives, Springfield. Dear Sir: In answer to your letter asking my views upon your bill, which provides that the judges of the trial courts may, under cer- tain conditions, give an oral charge to a jury, permit me to say that I am not satisfied with your bill, because it does not go far enough ; still, it is a step in the right direction, and I hope the General Assembly will take up the matter of regulating the practice in our courts, and treat it with that thoroughness which its importance demands. The main objections to our system of practice in the common law courts, referring particularly to Cook County, are : First. The uncertainty as to result without regard to the justice of a cause brought about in part by legislation, which experience has shown to have been unwise, in part by requiring a unanimous verdict, and in part by the fact that the higher courts have embarrassed and complicated the administration of justice by what have been called "frivolous technicalities," applied not to the merits of a cause but to some question of procedure, so that hundreds of cases are reversed and kept hanging in the courts for years, until the subject-matter of litigation is lost and the parties are worn out with expense and worry — not because the case had been wrongly decided in the trial court upon the merits, but solely because there was a difference of opinion concerning some question of procedure. Consequently, dishonest men, with no meritorious defense, are encouraged to litigate, and, as a mat- 132 LIVE QUESTIONS. ter of fact, have almost as good a chance of success — at least for several years — as those that have an honest case, and many honest men with meritorious cases are afraid to go into the courts because they feel that they have only a little better chance there than a scoundrel. Second. Another objection is that at present a lawsuit costs him who loses but little, if any more, than he who wins ; so a man without a just cause of action or meritorious defense can keep a case in the courts for years and subject his opponent to great expense and annoy- ance without taking any chances. As a result, many suits are brought which ought not to be, and many others, in which there is no defense, are fought for years, simply because an unscrupulous defendant finds it to his advantage to fight father than to settle. So that many meritor- ious cases are kept out of the courts, while our dockets are crowded with cases many of which ought not to be there, and many others of which should be speedily disposed of. Third. Another objection is unreasonable delay. This grows out of the conditions I have just mentioned, and at the same time aug- ments them. As a rule, it now takes from two to four years to dispose of a suit in our common law courts, whereas it should not take over forty days. At present, when a man begins a suit, he generally has to wait nearly two years before it comes up ; in the meantime, the situa- tion of the parties may have changed, or the subject-matter of the suit become worthless. Then he is notified by his lawyer that his case is about to be reached and that he must prepare for trial. Thereupon he partially neglects his business, has consultations with his lawyer, and looks around for his witnesses. In the course of a few days — or a few weeks — the case is actually placed on the call for the following day. Then he attends court with his witnesses for from two to ten days at great expense until the case is reached on the call, when it is dis- covered that on account of the engagement of counsel on one side or the other in some other court the case has to be passed for a short time. Then in the course of' a week — or sometimes of three or four weeks — he gets his witnesses together again and goes to the court-house, where he finds some other case on trial, and he is told to wait. In the course of a day or two his case is again reached, when the chances are about two to one that it will again have to be passed. And very frequently, after having neglected his business for weeks, and having been to great expense and trouble in getting his witnesses and attending court, it is found that on account of absent witnesses or some other cause the case must be continued, and that it will not be reached again for upward of a year, when he will have all his work and trouble of preparation, etc., to do over again. If, however, the trial is begun, then 'ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN CHICAGO. 133 he is astonished to find that it is apparently not the justice of his cause which is the main subject of inquiry, but that, instead, it is the rules of procedure about which great solicitude is shown. When the evi- dence is all heard and the lawyers have made their arguments, then he learns that we have had legislation in this State which changed the practice as it existed at common law and still prevails in the Federal courts, by which the judge was to point out to the jury just what the issues are, and state to them the law governing the case; but that, instead, the judge cannot give the jury any other than written instruc- tions. As a consequence the jury is often left with very confused notions as to what the issues of fact are; and as there is usually not time for a judge to write out a clear and concise charge covering the whole case after the evidence is closed, he is frequently obliged to give a number of instructions prepared by counsel for the respective parties, and which frequently fail to give to the jury much light or guidance ; so that the jury is liable to either bring in a verdict which is entirely wrong and must be set aside, or else to disagree and thus compel the parties to wait until the case is again reached in its order, and then do all this work over again. As the law requires a unanimous verdict, the suitor finds that if there should be a corrupt man on the panel, or a crank, or a man who felt offended at something said by another juror, he has it in his power to produce a miscarriage of justice without giving any reason. If, however, the suitor safely runs all these gauntlets and secures a verdict, which after a motion for a new trial has been argued, is left to stand, then a judgment is entered, and the defendant appeals to the appellate court. This takes about one year more, and occasions considerable expense for lawyers' fees, printing, etc. Then it is found that the appellate court reverses about forty per cent, of all cases brought to it, and sends them back to be tried over again ; and they are reversed, as a rule, not on the merits — not because an actual injustice has been done, but a great majority of cases are reversed because of what has been styled "some frivolous error" in the pro- cedure. Frequently some point which neither side thought of or urged in the court below is made a ground for reversal, because, to quote the language of the higher courts, "it may have influenced the jury"; not that it probably did influence the jury, or that the result should have been different on the evidence. So that our suitor finds that two chances out of five are against him in the higher court. If his case is reversed and sent back, then he finds himself just where he was when he started, and he has had upward of three years of expense, trouble, and worry for nothing. He must do all his work over again, and it will require from two to four more years to get through with 134 LIVE QUESTIONS. it. If, on the other hand, his case is affirmed by the appellate court, then, if the amount involved exceeds one thousand dollars, an appeal is again taken to the supreme court. This involves another delay of about a year, and the paying of lawyers' fees, printers' fees, etc. Here again his case may be reversed and sent back, and if it is, the suitor finds himself just where he started, and all his outlays and his worry have been for nothing. But as the supreme court at present cannot review the facts, but considers only questions of law, the chances of a reversal here are not so great. If the judgment is affirmed so that the lawsuit is finally ended, then he learns that the other — that is, the losing — side need pay him nothing for all the expense, delay, and trouble to which he had been subjected, even though his suit was founded on a promissory note. That is, a man with ever so honest a claim may be kept in the courts for years, kept out of the use of his money and put to great expense and trouble, and the other side need not pay his lawyers' fees, need not pay the printer's bills, need not pay for the delay, nor for the trouble and annoyance to which he has been subjected. Is it any wonder that many of our business men would rather lose a claim entirely than to go into court with it? Is it any wonder that many conscientious lawyers advise their clients to accept any kind of a settlement rather than attempt to litigate ? Is it not reasonably cer- tain that if the law were to provide that every time a case is decided on its merits in any court of record the court shall fix a reasonable attorney-fee to be paid by the losing party to the winning party, it would weed out much of the litigation we now have, and bring about a condition in which a man having an honest claim would not feel that he might as well lose it all as to go into a court of justice with it? Fourth. Still another objection urged with much force is that our present system entails a heavy expense on the public — on the non- litigating people — which they ought not to pay. Leaving out of consideration the probate and the county courts, which to a certain extent are administrative, there are in Cook county eighteen judges, including the superior and the circuit court judges. Two of these are constantly at the criminal court, leaving sixteen attending to civil business. It is true three of these are in the appellate court, but their salaries have to be charged to the public. 'ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN CHICAGO. 135 The salaries of these sixteen amount to $112,000 The expense of the clerks' offices of the superior and circuit courts for a year is 69,468 The expense of sheriff's office, chargeable to these two courts, over and above its earnings, is 7S,ooo The expense of keeping up court-house, and chargeable to these two courts, is 20,000 The jurors' fees for these two courts amount to 62,756 Total $339,124 The total earnings of the superior and of the circuit court clerks' offices amount to 107,487 $231,737 Leaving $231,737 as the sum which the people of Cook County pay an- nually for the benefit of its litigants. The present fee to be paid on commencing a suit is $6 ; and by a defendant on entering an appear- ance is $1.50. The total number of suits brought, including appeals from justices, in the superior and the circuit courts during the year 1888, was 12,380, as follows : 3,460 suits in chancery ; 7,960 suits at law ; and 2,325 ap- peals from justices. They were disposed of as follows : Judgment entered by default or confessions, 2,759 > 3>°39 were dismissed for want of prosecution, and 3,407 were tried. So that there were about 3,000 more cases brought during the year than were disposed of. If we take $339,224, the total expense to the public, and divide it by 12,380, the total number of suits brought, we have $27.40, the amount which each suit should contribute in order to defray the expense ; or if we divide by 9,205, the number of cases disposed of, we have $38.59 which each case should contribute. But as it would be unjust to require a small case, which consumes but a few hours, to contribute as much as one taking up several days, it would perhaps be better to repeal the statute which provides that in Cook County $6 advanced by the plaintiff and $1.50 by the defendant shall be in full of all costs to be paid to the clerk of the court. In that case the clerk would collect fees for everything that is done and turn them over to the county treasurer, as is now the practice throughout the State ; and it is believed that this would give ample funds to cover the. whole expense. It may be added that the law limiting the fees to be paid in Cook County was passed at a time when the clerks pocketed all the fees paid and amassed vast fortunes. It was intended to limit their income. But since clerks are paid a salary and are required to pay all fees into the county treasury, the reason for the law has ceased to exist. If, however, the statute cannot be repealed, then I would 136 LIVE QUESTIONS. leave the fees as they are, and suggest that the clerk be required to tax a fee of twenty-five dollars per day to be paid to the county for each day or fraction of a day consumed at the trial — this to be paid by the losing side, unless otherwise ordered by the court. Referring again to the expense of keeping up our system of juris- prudence in proportion to results attained, I will add that the total amount of moneyed judgments rendered in the circuit and superior courts of Cook County during the year 1888 was $7,831,174, the greater part of which was in cases in which there was default or a confession, and a very large per cent, of which is worthless because of the insolvency of the defendants. To this work must be added judg- ments in cases seeking other than moneyed relief, such as ejectment suits, injunction suits, etc., and suits in which it was sought to re- cover money but in which the court found for defendant. If we thus take the expense to the public, as already shown, and add to this the expense to the litigants in the 12,380 cases, in the way of lawyers' fees on both sides, witnesses' fees or time on both sides, inci- dental expenses on both sides, loss of time and neglect of business on both sides in preparing for trial, attending court, etc., to say nothing of the worry and anxiety — it is a question whether the cost will not exceed the total results attained — that is, whether it does not on the average cost us more to secure for a man his rights than they are worth to him. Just what this expense and loss to litigants and wit- nesses would average, it is of course impossible to say. It has been variously estimated at from $150 to $250 to each side, or from $300 to $500 in each case. If this estimate is nearly correct, then there is little doubt that the expense and loss amount to more than can be realized on all the judgments rendered, or than would have been required to settle all matters in dispute. There can be no doubt that, if we had encouraged arbitration, instead of discouraging it, a great saving would have been effected to both public and litigants. But instead of encouraging a speedy adjust- ment of disputes, by having parties submit their claims to arbitrators selected by themselves, the courts have almost invited the party de- feated in an arbitration to come into court and tie the whole matter up for several years, and then have often set the award aside on purely technical grounds. What I would respectfully urge upon the consideration of the General Assembly is an amendment of the law so as to provide : First. That in all courts of record in this State the judge shall orally state the law governing the case, as was the practice at common law and is now the practice in the Federal courts. ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN CHICAGO. 137 Upon this point I will simply add that the statute requiring the instructions to be in writing was passed in order that there should be no dispute as to what the charge was ; and inasmuch as the law at present provides for a stenographer to attend the sittings of every cir- cuit court to report the proceedings, the reason for requiring that the instructions be in writing no longer exists ; and as there generally is not time to write a comprehensive charge, and, consequently, cases are fre- quently submitted in an unsatisfactory manner to a jury, the law should be changed. What we need is to restore trial by jury more nearly to the condition and form in which it existed at the common law and still exists in the Federal courts, taking away, however, the power of one man to thwart justice; and when this is done, this system of trial will remain the best that has yet been devised. On the last point I will add that, in all other important, and even vital, matters, we accept the decision of the majority. A majority settles all questions of taxa- tion and expenditure, all questions of peace and of war. A majority decides who shall make the laws. A majority decides what shall be law, and, finally, a majority decides who shall interpret and administer the law. In short, questions which reach to the very hearthstone of the citizen, and involve the existence of our institutions, are settled by the majority, and if, concerning any of these matters, a man were to urge absolute unanimity, we would question his sanity. But in determining a dispute over property, we put it into the power of one man — be he rogue, or crank, or sullen fool — without any risk to make a mis- carriage of justice, or a farce out of a proceeding which may have consumed days and have cost both the public and the litigants large sums of money. And when asked why we permit such an anomaly, our only answer is, that they did things in this way more than a hun- dred years ago ; when in truth trial by jury then was a very differ- ent thing from what it is to-day, for then the judge practically tried the case. If in civil cases we were now to accept a verdict of three-fourths of a panel, we would preserve all that is conservative and useful in our jury system, and would put an end to the "funny verdicts" that we hear about, and which are generally due to one man ; and particularly would we put an end to the tampering with justice, which in large cities is a serious evil. I am in favor of trial by jury, and am opposed to its abolition ; but the system is now so hampered as to make it a kind of absurdity. Let us make it a rational institution, and it will command the respect of everybody. Second. That when rendering judgment on the merits in any case in a court of record, the court shall fix a reasonable attorney-fee, to be paid by the losing party to the winning party : Provided, that if it 138 LIVE QUESTIONS. appears that an offer to compromise had been made and kept good by the losing party, and no more is recovered than had been offered, then no attorney-fee shall be allowed for what was done thereafter; and provided, that an attorney-fee shall only be allowed for trying a case on the merits. Third. Either let the clerk of the court collect fees for everything that is done, and turn them into the county treasury, or else tax as costs, to go to the county, a reasonable sum for every day, or fraction thereof, which a case consumes at the trial ; so that the non-litigating public may at least partially be relieved of the burden of expense created solely by litigants. Fourth. That before any appellate court or the supreme court shall reverse a case and send it back to be tried over, the judges of such court, or a majority thereof, shall state, in writing, that an in- justice has been done the appellant in the judgment on the merits by the trial court; and shall also specify wherein such injustice consists. As to this fourth suggestion, I will simply say that if the framers of the Constitution, and the people in adopting it, intended, in creating a system of jurisprudence, that courts should be places for lawyers to fence and judges to theorize, and that cases should be treated simply as a corpse in a dissecting-room — that is, used to illustrate a principle — then no change should be made, for in many cases the present system produces everything that could then be desired. But if the object in creating and maintaining courts was to do justice between man and man, and if rules of procedure were to be used simply as means to this end, then no reasonable objection can be urged against this provision. The trouble now is that we lift cases into the domain of opinion where there always is a diversity of views, and then, on points which settle nothing and do not decide the merits, we keep cases bounding back- ward and forward like a foot-ball, to the ruin of litigants — the appellate court reversing the trial court, and the supreme court reversing the* appellate court. Fifth. That if a matter is submitted to arbitration, the award shall be final, and shall be set aside only for fraud ; and that when set aside, the arbitrators shall make a new award ; and that in cases of mistake, or where the award is uncertain, the arbitrators may amend it or cor- rect it. In conclusion, let me remark that in the mercantile world, in the manufacturing world, in agriculture, in medicine, in fact, in nearly every field of knowledge or human activity, there has been an advance, a steady improvement, a movement in the line of common sense, an honest effort to keep abreast of the spirit of the nineteenth century; CONSTABLES, JUSTICES, AND FEE SYSTEM. 139 while in our methods of administering justice we seem rather to have retrograded. What changes we have made in this State have tended rather to complicate than to simplify. A century ago trial by jury in civil causes was simple, expeditious, and, upon the whole, satisfactory. We have hampered and crippled it in its workings until many good people are seriously advocating its abolition. A century ago the courts of appeal wrote opinions that were short and to the point, and gen- erally decisive of the case ; now, courts of appeal, not only in this State, write long essays — learned disquisitions which frequently evade the main question and settle nothing. On behalf of our great profession, I ask, "Cannot we, also, go forward?" Very truly yours, JOHN P. ALTGELD, Judge of the Superior Court. Chicago, February 12, 1889. THE ABOLITION OF CONSTABLES, JUSTICES, AND THE FEE SYSTEM. Hon. David Bartlett, Member of the Constitutional Convention, Bismarck, North Dakota. Dear Sir : In answer to your letter inquiring about the jurisdi . tion, usefulness, and popularity of county courts in this State, and whether they could not be made to take the place of justices of the peace, so as to do away with the latter, permit me to say that, in this State, county courts have jurisdiction in all tax, matters, insane cases, all probate matters, election matters, and in civil cases where the amount involved is less than one thousand dollars. In this county, owing to the press of business, the legislature created a probate court several years ago to relieve the county court. I may say that the county courts have jurisdiction in those matters which come nearest to the people, and most directly affect them, and, all things consid- ered, I believe they are the most useful and the most popular tribunals in this State. So far as I can observe, business is usually done by them not only in a legal, but also in a business-like and common-sense method, and without, unnecessary delay, the latter being something which cannot always be said of our higher courts. While I have a high regard for some men who now hold the office of justice of the peace, yet I would recommend the abolishing of this office, and that of constable, and, instead, the giving to the county court jurisdiction in all matters now heard by justices ; but care should be taken at the same 140 LIVE QUESTIONS. time to provide that the county judge, as well as clerk and sheriff, should be paid a fixed salary, and that these should, under no circum- stances, have any fees, but that all fees, where any are collected, should be. paid into the county treasury. If you have justices of the peace you cannot pay all a salary, because of their number. And while there will be here and there one to whom the office will be incidental, there will be a great many who will depend largely on the fees for a living, and this leads everywhere to the same results, viz., injustice, oppression, extortion, and frivolous lawsuits, ruinous in the expense and in the loss of time which they entail. The courts become clogged with busi- ness, while the poor and the ignorant suffer. Do away with both justices and constables, for they must depend on fees, and, as a rule, are always on the lookout, eager to "drum up" business ; and it is difficult to conceive of a worse demoralization and rottenness than usually grows out of this system. Provide for sufficient deputy-sheriffs to do the court work and all the work required to keep peace, and pay each a salary, and under no circumstances let any keep the fees. To permit any officer, whether judicial or executive, connected in any manner with the administration of justice, to collect and keep fees is to offer a standing temptation, if not a bribe, to do wrong in very many matters. And it is asking too much of human nature to expect a hungry man to be very scrupulous about the means or methods which will secure him bread. Have the courts easily accessible and always open for business. There is no sense in having terms of court, and these held only a few times a year, so that there must be delay in getting a trial, whether there is much business or not. If the same judge is to hold the court in several counties, or if there is but little business, he can easily arrange matters by having the clerk give notice of the time at which a case will be heard. There is no reason why the average case should not be tried in the circuit court in fifteen days after service, just as it wpuld before a justice of the peace. Although this has been hurriedly written, I wish to assure you of my interest in the prosperity and happiness of your new State, and of my hope that you will be able to avoid errors and abuses which, once rooted, will be difficult to cure. Very respectfully your obedient servant, JOHN P. ALTGELD, Judge of the Superior Court. Chicago, July 19, 1889. PROTECTING THE BALLOT BOX. 141 PROTECTING THE BALLOT-BOX.— THE AUSTRALIAN PLAN. Hon. Richard Burke, Senate Chamber, Springfield. My Dear Senator : Your esteemed favor in relation to the Austra- lian system of voting came to hand. I have considered the question of engrafting this system upon the laws of Illinois, and am strongly in favor of so doing. I would have written you sooner, but as we already have an elaborate election ma- chinery in Illinois, particularly in Chicago, it required much time to examine details in order to learn whether we could adopt the Australian system, and at the same time keep what is called our new election law substantially intact. This law, as you are aware, was adopted by a popular vote, and while it is in some respects defective, it is still a very great improvement upon the old lax system; par- ticularly is this true of that part which provides for a careful registra- tion of voters. Because it is an improvement upon the old system the new law is popular with our people, and unless its salient features will remain undisturbed by the adoption of the Australian system it will be useless to give the latter subject any attention. But I am convinced not only that this can be done, but that it would be approved by every lover of an honest election and a fair and entirely free ballot, and I believe that the inclosed bill will accomplish the desired result. If adopted, this system will secure us not only an honest and free ex- pression of the popular will upon any question from both rich and poor, high and low — which alone would be enough to warrant its adoption — but it would do more: it would put an end to the small political boss, with his retainers; it would wipe out the partisan ticket-peddlers, and the entire crowd of half ruffians who sometimes are found at the polls, and who make themselves so offensive by importun- ing the voter that many modest men hesitate to go there. Further, it would enable a poor man to run for office, for he would need no ticket-peddlers, nor any of the machinery that is now necessary to get his tickets into the voter's hands, and it would make him abso- lutely independent of the party boss. In short, it would place every candidate upon his own personal merits before the people; and by enabling the elector to vote for the best men without scratching his ticket, it would destroy that partisan tyranny which, by thorough organization, is at present enabled to foist on the public bad men and bad measures, simply because it is embarrassing for a man to scratch his ticket in the presence of his party associates. 142 LIVE QUESTIONS. Again, it would stop the practice that prevails among some em- ployers of forcing their men to vote as directed, and it would also stop to some extent the use of money at the polls ; for under this system it would be impossible for the purchaser of a vote to make sure of its delivery. In regard to the importance of protecting the ballot, so as to make it what the spirit of our institutions contemplate that it should be, there can be among thoughtful men no difference of opinion. It is the vital organ of our whole system; destroy its functions and we perish. It is true that, like other republican institutions, it possesses great vitality, and can stand some abuse. We have seen one great political party, with apparent justification, charge its adversary with having thwarted the express will of the American people in seating a chief magistrate of the nation, and with having thereafter, in various States, repeatedly outraged a free ballot by bribery and corruption. While the other great political party, with equal justification, ac- cuses its opponent with systematically defeating the will of the ma- jority in certain localities by fraud and intimidation. But while these things show that our system has great powers of endurance and great recuperative force, we must bear in mind that we are dealing with the heart, and, although it may do its work for a time, yet a continuation of abuses must not only weaken it, but eventually stop its action, and with its expiring beat will come the end of our free institutions. We read that when the children of Israel were marching through ' the wilderness, by divine instruction they deposited those things which were most sacred in the ark, near which only those especially com- missioned by Jehovah were permitted to come. Every stranger at- tempting to approach it was smitten dead upon the spot. The American people have likewise been given an ark, in which to deposit the most sacred things known to man, namely, the ballots of free men ; and we should see to it that only those authorized to do so by law be permitted to approach this ark, and that every person at- tempting to lay unclean hands upon it be overtaken by the wrath of a free people, which should be as destructive as the lightnings of Jehovah. Very truly yours, JOHN P. ALTGELD. Chicago, 111., January 22, 1889. IS THE WORLD WORSE? 143- IS THE WORLD WORSE?— DIVORCES.— MORAL TRAINING. George R. Stetson, Boston, Mass. My Dear Sir: Your favor of the 7th inst. came to hand, and I thank you for the kindly reference to my little book. I fully agree with you in regard to the importance of "proper home influences in childhood and of thorough and well-disciplined educa-. tion in early life." In fact, upon these hangs the hope of the future. You have placed me under obligations by sending me a copy of your articles on "Illiteracy and Crime" and "The Necessity of Moral and Industrial Training." I have read them with great interest, and hope they may have a wide circulation. While I am in hearty accord with you in your aims, and admit the necessity of more thorough moral as well as industrial training of the young, yet, if you will pardon me for saying so, I do not believe that the world is any worse now than it was fifty years, or more, ago, as you seem to infer, from the fact that arrests and convictions for crime, as well as the number of divorces, in proportion to population, are in- creasing. On the contrary, I believe that, all things considered, the world is a little better now than it has been in the past. But we have devised and adopted new agencies for detecting and recording the foi- bles and transgressions of not only men, but even of children, and in order to convince us that they are doing something, these agencies bring to our attention thousands of cases which before went unnoticed. Just as the microscope reveals a whole world which existed, but was al- most unknown before, so our modern police systems, detective agencies, municipal governments, with their multifarious ordinances, etc., bring to light and record acts the greater part of which used to pass un- noticed. I can remember the time when the magistrate took notice of only the more serious offenses, and when, if a man was found drunk on the streets, he was simply taken home ; if a boy got into mischief, his father would whip him, and that was the end of it; if two men quarreled, they would fight it out and then go home ; even many dan- gerous criminals went undetected, but now all this is changed. . Not only are the grave offenders more generally detected, but all the parties guilty of trivial offenses must now be arrested, tried, put in jail, etc., so that the record will, of course, show a greater number of arrests and convictions than formerly. But this, it seems to me, does not neces- sarily prove that men are any more depraved or vicious now than they were in the past. Further, the effect of numerous arrests, incarcerations, prison asso- 144 LIVE QUESTIONS. ciations, etc., is to break the self-respect and weaken the moral char- acter of many of the young, and thus to prepare them for the com- mission of crimes of which they would never have been guilty except for their degrading experiences. Therefore, while prison statistics may assist us in forming a correct opinion concerning the present moral condition of society, it seems to me they are of little value for the purpose of comparison between different periods. In regard to the increase in the number of divorces in proportion to the population, allow me to ask, Would this not almost necessarily follow an era of great educational activity, an era in which there were a thousand agencies at work, not only among men but among women, all tending to place the latter on an equality with men, and tending, in many cases, to create dissatisfaction with existing conditions? Would there not almost necessarily follow a period of transition or re- adjustment, and when the readjustment has taken place will the or- ganization of society not rest on a more intelligent basis than before, and therefore the world be a little better than before, although it may appear worse while the readjustment is in process ? Besides, is it not true that the number of divorces is in proportion to the progress made in the emancipation of women? In those countries where women are merely beasts of burden there are no divorces. Further, is separation, with all its ills, not better for society than union and the rearing of % family amid depraving and brutal conditions? It seems to me that children who have frequently to see their mother thrashed by a brutal or drunken father cannot get a very exalted idea of life, and that any system which will keep a man and woman together under these cir- cumstances is barbarous, and cannot possibly be productive of any good to the world. "The degeneracy of the times" has always been a favorite theme, but one which is liable to mislead, and ever must be so, for the imperfec- tions, weaknesses, and follies of "the present" are not only seen, but are felt; whereas the imperfections, weaknesses, and follies of "the past" are not only unfelt, but are mostly unseen, because the mists of oblivion hide all but the more conspicuous objects and events from our view. While, therefore, different periods of history may be compared, it is very difficult to compare "the present" with any other time. However, while claiming that the world is better now than for- merly, I admit that it is still bad, and that there is a crying necessity for more thorough moral and industrial training, and I hope you may be able to arouse the interest of the American public in this question, and thus pave the way for improved methods of instruction. I like your idea of moral text-books for use in schools. If prop- IS THE WORLD WORSE? 145 erly prepared, I believe they will serve an excellent purpose. The trouble now is with much of the moral teaching that it holds up the punishment for wrong-doing as a remote event, before the happen- ing of which there will be abundant opportunity to reform, to be for- given, etc., so that the child gets np proper comprehension of the instantaneous, degrading, and weakening effect upon its nature of doing a mean or a wrong act. The child gets an abstract or theoretic notion of right and wrong, and thinks it can go and do the wrong and yet be precisely the same person afterward that it was before, simply having taken the chance of, at some time, being punished. In other words, our youth, as a rule, are not made to understand that every time they tell a lie or steal or do any wrong act, their nature under- goes a change and they are no longer quite the same persons "that they were before; or, on the other hand, that every time they do a noble act they expand and instantly become stronger and greater than they were before. Their idea of punishment is that it is an arbitrary decree of religion ; they get no idea of the degrading and weakening effect of sin on both mind and body. We tell a child to avoid fire, and it obeys ; not because it may be damned for disobedience, but because it knows that there will be instant suffering. Make the child once thor- oughly understand that if it does any wrong act there will follow instant suffering, and it will heed where now it does not. In many cases morals can be successfully taught from a purely re- ligious standpoint, but in very many others this can only be done from a practical point of view, and the needs of these cases could be met by moral text-books such as you recommend. Asking your pardon for thus obtruding my views on your attention, and hoping you will favor me with a copy of any article you may publish in the future, I am, Very respectfully yours, JOHN P. ALTGELD. Chicago, 111., September 30, 1887.' SLAVE-GIRLS OF CHICAGO. VIEWS ON THE CONDITION OF THE POOR DRUDGES IN OUR FACTORIES.— FACTS TO SHOW THAT LEGISLATION CAN DO AN ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF GOOD IN THE MATTER— HOW PAUPER LABOR AFFECTS WAGES AND TENDS TO PRODUCE THIS DEPLORABLE STATE OF THINGS. NOTE. — During the summer of 1888 the Chicago Times published a series of articles exposing in a graphic manner the appalling conditions of the great multitude of children and women that are working in our factories and in other 10 146 LIVE QUESTIONS. industrial establishments of Chicago. The articles called attention, particularly, to the fact that there are many thousands of children of tender years who for a pittance are doing the work of adults and becoming stunted in both body and mind when they should be at school, and to the further fact that many thou- sands of women work ten hours, and more, per day, and get only from three to four dollars per week, and bqard themselves and frequently lose a part of this because of fines, which in some cases seem to be imposed with a view of still further reducing their wages, while the sanitary and moral surroundings of both the children and the women in the shops are often of a revolting character. In answer to a letter from the editor concerning these subjects, the following article was written and published in the Chicago Times, Septem- ber 9, 1888. To the Editor: In answer to your letter relating to the "slave- girls" of Chicago : I have read all the articles published in the Times with great interest, and while the reporter, owing to the short time spent in each establishment, almost necessarily gof wrong impressions in some cases, and perhaps has done some firms an injustice, yet I know from experience and personal observation that upon the whole the picture is not overdrawn, and I will add that in making this ex- posure so general and so thorough the Times has rendered to the toil- ing poor, and in the long run to society, inestimable service. The first and all-important step toward improvement always is to get light into dark places. Ingersoll says that the sun is the only God that ever protected women. Whether this is so or not, it is true that sunlight is the great purifier, reformer, and elevator of the uni- verse. Wrong thrives in bad light and foul air. Turn the sunlight of intelligence on an evil long enough, and it will dissolve it. The Times has turned the light on the condition of the toiling girls and women of Chicago at least long enough to give a view of the situation, and the remedy will gradually appear. No complete remedy can be made to order in advance. What is needed is a change of condition, and this can only come by degrees., As to these people themselves, it is necessary to raise their standard of intelligence ; until this is done they can do but little to help them- selves, for ignorance and helplessness go together. Society can do this and it can furnish them protection — nothing more ; nor will much more be required, for this once done they will be able tb take care of themselves. The trouble is that the light cannot be turned upon the case long enough, and it will probably be a long time before such powerful rays will again be thrown on it. Meanwhile society, with its ten thousand other affairs, must move on, and the majority will soon cease to take an active interest in thus matter; in fact, will forget about; it, SLAVE-GIRLS OF CHICAGO. 147 But enough interest has been aroused to set in motion some of the forces which will bring about a change, and there will be found to be some men and women who have this matter at heart, and who will keep the fire slowly burning and keep up an agitation through weary years, sometimes getting a little disheartened, but in the end triumphing. All great movements require time, labor, and sacrifice. You ask, "Can anything be done for these girls by legislation?" Emphatically yes. It has already done much for them, both here and in Europe, and will do more. Understand me ; legislation cannot fix prices, but it can, and to a certain extent does, reach almost every other feature of the case, and indirectly may even affect prices. For example: Legislation can prevent children of tender years from be- ing stunted in factories when they should be at school, and thus it can not only reduce the number of competitors, but wipe out the prac- tice of hiring children to do the work of adults, one of the worst of existing abuses. Legislation can secure to every shop-girl good light, good ventilation, reasonably comfortable quarters while at work, healthy sanitary conditions, such as sufficient wash-bowls (not dirty sinks), ample closet-rooms, etc. In countries that do not boast as much of their enlightenment as we do, legislation has for years given to every child, no matter how poor, a certain number of months' schooling and incidental training every year and it will eventually do so here ; and as general ignorance is perhaps the main cause of the helplessness of the poorer classes, when we once give all children at least half a chance to develop into intelligent men and women, instead of growing up on the streets to become criminals or in shops to become stunted for life, we shall have made considerable headway in furnishing a remedy. Again, legislation can and in time will put an end to the whole- sale importation by mine-owners, large employers, and other inter- ested parties, of European paupers who do not come as independent immigrants; of the latter this country does not complain, in fact it owes much of its greatness to them; but these paupers are brought over like so many cattle, and necessarily glut the labor-market and drag down the American laborer (whether native-born or naturalized) with his family. I know it is said, "Oh,' legislation amounts to noth- ing unless there is public sentiment to back it," and this is true. But this agitation will create public sentiment ; in fact, it is never brought into existence in any other way, and it generally takes time, much hard work, and much tribulation to create it; and has it occurred to you that public sentiment usually accomplishes little in matters of this kind until it crystallizes into legislation? In fact, society gives ex- 14.8 LIVE QUESTIONS. pression to its sentiment on a public question by means of legislation. While legislation not backed by public sentiment may be a dead letter, public sentiment produces definite and lasting results only through legislation. Moral suasion and the benign influence of religion are beautiful, but unfortunately in all ages there have been men who went straight from the sanctuary into the world and plundered and trampled on the weak, and, what is more, they lost neither their seats nor their influence in the temple. So that after all it is legislation which pro- tects the lowly. And legislation itself is a matter of growth; it is scarcely ever efficient at first, and only after experience has suggested the necessary alterations and amendments does it become potent. If any one doubts the efficacy of legislation in this direction, let him study the history and results of the factory and mining legislation in England and some of the continental countries, and he will find that while we are great politicians and make a great noise, yet in practical and enlightened statesmanship some of the European coun- tries are a full half century in advance of us. Early in this century there existed in the English factories and mines a condition of things which reduced women and children almost below the brutes, a con- dition compared with which the Chicago slave-girls are lolling in luxury. To quote an eminent author: "A whole generation were growing up under conditions of physical degeneracy, of mental ignor- ance, and of moral corruption." In 1802, after much agitation, an act, very narrow in its scope, was passed to protect apprentices in certain factories. In 1815 Sir Robert Peel endeavored to secure similar protection for children in certain factories, but he was not able to secure the passage of such an act till in 1819, for it met with the most bitter opposition, as did every one of the many measures thereafter passed to protect women and children. Not only did the employers do everything within their power in opposition, but so-called statesmen, political economists, phi- losophers, and many of the clergy united to oppose them. Every argument and every sophistry that the mind can conceive was ex- hausted by these eminent people, and they predicted the industrial and financial ruin of the British empire as the result of such legislation. It is a curious and sad fact that in the long, weary upward march of the human race there was scarcely ever an act proposed for the pro- tection, emancipation, or elevation of the poor but met with the most violent opposition from the so-called better classes, as well as from statesmen and philosophers and from many of the clergy. After the act of 1819 the agitation was kept up by a few human- itarians. In 1825 another act was passed, broader in its scope, and SLAVE-GIRLS OF CHICAGO. 149 owing to continued agitation thereafter, at intervals of from two to six years down to 1878, acts broader and more stringent in their char- acter were passed, resulting in the most advanced system of factory and mining legislation in the world — a system which has been adopted by almost every civilized country in Europe. Although the earlier acts were evaded in every way and were practically dead letters, yet in the end they accomplished more than their friends had expected of them. In 1867 the great Duke of Argyle, in writing of this legislation, said : "Some of the old opponents have admitted that their fear of the results in an economical point of view has proved erroneous. But there is no clear and well-grounded intellectual perception of the deep foundations of principle on which it rests. Nor is there among a large section of politicians any adequate appreciation of the powerful influence it has had in improving the physical condition of the people and securing their contentment with the laws under which they live. When, however, we think for a moment of the frightful nature of the evils which this legislation has checked and which to a large extent it has remedied, when we recollect the connection between ■suffering and political disaffection, when we consider the great moral laws which were being trodden under foot from mere thoughtlessness and greed, we shall be convinced that if, during the last fifty years, it has been given to this country to make any progress in political science, that progress has been in nothing happier than in the factory legislation. No government and no minister has ever done greater — perhaps all things considered, none has ever done so great a service. It was alto- gether a new era in legislation — the adoption of a new principle — the establishment of a new idea." I will only add on this point that we have already recognized the principle and adopted some of this factory legislation, and have already derived some benefits' from it. It is, perhaps, true that it is not prop- erly enforced, and it will probably require much more legislation to make it efficacious, but if only a few zealous and determined people will continue this agitation, they will, in time, secure not only the needed legislation, but a proper enforcement of it. The same is true of the compulsory education act. It may be a dead letter now, but it will not always be so ; by and by some earnest persons will come along and stir the matter up, and men will be made to understand that if they want to enjoy the honors or emolu- ments of office, they must discharge all the duties of that office, whether they be agreeable or not. There are few questions that more vitally affect the State, for children growing up on the street are almost cer- ISO LIVE QUESTIONS. tain to become criminals, and thus a menace and expense to society. Likewise, the toiling of women and children in shops amid conditions which dwarf, stupefy, and destroy must produce pauperism and crime, and it is as much the duty of the State to prevent these as it is its duty to repel a hostile invasion. You ask whether woman should be paid the same wages as man when she does the same work. To this there can be but one answer. If she does the same quantity and quality of work under the same conditions as a man, simple justice requires that she should be paid the same wages. To deny her this is to deny her justice. In answer to your question: "Are not the wages in many lines of protected manufacturing and mining industries out of all propor- tion to the profits of the employers?" I will simply say that I do not wish to discuss the tariff here, but the exposure just made by the Times, as well as the facts now being brought out before the con- gressional committee in New York, added to what was already known in regard to the importation of Italians, Belgians, Poles, Hungarians, etc., in the manufacturing and mining districts of the East, all show conclusively that the American laborer has for many years had to compete with the cheapest kind of European labor. The wages in the shops and in the factories of Chicago, as shown by the Times, were in many cases not fixed with reference to the amount of protection, but by the lowest European standard. They are at starvation's edge, and they never get below that in Europe. For example, two, three, and four dollars per week and board one^s self for ten hours' toil a day. So the wages paid in the cigar manufactories and other establishments of the East, as shown by the congressional investigation now in progress, are below what it is possible for an American to live on. They are fixed, not with reference to the tariff, but by the people that are brought over here from Europe. It is almost the lowest European standard. Establishments that used to pay ten dollars a week to American laborers now pay three and four dollars to imported Euro- peans for doing the same work. It is true that all establishments do not employ imported laborers, but enough do to fix the standard of wages. If only a few establishments in the same line get their work done for four dollars a week by foreigners, this will become the standard all along the line, even in houses employing Americans, for the latter cannot pay ten dollars and compete with the former ; and as it has been shown that there is scarcely a line of industry in which these imported laborers have not been introduced, it follows that the standard of wages has been largely fixed by what these imported people will wprk for, ANONYMOUS JOURNALISM. 151 For years we have heard of the Italians, Poles, Hungarians, etc., who were imported constantly into Pennsylvania, and in many cases when these people refused to submit to further reductions of wages they were simply discharged and their places filled with fresh impor- tations. So that now Mr. Powderly claims that almost all American citizens, both native-born and naturalized, have been driven out of the mines and the great manufacturing establishments of that great State. The proprietors have been protected, but the laborers have had to move on, and that, too, in many cases by the assistance of po- licemen's clubs and Pinkerton rifles. I see that the investigation in New York disclosed the fact that our estimable protectionist townsmen who built the Texas state-house sent to Scotland for most of their skilled labor, and employed Texas convicts to do the unskilled labor. And so it goes all along the line. There seems to be protection for everybody but the laborer, and he is gradually getting between two mill-stones — above him the protective tariff makes him pay high prices for the necessaries of life, while below him the imported laborer is steadily and surely pulling away the foun- dations on which he stands. If this process is not arrested, then, like the Indian, the American laborer must wither from the land, as he is already doing in Pennsylvania and in some sections of the East. Leg- islation, and only legislation, can arrest this process. It is easy and pleasant to talk sympathetically about these matters and to advance beautiful theories, but if we want to do practical work we must face cold facts. JOHN P. ALTGELD. ANONYMOUS JOURNALISM AND ITS EFFECTS. (Published in "Belford's Magazine," October, 1889.) In the evolution of the newspaper from the occasional news-letter of the seventeenth century to the great journal of to-day, the press has changed from a passive instrument, dependent upon and voicing only the sentiments of an individual, to a kind of self-conscious entity which is bigger than any individual ; an entity which Frederick Knight Hunt, nearly forty years ago in England, called the Fourth Estate of the Realm. The successive stages in this development may be generalized as, first, personal organs; second, party organs, and lastly, independent journals. In the first two stages it was still an instrument depending upon the editor j but in the third it is an institution upon which the editor 152 LIVE QUESTIONS. depends. When the paper was small the author of almost every article was known to the public. The editor had an interest in the paper, if he did not own it entirely. His name appeared at the head of its columns as its editor; and he wrote most, if not everything, that appeared in it. In fact, he held himself individually responsible for everything, and was personally known to nearly all who read the paper. There were exceptions, but I speak of the rule. Thus when, near the close of the last century, the National Ga- zette persistently attacked Hamilton and the Federal party, the coun- try turned to the editor, Philip Freneau. When Horace Greeley wrote most of the matter that went into the Morning Post and the Log Cabin, and when he subsequently founded and edited the New York Tribune, the public looked to Greeley. When Thurlow Weed pub- lished the Albany Evening Journal, its articles were accepted or re- jected according to the confidence had in Weed. So of the country newspapers of to-day ; the personnel of the edi- tors, who are generally also publishers and men-of-all-work, is known almost co-extensively with the circulation of their papers, and they are more influential in the community, as citizens, than are the writers on great city journals. This consciousness of the editor, that his identity is fully known to the public, creates a sense of responsibility which, in time, strength- ens and develops the man. If, in moving among his fellow-men, he feels that they know exactly what he has said and done, he will be more candid ; he will learn to look men in. the face ; he will be more apt to stick to the truth and hold to what is right; he will be more ready to acknowledge his error when wrong; he will be more apt to keep within the range of the sympathy and good opinion of his fel- lowmen. Instead of being simply an editor, he will continue to be a man among men. The man will grow as well as the editor, and both will become greater than is possible where there is only a one-sided development. Consequently we find that the earlier newspaper writers were prominent public characters. In fact, in the end they became greater in the public eye as men than as editors. The man outgrew the edi- tor. Instead of his being lost in the newspaper, as is now the case, the newspaper was merged in the man. Being thus greater than the newspaper, he survived connection with it. Horace Greeley was known to the whole American people as a great character. Even if the paper he founded were to go out of existence, the memory of Greeley could not. Thurlow Weed became one of the most conspicuous and influen- 'ANONYMOUS JOURNALISM. i$$ tial politicians in the United States — not as an editor, but as a man. The paper was only the medium through which he expressed his thoughts. The giant could not hide behind his sword. How many newspaper editors are there to-day who hide — and successfully too — behind their papers? In i860 the majority of the men who were prominent in national affairs had been connected with newspapers. There are not so many now ; and, as a rule, the newspaper editor who is in public life to-day is connected, not with the large city papers, except where he is a proprietor, but with some smaller paper which is known to voice only his sentiments. What is said above applies equally to the great public men of the Old World who were newspaper editors. For whether fomenting a revolution in France, or defending libel prosecutions in England, they did not hide behind their papers, but, as a rule, stood erect "before all Israel and the sun ;" and while their papers are forgotten, the men are not. But now every large newspaper is an institution which, in some instances, has more than fifty different persons who contribute regularly to its columns. All these write anonymously. The paper, the institution only, is seen and known. The name of the man claiming to be the legal owner or publisher may also be known ; but the editors — the authors of the various articles, comments, criticisms, and state- ments — are not known, not even collectively; much less is it known who is the author of any particular article, statement, or comment. So far as the public and the persons directly affected by anything con- tained in the paper are concerned, it is all anonymous. Now, there is a universal contempt felt for the man who writes an anonymous letter and sends it through the mail; and, paradoxical as it may seem, no one expresses more contempt and indignation at the cowardice and want of manhood of the anonymous letter-writer than the average newspaper editor, who not only makes his living by anonymous writ- ing, but who would not be willing to sign his name to one-half of the articles he publishes. The moral, or rather the immoral, effect of anonymous writing on the writer himself must be the same in all cases where he conceals his identity because of an unwillingness to be known as the author of the sentiments expressed, whether he publishes them in a newspaper or sends them through the mail. In each case there is a hiding — a standing behind a hedge and throwing missiles at people who may be traveling along the king's highway; in neither case will the act tend to develop strength of character, although he may write ably and say smart things. When, therefore, the editor was, so to say, relieved of the moral 1U UV£ QUESTIONS. responsibility which comes from having to look people in the face, feeling that they know what you have said ; when an inducement was almost held out to him to be careless, or reckless, or to give play to his prejudices and vent to his spleen; when, in short, he was put in the position of hiding while throwing missiles, and kept in that atti- tude from one year's end to the other, then the period in which great characters were developed in the newspaper offices came to an end. At present we see only a great paper. The men — that is, the edi- torial writers — are neither seen nor known. They may be changed with almost the same facility as the type-setters, and, like the type- setters, they acquire no individuality by which they are known to the public. They are not even forgotten, because they are never known, although the proprietor may wield even greater influence than for- merly. The newspaper men of to-day have as much natural ability, as high aspirations, as much common honesty, and as strong an inclination to do right as had those of three-quarters of a century ago. In fact, it must be. said of the. rank and file of newspaper men, that it is doubtful whether any other calling contains so large a percentage of young men who possess, in the highest degree, the attributes necessary to achieve success and eminence in the world. As a rule, they are in- telligent, industrious, tireless, plucky, practical, and ambitious, and, in moral character, will compare favorably with the devotees of any other profession; and if the conditions of newspaper work were the same now as they were earlier in the century, the newspaper fraternity would develop more great men and furnish more great public char- acters than are furnished by any other class. But the blight — the weakening influence — of anonymous writing settles upon all, especially those connected with the large city papers ; and, as a rule, they move along comparatively unknown, and die unhonored by the public, never establishing a reputation commensurate with their ability or with the great amount of work they do — an amount of work which, under more favorable conditions, would win them immortality. It is true, there are a few newspaper writers in the United States who have become widely known, but they did not accomplish this by anonymous writing ; on the contrary, their fame is in exact proportion to the extent to which they signed their names to their articles. The effect of this anonymous writing is to give us what is prac- tically an irresponsible press. To be sure, theoretically, the owner or publisher of the paper is responsible for everything that appears in it ; but practically, as all the world knows, this amounts to but little. If the facts in a particular matter are carelessly or incorrectly stated, ANONYMOUS JOURNALISM. 135 whereby a common citizen is injured, or if some one connected with the paper maliciously makes insinuations which set people to talking about, and thus ruin, the character of a private person, the owner of the paper is theoretically liable. But practically this amounts to nothing ; for all the injured party can do is to commence a libel suit. After a year elapses this suit is brought to trial, when the tables are turned, as it were, and in order to see what damages, if any, should be given, the whole life of the complainant is overhauled ; the worst construction possible is sought to be put upon everything he has done. Money and power, with all the agencies they control, combine to break him down ; and if, after going through this ordeal, a verdict is rendered for the plaintiff, the case is carried -to the higher courts and, as a rule, is reversed and sent back to be tried over. In most cases, after "years of vexation and expense, the injured party gets nothing. If, however, in the end a judgment should be obtained, it will not pay for the vexation, the loss of time, and the expense occasioned by the suit. So that, as a rule, a libel suit is worse than a farce for the injured person. It is a remedy which kills the party using it and inflicts comparatively little injury on the defendant. The malicious, the mendacious, and the reckless have practically nothing to restrain them. Roscoe Conkling once said : "A thief breaks into your house, steals your watch, and goes to Sing-Sing. The newspaper man breaks into the casket which contains your most precious treasure — your reputation — and goes unscathed before the law." It may be said that publishing a newspaper is a business enter- prise, and that self-interest will induce its owners to see to it that nothing but the truth is told. This looks plausible, but experience has shown that it is not true. There is scarcely an issue of a great city newspaper that does not contain an article which, either through an imperfect statement of facts, or an insinuation or false accusation, in- jures some private citizen, who practically has no remedy. A writer in the North American Review recently said : "The news- paper usurps the functions of judge, jury, and executioner, and often adds to these the office of the police detective and prosecuting attor- ney. . . . The glass through which he (the newspaper man) peers is anything but a transparent medium. It becomes a lens that dis- torts and perverts the things behind it. The best men in journalism are not proof against the taint of its bad tendencies. The system is the criminal, and moulds its members. All that can be generalized is that honorable journalists, on the whole, try to practice the better 156 LIVE QUESTIONS. side of the profession, and that the unprincipled avail themselves to the full of its dangerous powers." Possibly, when all things are considered, it is best that libel suits should in fnany cases be abortive; otherwise a newspaper might be overwhelmed with libel suits based on trivial errors; or might be harassed by people who want to extort money. And it should be added that no measure calculated to harass or cripple the press can be tolerated. The press must not only remain free, but have all rea- sonable latitude. But the public is entitled to fair play, as well as the press ; and it does not follow that because one remedy does not seem well suited to protect the public that therefore the public is not en- titled to any protection. Would it be asking too much to require a signature to everything that appears in a newspaper, so that the public may always have some guaranty of good faith, and know who it is that is talking, and that when anything is said against a man it will not seem as if an irresponsible institution were attacking him in the dark ? In short, while discouraging any attempt to get money out of the newspaper man's pockets, is it asking too much to require him to do what all other men, except criminals, have to do, and that is, work in the light of day? — to stand up and be known and seen? Of course some of the newspaper people will object — will pro- nounce it impossible — and, as usual, predict all sorts of calamities as the result of such a requirement. Especially will this be true of those who "avail themselves to the full of its dangerous powers." No class exercising a dangerous power or accustomed to an unrestricted license ever looked with favor on a proposition to restrict that license or power. One of the leading dailies of Chicago, in discussing the proposi- tion to require a signature to every article in a paper, said: "The power of the press is not a dangerous and unrestrained power; the freedom of the press, like the freedom of the winds, corrects and puri- fies, because it is free. A newspaper pays for its errors and blunders, and is subject to the great law of compensation as an individual is. It has created here in this country a higher law, to which it is itself subject and whose penalties it cannot escape. In this free land of ours it comes to pass that there is a public opinion — that sober, slow verdict of the people — that is over all of us ; parties and syndicates, great statesmen and great newspapers as well, we all -must bow to it, and because of its freedom we all do bow to it." Here are the old arguments that have been repeated for centuries, ANONYMOUS JOURNALISM. 157 fivefy time that it was proposed to have the State interfere for the pro- tection of the weak against the assaults of the strong. First. "There is a higher law to punish wrongdoing, therefore leave hands off." Now suppose a man with a club habitually secretes himself in a dark place and batters out the brains of every unsuspecting editor who may come that way. There is a higher law which will punish this man, but will the living editor be content with this assurance, or will he insist that at least an effort ought to be made to discover the identity of the man with the club ? Second. "It is not necessary to do anything; for an enlightened self-interest, open competition, a healthy public sentiment, and the knowledge of the fact that wrong-doing must be paid for and will sooner or later be punished are alone sufficient to regulate the whole matter." Look at this a moment. Is there an instance in all human experi- ence where it was found satisfactory to have the strong alone — whether good or bad- — say how far they should go in dealing with the weak? If human selfishness always has gone to unreasonable lengths when it had a chance, why expect it to restrain itself in this case ? As to pub- lic sentiment, in cases of attacks on or insinuations against individuals, the newspaper creates all the sentiment there is ; hence this will not be restraining. Further, is it not known now that wrong-doing must be paid for and will be punished ? And if this knowledge has not been and is not now sufficient to protect private individuals, how can we expect it to do so in the future ? The fifth maxim for journalists, recently laid down by Mr. Dana, is : "Never attack the weak or the defenseless, either by argument, by invective, or by ridicule, unless there is some absolute public neces- sity for so doing." Without inquiring why the absolutely defenseless should ever be attacked, and admitting that some journalists do not do so, I will ask : How long will it take an unprincipled newspaper man — and there will be such till the millennium — who wanted a sensation to sell his paper, or who had a grudge against some individual — how long would it take him to make up his mind that the public necessity existed? The trouble with all these arguments is that they rest on a wrong principle. One of the parties affected is not represented or given a hearing; whereas rules to regulate the conduct between individuals should be fixed with reference to the interests and by the voice of both, and not by the whim, caprice, or arbitrary dictation of the stronger. 158 LIVE QUESTIONS. Years ago, when it was first proposed to subject the railroads to reasonable regulation, the railroad people and their friends scoffed at the idea. The most considerate of them argued: "Railroads are private enterprises, supported by private capital, with which the public has no right to interfere. Besides, they are subject to the laws of competition, which alone will give all the regulation necessary.- Further, they are dependent on the public for support, and an in- telligent self-interest will insure fair dealing with the public; any interference by the State must be disastrous," etc. And they asked : "Can you run the railroads better than the experienced men who are 'now running them?" But notwithstanding these arguments, the public felt that, while railroads were a necessity and must be protected, and while they ought not to be harassed by unreasonable interference, yet some measure of protection for the public was necessary ; and the answer in regard to running a road was : "No, we don't claim to be able to run a road ; we concede that you can do that better than we can, and we want you to do it ; we simply insist on some measure of protection against the abuse of the power in your hands." As a result, measure after meas- ure was passed, ending finally in the Interstate Law. At first these acts produced little effect, as is nearly always the case with new legis- lation ; but at present they are beginning to be respected, and, what is more, the railroads now favor reasonable regulation. There is no doubt that, if every person writing even a squib for a newspaper had to sign his name to it, there would be greater care taken to learn the facts and to state them correctly. Every writer would become more careful and read his articles over a second time before printing them, thus greatly improving the character of news- papers by making them more reliable, while, at the same time, it would be a protection to the private individual. Certain it is that it would make all newspaper writers stand on their own merit with the public, and would enable those that have superior abilities to get credit for their work, which they do not get with the public under the present system of anonymous writing. It is true that in 1850 a law was passed in France requiring a signature to every article in a newspaper, and that it did not produce any great results. But this signifies little under the circumstances, for it was enacted not as an independent measure conceived in a spirit of fairness, but as a part of an arbitrary system intended to harass and, so far as possible, crush the press.. It went almost hand in hand with a heavy stamp tax, a government censor, and the dungeon. Requiring a signature only made it easier for the government to find 'ANONYMOUS JOURNALISM. 159 the writer and put him into jail. Therefore it was natural that the whole newspaper fraternity should labor to defeat the law by the use of fictitious names, and in every other manner possible. In addition, it should be remembered that many of the most beneficial measures in the world's history were failures when first tried. But here the conditions are different. Many newspaper men al- ready admit the evil effects of impersonal journalism and urge a change in that regard. The Journalist of October 6, 1888, had a strong edi- torial advocating a signature to every article. Among other things it said: "Few men would be willing to send out statements over their own signatures which they knew to be untrue, a temptation which is very strong when the writer is hiding behind the cloak of anonymity. It would encourage better work. If a man is certain that a story is to be known as his work, he will take more care in the writing. Again, if a writer succeeds in making a reputation, the paper gains the addi- tional eclat of having such a man in its employ. The best work is almost always done by men who sign. Sporadic cases of anonymous excellence are seen in every paper, but the men who sign are the men whose work is read, and who make an impression on the public mind. This is not altogether due to the fact that it is the work of men who are strong enough to force signature. It is partly because a man who signs feels that he is bound in duty to himself to keep up a certain average of excellence in his work. .He is the proprietor of a 'brand,' and his goods must be kept up to sample, or the future value of his 'brand' is gone. The question of signature lies largely with the writers themselves. If there were a general insistence upon the matter, the papers would give in, and once the custom was adopted it would never be abandoned." I will simply add that, as the better class of journalists are already in sympathy with the idea, we may safely assume that if a signature be required by law to every article — not for the purpose of enabling the government to imprison the writer, as in France, but simply to insure care and good faith on the part of the writer and fair play to the public — there will be but little opposition, and, instead of being crippled, the press will command more confidence and wield more influence for good than now ; and editorial writers, instead of being unknown opera- tives, will establish a reputation equal to their labor and ability, while the private individual will feel that if he is to be attacked, it must be done in the. light of day. JOHN P. ALTGELD. 160 LIVE QUESTIONS. THE IMMIGRANT'S ANSWER. (Published in the "Forum," February, 1890.) The questions whether immigration shall be encouraged or re- stricted, and whether naturalization shall be made more difficult or not, must be considered both from a political and from an industrial point of view ; and in each case it is necessary to glance back and see what have been the character, the conduct, and the political leaning of the immigrant, and what he has done to develop and enrich our country. Has he been law-abiding, industrious, and patriotic, and is- the government indebted to him for anything; or is it a case of a spoilt pauper child housed, fed, and clothed in a fine Christian uniform, all at the expense of native Americans, and to no purpose? We will look at the political side first, and, as our space is limited, we will go back only to i860, calling attention, however, to the fact that up to that time, no matter from what cause, the immigration had been almost entirely to the Northern and free States, and not to the slave States, as will be seen by the figures about to be given. These, when carefully examined in connection with election returns, will show that but for the assistance of the immigrant the election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States would have been an im- possibility, and that had the cry, " America for the Americans," pre- vailed at an earlier period of our history, the nineteenth century would never have seen the great free republic we see, and the shadow of millions of slaves would to-day darken and curse the continent. I will cite no doubtful authority, but will take as a basis the United States census of i860. The total population of the States was 31,183,- 744, of whom 4,099,152 were foreign born, and of the latter only 216,- 730 were to be found in all the eleven States which seceded. The re- maining States had a total population of 22,313,997, of whom 3,882,- 422, or a little over one sixth, were actually foreign-born. To these we must add .their children, who, though native-born, yet, as a rule, held the same views, were controlled by the same motives and influences, spoke the same language, and generally acted with their elders; who, in short, for all practical purposes, and especially for our purpose, must be treated as a part of the immigrant population. If we add two children for each foreign-born person, we find that fully one half of the popula- tion of the States that remained true to the Union consisted of the foreign-born and their children, and was made up chiefly of Germans, Scandinavians, and Irish. The Scandinavians have always, nearly to a man, voted the. Republi- THE IMMIGRANTS ANSWER. 161 can ticket. The Germans, likewise, were nearly all Republicans. In fact, the States having either a large Scandinavian or a large German population have been distinguished as the banner Republican States. Notably is this true of Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan, which have a large Scandinavian population ; and of Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, which have a very large German population. The Irish more generally voted the Democratic ticket, but were not united ; and in New York, where they were most numerous, they have repeatedly given the Republican ticket substantial aid. Taking the States in de- tail, Iowa had a total population of 674,913. Of these 106,077, or about one sixth, were foreign-born, and nearly all were Germans and Scandinavians, who, to a man voted the Republican ticket. The total vote cast for President in Iowa in i860 was 128,331, of which Lincoln received 70,409, giving him a plurality over Douglas of 15,298. Now, if simply the actual foreign-born vote had been left out, it would have amounted to one sixth of the whole, or 21,388. These would nearly all have been taken from Lincoln's vote, which would thus be reduced to less than 50,000, leaving to Douglas a plurality of over 5,000; and if instead of subtracting only the foreign-born vote, we were to sub- tract the vote which for our purpose must be regarded as immigrant, Lincoln's vote would be reduced to less than 40,000. Wisconsin had a total population of 775,881. Of these, 276,967, or a little over thirty-five per cent., were foreign-born, nearly all Ger- mans and Scandinavians, and they supported the Republican ticket. The total vote of Wisconsin in that year was 152,180, of which Lincoln received 86,110, giving him a plurality over Douglas of 21,089. Now, if the foreign-born vote were omitted, the total vote would be reduced by about thirty-five per cent., or 52,263 ; and nearly the whole of this would have to be deducted from Lincoln's vote, thus not only wiping out his plurality, but giving Douglas a plurality of nearly 30,000 — this by deducting only the actual foreign-born vote, and not the ad- ditional vote, which, as we have seen, should be included. Michigan had in that year a total population of 749,113. Of these, 149,093, or about one fifth, were foreign-born, nearly all Scandinavians, Hollanders, and Germans, and almost solidly Republican. The total vote of Michigan was 154,747, of which Lincoln received 88,480, giv- ing him a plurality over Douglas of 23,423. If the foreign-born vote, amounting to about one-fifth, or 31,000, be left out, nearly all the loss must fall upon Lincoln's vote, giving Douglas a plurality. Illinois had a population of 1,711,951, of whom 324,643, or almost one-fifth, were foreign-born. Of these, 87,573 were Irish, the remain- der nearly all Germans and Scandinavians, adherents of the Republican 162 LIFE QUESTIONS. party. Of the total vote of Illinois, 338,693, Lincoln received 172,161, giving him a plurality over Douglas of 11,946. If the actual foreign- born vote is to be eliminated, that reduces the total nearly one fifth, or upward of 66,000. Supposing the Irish foreign-born vote to have been solidly Democratic, which it was not, about 40,000 would still have to be deducted from Lincoln's vote ; this would not only wipe out his plurality, but would give a very large plurality to Douglas. Ohio's population was 2,339,500. Of these, 328,249, or about one seventh, were foreign-born, 76,826 being Irish, and the remainder mostly Germans, who, as a rule, were Republicans. The total vote of Ohio was 442,441, 6f which Lincoln received 221,610 — a plurality over Douglas of 34,378. If the foreign-born vote had been omitted, the total would have been reduced by nearly one seventh, or about 63,200. Assuming that most of the Irish were Democrats and voted for Doug- las, nearly 50,000 votes would still have to be deducted from Lincoln's total, which would give the State to Douglas. These five States alone are sufficient to demonstrate the situation"; for if Lincoln had lost them and carried the other States in the Republi- can column, he would have had only 129 electoral votes, while he needed 15 1. But the facts are that in every State carried by Lincoln there was a large foreign population, which was mostly, and in some States entirely, Republican, and which continued to be Republican down to a very recent date ; and if the vote of this class had been omitted in i860, it would have reduced Lincoln's vote to such an extent as to defeat him in most of the States that he carried. I am speaking only of the foreign-born voters ; but, as already shown, to these should be added a large percentage of the people who, although native-born, are of foreign-born parentage, and must be considered with them in viewing the general political course of immigrants. It is an indisput- able fact that the vote of the naturalized citizen and of his son has been a most powerful and indispensable factor in giving the Republican party the control of the government; and even to-day its power and popularity are greatest in those States in which there is a large natur- alized vote. The eleven States that in 1861 hoisted the flag of secession had a population of 8,726,644. Of these, only 216,730, or about two and a half per cent., were foreign-born, and they were subsequently found to be Unionists. The men who sought to destroy our institutions, who proclaimed the principle of inequality, who insisted that the strong have a divine right to the fruit of the poor man's labor, and who finally fired upon the flag of the Republic, were not only Americans, but they were the sons of Americans ; while, on the other hand, the heavy Ger- THE IMMIGRANT'S ANSWER. 163 man population of northern Kentucky and of Missouri, by their adher- ence to the Union, turned the scale and prevented two great States from giving their powerful aid to the Confederacy. The great majority of those that were Americans and sons of Americans in these two States were in favor of secession. Then, when the war began, those Northern States that had the largest foreign-born population furnished the largest quota of soldiers to the Union armies. Even Missouri con- tributed nearly 200,000 men, although it was the scene of repeated raids, during which a portion of its population, called by the Southern leaders "damned Dutch Unionists," was made to pay dearly for its patriotism. The records of the War Department show that of the 2,678,967 men that from first to last were enlisted in the Union armies, 494,900 were entered on the records as of foreign nationality. No doubt some of these were native born, but not very many, for, as a rule, the native-born recruits spoke the English language and were booked as Americans. How many of these there were we cannot tell exactly, but, considering the fact that nearly half the population was of foreign nationality, and that recruits generally came from the com- mon people, there is no question but that one half of the men who enlisted in the Union armies were either foreign-born or of foreign- born parentage. These would not have been here to enter our armies but for immigration, and better soldiers never marched to the music of war. There is not a swamp or field or dark ravine where treason made a stand, but is covered with the graves of Germans and Scan- dinavians who died for the principle of equal rights. Though the Irish more generally voted the Democratic ticket, yet their patriotism was prompt to respond to the call of their adopted country, and there is not a battle-field where blood was shed for the Union that has not the bones of Irishmen rotting upon it. Again, material resources are as necessary for the prosecution of a great war as are men, for the latter can do nothing without equip- ment, food, arms, and munitions of war. When the Rebellion collapsed, the South had yet large armies of men, but its resources were exhaust- ed. It had no shoes, no food, no arms for its soldiers. It had not, within all its boundaries, sufficient ammunition to fight a great battle. The North, on the contrary, had yet inexhaustible resources, for which it was largely indebted to the sober, steady, intelligent industry and frugality of its immigrant population ; for those States in which this population was the largest were found to possess the best agriculture, the finest cities, the most shops, the largest factories, and the fullest warehouses. Further, the labor of building the great railway sys- tems of our land, which are so necessary for the development of a 164 LIVE QUESTIONS. country, and for the rapid concentration of men and material in time of war, was almost entirely done by these people. Now, if Kentucky and Missouri had joined the Confederacy, and if the Northern States had not possessed the incalculable strength in both men and material resources that they got through the naturalized citizen and his children, they would not only have been unable to subdue the South, but they would have been unable successfully to resist Southern aggression ; and some Southern colonel would to-day be calling the roll of his slaves in the shadow of Bunker Hill monu- ment, for the country could not permanently have remained part slaye and part free. I do not claim that the foreigner gave to the country new ideas, nor do I wish in any manner to belittle the great achievements of the native Americans of the North ; I am simply directing attention to the fact that, standing alone, they could not have elected Lincoln, could not have successfully resisted Southern aggression, and could not have put down the Rebellion ; and that it was the naturalized citizen and his children, who, by joining hands with them, turned the scale in favor of the ideas and the institutions of the North, and thus directly helped to shape the destiny of our country. In this connection, I wish to call attention to the remarkable his- torical fact that the great political party of the country that held out a friendly hand to the immigrant, and that favored and secured liberal naturalization laws, so that the new-comer could, in a reasonable time, become a citizen and voter, has been all along opposed and repeatedly defeated by these very naturalized voters ; while, on the other hand, the great political party — first Federal, then Whig, and lastly Republican —from whose ranks has always come the opposition to a liberal natur- alization law to make the new-comer a voter, and from whose ranks to-day comes, with increasing frequency, the cry of "America for the Americans," is the very party which has all along received by far the greater portion of this naturalized vote, was enabled by the aid of this very vote to keep control of the government for over a quarter of a century, and to-day is in power by the aid of this vote. The one political party can truthfully say to the great majority of the naturalized voters : "I did what I could to give you the fran- chise, and you have constantly used that franchise to defeat me," while the other political party might truthfully say to the same people: "From my ranks has come all the opposition to you, and it is from my ranks that to-day comes the demand for restrictive naturalization laws ; and in return for this treatment you have stood faithfully by me, have kept me in power, and have given office and THE IMMIGRANTS ANSWER. 165 honors to some of the very men who opposed and slandered you." It is incomprehensible why opposition to making a voter of the immi- grant should come from members of the Republican party. If we look at the question in still another light, it will be found that in those States which have the largest naturalized vote, and in which this has been a potent factor, there are more churches, more libraries, more schools, better schools, and more general intelligence than are to be found in those States where the people are not only American-born, but are the children of American-born parents. As a rule,~the poor among the immigrants are more frugal, are more indus- trious, and are more used to continuous hard work than are the poor among native Americans, and consequently they generally succeed in making a living, while the latter frequently fail. It has been charged against the naturalized citizen that "he has at different times engaged in riots and disturbed social order ; but in most of these cases it will be found that as many American-born as foreign- born have participated, the fact being that nationality had nothing to do with the matter, but that the disturbance grew out of industrial or political excitement. But even if this were not so, it does not lie in the mouth of an American to make this charge, for the most disgraceful acts of riot and mob violence that stain our annals were committed, not by the foreign-born in their rags, but by Americans dressed in broadcloth ; and that not in a Dutch or an Irish settlement, but in the streets of Boston. This mob, known in history as the broadcloth mob, was diabolical in its fury, and sought to tear William Lloyd Garrison to pieces, not over a question of starvation wages, not to avenge an act of injustice and oppression, but simply because he had dared to proclaim that no man can have a right of property in another human being. If there have been mobs and riots among the foreign-born in our country, they were nothing but impotent protests, by ignorant though honest people, against that rapacious greed which took the bread they toiled for away from their children's mouths, while the broadcloth American Boston mob shrieked for the life of the man who dared to advocate human freedom. I have been speaking, be it noted, of the immigrant who came of his own accord to our shores, with the purpose of renouncing forever his foreign allegiance, and swearing fealty to the republic. I do not include assisted paupers, habitual criminals, or laborers, whether yellow or white, brought over under contract to supplant and drive out Ameri- can workmen, both native-born and naturalized. Against these classes our gates should be closed. Coming now to the question, Shall naturalization be made more 1 66 LIVE QUESTIONS. difficult ? I ask : Why should it be ? Does the history of the past fur- nish any reason for such legislation ? If yea, what is it ? If nay, then why begin now ? If these people are to live here they should be a part of us, and should be made to feel that they have an interest in public affairs. To have a large foreign population among us and to deprive it of the right of citizenship, with all its privileges, would be to create jealousies, discontent, and, in short, the conditions which, in time, must produce disturbances, and in a critical juncture might endanger our political existence. We have seen that but for the vote and the influence of the naturalized citizen Lincoln could not have been elected, and that the destiny of our country must have been different. But suppose this were not so ; if the laws had prohibited a foreigner who had made his home among us from becoming a citizen, and if the millions of foreigners in this country that had accumulated property and acquired local influence had found themselves compelled to obey the laws and to pay taxes to support our institutions, while they had no voice in making those laws, in levying the taxes, or in managing those institutions, would they not have been discontented and secretly hostile to the government which thus treated them; and is it at all probable that when that government was attacked, either they or their sons would have rushed to its defense ? The idea of limiting the franchise is not new. Wherever and when- ever there have been men who thanked God that they were not like their fellows, it has been advocated, and wherever it has been tried it has been a failure. It is simply the dying echo of aristocracy, and is inimical to the spirit of our institutions. Van Buren earned the grati- tude of all true Republicans by striking it out of the constitution of New York. There are yet a few States in which a vestige of it .remains ; but it will be found that these States march not in the van, but with the lumber wagons of civilization. It is frequently said that the people who come here are, as a rule, ignorant, and know nothing about our institutions, and therefore should not be permitted to vote after a residence of only five years; that they cannot act intelligently, and will simply be tools for crafty politicians to use at the expense of good government. Now, if the premises were true, the conclusions might seem plausible ; and were it a matter of speculation only, they would, perhaps, be accepted. But the premises are false. Besides, this is no longer a matter of argument. We have had a century's experience and this must decide the ques- tion. If the vote of these people has, in the main, been marked by ignorance and been cast against beneficial measures and good govern- THE IMMIGRANT'S ANSWER. 167 ment, then the charge must be accepted as true; on the other hand, if their vote has, in the main, been on the side of right and justice and good government, then the charge must be treated as being not only groundless, but a slander. We have already seen that the great major- ity of these votes has steadfastly been cast for the men and the measures which, for a quarter of a century have shaped the destiny of this nation ; surely no voice from the Republican party will declare that they were wrong. This being so, no Republican should be permitted to make the charge of ignorance against a class of voters who helped to support these men and these measures, and without whose support the success of the latter would have been impossible. In this connection it should be borne in mind that the so-called scholar is not the most intelligent, the most reliable, or the safest guide in public affairs. The great Selden was not joking when he affirmed that "ijo man is wiser for his learning, and no fool is a perfect fool until he learns Latin ;" and Wendell Phillips was in dead earnest when he said: "Book learning does not make five per cent, of that mass of common sense that runs the world, transacts its business, secures its progress, trebles its power over nature, works out in the long run a rough average justice, wears away the world's restraints, and lifts off its burdens. Two-thirds of the inventions that enable France to double the world's sunshine, and make old and New England the workshops of the world, did not come from colleges or from minds trained in the schools of science, but struggled up from the irrepressible instinct of untrained natural power. Her workshops, not her colleges, made England for a while the mistress of the world, and the hardest job her workmen had was to make Oxford willing he should work his wonders. . . . Liberty and civilization are only fragments of rights wrung from the strong hands of wealth and book learning; almost all the great truths relating to society were not the result of scholarly meditation, but have been first heard in the solemn protests of martyred patriotism and the loud cries of crushed and starving labor. When common sense and the common people had stereo- typed a principle into a statute, then book men came to explain how it was discovered." * I will add only that years ago, when the book men both North and South were learnedly demonstrating that slavery was a divine institu- tion, these common people from foreign shores simply said, "It is wrong for one man to get another man's labor for nothing," and then took sides, not with the powerful and wealthy, but with the party that was then the object of ridicule, because it dared say that slavery was wrong. The history of this country demonstrates that the common people are swayed by a patriotic instinct or impulse in favor of the right * Wendell Phillips on "The Scholar in the Republic' 168 LIVE QUESTIONS. — something which cannot be said of the wealthy or of the book men. I know that occasionally the local government of a large city is cited to prove the ignorance of the naturalized voter ; but only a superficial observer will make this assertion. This question has been examined by some of the ablest men of America and Europe, and they all agree that the cause of bad government at times in cities is partisanship and the saloon. And the saloon owes its power to the fact that it is courted by the local leaders of both political parties ; each political party is ready and eager to make any combination which will enable it to defeat its opponent. When the rich and the educated divide themselves up almost equally between the two great parties, and one half vote the Democratic ticket and the other half vote the Republican ticket ; if then the naturalized voters, or, if you please, the common people, come along, and part vote the Republican ticket, the remainder the Democratic ticket, it is both nonsensical and dishonest to say that the result, no matter what it is, is due to the ignorance of the voters. Such a charge could be truth- fully made only if substantially all the well-informed and the property- holding classes were to range themselves on one side, and the ignorant people on the other, and the latter were to carry the day and run things badly. But so long as the rich and the educated partisan in the Repub- lican party will-resort to any means to carry an election, and will stand in line with all classes of voters on that side, while the Democratic partisan does the same thing on the other side, the result must be attributed to a party and not to a class. There never was a dishonest government in any city in this country that did not come into power by the assistance of a large class of voters who not only were intelli- gent, but who boasted of American ancestry. And it is safe to say that there never will be one ; for partisan feeling seems to blind men who are otherwise intelligent, fair, and honest, so that four out of five of the prominent and intelligent men in each political party will rather see their party win with men who are dishonest and unfit than see the opposite party win with honest and competent men. And, strange as it may seem, the man who comes to the polls in his carriage is, as a rule, more narrow and more bigoted than the poor man who has to lose half a day's wages in order to vote. There is an objection to further immigration that at first blush seems plausible, namely, that it increases the competition among the unskilled laborers, who already find it impossible to maintain their families in a manner becoming even the humblest American citizen. Ocean travel has become cheap, safe, and speedy, and many European THE IMMIGRANT'S ANSWER. 169 countries are over-populated. These people are aware that in from two to three weeks they can go from the place of their birth to almost any part of the United States. They have heard of this country and have an exaggerated idea of its advantages; and the question naturally suggests itself : If these people are permitted to come, will not that reduce the unskilled laborer to the condition' of the European laborer ; and, to avoid this, would it not be better to prevent any more people from landing upon our shores? To a man who sympathizes with the American unskilled laborer, whether native-born or naturalized, in his hopeless condition, this argument, I repeat, at first seems plausible ; but aside from the impossibility of enforcing such an exclusive policy along our sea-coast and four thousand miles of border crossed every- where by railroads, there are insurmountable objections to it. First, it is contrary to the spirit of the age, and to the law of human develop- ment and the highest civilization, which require the freest intercourse possible, not only between men, but between nations; and no people ever yet profited, in the long run, by pursuing a policy at variance with this law. Secondly, it could be but a temporary expedient of such doubtful character that any great nation must hesitate to adopt it. Thirdly, it would be so decidedly narrow and provincial that, aside from its effect upon ourselves, we cannot take such a position in the face of the world. The truth is that the labor question is becoming more urgent, and the condition of the laborer is improving as fast in Europe as in this country ; and the laborer's only hope for the future lies in united action, not alone in one country, but throughout the civilized world. This united action will be brought about much more quickly by unity of interest, free intercourse, and friendly co-opera- tion; than would be possible if we were to isolate ourselves. In fact, it is only by this intercourse that the laboring masses can be so edu- cated as to enable them to stand together, and by united action secure justice for themselves and their children ; while isolation would prevent the spread of intelligence, make united action impossible, and thus put any great achievement out of the question. Besides, the American laborer does not suffer very much from competition with the immigrant who comes of his own volition. The latter, coming here to improve his condition and that of his family, soon joins his American brother, and asks wages which will at least enable him to do this. But the condition of the laborer has been made deplorable by the importation of shiploads of men under contract. These do not come with the motives or with the ambition of the class we have been considering ; they have no thought of becoming citizens, but are practically slaves, who will work for wages upon which the 170 LIVE QUESTIONS. American laborer cannot exist. Agents for large corporations are constantly importing them. Steamship companies, to get the passage money paid by American employers, bring them over by the thousands, so that many great centers of industry in the East have been filled with them, and the American laborer is being crowded out. Both the native-born and the naturalized laborer have been almost driven out of the great State of Pennsylvania by these importations. True, there is a law against such contracts, but it is a dead letter; so that we have in this country the strange spectacle of the government keep- ing up the price of a great many articles by shutting out foreign com- petition, and at the same time permitting the manufacturers of these articles to import the pauper laborers of Europe to produce them. But this is not natural immigration; and whether the people thus brought he Chinese, Hungarian, Polish, or British paupers, they should be excluded ; but natural immigration should not be interfered with. Free circulation of the blood is necessary to a healthy growth, whether of an individual or of a nation, and any restriction of the natural pro- cesses arrests development and enfeebles both body and mind. Thou- sands of years ago the cry, "China for the Chinese," prevailed and became a law in one of the richest quarters of the globe, among a people that had already a high civilization. From that time their faces have been turned backward, and they have simply been worshiping the shades of their father ; arid yet there are in this age and in this coun- try men who would have us practice Chinese statesmanship. JOHN P. ALTGELD. THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT. (An Address delivered before the Brotherhood of United Labor, at the Armory in Chicago, February 22, 1890.) Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen: On March 5, 1867, there was enacted in Illinois a statute of which Section 1 reads as follows : "On and after the first day of May, 1867, eight hours of labor between the rising and the setting of the sun in all mechanical trades, arts, and employments, and other cases of labor and service by the day, except in farm employments, shall con- stitute and be a legal day's work, where there is no special contract or agreement to the contrary." A number of other States about that time enacted similar laws. In 1868 a like act was passed by Congress, which was to apply to all works carried on by the Federal govern- ment, and soon thereafter, General Grant, then President, gave the measure the influence of his great name by directing that the same THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT. 17I wages should be paid for eight hours' work that had been paid for ten. Since that time there has been more or less continuous agitation upon this subject ; we have had many widespread and serious industrial and social disturbances, as well as destructive if not ruinous strikes, growing out of an attempt to introduce the eight-hour system. And now, after twenty-two years of legislation, after many years of agitation, and long after the movement has had the sanction of some of the ablest and best men of the land, we have met to consider the feasibility of extending this system, acknowledging by our very pres- ence here that the difficulties in the way have thus far refused to suc- cumb to legislation, to agitation, or to the personal influence of great men. And I will say here that I come not as a prophet or a leader ; I bring you neither a new religion, a new light, nor a new remedy ; I propose to talk to you as I would to a brother, and to view the situa- tion, with the difficulties it presents, in the light we now have. We will first see what has been done toward shortening the hours of labor. About 1820 there began in England an agitation in favor of reducing the number of hours, especially in factories, from twelve, and even fourteen, to ten, and it was not until 1847 that this resulted in a ten-hour law. The basis for this class of legislation, or rather the ground for State interference, is that the State is interested in the physical well-being of its citizens and has a right to prohibit whatever weakens their vitality. After the passage of that law, reducing the hours to ten, the agitation was continued until, in many lines of industry, they have been reduced to nine, and in a few cases to eight. After the reduction in England the agitation proceeded in this country, and in 1853 tne managers of the manufactories in Lowell and Lawrence and Fall River voluntarily reduced the hours of labor, first to eleven and then to ten hours per day. And in 1874 Massachusetts passed a law making ten hours the limit for females and males under eighteen years. And it made this law compulsory — treating it as a police regulation for the protection of the health and the lives of the operatives named. About thirty years ago the eight-hour system was introduced into Victoria, or South Australia, and has prevailed there ever since in the trades, factories, and mines. It was introduced there not by legislation nor by any violent measures, but by mutual concessions between the employer and employe. In 1886 the large establishment at the stock yards tried the eight-hour day for five months, at the end of which time the strong public sentiment in its favor having some- what abated, the employers, by a concert of action, succeeded in re-introducing the ten-hour day; but it is to be said for them 1?2 LIVE QUESTIONS. that as the large competing establishments in other cities did not adopt the eight-hour system, the' Chicago packers were placed at a disadvantage, and they are, therefore, not to be greatly blamed. The eight-hour system has also prevailed for a number of years in most of the large cities of this country in what are called the_ building trades — among masons, carpenters, painters, plasterers, etc. The arguments offered, pro and con, on this question are familiar to most of you. They are not new, excepting the results of experience — no- - body can to-day lay claim to much originality in connection with them. They all were made in England early in this century, when it was pro- posed to reduce the working day to ten hours, and later, when the working day, in many cases, was successfully again reduced to nine hours; and they all were repeated, with more or less vehemence, in the New England States of this country between 1840 and 1870 during the agitation for a reduction in the hours of labor from twelve, and even fourteen, to ten, which resulted successfully, and they have again been frequently repeated in late years in connection with the eight-hour movement. In brief, it is urged in favor of shorter hours : First. That labor-saving machinery has so greatly increased pro- duction that the same amount of labor is no longer required to supply the world with the necessaries, the comforts, and the luxuries of life, and that the laborer should share with the rest of the world the benefit which this machinery has conferred upon mankind ; that while it is true that it has also increased the wants of men so that all the work performed by machinery cannot be considered as clear gain in point of saving manual labor, it yet has, to a much greater extent, increased production, and has, to a much greater extent, supplanted human la- bor ; and that as the total quantity of labor to be performed by hand is reduced, the hours of labor should be proportionately shortened and the laborer given- time for healthful recreations and mental and social improvement. Second. That this labor-saving machinery has so far supplanted human labor that there are now more than a million of men in this broad land in enforced idleness, it being claimed by seemingly com- petent judges that there are in Chicago alone from 50,000 to 60,000 men, to say nothing of many women who work for a living, who can get nothing to do ; that, if the hours of labor were reduced from ten to eight, the labor of all these people would again be required, they could again be employed, and thus be saved from the fearful consequences, morally and physically, that follow absolute destitution. That, unless this is done, labor-saving machinery will be a- curse instead of a blessing to mankind. THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT. 173 Third. That at present, as a rule, the workmen, and especially women and boys, are kept in a state of physical and nervous exhaus- tion, so that great intellectual, social, or even moral improvement is retarded, and in many cases made impossible ; that this exhausted and worn condition not only stupefies, but that it creates a demand in the system for stimulants and therefore naturally produces drunkenness with its accompanying evils. Fourth. That while the foregoing is true of adults, the effects are still more marked upon their children ; that in time, under our present system, the children of the laborers not only become incapable of doing the best kind of work, but they make a low grade of citizens, become inferior men and women, physically, mentally, and morally, and that society at large, that is, the State, and in the end the employer, suffers from this condition ; that at present, as a rule, the boyhood and girlhood among the laboring classes terminate at fifteen, that at thirty-five to forty they break down with rheumatism and the ailments that follow in the wake of exhaustion, toil, and exposure, and at fifty too many of them are in their graves. In 1874 Governor Washburne, of Massa- chusetts, who had previously opposed the movement for shorter hours, declared in his official address that, "It cannot be denied that the strength of mill operators is becoming exhausted, and they are becom- ing prematurely old and losing the vitality requisite to the healthy enjoyment of social opportunity.'' Fifth. That when one class of people is confined to, and is exhaust- ed by, manual labor, and another has the advantages of intellectual training, the former class will soon be absolutely in the power of the latter. A man who returns to his home exhausted is in no condition to engage in intellectual exercise. The mind sympathizes with the body, and when the physical faculties are prostrated with fatigue, it is impossible for him to employ his mind so as to win for himself a fair position in the social scale. He has no opportunity to circulate among his fellow-citizens, and take part in current events, and thus in time a feeling of antagonism and discontent is engendered — he becomes nar- row and selfish, and a social friction is created, which in the end is injurious to all. Sixth. That before the division of labor and the extensive intro- duction of machinery, each laborer, as a rule, made an entire thing, so that his mind was occupied and the work not so fatiguing. Now all is changed ; he works on a single process, frequently on a very minute object, the effect of which on the mind is most unfavorable when long continued ; the constant concentration of the mind upon one thing in time narrows it to that thing, the laborer becomes like the machine, 174 LIVE QUESTIONS. his nervous system is weakened, his mind dwarfed, and his body stunt- ed. That when the laborer worked by hand he could rest when he was tired — quit an hour earlier if he were not well — but now he must work while the machine works, and that this constant and regular draft on the nervous system causes him to wear out with the machine and in many cases sooner — for human muscle and nerve cannot compete with steel unless given plenty of time to rest and recuperate. Seventh. It is urged that if the hours were reduced the laborer and his children would be in better condition physically, mentally, socially, and morally, and therefore not only would become better citizens, but would do better work, and, in the long run, much more work ; that it would add from fifteen to twenty years to the average life of the laborer.- In short, that it would place the whole laboring class upon a higher plane, and thus benefit the State and the employer ; that long hours mean comparatively low wages, low wages mean cheap men, and cheap men mean low civilization. On the other hand it is urged : First. That shorter hours mean reduced production; that the world needs all the production we are now capable of, and that if there is a reduction in the product of the world there must be consequent suffering, and that the poor will suffer most, and the world will retro- grade instead of advancing. To this it is replied that it cannot be shown that there will, in the end, be less production. On the contrary, that under shorter hours, the laborers will have increased vigor and higher intelligence, feel more interest in their work — and will, in the end, accomplish not only as much work, but a higher grade of work; that, in fact, this is no longer an open question, it having been settled by experience; that when in England the reduction was made from twelve and fourteen hours to ten, as soon as things had adjusted themselves to the new con- ditions it was found that there was not only as much work done in the ten hours as had been in the longer hours, but that it was a higher grade of work, and that when, subsequently, a further change was made from ten to nine, while there was some falling off at first, yet, owing to the introduction of better machinery and the improved con- dition of workmen, the product soon increased to what it had been, and that when in the New England States, about the middle of this century, the manufacturers voluntarily reduced the hours of labor to ten, there was scarcely any falling off in the production after the new system was in full operation, while the condition of the laborers and their fam- ilies greatly improved in every respect. When the eight-hour day was tried at the stock yards, there was a slight falling off in the production, THE EtGHt-tiOUR MOVEMENT. 175 but not in proportion to the reduction in hours. One of the large employers who opposed the movement stated that had the hours been nine instead of eight the men would have accomplished as much as they formerly did in ten. But if this were not so, the objection would not be valid, because at present there are multitudes for whom there is no work, and if as many hours of actual labor are required as are now devoted to it, then, by reducing the number of hours which each shall work, all could be employed ; and that, if this were done, the production would be greater than at present. Further, that there would then be from fifteen to twenty years added to the life of the laborer, and that, consequently, the total production would, in the end, be very much greater than at present. Second. That if the laborer were to accept eight hours' pay for eight hours' work, then he would have less money to spend than he has now, and consequently be worse off ; and that if he were to be paid ten hours' pay for eight hours' work there would necessarily be a great increase in the cost of production ; and that as the laboring classes themselves consume the greater part of what is produced, they must suffer from the increased cost of production, that the things which they need will be made dearer, while they will have no more money than they have now, and that, consequently, they would still be sufferers. To this it is answered that the question of wages must be left to regulate itself ; it being in a measure, at least, independent ; that it is true if they got only eight hours' pay for eight hours' work some of them would get less money than they get now, but all would then be employed, the laboring class would get as much as they get now, and none of them would be driven to the point where they must either beg or steal. But the assumption that if there were to be ten hours' wages paid for eight hours' work and a consequent increase in the cost of production, the laborers would be worse off than they are now is at variance with all experience. Plausible as the reasoning may at first blush seem, it is not correct. I will simply direct attention to the fact that everywhere, and in all times, in this country and in Europe, when wages were high, the working classes prospered, when wages were low they suffered. In fact, high prices and good times have gone hand in hand, while low prices and hard times have always been twin brothers, and the people who always suffer most when prices are low are the laboring people. Low wages and low prices, as a rule, mean black bread and no meat for the man who toils with his hands, and, in many cases, it means the poor-house, the police-station, and the bridewell for his children. Third. That while the time will come when eight hours will con- 176 Live, GuzsfidtiS. stitute a day's work, yet we are not ready for it now ; that the laboring classes are *iot yet sufficiently advanced, that they haven't sufficient strength of character, that they were yet too ignorant and too unruly and too much inclined to dissipate to make the change, and that we must wait until they have reached a higher development. Now, to this I answer that once it was urged in England that people should not be given their political freedom until they had become fitted for it, until there was no danger of their abusing it ; and Lord Macaulay > replied that, "If men are to wait for freedom until they have become good and wise in slavery, they will wait forever." That observation answers this objection. Fourth. That there ought to be no unity of action among the laborers, for if there was the liberty of each laborer to work as many hours as he pleased would be'taken away, and that the dearest thing that the laborer could cherish is his liberty to work as long as he wishes. Now, it is a remarkable and a sad fact, that when we find a class of people in a condition where they are absolutely helpless, where they are absolutely in the power of a stronger class, where they are the slaves of adverse circumstances, and where individual action can accomplish absolutely nothing, that there should always be found persons who try to keep them in that condition, and who resort to any sophistry which may serve this purpose. And I will say that, as a rule, these persons are not the employers themselves — employers usually are men of brains; generally, too, they have hearts, and while they may allow what they consider to be their interests to carry them too far, still they are rarely heard advancing such an argument. Arguments of this character are made by a class of men who can be designated as "hangers-on," men who want to bask in the smiles of the rich and of the employers ; men who, in some capacity, either socially or financially, are dependent upon the patronage of the rich. This class of men will resort to methods and measures to hinder reform and to defend abuses which would make employers blush. By way of contrast, I wish here to quote a few words from' Governor Washburne, of Massachusetts, in his message to the legislature ; he said : "The fact that there is unrest and dissatisfaction when man is confined to unremitting toil is one of the brightest and most healthy omens of the times. It is an indication that his better nature is struggling for emancipation ; it is a hopeful sign of finer and nobler manhood in the future. Such efforts for im- provement should never be discouraged, but always encouraged." Fifth. Again, it is urged that shortening the hours of labor simply means increased idleness, increased drunkenness, increased vice ; that THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT. 177 the extra time given the men would not be put to a good purpose, and that, therefore, the existing condition should continue. Now I will say in answer to this, that if it were true it would apply alike to all mankind. Human nature is pretty much the same, and if it is true that you should not give men the opportunity to improve because it might be abused, then there is no hope of improvement. Besides, it is a question of justice and right; eternal justice requires that every man should do his share of the work required to be done to supply the world with what is necessary, and if some are now doing more than their share they have a right to a change, and if the men have a right to a reduction as a matter of justice, they are entitled to it even if they should abuse their leisure. One set of men have no right to set themselves up as judges of their fellows, and deprive the latter of rights which they enjoy in common with all. We all abuse, to a greater or less extent, the privileges and blessings conferred upon us, yet this is no reason why we should be deprived of them by our fellow-men. Take the rich and the sons of the rich : they enjoy privileges and advantages which were never enjoyed before. All art, all literature, and all science are open to them, and a field for doing good such as was never before seen ; yet nobody will say that they are making a fair use of these priv- ileges. Will it, therefore, be claimed that they should be deprived of them? It is no doubt true that if a large class were suddenly given more leisure time, in the first reaction after the long strain there would be some dissipation, but it would be only the effect of a sudden relaxa- tion, and it would not last long. It may be true that, for a short time after the four million slaves in the South had been granted their free- dom, they were, if anything, worse off than they were while they were slaves; but will any intelligent man to-day claim that therefore they ought to have been kept in slavery ? However, we are not left merely to surmise or to speculation. At every reduction of hours in England there followed an improvement in the physical, mental, moral, and social condition of the laborers. In Victoria, or South Australia, the eight-hour system has been in operation for over thirty years, in all lines of industry, including mining and manufacturing, and instead of producing demoralization, it is not only prosperous, but is called the happy home of working-men, and the American consul reports that "the moral and physical condition of the people is sound and healthy." In 1 87 1, Mr. William Gray, in writing on the effects of the reduction from twelve to ten hours in the New England factories, said : "The testimony of all impartial persons, including original opponents of the ten-hour act, goes to show that the manufacturing masses have proved themselves worthy of the boon conferred on them. They have not 12 178 LIVE QUESTIONS. abused the gift. Their intelligence has increased, their habits have improved, their social happiness has advanced ; they have gained all, and more than all, they expected from the legislation. The intelligence, the general tone, the bearing of the operatives have kept pace with the advancement of the age. It would be scarce too much to say that the humble factory worker, in securing just legislation, has been the civil- izer and moralizer of his employer." One of the largest employers in Chicago, who opposed this movement in 1886, stated to me that after the system was once started he could not notice any increased drunk- enness or disorder of any kind ; that, on the contrary, the men seemed well-behaved, and attended faithfully to business. It is also a fact that the condition of the artisans in the building trades, and of their families, has greatly improved since the adoption of the eight-hour system by them. I quote from another author, whose words should be seriously pondered : "There is nothing, perhaps, more to be regretted than the fact that extraordinary commercial prosperity and an unprecedented accumulation of wealth have hitherto done so little to shorten the work- man's hours of labor. It is unreasonable to expect that the moral qualities in man's nature can be duly developed if life is passed in one unvarying round of monotonous work. We are constantly being re- minded of the ennobling and elevating influence produced by contem- plating the beauties of nature, by reflecting upon the marvels which science unfolds, and by studying the triumphs of art and literature. Yet no inconsiderable portion of the toiling masses are reared in such ignorance, and surrounded from early childhood to old age by so much squalor and misery, that life could be to them scarcely more dreary or depressing if there were no literature, no science, no art, and if nature had no beauties to unfold. The undue length of time which men have been accustomed to work represents, so far as many branches of industry are concerned, a thoroughly mistaken policy. In many instances it is undeniable that men would not only get through more work, but would do it more efficiently, if they had more oppor- tunity for mental cultivation and for healthful recreation. No small part of the intemperance which is laid to the charge of laborers is directly to be traced to excessive toil. When strength becomes ex- hausted, and the body is over-fatigued, there often arises an almost uncontrollable desire to resort to stimulants." I call your attention especially to the last few lines, in which he says that over-fatigue and physical exhaustion create an almost uncontrollable desire for stimu- lants, and that much of the intemperance laid to the charge of laborers is due to excessive toil. This is not the language of a cheap agitator, THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT. 179 it is not the language of a sentimentalist, but it is the language of Henry Fawcett, who for many years has occupied the chair of political econ- omy in the University of Cambridge, England — a man who has for many years been a member of the English Parliament, a man who has been a member of the English Cabinet, having been for some time postmaster-general of the British Empire, a man who is regarded as one of the most intelligent and accurate writers on social and industrial conditions now living. EVOLUTION OF THE LABOR CAUSE. Before considering the practical difficulties immediately in the way of a more general introduction of the eight-hour system, it is important that we should understand the history and the nature of the develop- ment of labor. It is important to know whether the conditions of labor can be suddenly and arbitrarily made, or whether they are a mat- ter of growth, a matter of development, requiring time. If we will but glance back for a moment, we very soon see that the labor problem, like all other problems and conditions of existence, is governed by the law of evolution, has grown up from a condition of wild disorder, to, at least, comparative order. Scientists tell us that in the physical world, even after the earth had assumed its present form, it required long ages- of change before there was such a thing possible as a peaceful valley or a green meadow. In religion it took thousands of years of development, from a period of demons and supernatural monstrosities, from bloody sacrifices and horrible torture, to the pure and simple doctrines of Christ, proclaiming peace upon earth and good-will toward men. In politics mankind struggled along through various forms and conditions of brute force to near the beginning of the nineteenth cen- tury before there could be proclaimed to the world that all men were created equal, and even this had to be done in the woods of America — an out-of-the-way place, a new continent outside of the limits of what was then called civilization. In the industrial world we first perceive the struggle for liberty and for justice by what are called the captains of industry — the em- ployers ; for, mark you, they are only a little ahead of the wage-workers in their struggle for justice. In ancient times, particularly in the Roman and the mediaeval world, a manufacturer or merchant, though his ships might cover the inland seas, though thousands of men might be doing his bidding, yet he had no voice in the government, was not considered fit for a gentleman and patrician to associate with, had no voice in making the 180 LIVE QUESTIONS. laws that should govern him, nor in determining what taxes he should pay ; he was plundered indirectly by means of taxation, and when this did not suit the purpose of dissipated and rapacious officialism, he was plundered directly. To be born a patrician, to be a member of the priesthood, or a successful military chieftain, entitled a man to rule. The man who supplied the world with necessaries had no social or political standing, and this continued to be so throughout the middle ages — continued to be so in most all Europe till toward the end of the last century, and is to a great extent still the case in Russia and in the Turkish provinces of Europe. It is true that in a few Italian cities the conditions were different, a few rays of the coming dawn having struck them first ; but as compared with the rest of the world, they were so small as to be unworthy of notice. In England the employer acquired his rights earlier, and has for some time had a voice in the govern- ment. But even in England the much praised Magna Charta was not for the benefit of either employer or workman, but simply of the nobil- ity — the idle, who, by reason of the accident of birth, were enabled to appropriate the labor of others. But, upon the whole, the employer in his struggles for justice is not a century in advance of the class we to-day call the wage-workers, and they, the laborers, were in ancient and later times practically all slaves. To be sure, we catch here and there in ancient literature a phrase about the laborer being worthy of his hire, but when we examine into the actual condition of the toiling masses we are forced to treat such utterances as the emanations of fancy, for not only was the labor of the masses at the absolute disposal of the master, but practically, and in every-day experience, their lives were also. True, there was in most countries a law providing that the master should not kill his slave, but if the master did so he generally went unwhipped of justice. This continued to be the condition, with slight exceptions, throughout all Europe down to near the beginning of this century. For unnumbered centuries they were absolute slaves, belonging to individuals ; then they belonged, as it were, to the soil, and were known as serfs and, in time, in England they may be said to have belonged to the county or shire. In Russia the serfs were not freed until the middle of this century, and in the United States of America the slaves were not freed until after the middle of this century. It is true there were in some Euro- pean cities organizations of skilled workmen, who enjoyed not only their freedom, but some advantages that may be said to have been ahead of their time ; but, as compared with the great mass of the com- mon people, they were so insignificant in number, and their situation was so exceptional that we need not consider them further than to THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT. 181 call attention to the fact that they developed the technical skill of their members, and enforced sobriety and honorable conduct, while by means of their meetings and discussions they became, in a measure, educated, and thereby reached a much higher plane than was other- wise possible, and they thu6 wielded a powerful influence for good. Thorold Rogers, in his great book on wages, would have us believe that three or four centuries ago the condition of some workmen in England was better than it is to-day, and no doubt he found reference to isolated cases which indicated that this might be so. But we should get a very superficial knowledge of the condition of the common peo- ple of England if we were to take this as being in any sense indicative of their status. In 1360, during the reign of Edward III., it was provided by law that if a" laborer refused to work for the wages fixed by law or by the justices of the county, or if he went outside of the county he was to be brought back by the sheriff, was to be imprisoned, and was to have the letter "F" branded with a hot iron upon his forehead in token of his falsity. If he sought by any manner to increase the rate of wages he was to be imprisoned. Xay, at one time, if he accepted more he was to be imprisoned ; and if an employer agreed to pay more than the fixed rate, he was to forfeit three times the amount. From that time on, for four centuries, the legislation in England is of uniform kind, pro- hibiting by imprisonment all meetings of workmen, and providing that the justices should fix the wages to be paid in their county : that if any laborer refused to work for the wages fixed by die justices, he was to be put in the stocks : if any laborer was found idle and did not apply himself to work, he was to have the letter '"V" branded with a hot iron upon his cheek, and was to be sold into slavery for two years, his children likewise to be sold, and if either he or they ran away they were to have the letter "S" branded on the cheek with a hoi: iron, and were to be sold into slavery for life, and were to be fed on bread and water, and it was provided by law that they were to be made to work by beating, by chaining, etc., and if they ran away again they were to suffer death. Children that had worked at husbandry till they were twelve years old, were forbidden ever to attempt to do anything else ; other children were required to follow the occupation of their parents or be imprisoned. It is hard to conceive of a condition of the laboring classes that could be much worse than that of the English during these centuries. In 1562, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the following statute was enacted : "All artificers and laborers being hired for wages by the day or week shall betwixt the midst of the months of March and Sep- 182 LIVE QUESTIONS. tember be and continue at their work at or before five of the clock in the morning and continue at work and not depart until betwixt seven and eight of the clock at night, except it be in the time of breakfast, dinner, or drinking ; and all such artificers 'and laborers between the midst of September and the midst of March shall be and continue at their work from the spring of the day in the morning until the night of the same day, except in the time of breakfast and dinner." I will simply add that under the laws of England during all these centuries if an employer violated an agreement with an employe he could simply be held in damages, but if an employe violated his agree- ment with an employer he could be fined and imprisoned, and it was not until 1875 that the law was changed in this regard so as to hold the employe only liable in damages for a breach of his contract the same as an employer, and Mr. Disraeli, who was then prime minister, remarked that "for the first time in the history of the country the employer and employe sat under equal laws." From this rapid glance at the history of the cause of labor we perceive that it is a plant that grows and that cannot be arbitrarily made, and its growth is dependent upon the support of public senti- ment; agitation has helped it along by educating and creating a public sentiment in its favor. CAUSES OF FAILURE AND SUCCESS. Coming now to the practical difficulties in the way it seems to me that the main reason for the failure of the eight-hour movement in some cases is that the movement was not coextensive with the em- ployer's field of competition, while on the other hand, in those cases in which it was successful, the movement was coextensive with the em- ployer's field of competition. Let me illustrate : Houses and large buildings are not sold on board the cars at place of manufacture. Those engaged in erecting them in one city do not come directly in competition with those engaged in erecting them in another city. It is true that the workmen will go from one city to another, but they do not do this on a scale sufficiently large to bring the artisans in the building trades in one city so directly in competition with those in another. Most of the workmen have families, which they cannot move without expense, and which they will not leave to seek work unless obliged to, so that in the building trades it is always a local question, and that is the reason why the short-hour system has been introduced successfully in this line, while it has failed in others. In Victoria there were only about a million of inhabitants, with the ocean surrounding them, and making speedy importation of laborers impossible. Now, THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT. 183 Chicago has over a million of inhabitants, yet if Chicago stood alone, and if its manufacturers did not have to come in competition with the rest of the country, it would be a very easy matter to have the system adopted here. In England the movement in favor of the reduction of hours was, in each instance, coextensive with the field of competition among employers. It is true it embraced vast industries, but they were in a small territory, and all those carrying on the same business were affected alike, hence the movement was successful. In New England the movement for shorter hours was again coextensive with what then constituted the manufacturer's field of competition, all of the leading mill-owners acceded to the movement, and they were all affected alike, and the movement was successful. In 1886, when the eight-hour system was adopted at the Union Stock Yards at Chicago, it was not adopted by the large competing establishments in the East, that is, the movement in favor of shorter hours was not coextensive with the field in which the packers had to compete, and consequently it failed. Manufactured goods are generally sold on board the cars at place of manufacture, and owing to the perfect facilities for transportation, a manufacturer in one city is brought into direct competition with another manufacturer in the same line a thousand miles away. Therefore, in my judgment, any attempt to introduce the eight-hour system into the manufacturing world must be general, and, as you will readily see, this will require universal and thorough organization on the part of the laboring classes; without thorough organization, no movement of that kind can succeed, and the organization must not only be general, but it must embrace all lines of labor ; it must be general in order that the movement may be general ; it must embrace all lines in order : First, so that they can support each other ; second, that there may be concert of action ; third, that the million or more of men out of employment, and who are hungry, will not at once rush in and maintain the old system; and, what is still more important, that the movement may be con- trolled by reason and moderation and kept free from violence. I do not believe that violence can accomplish any substantial results. On the contrary, it has repeatedly injured, if not defeated, the movement. I sincerely hope that the day of strikes is over, and that all differences in the future may be amicably adjusted on the basis of reason, justice, and common sense, and I thoroughly believe that organization is one of the greatest educational agencies, and that the laborer is chiefly indebted to it for the improvement in his condition. Organization by means of agitation helped to create the public sentiment that was necessary to effect reform, and it educated the 184 LIVE QUESTIONS. laborer, by teaching him discussion, investigation, consideration, mod^ eration, and conservatism. The oldest labor organizations in the country are the most conservative. They have all taken high ground on the liquor question, they refuse to permit a saloon-keeper to belong to their order, and in times of-violence they have, as a rule, been found on the side of law and orders-violence has in nearly all cases come from the rabble and those outside of labor organizations. It is clear that, if the movement is not general, then, in order to maintain it in certain localities, it will be necessary to make some concession in wages ; and it is possible that, if the movement should be general, in order to prevent too great a shock to business and a loss to the em- ployer there might have to be temporary concessions, for it must be borne in mind that many manufacturers are under contracts to deliver their products for some time in the future at fixed prices, and as they are nearly all doing business on a very small margin, even a slight in- crease in the cost of manufacture would entail a loss upon them. Changes adopted by mutual concession usually produce the best results. Questions of this character can rarely be settled by those who seek to get the highest possible wages for the least possible work on the one hand, or those who seek to get the greatest possible amount of work for the least possible wages on the other hand. No system can be permanently established unless in the end it shall prove to be beneficial to the employer, hence it is important to consider, from time to time, what the employer can and cannot do. It frequently happens that a number of employes who consider themselves underpaid see their employer's carriage drive up to the office, and they look at it and then at the large establishment, and conclude that he could treble their wages if he only wanted to, when the fact is that even the wealthiest men engaged in business are usually so spread out, that is, carrying on such gigantic enterprises and doing business on so narrow a margin, that they are in a constant strain; and there are many who, with a capital of only a thousand dollars, expect to do a business of a hundred thousand dollars, and they are generally in such a situation that a slight disturbance seriously affects them. In railroading and in some other lines of industry the eight- hour system could not be adopted, but the day's work in these lines could be fixed with reference to the new standard, just as it is at present fixed with reference to the ten-hour standard. Now, in con- clusion, I believe that by intelligent, united, and well-directed action on the part of the laborers of this country, not only the eight-hour system, but any other desirable reform can be successfully established, and it cannot be in any other way. Government Of cities. 185 Let me say that the nineteenth century is the only century that has lent a smile or a helping hand to the laborer. All the prior centuries struck him with their lash, beat him with their clubs, burned him with their hot irons, and let him rot in their jails. The means of advancement in this century has been the spread of intelligence ; and, aside from the newspaper press, the two great agencies for the spread of intelligence among the laboring classes have been the common schools for the education of the children of the laborer, and organiza- tion for the education of the fathers of these children. Organization taught the laborer discussion, investigation, consideration, moderation, and it taught some employers that justice is the best policy. GOVERNMENT OF CITIES. (An Address delivered before the Sunset Club of Chicago, October 23, 1890.) To effect a reform we must know what the conditions are which made the reform necessary, for as long as those conditions remain they will again produce the same result. Simply cutting down weeds does little good, for while their roots remain they will grow again. Our government was based on the principle of: First: No permanent office-holding class. Second: An independent officer for every important position. Third: Government by law, and not by caprice of individuals. Our trouble comes from a violation of these fundamentals. I. The instances are rare where an elective executive officer who came directly from the people, and had sole charge, was a defaulter, or was guilty of malfeasance or gross neglect during the first years of his administration. But years ago there gradually grew up a kind of a political machine in each party, by means of which, and of the public patronage, shrewd manipulators were enabled to keep them- selves and their friends almost continuously at the public crib. Then the thought of a re-election seized the office-holder and weakened his moral courage. He became all things to all men; he dared not look into the ways of favorites too closely, because they would hurt him politically. Everything must be so managed that he would lose no friends; and as almost every abuse was source of profit to somebody who had more or less influence, it became almost impossible to root 186 UVE QUESTIONS. it up. In short, there grew up a lack of thoroughness in the public service, and from this come many of the evils we complain of. Offices, like houses, need a general cleaning now and then, and the only way this can be done is by putting in new blood. Physicians have discovered that it is very difficult to put new blood into old veins, and we are beginning to learn that it is hard to put new blood 'into an old office-holder or to teach him new ways. If a new broom is a great factor in the kitchen, it is of much more importance in the office-holding world. The necessity of periodical house cleaning is a discovery of the nineteenth century. No matter how fair the house and furniture "may look, the good housekeeper knows that under the carpets and back of the furniture there has imperceptibly and noise- lessly collected a vast amount of dust and dirt. So with the admin- istration of office; no matter how fair and plausible the surface may seem, it will often be found that abuse, neglect, and even corruption, have crept in noiselessly, and sometimes without the knowledge of the head, and the only way to guard against this is by a periodical cleaning up — or more correctly, cleaning out. I know that it will be said that by this method some good officials are lost. But it must be borne in mind that even good officials have friends under them who are not as good. Besides, there are just as good men m the ranks as there are in office,, and if you take new men you will get just as large a proportion of good as you had before; and inasmuch as all will come directly from the. people, their administration (for a time, at least), will be cleaner, more thoroughgoing and conscientious; and if they feel that at the expiration of their term they must go back to private life, they will aim at excellence of administration instead of devoting their time to secure a re-election. There is no analogy be- tween a public officer and an agent or employe of a private individual, for in the latter case the proprietor supervises the business and exam- ines the accounts from time to time; while in the case of a public officer no thorough examination of all his doings can be, nor is, made until there is a change. II. There should be an independent officer elected by the people for every important position. In the country and villages, where there is little to do and the public is posted, a board or a council may answer ; but in a large city, where the public is not posted as to details, where there are large institutions to be managed and public enter- prises to be carried on, where there are unlimited -opportunities and Strong temptations to make money out of public employment, a board GOVERNMENT OP CITIES. 187 or council is a failure, for the power of execution is weakened in pro- portion to the number who are to decide. One man, if capable, will execute with dispatch; six men of equal ability will not only discuss, but wrangle ; while when it comes to sixty-eight men, life is simply too short to do business with them. Again, a board or council must execute through appointed officers, and it is under these that the worst cases of abuse have been found. The chief instruments whom Tweed used in engineering the gigantic steals in New York were appointed. The corruption in county af- fair, which has repeatedly aroused the indignation of our people grew upiunder the administration of men appointed by a board. The horfors in large charitable institutions throughout the land, as exposed almlst weekly for several years, prevailed under the administrations of r|en appointed by a board. The rottenness in the Department of Public Works in Cincinnati (recently exposed), existed under and was lovered up by men appointed by a board. In short, thorough execution and careful supervision by a board is the rarest kind of an exception, while weakness in execution, utter neglect of super- visionf coddling of favorites, and winking at abuses, is the almost universal rule. It is better to have one man who is personally respon- sible—even though known to be dishonest — than to have a board which ts known to be honest at the head of affairs. III. As to city councils: At present they possess so broad a discre- tionary power that practically they can prevent almost any public enterprise or improvement directly affecting the convenience and welfare of the people. A body with such powers should find no place among republican institutions. If Satan framed the law creating city councils with such broad powers, he based it on the principle of divide, tempt and conquer, for division of responsibility has given him his opportunity. Division of responsibility and broad discretionary power are the eggs from which has come the foul odor which hangs over the government of large cities, both here and in Europe. Here we make a fuss about it — in Europe they dare not. Put one man into a position of responsibility and he will make an effort to appear honest. Join nineteen men with him, and then frequently fourteen of them — enough to pass a measure over a veto — will brazenly divide up a corruption fund and laugh about it. There is not a mayor of an American city but has greater opportunities to further dishonest schemes than has a city council; yet the fact that the public finger can be put on him helps to keep him reasonably i§8 LIVE QUESTIONS. straight, and the instances are rare where the executive of a city has been charged with corruption. There is not a Governor of a State but has opportunities for plunder that exceed those of a member of the Legislature; yet while our Legislatures have in a measure lost the confidence of the American public, this is not true of the execu- tive. United responsibility has saved the latter, while divided respon- sibility has partially destroyed the good name of the former. The business of governing cities is executive, not legislative. Why should we longer keep cumbersome legislative machinery to do execu- tive work? Why not substitute law and certainty for discretion and caprice? There was a time when the Legislature of Illinois acted upon every small matter. It not only granted divorces, but no cor- poration could be organized except by special charter from the Legis- lature; no measures of any kind, requiring co-operation, could be started or carried on except by special act of the Legislature, until that body became practically made up of agents, each of whom had some private enterprise to engineer through, out of which he or some of his friends expected to realize handsomely. Finally this abuse was stopped by adopting a constitution which provided that all these things should be governed by general laws ; if parties wanted a divorce they were to go into the courts and try their case; if parties wanted to form a corporation they had simply to comply with a prescribed form ; if they wanted to build a railroad they could organize under the general laws of the State, and go to work. They didn't have to lobby for six months or a year to get the privilege of going to work. At present most of the matters that are controlled by the city council could be regulated by general law, and the public would be very much better off if they were. First, because of the slowness of a cumbersome body to act; second, because of the tendency on the part of some city councils to levy toll upon almost every enterprise sought to be carried on in the city. What is the use of compelling a railroad seeking to enter the city, to go to the city council? Did any man ever hear of a railroad wanting in dead earnest anything of a city council and not getting it? If the law had simply provided that in order to enter a city a railroad must pay not only for the private property taken, but for the public property — that is, the streets taken; that before taking a street a certain proportion of the owners of abutting land must consent, and that by going into court and ascer- taining the amounts to be paid to the owners of private property and the amount to be paid to the public for the loss of the use of streets, and that by paying these sums the company could proceed with its work, would not the public be a great deal better off than now GOVERNMENT OF CITIES. 189 especially if the law further provided that the corporation should for all. time pay a certain per cent of its earnings into the treasury, as is now done by the Illinois Central Railroad? Does the fact that a rail- way has to pay all the way from $50,000 to $100,000, or more, in cash, to city aldermen, by way of blackmail for an ordinance permit- ting it to enter a city, help the people of the city? Take the matter of street railroads: In Ohio they have a law providing that one street railway may use a certain number of blocks, amounting to about half a mile, of the tracks of another street railway where necessary, by paying its proportion of the cost of such tracks. This prevents one company from getting control of the terminal facilities. Now, sup- pose we had such a law in Chicago, and that we had had a general law which simply provided that in order to build a street railroad you must get the consent of the owners of a majority of the frontage on any street, as is now the case, and that when you showed the Department of Public Works that you had that frontage, you were entitled to a permit to go on and build your road, and didn't need to go to the coun- cil at all — don't you suppose that instead of having one street railway in any great division of this city, there would have been half a dozen competing lines? And if we had had competing lines would not the fare long ago have been three cents? Did the fact that it was neces- sary to get an ordinance from the city council in order to build a street railway, help the people of Chicago any, or protect them in any regard? Nay, when one corporation got a line established, did not the very fact that it was difficult and very expensive to get an ordi- nance from the council prevent others from building street railways, and thus prevent competition? And if this is true, would it not have been better to have no council to pass upon matters of this kind? Take the matter of gas. I believe this city should furnish its own light as it does its own water; still it has not done so in the past. If there had been a general law to the effect that by applying at the Department of Public Works any responsible party could, under general regulations, put down gas pipes and supply the people, would we not have had more competition and cheaper and better gas? What earthly good have the people of Chicago derived from the fact that it was necessary to get an ordinance from the council before anybody could furnish gas? If nothing were required of a corporation except that it should pay a certain per cent of its earnings into the treasury, would not that be better even than franchise-selling, which is now talked of? Take the matter of improving streets, putting in sewer, or water. This is all done by special assessment. Why not provide by general i9o LIVE QUESTIONS. law, that if the owners of a certain amount of the frontage On a street want a thing done, the Department of Public Works shall order it done, and make the assessment? What good does an ordinance by the council do in the matter? Perhaps it is true that for purposes of making appropriations there should be a board of, say, three or five men; for when it comes to levying taxes, slowness is not a fault. Possibly there should be a small board of three or five for the purpose of passing ordinances within a limited scope, but there is a serious question about this, for a general law can be so framed as to cover, substantially, everything that is now covered by ordinance. We want less machinery, but better law and better execution. I wish to say of the council of this city, that there are men in it who are as able and as conscientious as any to be found. It is, per- haps, true that they have not been in the majority. If any one of them were to take charge of the whole business now done by the city council, it would be done much more expeditiously and more satis- factorily than it is possible to do it by sixty-odd men. I have been unable to discover where any American city has derived any benefit from having a governmental body without whose consent no public enterprise could be carried on, and whose consent was so difficult to get that only those who had large sums to spend corruptly would attempt to get it. Therefore, I say, to get thorough municipal administration, pro- vide for doing as much as possible under general laws, and leave as little as possible to the discretion of officers. Second, have a separate officer, elected directly by the people, for each important post. Third, give all elective officers a reasonably long term, and make all ineli- gible to draw any salary from the public for a given period after holding an elective office. If any inspectors are needed for the pub- lic institutions, let them likewise be directly accountable to the people, and not be the creatures of the men who are interested in the running of the institutions: Fourth, do away with governing boards or coun- cils with their division of responsibility, and have one man at the head of each department who feels that he is accountable to the people for the conduct of affairs. And while there would not be a perfect ad- ministration under such a regime (for nothing done by human hands is perfect), yet on account of the frequent house-cleaning, or office- cleaning, if you please, no abuse would have time to become hoary- headed, no favorite contractors or sly go-betweens could build up a ring for the spoliation ■ of the public, no corruption could take any very deep root, and no negligence or brutality on the part of under- lings could long exist before being swept out by the new broom. GOOD ROADS. igi GOOD ROADS. (Published in "Good Roads" Magazine, December, 1892.) The question of good roads is one of the most important that now confronts the farmers of Illinois, and it relates to a class of internal improvement that the State will have to take hold of with a resolute spirit. The time has come when a citizen of Illinois should be able to drive from one end of his State to the other with a team at all times of the year. We have astounded the world in the building of great cities, great railroads, great shops and great factories; we have built up a splendid agriculture, and have pushed the develop- ment of our wonderful resources, and the attention as well as the energies of the people have been directed towards these ends; but we find that nothing has been done toward the making of highways that shall be passable the year round, consequently there are months in every year in which it is impossible for the farmer or the merchant to drive his team twenty-five miles with even half a load; in short, we have made no practical progress toward the improvement of our roads. Both the inconvenience and the actual loss resulting from this, falls mostly upon the farmer, though to some extent it is shared by the whole community. As a result of impassable roads, the farmer is frequently prevented from taking his grain and other prod- ucts to market at a time when they would bring the best prices, while at other times the railroads, being driven beyond their capacity by the glutted freight and store houses, when the roads are good enough to permit of the grain and other products being brought to market, are liable to be short of cars, and having to do the whole business in a kind of irregular way, will keep the freight charges up to a higher point than would be necessary if the country roads were good enough to insure a more uniform supply, and thus give the railroads some- thing like an even business. With better wagon roads less rolling stock would then be required to fill the demands of the carrying trade, and, upon the whole, the railroads would be subject to less ex- pense. Then, again, attempting to team in the mud wears out not only the wagon and the harness, but tends to exhaust and break down the horses; so that one day's teaming in the deep mud will some- times cause more loss to a farmer in these respects than a whole month's teaming on good roads. Again, the people in the cities and the villages are subject to inconvenience, and sometimes to extra expense, because, owing to impassable roads, produce cannot be brought to market. In view of these consideratiofis, and for other excellent reasons which might be multiplied to great length, the time 192 LIVE QUESTIONS. has come when a great and proud State, like that of Illinois, greater and grander than any of the ancient empires of the earth, and one of the richest, most powerful and most wonderful States in the civil- ized world of to-day, should have highways from one end of her bor- ders to the pther, which can be traveled with comfort every day of the year. Years ago the State had something like an internal improve- ment system, t believe the greater part of the Chicago & Alton Railroad was built by the State. Other great enterprises that were calculated to develop the resources of the State, to bind the people together and give them rapid means of transportation, were aided and carried out by the patronage of the State government. The time seems now to have come when the State must again take up this subject of internal improvement, especially in so far as it relates to the making of new roads, and it should be done upon a comprehensive system, so as to insure something like uniformity from one end of the State to the other; otherwise we might have cases where one county, or perhaps one township, would build a good road and then the adjoining township or county would not, and thus a kind of frag- mentary improvement would result. DIVISION OF EXPENSE. As to how the expense should be borne is a matter of detail that will require a good deal of examination. It is possible that in most cases a part of the expense could be levied in the form of an assess- ment upon land along the route, that derived some special benefit from the road, and that another part of the expense could be paid by the county; and it is possible and perhaps proper that in some instances the State should contribute something. I will not attempt to go into the details of this, but when once taken hold of in a resolute way, the problem of expense can be readily solved. MATERIAL TO BE USED. As to the material with which to build improved roads, some dif- ference of opinion exists. Some engineers claim that a good quality of clay can be found at no great depth all over the State. Assuming this to be true, this clay might be dug up at different points along the road where it is needed and burned right there into hard, irregular fragments ; that is, instead of attempting to mould it into bricks, or regularly shaped blocks, it could be so burned in small, irregularly shaped chunks, as to become hard as ,stone, and thus could be used to make a "macadamized" road. It is claimed for this system that clay thus burnt would make even a better road than stone, and that GOOD ROADS. 193 by reason of the small cost of hauling, the road could be made with- out very great expense. Other engineers advocate the making of macadamized roads out of crushed stone, and claim that a road-bed wide enough to provide for the passage of four teams abreast could be built at a cost ranging from $2,500 to $3,000 a mile. They also urge that, inasmuch as the State owns large quarries, the State con- victs, instead of being "hired out" at a few cents a day to work for contractors, who thus enhance their own private fortunes, should be set to work breaking stone to be shipped to various points and used in building roads. This plan has a great deal to recommend it, and, I must say, strikes me favorably. I do not say that all convicts should be set at this work, but that a very large proportion of them should be. It is further urged in favor of this plan, that as the rail- roads would get their freight to carry with more regularity after good roads were built, and would thus be able to operate their roads more cheaply, they could well afford to make very reasonable rates for the haulage of this crushed stone from the penitentiary to points near where it may be needed on the road. LOCATION OF ROADS. Again, some gentlemen who have given this subject much con- sideration, have arrived at the conclusion that, as the public roads now generally run on section lines and make right angles around quarter sections of land, while the railroads generally run direct from one point to another, so that the distance by railroad between towns is generally considerably less than it is by wagon road, and as the railroads generally run to what may be called "centers," it would be a good plan when constructing new roads to follow the railroad so far as was practicable; that in this way the distance would be short- ened, that the new roads in all cases would then lead direct to central points, and that the material for making the roads could in this way be hauled on the cars right along from place to place and left at the exact spot where needed, thus saving the hauling of the material from the cars to points more or less distant, as would be necessary in the improvement of the roads already located. There is, of course, the "objection to this plan, that in many instances there would be danger of horses becoming frightened at the passing trains; but all these questions are matters of detail. It may be that, when the sub- ject is once taken hold of in earnest, an entirely new plan can be devised, differing from anything that has yet been discussed, and leading to a satisfactory solution of the whole problem. However this may be, the time has about come for the mud road to go 13 194 LIVE QUESTIONS. SHOULD JUDGES USE PASSES? (From the Chicago Daily News.) Members of the bar and citizens generally may congratulate them- selves that some of the judges do not look upon the accepting of passes as being proper. Judge Altgeld not only refuses to accept them, but believes that the entire system is radically wrong. A re- porter for the Daily News asked: "Judge, do the railroads send you many passes?" "No, not now," was the reply. "Several years ago, when I went onto the bench, they sent me more than a dozen for myself and wife." "May I ask what you did with them?" "I sent them all back." "Why did you send them back?" "Well, on principle. I do not believe in accepting something for nothing, and then I do not think that a judge should accept favors from parties who either are or may become litigants in his court, and who would not offer him a pass if he were not judge. Even if it did not influence him, it tends to make the public and even the bar feel a little distrustful, and to, that extent weakens his usefulness. If a livery stable keeper, who had cases in court, were to offer a judge the free use of his horses and buggies, a judge would feel that he could not accept it; for in offering him something which was not offered to the public, it was fair to assume that there was a special motive for the act, and the same rule will apply to railroads — at least the public think so — and to make the administration of justice effec- tive, it is necessary that the public should, at least, have confidence in its integrity and impartiality." "Then you don't use passes, Judge." "No, sir; I have always paid my way, just like other people have to do." SHOULD JUDGES WEAR GOWNS? (Published in Chicago Globe, March 16, 1891, in answer to questions by the Editor.) No man ever added a cubit to his stature by dress. No robe ever enlarged a man's brain, ripened his wisdom, cleared his judgment, strengthened his purpose, or fortified his honesty. If he is a little man without a robe, he is contemptible in a robe. If a man is large without a robe, he is simply ludicrous in one. SHOULD JUDGES WEAR GOWNS! 195 A robe used as an insignia of office is a relic of barbarism, a relic of the age when tinsel, glitter and flummery were thought to be neces- - sary to overawe the common people. And the robe can now perform no other function than that of humbugging the people. A court which is worthy of the name, needs no such flimsy and ridiculous assistance in order to command the confidence and the respect of the community, and a court which cannot command the respect and the confidence of the people without resorting to shams of this kind, is incapable of doing any good, is incapable of protecting the weak from being trampled down by the strong, and should be wiped out of existence. This age and the American people do not want mediaeval shams. They want light; daylight, electric light, sunlight. They want reali- ties; they want character; they want learning; they want good judg- ment; they want independence, and they want these free from both barbaric and aristocratic subterfuges. It is only weak minds that lean upon this kind of bolstering. Our age is superior to the middle ages only in so far as it has progressed beyond sham and formalism, lofty pomp and hollow and dull dignity, and asks now to be shown things just as they are. "You may say," said the Judge, with very decided emphasis, "that I am opposed to pretense and humbug, no matter whether found in high stations or in low, and in my opinion, if the American people ever reach a point where they must put robes upon their judges or any other officers in order to have the highest respect for them, then republican institutions will be at an end in this country; for men who can be inspired by a gown are but little removed from those who can draw inspiration from a wooden god, and neither are fit to either enjoy or defend true political liberty." The strong, masculine and liberty-loving element of the bar does not favor these handmaids of fraud in a temple of justice. It is the fawning and the hanging-on element, the element which flatters and seeks a rear door entrance to the judge, that favors them. Instead of adding dignity to a court it shows a weakness ; for every time a judge puts on a gown he confesses that he needs this extraneous help; he confesses that he must resort to humbug in order to make an im- pression. In the past gowns have not prevented judicial murders, wrongs and outrages, the infamy of which reaches to hell. So long as we tolerate in this country any tribunals that find it necessary to wear this insignia of mediaeval conditions, just so long must we confess that we have not reached a high state of development. 196 LIVE QUESTIONS. A PROTEST AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY. (Note. — Early in November, 1891, the police of Chicago made two raids — one at Turner Hall on a Wednesday night, and the other at Greif's Hall on the next night, under the circumstances set out below.) Chicago, November 14, 1891. Maj. R. W. McClaughry, Chief of Police of Chicago: Dear Sir: I trust that you will pardon me for entering a protest against the arbitrary, high-handed and illegal acts of some of your police inspectors during this week. They have been guilty of con- duct which is subversive of the fundamental principles of our gov- ernment, and which must tend to bring the fair fame of our great city into disrepute, and if persisted in, or repeated often, must foster a spirit of revenge and hatred, and ultimately result in bloodshed, if not anarchy. I write this protest to you because until recently you have shown a> determination to put a stop to arbitrary, brutal and lawless acts of men wearing the uniform of a policeman and drawing a salary from the public treasury. Nobody has a higher regard for the great body of the police force of Chicago than I have. I know that there are hundreds and hundreds of honest, conscientious and faithful officers on the force, who do their duty quietly, without any effort at dramatic effect, and who do not find it necessary to violate the law in order to do their duty. They are gentlemen — just the kind of men that the law contemplated its guardians should be — protectors of the weak and poor and of good order. For these men I have the highest praise. It is asserted by some that this class of men have in the past been kept in the background because they did not possess political influence, and that there had been promoted to the higher positions a class of men many of whom were brutal by instinct, lacked common honesty, and, frequently, were simply bullies in uniform, some of them levying blackmail upon unfortunate women, and when the blackmail was not paid, raiding them and dragging them into the police station, while others did not hesitate to violate the law in dif- ferent ways. You have already weeded a number of this class of men out of the force, and the good people of Chicago, without reference to party, all unite in commending your action. Now, among the class last described, there were some men who, for several years, have managed to get a little notoriety, and sometimes newspaper applause, by periodically making a discovery of anarchists. Nothing came of these discoveries, but they seemed to be renewed as often as it was PROTEST AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY. 197 necessary for some detective, who never won any laurels in detecting crime, and who thirsted for notoriety, to attract some attention. Sev- eral of these men have been dropped from the force for the good of the city, but it seems there are others anxious to emulate them. On Wednesday night last there was, at Twelfth Street Turner Hall, a meeting of people who, so far as anything to the contrary has ap- peared, were working people holding a meeting at which there was no breach of peace and no call for police interference of any kind. Yet at this meeting Police Inspector Hubbard forcibly entered with a squad of officers, and in a dramatic manner stopped the proceeding of the meeting, ordered those assembled to go and get an American flag, declaring that unless they did so he, the inspector, would adjourn the meeting, indulging in other threats, terrorizing those assembled so far as he could, and practically breaking up the meeting. Having covered himself in this way with glory, the brave inspector, who had once been chief of police of the city, and had failed to win laurels in the detection and punishment of real criminals, took his squad of men and retreated. The newspapers report you as commending his action. As a friend, and as a man who has admired your course here, and who has the highest personal regard for you, I hope you are not correctly reported. If there was any violation of the law at the meeting on Wednesday night, if any crime was committed there, then you cer- tainly will admit that it was the duty of the officers there to have arrested those guilty of the crime; to have seen that complaint was properly lodged against the offenders, and that they were punished according to the law. Any officer failing to do this would have been promptly disciplined. Yet nothing of this kind was done. Not a single man was arrested or prosecuted, although the inspector was hunting for anarchists and was looking for even a pretext to arbi- trarily interfere. No crime having been committed, the act of the inspector in interfering with the meeting was an outrage — was a clear violation of law — for which he should have been promptly dismissed from the force. The law guarantees to every person liberty of speech, the protection of the person and the protection of property; one is no more sacred than the other. In fact, among all liberty-loving nations of Europe and America the right of free speech and the right of im- munity from personal molestation is regarded as being more sacred and of a higher order than the right of property. Yet, if some poor wretch steals an overcoat worth $30, we send him to the penitentiary. But when a so-called officer of the law, drawing pay from the city treasury, violates the right of free speech and the right of person; when an officer of the law commits a crime which is more serious 198 . LIVE QUESTIONS. than the stealing of a thousand overcoats, he is applauded and is said to be commended by his chief, because the people whose rights he violated were poor wretches whom he could abuse at pleasure. Look at the case a moment: Where do you find a law authorizing a bully, whether in uniform or in rags, to break up a meeting of any kind, whether of preachers, of bankers or politicians, or even anarchists, because they do not have the American flag on the stage; or giving him the right to demand of them that they shall put it there, under a threat that he will adjourn the meeting if they do not? Let me say to you, that neither you nor your police force are the sole custodians of admiration for the American flag. No man holds it in higher regard than I do, and it is because I feel that the proceedings which I have described are an insult to the American flag, and must tend to foster a spirit of hatred toward it; it is because I feel that wrong never makes right, and as human nature is constituted it is impossible to inspire love by the application of brute force; and it is because I feel that if our flag ever ceases to be that emblem of freedom which has secured it the friendly greeting of all mankind, it will be due to just such proceedings as I have described, that I complain. But In- spector Hubbard, having thus dramatically and in a moment achieved a degree of glory which he had never been able to attain by the exercise of his legitimate powers and duties as a police officer, In- spector Lewis, of the adjoining district, resolved not to be outdone. If lording it over a few dozen wretches, who are described as smell- ing of beer, could win glory, he was determined to have his share and to out-do Hubbard. So on the following night, instead of a small detachment, he takes one hundred officers to Grief's building, where there was a meeting of laboring people, and where there had been no breach of the peace, and, so far as the evidence has yet shown, no crime committed of any kind or character; and finding that he could not get free access to the meeting he broke down the doors, not only to the hall, but to different private apartments, entered with his officers, and ordered the inmates in the hall and rooms to throw up their hands, proceeded to club all who did not do so, and then searched everyone present — about two hundred; and all who objected to this arbitrary and illegal process were pronounced disorderly, and were placed under arrest and marched to the station and locked up in cells. Twenty-three men were in this way dealt with. The whole proceed- ing had been without any warrant and without any evidence that a crime had been committed. During the search revolvers were found on the persons of four of them ; although there were nearly two hun- dred present only four had pistols. You must have been surprised PROTEST AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY. 199 not to find more, for the proceeding on the previous night was cer- tainly calculated to make men get arms if they did not already have them, yet there were not as many pistols found as could be found at a meeting of half that many people held anywhere else in the city. At the police station these men were put on trial for disorderly con- duct and carrying concealed weapons. Think a moment, now, of this farce : Having gone so far as to break down doors and break up a peaceable meeting, and arrest these men and bring them to the sta- tion, the officers felt that they must swear to something, and having nothing else in the whole criminal code to charge, they fell back on the blanket charge of disorderly conduct; and in trying to name something which in their judgment constituted an offense, they swore before Justice Woodman that different men at the meeting had used abusive language, had spoken abusively of the government, and had called the mayor a fool and a dude, and had abused the police force. This is the substance of the evidence given. The charge that these men were anarchists not only fell to the ground but was entirely dis- proves But suppose they had been anarchists. There was no law authorizing this ruffianly bullying, and certainly no course could have been pursued that was more calculated to confirm fanatical people in their error, and elevate them to the plane of martyrs, than that of your officers. Yet, and what is far more serious, no course could have been pursued that would so certainly make converts to the cause of anarchy among ignorant men, for a thousand loud-talking agitators could not sow as much anarchial seed in a year as your officers have done in a week. Now, look at this a moment: When a murder or a robbery, or any heinous crime, is committed, we find the machinery of the law ample for the case. There is a charge; the offender is ar- rested on a specific charge and is prosecuted and punished. There is no dramatic or spectacular performance found necessary in any of these cases — no violation of law by the officers is found necessary. But when some laboring men, described as being ragged and smelling of beer, get together in a room and simply use language which ordi- narily is thought nothing of when coming from other men, a hundred officers are at once on hand, there is a spectacular display, doors are broken down and people subjected to outrage, and it is announced that the good fame of the city and the success of the Columbian Ex- position is in danger. This blundering farce and criminal act on the part of the police will hurt the city's good name more than all the anarchists could have done in a century. Why, if a crime had been committed there, the offenders could have been brought to justice without subjecting two hundred people to outrage. You are reported 200 LIVE QUESTIONS. as saying that you did not believe that they (the people arrested) had contemplated any violent outbreak, and that it was only talk that Uiey had intended to indulge in. Now, the law guarantees freedom of assemblage, freedom of speech and freedom from personal molesta- tion.as well as the right of property. Having done this, the law then holds men responsible for what they do in exercising these rights, and if a crime is committed the law provides an orderly and a reason- able procedure for bringing the offenders to justice. Freedom of as- semblage means undisturbed assemblage, free from the presence of all who are not wanted; and freedom of speech means the right to say anything the speaker sees fit to say, he remaining responsible for his utterance; and it is an axiom of the law, that mere talk, no matter how abusive, does not constitute a crime. The highest tribunals of the land have repeatedly decided that language alone, no matter how abusive, if unaccompanied by overt acts, can not constitute treason or any offense against the government. The statutes of Illinois define a criminal offense as follows: "A criminal offense consists in a viola- tion of a public law, in the commission of which there shall be a union or joint operation of act and intention or criminal negligence." There must be some overt act, some deed. The law takes notice only of acts, of deeds, and not of talk. Mere talk can be considered only in so far as it tends to throw light upon or explain the motives for deeds, and no further. Of course, loud or abusive talk on the streets where it would col- lect a crowd and disturb the peace, is governed by a different principle. But the meetings that were broken up this week were not held on the street, they were held on private premises ; and it has not- even been pretended that there was loud or abusive talking or a breach of the peace at either of them, until your officials provoked it. So that, ac- cording to the evidence of your own officers, there had been nothing done at either of the meetings that the law took any notice of — noth- ing that could be construed into a violation of law; while the over- whelming weight of the evidence shows that the meeting at Greifs hall was simply an assemblage of small labor organizations that were holding a regular meeting, and were simply transacting routine busi- ness in a quiet and orderly way. No doubt there were some there who felt exasperated at the bullying to which they had been subjected the night before at Turner hall, and no doubt most if not all present were indignant and resentful at the outrage of having their meeting forcibly broken into and being ordered to hold up their hands, and then being compelled to submit to having their persons searched and be jostled around and clubbed by ruffians in uniform. Do you think PROTEST AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY. 201 it strange that they should use abusive language under these circum- stances? Would any man be worthy of American citizenship if he could supinely bear this? What would you have said — yea, and have done, if subjected to a like outrage? Supposing the proceedings to have been legal, do you consider this the right way to inspire love for our flag, or respect for our institutions? But they were not only illegal but un-American; they are tolerated only in Russia, and are failing in their purpose there. The American people are not prepared to substitute government by police ruffians for government by law, and we cannot for one moment admit the principle that a policeman or any other officer, be he president or constable, can, without trial and without legal process, deprive men of their rights on the pretext that if he did not do so they might commit an offense. We can not for a moment admit that by simply applying an unpopular or oblo- quious name to men, whether that name be anarchist or socialist, capi- talist or vagabond, republican or democrat, an officer can be justified in depriving men of rights guaranteed by the fundamental law, and can break up their meeting, can club, search and imprison them, not for what they have done, but for what he, in his wisdom, or his preju- dice, or his caprice, fears they might do. If this principle were once admitted, there is no limit to its application. While it is sought to apply it to one class to-day, it could be applied to any other class to-morrow, and a precedent made in one case would be sure to be cited and acted on in another, and a political party, for the time being in power, could prevent its opponents from meeting and put them in jail, not for what they had doner but for what it was feared they might do. During the last city campaign there were meetings* of men who denounced Mayor Cregier and his administration, using terms a great deal more offensive than that of being a fool or a dude. Suppose Mayor Cregier had attempted to send a police inspector with a hundred men to each of these meetings, and the inspector had attempted to dictate to the meeting just how far they could go in their abusive language without his declaring the meeting adjourned, would the proceeding have been tolerated for one moment? I do not know any of the men who were at those meetings on Wednesday and Thursday nights, or who were clubbed and arrested; never saw any of them, never spoke to any of them; nobody ever spoke to me concerning any of them, and I have no interest in them. But I will ask you, can you think of anything more calculated to create a thirst for revenge in the minds of ignorant men; can you think of anything more calculated to plant the seeds of hatred and even of murder in the hearts of men ; can you think of anything more 262 LIVE QUESTIONS. calculated to make them hate the flag that floats above them and pray for the destruction of the government that thus bullies them, than the conduct of your police officers during the past week? If that conduct does not inspire the feelings I have just named, will you kindly tell me what kind of conduct will do so? In the spring of 1886 we had some extensive strikes and labor troubles on the West Side. At that time there were meetings of labor people, and the Police Department then pursued the course which your officers have just been pursuing; when there was no trouble meetings were broken up, men were clubbed to the right and to the left without any provocation, and this was kept up for weeks, until finally some wretch, whose name, if they knew it, the police have never been willing to make public, threw a bomb at a squad of police who were in the act of dispersing another peaceablemeeting — a meeting which the Mayor had attended and pronounced peaceable — and the result was the killing and maim- ing of a large number of policemen, most of them officers who were simply obeying the orders of their superiors, and were not responsible for the brutal bullying done by other officers. If the course which your force has started in to pursue shall long continue, can you, in all reason, expect any other result to follow than bloodshed? Even a worm will sometimes turn and sting the heel that tramps on it. You are reported as having said you will continue to break up meetings which do not meet with your /approval, designating in this class meetings in which the speakers use abusive language and de- nounce the government. Now let me ask you again, since when has it been the law that a policeman can attend a meeting of citizens and prescribe what may and what may not be said at that meeting? As a citizen and a tax-payer, as a man who loves our country and be- lieves our government to be the best on earth ; as a lover of liberty, of law and of order ; as a man who is proud of our great city, and who does not want its fair fame clouded by this dramatic and farcical police demonstration, I protest against these unlawful acts, and I will say to you that it will be an evil day for our country when the poor and the ignorant, misguided though they may be, shall feel that a bullet is the only minister of justice which can right their wrongs, and the conduct of your officers now, like the conduct of certain officers in the spring of '86, will certainly tend to create that feeling and to accelerate its growth, and thus tend to endanger the lives and property of our people. Very respectfully, JOHN P. ALTGELD. Note.— The cases were tried before Police Magistrate Woodman, who held his position as such magistrate from Mayor Washburn. Everybody expected ORIGIN OF TRUSTS. 203 Woodman to do whatever the city administration wanted done in the cases. After the writing of the above letter Mr. Greif's daughter, who was lying dan- gerously ill in her father's house at the time Inspector Lewis battered down the doors, died, her death being hastened if not actually caused by the shock. In the meantime public sentiment began to be aroused, and the police, as well as the administration, were censured, until the latter felt that it must have some sort of vindication. Then was enacted one of the most farcical proceed- ings, following on the heels of a tragedy, ever witnessed in this country. Magistrate Woodman rendered his decision and proceeded to find all of the men guilty of disorderly conduct. The moment he had concluded and before the defendants had time to stand up and pray an appeal, Mr. Douglas, the city prosecutor, who had spent nearly a week prosecuting the cases, jumped up and asked that the fines be suspended in all the cases, and the magistrate very complacently suspended all the fines, against the protests of the defendants, who insisted on their right of appeal, claiming that a principle was involved, and they did not want the matter dropped in that farcical way, but wanted their rights vindicated in a higher tribunal. The city prosecutor simply replied that as the fines had been suspended there was nothing to appeal from. Now, sentence is sometimes suspended on motion of the defendants when it appears that there were mitigating circumstances and there is a promise of better conduct for the future. But the idea of arresting men, clubbing them, locking them up, spending a week in prosecuting them, and then, against their protest, suspending the fines and telling them to go home when they insisted on carrying the litigation farther, has never been heard of before. Of all the travesties that were ever enacted in so-called courts of justice, none ever had so comical an ending. It showed that the city authorities felt they were in the wrong, but had not the manliness to confess it, and they resorted to this boy's play, hoping to get out of a bad scrape. Subsequently, at the request of the city authorities, there were conferences held between the mayor and chief of police on the one hand, and some of the men who were arrested at Greif's Hall and their friends, on the other, in which conferences both the mayor and the chief tried to appease the men by prom- ising reparation for the wrong done, the chief saying that he would pay for the property belonging to some of the societies, and which had been destroyed by the police. ORIGIN OF TRUSTS. (Interview, "Chicago Herald," January n, 1891.) There is no doubt but that the formation of trusts is contrary to both the spirit and the letter of the law. Their effect is to arbitrarily make prices and to cut down the wages of the employe. Whenever they have been brought before the courts and their true character has been shown, the courts have held them illegal. The sugar trust has been declared illegal by the New York courts, and the gas trust here has suffered similarly. But they evade and ignore all adverse deci- sions, and frequently find judges who, while not holding that trusts 204 LIVE QUESTIONS. are legal, will yet help them out. The sugar trust goes right on as if nothing had happened, and the price of gas in Chicago is just where the gas trust put it. IT IS A GREAT QUESTION. The question of trusts is a greater one than many people imagine, and it is a problem for which it appears difficult to provide a solution. Trusts are the product of our development, and the line upon which they have come goes beyond the mere formation of trusts. They are the legitimate offspring of the concentration of wealth in a few hands. This started soon after the close of the war, and has acquired an accelerated motion as it has progressed. Its first effects were noticeable in the crowding out of the small merchant, the small manu- facturer and the small farmer. The stronger of these prevailed, so that after a time there were fewer merchants, fewer manufacturers and fewer farmers in proportion to population. A few manufacturers, es- pecially in the iron and machinery line, drove out of business the con- cerns with less capital, and thus monopolized the market. It was soon found that by enlarging the establishments and concentrating capital the cost of running in proportion to the business done was greatly reduced, so that the stronger could undersell the weaker and thus drive the latter out of business. The protective tariff was an- other cause of the concentration of vast wealth into a few hands. Big establishments were built upon the lines of protection, and in time these were enabled to reach over into unprotected fields and drive out small manufacturers there. Having done this, they put prices up to suit themselves. Another thing which greatly facilitated this move- ment was the granting of special freight rates to large dealers, giving them an advantage over small competitors which in many cases amounted to a fair profit. When the process of development had gone so far, and the weaker concerns in the various lines had been crushed out, there were left only the strong and powerful. The crushing out process now had to cease, and to avoid a ruinous competition they formed combinations and fixed prices which all agreed to observe, both as to the goods to be sold and the wages to be paid, leaving each, however, to compete for all the business it could get. Then a still further development came. They saw the advisability of limiting their output in order to maintain prices. This could only be done by bringing all concerned into one common pool. Then the trust was born, and generally it has resulted very profitably to its parents, for in this way they were enabled to still further reduce the cost of manufacturing their goods UTILIZE THE LAKE FRONT. 205 and putting them upon the market by dispensing with the services of a great many intermediate men. TENDING TOWARD CONSOLIDATION. In spite of the law these organizations seem to thrive, and while the law is based upon common justice, it is apparent to the most casual observer that the tendency of modern times is toward consoli- dation. In governments of the world, the little principalities and kingdoms are disappearing. In the commerce of the world larger ships are in use. In the mercantile world we have larger stores. In the railroad world, larger railroads; in the agricultural world, larger farms, and in the manufacturing world, larger factories. Wherever we see the comprehensive intelligence of the nineteenth century ac- tively at work there seems to be a tendency to concentration and con- solidation, to simplify and to enlarge. It is so easy for these power- ful combinations to evade the law that it is very doubtful whether their growth can be arrested. It is a question whether there is any other way of preserving an equilibrium in our institutions than by organization and concentration of the counter-balancing forces. UTILIZE THE LAKE FRONT. LET THE WORLD'S FAIR DIRECTORS USE IT, BUT DON'T GIVE IT AWAY. (From the "Sunday Herald.") Editor of the "Chicago Herald." Sir: I am asked to state what I think of the project of the city's turning the Lake Front Park over to the South Side Commissioners, and thus parting with the control of it. As this would be a great wrong to the people of Chicago, and as it would benefit only a few individuals, I say it ought not to be done. I do not know just what the legal status of the title to the Park is, nor does it matter much, for the title must be either in the Federal Government, the State Gov- ernment, or the city, or in all three, and if the city needs any further legislation, either Federal or State, to give an absolute title to this land, it can get it. If the people of Chicago once decide that they want legislation from any source, I repeat, they will get it. The Park was originally intended for the pleasure of the people of Chicago. So long as it was suited for a park and Chicago was comparatively small, it served this purpose. But for a number of 206 LIVE QUESTIONS. years the people of Chicago have derived absolutely no benefit from it, because it was no longer suited for a park, and its location made it practically inaccessible. The West Side, having more than half the population of the city, gets absolutely no benefit from it. The North Side derives no benefit from it whatever. Not one in a thousand of the people of the South Side derives any benefit or pleasure from it at all, nor would they if the ground were turned over to the South Park Commissioners. In the first place, the South Park Commis- sioners have not money enough to improve the grounds they already have as they should be improved. In the second place, as already stated, a little park in the business center of a city amounts to noth- ing, and it is safe to say that, even if the South Park Commissioners had the money, they could not so improve the park as to make it a resort for a very large number of the people of Chicago; it would always be what it has been for the last ten years, a more or less un- sightly place with constant railroad annoyances on one side and busi- ness on the other. Now, in order that, the whole people of Chicago, to whom it belongs, may derive any benefit from it in the future, it is necessary that it should be so utilized for all time to come as to derive an annual revenue from it, which the city could use to make parks, build libraries, build art institutes, make streets, build bridges, and make improvements of every character. I believe in parks, but want them where the masses of the people can enjoy them. And to show what an enormous annual revenue could be derived from this ground, I will say that I will take a lease of it and pay one million dollars annually into the city treasury, and I am satisfied that that is not half its value. I am satisfied that, if the title is once perfected, it can be leased for business purposes on ten or twenty year leases, pro- viding for re-valuation every ten years, on a basis that will pay the city annually anywhere from two to three million dollars. This would again benefit all of the people of Chicago. If it is turned over to the South Park Commissioners, nobody will derive any benefit from it, except the few people who have prop- erty fronting on Michigan Avenue opposite this park. So it is a question whether the people of Chicago should part with an annual revenue of from two to three millions of dollars for the sake of bene- fiting a few dozen property owners, who were fortunate enough to buy on Michigan Avenue. It is said that the park having been laid out, the owners of property on Michigan Avenue have an easement in the light, etc., to be derived from the park. I would say that there is perhaps some doubt about that. But if that be true, the revenue which would be derived from the ground in one year will pay the MONEY IN UNITED STATES. 207 damages for taking this easement ten times over, and leave a surplus. I am opposed to any scheme whereby the city shall part with the Lake Front. I am absolutely opposed to selling it, for if this were done the money would soon be gone and we would have nothing left. I am opposed to turning it over to the Park Commissioners, for the great masses of Chicago will get nothing out of it if this is done. It should be handled as our school property is handled. Some of the most valuable property in the heart of the city, notably the ground on which the Tribune Building and buildings immediately south of it stand, and others which could be mentioned, is leased, as I under- stand, on ten year leases; that is, the lease provides for a re-valuation every ten years, the lessees doing their own building and owning the buildings. The Lake Front property can be handled in the same manner and produce the revenue I have stated. And for the common council, with or without the consent of the mayor, to part with this and get practically nothing in return, will be robbing the people of Chicago. Keeping it in control and using it as I have suggested, means that during the next generation the city will get one hundred millions of dollars, which it can use for purposes I have indicated. If the World's Fair Commissioners need the park from now until after the Fair, let them have it ; give them every privilege they need and every facility possible to use it. All of the people of Chicago are inter- ested in the World's Fair, and will give the use of that or any other park for it. Therefore, I say, let the council pass an ordinance, giving the World's Fair Commissioners the right to use it. In the mean- time get what legislation may be necessary to perfect the title, then run streets from Michigan Avenue to the lake, divide the ground into lots, and, in order to avoid even a suspicion of "boodle," rent these lots to the highest bidder on ground leases, with a provision for a re- valuation, say, every ten after the first fifteen years. July 5th, 1890. JOHN P. ALTGELD. VOLUME OF MONEY IN THE UNITED STATES. (Published in the "St. Louis Republic," Oct. 21, 1893.) REPORT OF DIRECTOR OF MINT VS. REPORT OF COMP- TROLLER OF CURRENCY. On page 46 of the report of the Director of the Mint for 1892, there are some tables purporting to give the volume of money in this country. In particular this; 2o8 LIVE QUESTIONS. The following table exhibits approximately the stock of gold, silver and uncovered paper money in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the United States: Total Popula- Gold Silver Uncover'd metallic st'k tion. Stock. Stock. Notes. andunc'v'd paper. Countries. United Kingdom France Germany United States . . . 38,000,000 39,000,000 49,500,000 65,000,000 $550,000,060 800,000,000 600,000,000 654,000,000 |>IOO,000,000 700,000,000 210,000,000 575,000,000 $50,000,000 81,402,000 107,000,000 405,790,000 $700,000,000 1,581,402,000 917,000,000 1,634,790,000 Per Capita. Countries . Gold. Silver. Paper. Total. United Kingdom France Germany United States . . . . 14 47 $2 63 $1 32 $18 42 20 52 17 95 2 09 40 56 12 12 4 26 2 16 18 54 10 06 885 6 24 25 15 These figures, coming from such a high source, have been gener- ally relied on and quoted to show that the amount of money in this country was large. Turning now to the reports of the Comptroller of the Currency, we find that for several years he has been making inquiries of all the banks in the country — national, state and private — as to the amount of money of all kinds which they held at the close of business on a given day of each year. He tells us that substantially all of the banks in the United States reported. On page 86, of the Comptroller's report for 1892, he gives the following: Statement showing the amount of gold, silver, etc., held by National Banks on July 12, 1892, and by other banking institutions on or about the same date: Classification. National Banks. (3759) Other (5579) Banking Institutions. Total. Gold Coin Gold Treasury Certificates Gold (Clearing House) Certificates Silver, dollars Silver, fractional Silver, Treasury Certificates National Bank Notes Legal Tender Notes U. S. Certificates of Deposits for Legal Tenders Fractional Currency Specie, not classified Cash, not classified $96,723,083 85,530,100 $8,889,370 $105,612,453 85,530,100 8,498,000 14,971,085 25,523,399 21,325,840 160,727,708 23,115,000 939,383 22,119,226 1 18,042,909 8,498,000 7,466,596 1 5,579,302 ) 25,523,399 1,925,187 21,325,840 113,915,016 23,115,000 *46,8i2,692 939,383 22,119,226 118,042,909 5388,615,719 $197,789,384 $586,405,103 * Including National Bank Notes and Coin Certificates, MONEY IN UNITED STATES. 209 It will be seen that the national banks classified the money they held, while the state banks reported most of their holdings as unclassi- fied; but the total of all the money held by all the banks in this coun- try at the close of business on July 12, 1892, was only $586,405,103. To this sum must be added the amount then in the United States Treasury over and above the gold and silver certificates outstanding. This sum, according to the tables on page 44, report of Director of Mint, for 1892, was $303,281,685. Add this to the total amount then in the banks, and it makes $889,686,788 as the total amount of money in the United States, except what there was then in the pockets of the people. There is no way of ascertaining exactly how much this was on July 12, 1892. Competent judges who have lived among all classes of people insist that, as the entire country was already thoroughly banked — there being a bank in almost every large village which paid interest on deposits — as merchants deposit daily, and as nearly all money held by treasurers was already in the banks ; and further, as there was at that time no alarm among the people and no general withdrawal of the funds from the banks, there being, in fact, one hun- dred millions more in the banks then than on the corresponding day of the previous year; that this was a time of year when farmers had no money, and when money was supposed to be in the banks; that when all these things are considered, an average of $5 to a family would be a large average and when we include the colored people of the South and the poor all over the country, that the majority of families would not have more than 75 cents to $2. If we accept this estimate, it would make $65,000,000 as the amount of money then in the pockets of the people. But suppose we double this sum. Let us assume that on July 12, 1892, there were on an average $10 in the pockets of every family in the United States, including the colored people and the poor generally, as well as the Western settlers, who usually have no money. Yet this would make only $130,000,000 as the total amount of money among the people outside of the banks and the United States Treasury. Adding this sum to $889,686,788, the amount in the banks and the treasury, and it makes $1,019,686,788, and from this must be deducted $25,596,167, being the sum deposited to redeem national bank notes which will go out of circulation, leav- ing $994,091,621 as the total amount of money in the United States of America on that day, being but little over half the amount named in the report of the Director of the Mint. What, then, causes the discrepancy between this sum and the M 210 LIVE QUESTIONS. amount given by the Director. . An examination of his reports and those of the Comptroller clears the matter up. FIRST AS TO COIN. On page 42 of the report for 1892, the Director says: "It may be proper to repeat here that the basis of the annual tabulations of the stock of gold coin in the United States was the actual amount of gold coin in the treasury and in national banks on June 30, 1872, with an addition of $20,000,000 as an estimate of the minimum amount of gold coin in circulation in the States of the Pacific Slope." Since that date the official estimates presented from year to year have been compiled by adding to the actual visible stock June 30, 1872, the coinage of the mints (less re-coinage of our coins) and the gain (or loss) by import and export of our own coin as registered at the custom houses, with an annual allowance for melting of United States coin for use in the industrial arts, based upon three censuses taken by the bureau of the mint of the jewelry trade. In the case of silver, the stock of silver dollars is estimated to be the coinage since March 1, 1878, together with an estimate of the amount in the country at that date of $5,000,000, the. stock of subsidi- ary silver coin, the annual gain or loss (import and export) and an annual allowance for melting in the industrial arts, as in the case of gold. From this it will be seen that the strange assumption is made that every dollar of coin- that went into circulation in this country since June 30, 1872, and whose exportation is not registered at the custom house, is not only still in circulation, but is in circulation in this country. No deduction is made for the money lost and never found during twenty years, nor for coin used in the arts by the thousands of gold- smiths, who make no report of what they use. No deduction is made for what the Chinamen have sent home in twenty years, nor for what has been carried in men's pockets over our northern border or our southern border, nor for what was carried away in the pockets of traders who brought goods to our markets and did not register the gold they took away; nor was any deduction made for the vast amounts carried to Europe by American travelers during those years. On page 38, report of the Director of the Mint for 1891, in speak- ing of the vast sums of American coin carried out of the country in the then previous year, the Director says: "The gold carried out of this country to meet the expenses, by sea and land, of Americans spending their summers abroad, must have MONEY IN UNITED STATES. 211 nearly, if not quite equaled the year of the Paris Exposition, when such expenditures were estimated at over $92,000,000." Whether the Director means that this sum was carried out by American travelers over and above the money they paid for letters of credit, etc., and which was registered at the custom house, is not clear; but we will assume that a part of the above was registered at the custom house when it left this country, and was therefore in- cluded in the exports already deducted. Still a very large part of it was carried out of the country in the pockets of American travelers, and was therefore not registered anywhere, although it was com- pletely lost to this country, or if it came back it was imported and registered and formed a part of the stock given by the Director. The European travel on the part of Americans has been very heavy every one of the twenty years since 1872, so that during this time there must have been several hundred millions of coin carried abroad in this channel alone without being registered, and which was there- fore not included in the deductions made for exports. When this and the other channels through which coin has been flowing from us for twenty years without being registered are considered, it becomes at once apparent, even if there were no other source of information, that there is not much over half of the coin now in this country that is claimed. In determining the amount of paper money outstanding, the de- partment assumes that all the paper money that was issued since 1862 is still in circulation, unless it has been returned to the department for cancellation. No allowance is made for loss by destruction, nor for money that was lost and never found. The Comptroller of the Currency, in his report for 1892, page 57, shows that from the time the national banking system was created, nearly thirty years ago, to the present, the national banks have issued $1,693,- 501,685 of currency, consisting of 214,563,922 separate bills of different denominations. Of this, $1,521,437,753, consisting of 193,281,997 sep- arate bills have been presented at the Treasurer's office and canceled or redeemed, and the department assumes that the difference between the amount issued and the amount canceled is still in circulation. Just what the loss would be during nearly thirty years — from destruction and from money that was lost and never found by anybody — on these national bank issues it is impossible to tell, but when the length of time and the volume which was issued from first to last is considered, it is apparent that the loss must have been large. The Treasury Department, from time to time since 1862, issued large volumes of United States notes under the different acts author- 212 LIVE QUESTIONS. izing such issues, and then proceeded to redeem the larger part. Ac- cording to the report of Mr. Windom, Secretary of the Treasury, for 1890, the total amount of money thus issued was nearly three billions of dollars, which has all been called in and canceled, except about four hundred and fifty millions, and it is assumed that every dollar of this is still in circulation. It is impossible to tell how much nf this vast amount was lost and destroyed during nearly thirty years. But when the large volume issued and the long time is considered it must be a large sum. Again, during the same time the government has issued over two billions of gold and silver certificates, and has redeemed all but about four hundred and seventy millions. How much of this large volume was lost we cannot tell, but a considerable sum must have been. To be sure the gold and silver against which these certificates were issued is still supposed to be in the treasury, but so long as the certificates are not presented the coin must be held to redeem them, and therefore cannot go into circulation. Taking the national bank notes and all the paper money issued by the United States Treasury during the last thirty years, it amounts to more than six and a half billions of dollars. That there was annual- ly a large sum of this lost and destroyed is certain, yet the department assumes that every dollar is still in circulation unless it was canceled at the treasury. If we had no other source of information, the facts above given relating to the annual loss of coin and destruction and loss of paper money for thirty years would lead to the conclusion that we cannot have much more than half the amount of money now in circulation in this country that is claimed in the tables given by the Director of the Mint. And this is simply confirmed by the report of the Comptroller of the Currency, showing the exact amount of money in the banks. It may be claimed by some that I have estimated the amount of money in the pockets of the people too low; that there were more than ten dollars on an average in the pockets of each family in the United States. This claim will hardly come from, any one who has lived among the farming and laboring classes of this country, and who knows how very little money is usually to be found among them. But if it were even to be conceded, that there were fifteen dollars instead of ten on an average in the pockets of each family in the United States, including the negroes of the South and all the laboring and poorer classes, at the close of business on July 12, 1892, it would add only sixty-five millions of dollars, which would hardly bring the whole sum up to two-thirds of the amount that is claimed to be in circulation. THE SILVER QUESTION. 213 THE SILVER QUESTION AND THE SHERMAN LAW. (Note. — On July 31st, last, the New York Herald asked my opinion on the silver question and the sentiment of the State on the repeal of the Sherman Law. Below is my answer, which the Herald refused to publish.) The bankers and brokers of the large cities and the large daily papers favor repeal. I believe the general sentiment of the State wants something satisfactory substituted in case the law is repealed. Under the Sherman act nearly fifty million dollars per annum are added to the circulating medium of this country, and to this limited extent it helps to keep up prices. The idea that the Sherman act is the cause of our trouble is ridiculous. The present difficulty lies much deeper. It is not local to this country, but extends over the world. Mr. Goshen, the great ex-chancellor and banker of England, was right when he told an association of bankers some years ago that, as the country was al- ready well banked and the credit system could not be much extended, therefore, to prevent the shrinkage in values there should be an annual increase in the volume of money ; first, in proportion to the increase of population; second, increase of territory over which business was done; and, third, increase in the general industries of the world. At present 93 per cent, of the business of the country is done on the credit system, and rests, like an inverted pyramid, on the seven per cent, of money. The base being so small, a slight disturbance will -destroy the great superstructure. Up to 1871 and 1873, the two metals had done the business of the world. It is true the English government demonetized silver in 1816, but this made no impression so long as the rest of the world used it. In 1873 Germany, by law, stopped the use of silver and threw four hundred million dollars upon the market. Denmark and some smaller countries allied with Germany also by law stopped the use of silver. The same influence, that is, the money pow- er, that secured this law in Germany got France and the countries of the Latin Union to, by law, stop coining silver, and got the United States at the same time to, by law, demonetize silver, so that the great commercial nations of the world by law stopped the use of silver and threw the entire burden of the business of the world onto gold. This legislation was secured by the moneyed classes. Some years after that, in the address referred to, Mr. Goshen told the bankers of Lon- don that the effect of thus increasing the burden of gold and making 214 LIVE QUESTIONS. it alone do the work formerly done by both metals, would be to enhance its value and correspondingly reduce the prices of com- modities. He also showed that the annual production of gold, in- stead of being on the increase, was at a standstill or decrease, and that the amount consumed in the arts was increasing. Since then the population of the world has steadily increased, making more money necessary; the area over which business was to be done has increased, making more money necessary; the industries and exchanges of the world have increased, making more money necessary, while there has been no appreciable increase in the volume of gold — even much of the gold that is coined is soon used in the arts — and recently, Austria has, by law, attempted to make gold the sole currency. Russia is calling for gold, and India has, by law, stopped coining silver, so that, while there should have been an enormous increase of the volume of money of the world every year, in order to keep prices at a standstill and have neither inflation nor depression, there has been a practical reduction in the volume of money and a consequent shrinkage in values all over the world. This has been going on for a number of years; stringency getting worse every year and prices falling as the strin- gency increased. The Sherman act is merely a small surface irritation of a disease that is constitutional and must receive constitutional treat- ment, or a long period of general bankruptcy must follow. I am not prescribing a remedy but am only giving the origin of the trouble. Money in the business world and blood in the body perform similar functions and seem to be governed by similar laws. When the quan- tity of either is reduced the patient becomes weak and what blood or money is left rushes to the heart, or center, while the extremities grow cold. Before the circulation of the blood was understood, volumes were written upon its functions and bleeding was the universal treat- ment. When a patient was already weak the doctor at once bled him. So with our money doctors. When the world is suffering because the volume of money is insufficient for the increased growth, all the remedies these learned doctors can prescribe is to take a little more blood out of the patient. NECESSITY OF ORGANIZATION AMONG LABORERS. (Interview, "Morning News," April 28, 1890.) "It comes with ill grace from those who, to a greater or less ex- tent, hold not only their own employes but the whole community by the throat by means of their organizations, to refuse to recognize the ORGANIZATION AMONG LABORERS. 215 right of others to organize." Judge John P. Altgeld made this reply to a question concerning his views on the existing deadlock between the striking carpenters and the bosses. Judge Altgeld was not interviewed because of his high position as a jurist. He has made a deep study of the labor question, and has been frank and outspoken in expressing his views. His con- clusions, if they require it, obtain added weight from the fact that during the last year he has built five large blocks of buildings, costing over $500,000. Judge Altgeld thus occupies the position of an em- ployer, and his views on the labor question appear to have been ar- rived at regardless of his personal or private interests. THE POINT AT ISSUE. The point at issue between the striking carpenters and the bosses has dwindled and narrowed until it is now less a question of hours and pay than it is of the question of union. The carpenters are organized in a solid, compact body. They spent years at the work of perfecting and recruiting their organization. But for this organiza- tion their strike could not be maintained over night. It is all that enables them to make their demands effective. The bosses say they will arbitrate. They will make concessions. They will do this, that and the other thing. But they demand a con- cession of the carpenters. This union that has enabled the carpenters to make their demands felt must be abandoned. The bosses are organ- ized, and speaking through a single executive head, refuse to recognize the same right of organization among the carpenters — refuse to do business with the head of the carpenters' organization. The bosses are unwilling to concede to the men the same right of organization that they themselves utilize to make their acts effective. THE BOSSES UNREASONABLE. In opening the interview with Judge Altgeld yesterday, he was asked what he thought of the demands of the bosses that the carpenters abandon their organization. He replied: "The objection that the men should be dealt with as individuals, and not as an organization, it seems to me, under existing conditions, is not well taken. Fifty years ago it would have been different. But at present there is the most perfect organization among all lines of large employers, whether mining, manufacturing or building. These organizations settle all ques- tions relative to the policy to be pursued, and very frequently, also, questions of prices and wages to be paid by them. Now, an individual employe confronting one of these organizations, is not only absolutely 216 LIVE QUESTIONS. at its mercy, but is almost too insignificant to secure thoughtful at- tention to his demands." "But how can this condition be met?" was asked. "The only way in which these organizations can be prevented .from abusing their power is by counter-organization. All experience in this country has shown this to be so. The condition of many of the laborers has greatly improved in the last twenty years, and in not a single instance has this been brought about by individual effort. In every case it was accomplished by the force of organization. This being so, the men are right when they insist on having their organiza- tion recognized. It is vital to them, and it comes with an ill grace from those who, to a greater or less extent, hold not only the employes, but the community, by the throat by means of their own organization, to refuse to recognize organization and thereby practically deny the right to organize on the other side. And if the men can only better their condition and that of their families by means of organization, then it is but natural that they should want to keep their members together in order to secure the greatest good to the greatest number. It is but natural that they should discourage the idea of individual employes treating with the bosses just at a critical time in a labor movement, and thus perhaps defeating the efforts and injuring the welfare of all laborers, themselves included." MISTAKE OF NON-UNION MEN. "But what of the men who are not members of the union?" "It is worthy of note that if .the so-called 'scabs' or non-union men, would just keep hands off for a few days, or at most a few weeks, a movement in favor of shorter hours or more pay, or in favor of any measure founded on justice, would easily succeed, and they themselves would be the gainers, even though they had done nothing to bring it about. They themselves would have a better prospect for work in the future. They would gain the benefit of the shortened hours of labor. By rushing in and offering to work at a critical moment they really do what they can to defeat the movement. So while it is to be regretted, yet it is but natural that laboring men should have a bitter feeling against those of their class who in their eyes are the enemies of the common cause and of the best interests of their own families as well. This being so, the carpenters of Chicago are to be highly commended for their self-restraint and orderly demeanor during the pending strike." "What do you think of the argument in favor of 'individual free- dom,' made by some?" ORGANIZATION AMONG LABORERS. 217 "A noticeable thing is, that this argument in favor of the individual freedom of each workman is made almost exclusively by the class who, either by instinct or interest, are antagonistic to the laboring men. The great body of the laboring men will never make that argument. As isolated individuals they can accomplish nothing. The future welfare of themselves and their children depends upon organization, and even the so-called scabs do not attempt to defend their action upon any high ground. As a rule they admit that their action is injurious to the cause of labor generally. They defend their conduct only on the ground of present necessity ; that they are needy and want to get a little money. In order to get it they are willing to defeat what in the long run would have been to the best interests of themselves and their families. The talk about individual freedom is heard only among employers and their friends and also among a class of people who may be called the parasites of employers." MAKING FALSE PRETENSES. "How, in your judgment, will the present strike of the carpenters terminate?" "So far as the success of the present strike is concerned, I am convinced that if the boss carpenters will act honestly in their efforts to get new men to come here we will have no trouble. By this I mean that where they advertise all over the country, as some of them are now doing, for carpenters, they should state that there is a strike in Chicago and that the carpenters advertised for are wanted to take the places of strikers. This they are not doing now. On the con- trary, they are inducing hundreds of men to come here who would not come if they knew all the facts. Some of the men who come here claim to have been induced to come under false pretenses. I will say further that the effect of bringing raw carpenters from the country yillages must in the long run be injurious to the best interests of Chi- cago. First, because as a rule the new-comers are not skilled work- men-; and, second, because after the strike is over there will be a sur- plus of men. The ranks of the unemployed will be greatly increased and those conditions which produce pauperism and crime will be greatly intensified." "What do you consider an adequate remedy for the condition of things you depict?" "In my judgment the State should step in and protect the non- combatants. The whole community should not suffer every year be- cause certain individuals or classes of individuals have a dispute. As society is now organized there is a kind of interdependence of all in- fii8 LIVE QUESTIONS. terests, so that no two interests can keep up a warfare without injuring the rest. The State has just as much power to require the employer and the employed to submit their differences to a competent tribunal as it has to require individuals who have a dispute over property to submit it to the decision of a court, and not to disturb the welfare or good order of society by attempting to fight it out among them- selves. In fact, there is more reason for letting these latter fight out their disputes, because, as a rule,' they do not affect the whole com- munity. Disputes between employer and employed, if sufficiently protracted, tend to paralyze our whole industrial system." THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT. "What do you think of the prospect for the eight-hour demand gen- erally?" "There is no reason why the demand should fail if it is properly sustained. With such trades as the building trades it is merely a local problem. Each city or community can have different hours, and there will be no unsatisfactory results. Houses built in Chicago by eight-hour labor will not have to compete with houses built in other cities by ten-hour labor. Thus the Chicago building trades can have the eight-hour day without regard to what the same trades have in other cities. But with other trades it is widely different. The manufacture of boots and shoes, for example, presents a problem that is not local. The building trades problems are bounded by geographical lines. In the manufacture of boots and shoes geo- graphical lines do not limit the problem. It is limited by com- mercial boundaries. The influence of a ten-hour factory extends wherever its goods are shipped. This makes the entire shoe making industry in the United States a problem by itself. In this view of the case it can be seen that if the non-union men do not prevent it the carpenters or building trades can settle the strike in Chicago without regard to what is done in other cities. Manufactories that are located in different cities that have a co-extensive trade throughout the coun- try will be among the hardest to deal with." "But will not the winning of reduced hours by. one trade have a. tendency in favor of reduced hours in all the trades?" "It certainly will if the carpenters stand firmly together. If they win the fight in Chicago they will drive an entering wedge that will be felt everywhere in every industry." REPLY TO CONGRESSMAN HOPKINS. 21Q REPLY TO CONGRESSMAN HOPKINS. ("Chicago Mail," May, 1892.) John P. Altgeld, Democratic candidate for Governor, was asked by a reporter for the Chicago Mail for his views on the speech of Con- gressman Hopkins, temporary chairman of the Republican State Con- tention. The Judge smiled and incidentally remarked that the speech was most remarkable for what it didn't contain. He talked freely on Mr. Hopkins' utterances, and among other things he said: "The speech of Mr. Hopkins, the temporary chairman of the Re- publican Convention at Springfield, was an illustration of the sublime confidence the leaders of the Republican party have in the gullibility of the American public. During the last fifty years great strides have been made in the industries of the world, owing to invention, to a quickening ingenuity, to division of labor, to improved machinery, and improved methods. Consequently many of the useful articles of life can be made for less than one-quarter what they formerly cost. This progress has been made in spite of the American prohibitory tariff. Mr. Hopkins had the assurance to tell the assembled Repub- licans that the tariff had been a blessing to the workingman and to the farmer of this country, and he pointed to the fact that some things were made cheaper now than they were twenty years ago; but he took good care not to tell them what those things could be bought for now if the tariff were removed. "He told a story to illustrate the difference between theory and practice. Now the trouble with the tariff is that it is only in theory that it confers any benefits. Practically it has injured both the work- ingman and the farmer, because it compels them to pay a higher price for everything they have to buy, and it does not in the least protect the workingman's wages, while it deprives the farmer of the markets of the world. If Hopkins had wanted to tell the Republicans at Springfield the whole truth, he should have told them that we have had the most absolute free trade in labor since i860; that the purpose of the tariff was to enable the manufacturer to sell his goods at a higher price, and that is the effect of it. If this were not so there would be no need of a tariff. Manufacturers would not give from $10,000 to $50,000 toward raising a corruption fund with which to carry an election in order to elect a man like Mr. Hopkins to maintain the tariff laws. They expect to get their money back through these tariff laws. Not only so, but they expect to get large fortunes in addition back through the tariff. Now, these fortunes are made out 220 LIVE QUESTIONS. of the increased price at which they can sell their goods over what they would get if there was no tariff and they had to sell their goods at the same price that the Englishman and the German and the Frenchman sell theirs. "But while they are thus protected in their prices they import the labor they want from the pauper labor fields of Europe, so that every hour during which the protective tariff has been in existence, the laboring man has had to compete with the pauper labor of Europe; not only the labor that came here in the way of honest immigration, but the very men who contributed millions of dollars to maintain the tariff violated the laws and imported ship-loads of European pauper laborers under contract, so that according to so high an authority as T. V. Powderly, both the American born and the naturalized Amer- ican laborer have been driven out of the great State of Pennsylvania, and their places filled by Huns, Poles, Italians and others, brought under contract, in violation of law. If Hopkins had wanted to tell the whole truth, he would have told the Republicans at Springfield that the billion dollar Congress which enacted the McKinley law, in- creasing the tariff from forty to sixty per cent., had scarcely adjourned when upward of 300 manufacturing establishments, that were to be benefited by this tariff, reduced the wages of their workingmen, so that while the McKinley law increased the price of everything the workingman had to buy, it permitted his wages to be cut down. Hopkins should further have told his audience that there are nearly forty of the leading establishments, which were built up under the tariff, chief among them being Mr. Carnegie's, employing upward of 50,000 men, that have banished organized labor from their shops and filled its place with labor imported from Europe. Hopkins should further have told his audience that, while the tariff keeps up the price of everything which the farmer has to buy, it has tended to rob us of the markets of the world, and that for ten years farms and farm products have been declining in value. Hopkins should have told the convention that all of the continental countries of Europe, as well as the countries of Asia, from which the pauper labor comes, have not only high, but in many cases prohibitory, tariffs, and have had for hundreds of years, and that it was under these tariffs that this pauper- ism grew up, and that the higher the tariff is in any country the more abject is the condition of the common people. "Hopkins should have told his audience that while upward of 50,000,000 of people were being taxed by a tariff law to enable Mr. Carnegie to accumulate upward of $50,000,000, and while Carnegie was spending his time preaching to the American people what a Chris- PROTECTION AND PINKERTONISM. 221 tian gentleman should do with his millions, the farmers of America, from whose sweat these millions were made, found the mortgages on their farms growing larger, and the laboring men of, America found that they were harder and harder driven by imported pauper labor. The Republican party has given the American laborer and the Ameri- can farmer the kind of protection which the elephant gave to the part- ridges. When walking through the woods he ran across some part- ridges that had lost their mother and were in deep distress. His heart was moved with compassion; tears rolled down his proboscis, and he said to them: 'Come, get yourselves together now, and I will be a mother to you.' They got themselves together and he sat down upon them and covered them." PROTECTION AND PINKERTONISM. (Interview in "Quincy Journal," 1892.) "What effect is the Homestead trouble going to have on the cam- paign?" 'As far as I can notice it seems to be having the effect of associat- ing or connecting protection and Pinkertonism in the minds of Amer- ican laborers so that they come to regard protection and great trusts and Pinkertonism as being children of the same mother. Without stopping to reason it out, they feel that Pinkertonism has always been their sworn enemy. They believe that many of their number have been killed, and their own children have often gone without bread, because of Pinkertonism. Whether right or wrong, they have come to look upon the Pinkertons as armed ruffians, willing to shoot down the 'laborer if somebody will pay them for it, and having this impression the laborer naturally will oppose that policy and those institutions that support the Pinkertons. "They have also noticed that the Congress which passed the McKinley bill had scarcely adjourned, when over 300 of the large protective establishments, that were especially benefited by the Mc- Kinley act, reduced the wages of their employes, and when the men threatened to strike these same establishments employed the Pinker- tons to fight the men." 222 LIVE QUESTIONS. DEMOCRATS AND EDUCATION. . (Interview, Chicago "News-Record.") Judge Altgeld was interviewed by a News-Record reporter re- garding his views on the school question. He was asked: 'Am I to understand that the Democracy does not believe in controlling the education of children in the State?" "The Democrats believe in compulsory education," was the reply. "They believe that every child should be educated, and that if not otherwise provided for should be educated at the expense of the State. The public schools of the State should be controlled by the State and should be free from sectarian teaching. They should not be utilized by'any one religious sect to impress its particular doctrines upon the impressionable minds of youthful scholars." "But what about parochial schools?" was asked by the inter- viewer. "Theoretically the State school system is for the purpose of taking care of all those children whose parents cannot or do not choose to send their children to private schools. There was a time in ]the history of the world when there were no common schools. Every learner had to purchase teaching of some private tutor or school. But the public school system, well managed, backed by the immense resources of the State, has practically superseded in the business of education, especial- ly in the primary or grammar grades, the instruction by private schools. But the parochial school system, being an adjunct of a church, an auxiliary of religious teaching, has survived along with a church religion. At the time they were established, the church, wisely thoughtful of the welfare of its youth, provided a combination of secular and religious instructions by one and the same set of tutors. Thus the parochial school, being a part of the church as much as the Sunday school is a part of the English Protestant churches, cannot justly be assailed. There is nothing in the common school system, or in the fundamental theory upon which it rests, which prompts the belief that it should be forced upon people who are unwilling to accept it. As already explained, it is maintained to supply a diffi- ciency and not to wrench the control of the education of children from parents." "Do the Democrats believe in compulsory education?" "They do most emphatically. They believe that no child should be permitted to grow up neglected, but they are opposed to State inter- ference with parents who do educate their children." DEMOCRATS AND EDUCATION. 22% "Can the State accept as legal such education as provided in a parochial school over which it has no control?" "If it could be assumed that the State is more regardful and more tender of the welfare of its children than the parents of those same children, then this point might be open to discussion. But we all know that while parents make mistakes concerning the management of their children in educational as well as other matters, still the in- tentions of parents, being admittedly good, no sensible man will argue that the State should intercede and dictate to the parent a particular course of treatment or discipline for the child." "Should the State exercise control over the parochial schools?" "No; for the State contributes nothing to maintain them. If these schools do anything or teach anything contrary to law, the State can stop it. When it became obvious that the railroads were making unjust discrimination between their patrons, the State stepped in and undertook to rectify the abuse of power. Likewise, if it were shown that the parochial schools were teaching doctrines contrary to the welfare of the State, or if they were mistreating the scholars, or in any way violating the law, then the State ought to step in and stop the wrong. But I have never heard that any such charge is made even by the most virulent enemies of the parochial schools. It is admitted that they are good from an educational point of view.'' "Should the State inspect them and see to it that they have no ob- jectionable features?" "No. Upon the same ground the State may not inspect the man- agement of the home circle in order to see that a parent does not maltreat his children, or that a husband does not misuse his wife. The presumption of the State is, that where complaint is not made no abuse exists. Thus, the schools need not be inspected, because there is no presumption of an abuse. If there is anything wrong and anybody knows it, complaint should be made. The same is true of the mis- treatment of children by parents or guardians. "There is another feature which is vastly more important, and that is this: The State assumes the work of education. Certain per- sons, generally adherents of churches, do not wish to avail them- selves of this privilege of the State schools. The State acquiesces, and is thus relieved of a financial burden. Now, then, suppose the State, tracking the children into the private schools, demands that teaching in these schools shall be done thus and so, and that the parochial or private school must, in fact, be made a public school. If that is done, the State becomes at once a partner or participant in the parochial school system. If the State goes that far, the parochial school au- 224 LIVE QUESTIONS. thorities are justified in asking for money out of the State fund to help sustain the school; certainly for enough to pay for those particular features which the State required to be added to the parochial school curriculum. This, of course, could not be granted." "Why could it not be done?" "Because the Constitution forbids the recognition of any church by the State. For the State of Illinois to investigate the parochial schools, and then have the inspector nail up over the door, 'Inspected and accepted as a school by the State of Illinois,' would be to accept and recognize the authority and power behind the school — a church or a religion. Control of parochial schools is the first step toward the recognition of a church.'' "What about the teaching of foreign languages in the parochial schools?" "There is not a parochial school in all Illinois but gives instruction in the English language. All the children are taught English. The idea that the parochial school can overthrow the English language is absurd, and nobody believes it. Among the Germans it is pride to have the children speak the parent tongue. If it is to be the purpose of the State to prevent the teaching of a foreign language to the children, the State officers will have to go into the family circle, where, in many instances, the English language is not allowed to be spoken, in order that the children may be forced to speak the parents' tongue. This, and the teaching of the foreign language as the language of in- struction in the parochial schools, indicate simply that the parents and teachers realize that without such instruction the children cannot be made to learn and use the language of the parents, while they all learn the English language without trouble." LUTHERANS AND EDUCATION— PERSONAL LIBERTY. (Interview in "Quincy Journal.") "Judge, what do you understand the position of the Lutherans to be with reference to the compulsory school law?" he was asked. "The Lutheran people," he replied, "are among our most intelli- gent and substantial citizens. Instead of being opposed to educa- tion they are its strongest advocates, and instead of being opposed to a compulsory school law, they are strongly in favor of it. They do hot believe that any child should be absolutely neglected. "They cheerfully assist in supporting our public school system,. LUTHERANS AND EDUCATION. 225 and then, in addition to that, they pay out of their own pockets to maintain their own private schools. "They maintain their private schools as a matter of conscience. They believe that their children will receive a degree of religious in- struction in their private or church schools that they will not get in the public schools, and they oppose the existing compulsory law because it recognizes the right of the State to supervise — and if it can supervise then it also can destroy — the private school, toward which the State contributes nothing, and they oppose it because it interferes with the right of the parent to determine how and where his child should be educated. "They oppose it because it seems to be the beginning of an at- tempt to have States regulate the church, for they consider their school as a part of their church. It is the principle involved in -the present compulsory law that the Lutheran people are opposed to, and not to the idea of compulsory education. They look upon the existing law as being a part and parcel of that legislation that has grown com- mon of late years, which interferes with the personal liberty of the citizen." "What is the difference between the two parties on this question?" "The Democratic party is opposed to all legislation that interferes with the liberty of the citizen. It also has been the strongest sup- porter of our public school system. The Democrats oppose the ex- isting law for the same reasons that the Lutherans opposed it. They are opposed to the principles upon which it rests. "The Republican party, on the other hand, has supported that whole line of legislation which interferes with the personal liberty of the citizen, and the Republican party of this State, at the last session of the Legislature, after the obnoxious features of the existing com- pulsory law had been pointed out, and after many good citizens had been prosecuted, or, rather, persecuted under the provisions of that law, still insists on maintaining it, and offers to make only an insignifi- cant modification of the right of the State to interfere with the edu- cation of the child against the wishes of the parents, and even when the parent is educating the child. "In short, the Republican party fought in the last Legislature to maintain those principles which are the most obnoxious in the present school law. "The recent change of base of the Republicans on this question is simply a vote-catching maneuver, so that we have the Democrats op- posing the existing law from principle, and the Republicans pretend- ing also for the present to oppose it, but simply with a view of carry- 15 226 LIVE QUESTIONS. ing the fall elections, so that the difference between -the parties is the difference between principle, on one hand, and a kind of demagogic pretension on the other." SPEECH OF ACCEPTANCE. Delivered at the Democratic Convention at Springfield, April 27, 1892. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention : I would be more than human if I were not moved by this expres- sion of confidence on your part. As soldiers consider it an honor to be selected for hard fighting, so I appreciate the honor which you . have conferred upon me, for I am aware that you are here to attend to serious business. You have surveyed the field and the peculiar character of the situation, and you are endeavoring to make such dis- position of your forces, as in your judgment, will be the most advan- tageous in the coming campaign. Were it otherwise, there are hun- dreds of grand Democrats in this State who must needs have been selected before me. I see around me men who have been fighting the battles of Democracy for more than a quarter of a century; men who have won glory upon the field; men who have won renown in the councils of the State and of the Nation; men distinguished as jurists; men eminent in the varied walks of life; men whom we de- light to honor. These men have not been overlooked by you ; they are not relegated to the rear; you will assign them all to duty, you look to them with as much confidence, as much anxiety and as much hope as ever; and you believe and I believe that you will not be disap- pointed. My fellow citizens, nearly thirty years ago, while standing upon the battle-field of Gettysburg,, the great Lincoln said that the question involved in that battle was whether any nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the principle that all men are created equal can long en- dure. In the campaign upon which we are entering, the underlying question will be whether popular government shall disappear from among the children of men; whether we shall have a repub- lican government in fact, or whether, while preserving the forms of republicanism, we shall have the most obnoxious of all gov- ernments, an oligarchy, based upon corruption, and masquerading under the mantle of holiness; whether we shall continue to see the spectacle of the greatest office of the American Republic literally bought with corruption funds, and then having the incumbent of the office declare that divine Providence ordained it all. Only a few years ago we saw the spectacle of a man with a repu- SPEECH OF ACCEPTANCE. 227 tation for piety selected as the agent to assist in frying out the fat of the manufacturers, the agent to collect a large corruption fund to be used for the holy purpose of carrying elections, and after the election had been carried by methods that did not bear investigation — carried by a species of work for which men have repeatedly been sent to the penitentiary — the American people were told by the beneficiary of this great crime against free government, that it was the finger of the Almighty that had directed the result. Now, I am not the keeper of the secrets of the Almighty, but I do want a little more reliable evidence than the mere statement of Benjamin Harrison that the Almighty was a partner with Dudley in debauching the voters of Indiana with "blocks of five." For upward of thirty years the party that was opposed to the Democratic party has directed the affairs of both State and Nation, and is responsible for all legislation, State and National, that went upon the statute books during that time. Being the legitimate descendant of the Know-nothing and the Federal parties, the Republican party has for thirty years been carrying out the principles of'those old parties, and the American people are now reaping a harvest — a harvest of trusts, of monopolies and of illegal combinations ; a harvest of debt, of mort- gages, of stagnant industry and idle labor; a harvest of taxation and corruption; a harvest of tramps on one hand and millionaires on the other — millionaires made rich by governmental machinery; a harvest of farmers finding the mortgages on their farms growing larger, of mechanics who find it harder to pay for their homes, and of laborers who find it harder to get bread for their children; a harvest of laws which interfere with the most sacred rights of the individual. At the beginning of this period we had almost the greatest com- merce upon the earth, and the American flag was seen floating from American ships upon all the waters of the globe. After thirty years of monopolistic rule there is scarcely an American ship upon the seas, and the American flag is not to be found upon the ocean flying from the top of an American mast. And to pacify us we are to be enter- tained with a farce-comedy which they christen "Reciprocity." The reciprocity of nature, that grows out in God's sunlight — in the great garden of commerce — has been destroyed; and in its stead we are to have a little rear-parlor, swallow-tail reciprocity; not with the great nations of the earth, but with some obscure nations whom "Boss" Reed described as ''people some of whom do wear shirts on Sundays." Turning to the financial world, we find that instead of an even and steady spirit we have for years been in a continuous fever, continually on the brink of a panic. When we look to the condition of things 228 LIFE QUESTIONS. in our State we find that the same spirit has been shaping things to- ward the same end here. We find upon our statute books here a law which interferes with the most sacred right known to the parent, that is the right to educate his child according to the dictates of his con- science; a law creating a State inquisition over schools to which the State contributes nothing; a law which puts every parent at the mercy of a local school board, in the matter of educating his child; a law growing out of the aristocratic principle that the few have the right to legislate for the many. This law, while in harmony with the principles of the Republican party, is antagonistic to the principles of the Demo- cratic party, and we demand that this law be wiped off the statute books, because it is undemocratic and tends to bring our public school system into disrepute. We glory in our common-school system; we glory in the fact that over a century ago Thomas Jefferson, while a member of the Legislature of Virginia, secured the enactment of laws, and the first law in that State, creating a common-school system, a system of free libraries, and laying the foundation of a university. He recognized the fact, as we do, that universal education of the masses is an absolute necessity to the permanence of democratic institutions. We demand the enactment of a law which will secure to every child the rudiments of an education and fit it for citizenship without doing violence to democratic principles. It is announced, with seem- ing authority, that the Republican party of this State, at its conven- tion to be held here next week, will declare in favor of the repeal of the law which they not only put on the statute books, but to main- tain which, in its most offensive form, they have fought with bitter- ness. Gentlemen, such a declaration will do them no good. It will deceive nobody; it will be insincere and will be regarded as a mere vote-catching maneuver. The spirit which enacted the alien and sedi- tion laws, the spirit which actuated the' "Know-nothing" party, the spirit which is forever carping about the foreign-born citizen and trying to abridge his privileges, is too deeply seated in the party. The aristocratic and know-nothing principle has been circulating in its system so long that it will require more than one somersault to shake the poison out of its bones. Now, gentlemen, the coming campaign is not to be a mere scramble for office. Were the getting of an office all that there is involved many of you would not be here — most of us would feel that the game was not worth the pursuit — but it is to be a contest between prin- ciples. It is to be an effort on our part to bring the American people back to the fundamental principles upon which our government is based, to make it truly republican and to arrest the course in which SPEECH OF ACCEPTANCE. • 229 we have been drifting now for years toward oligarchical institutions, an effort to point out the iniquities of the present tariff; to show the American laborer that instead of being protected he is being robbed ; to show the American farmer that instead of his being benefited his prosperity is blighted. I believe if we go out to the people of this State; if we make it, as far as possible, a campaign of education; if we make these things as clear as we can, that there will be no doubt about the result. Democracy implies independence of thought, and where there is independence of thought there must be a divergence of views upon many questions, and it follows of necessity that in our great party there will exist different views concerning many minor questions, but if we are agreed upon the great question, the vital question of democracy as against oligarchy, then it behooves us to put aside differences of opinion upon minor questions and to unite in one great unbroken phalanx to restore popular government. At the beginning of a famous battle Lord Nelson ran up the inscription: "England expects every man to do his duty," and the result was a great victory. Gentlemen, free institutions and popular government call to every lover of freedom to-day to do his duty, and if we all respond there will be a victory such as Lord Nelson never dreamed of. Now, gentlemen, I am not known to your constituents as well as I ought to be. You will be asked about your candidate and you will have to answer questions. Tell your people that your candidate for Governor was reared on a farm in Ohio and was taught to work from daylight until dark, and to do the chores afterward. In 1864, when sixteen years old, he went into the Union army, and for some months carried a gun around in the swamps below Richmond. He did not bleed and did not die, but was there; always reported for duty, always on deck, never shirked and never ran away. Afterward he taught school, and for five years held forth in the little red schbol-house. Tell your people that he believes in the school-house. Afterwards he studied law, practiced law, was city attorney and State's attorney. Then he moved to the great city of your State, one of the wealthiest cities of the world; there practiced law, and for five years had the honor to preside over the Superior Court in that city, where it was his daily business to uphold and enforce the law. In short, gentlemen, my life has been spent in enforcing and up- holding the dignity and the majesty of the law. I do not believe that because I have been a little more fortunate than some who once toiled with me that therefore I should now put my heel upon their necks. It is true, I believe, that the man who toils with his hands should have justice done him; it is true that I have a profound sympathy with the 2'3o LIVE QUESTIONS. man who tries by honest labor to support his family and to educate his children, and it is true that I have endeavored in all my acts to see to it that the man who toils shall receive just what law and justice give him — neither more nor less. I made it a rule when acting in official capacities to know neither friend nor foe, to endeavor to do what the law required at my hands, to do what I believed to be my duty, and to do it fearlessly, promptly and thoroughly ; and if I shall be elected to the high office for which you have nominated me here, I shall fix my eye upon the star of duty, and endeavor to steer straight toward it, and to vigorously and fearlessly enforce the law; for I believe that a State which hesitates about enforcing the law soon becomes pusil- lanimous and unworthy the respect of free men. Let me say a word about our State institutions. For years the machine which has ruled this State has been creating new offices and new places for its henchmen.- Boards and agencies and commissions without number have been created to provide places for worn out poli- ticians, to enable them to live off the public. Many of these places are merely sinecures, are entirely unnecessary, and should be abolished. Then our great public institutions, that cost the State annually mil- lions of dollars, have been utilized as homes for political mendicants. Their extravagance is burdening our people, while they are in many cases not meeting the high purpose for which they were created. They need a thorough overhauling; they need new blood, and I promise you that if elected Governor these institutions shall be run upon strictly business principles and the era of waste and extravagance brought to an end. FOURTH OF JULY ADDRESS AT LASALLE. (Delivered July 4, 1892.) We have met to-day as American citizens. We come from our homes, from the fields, from the mines, from the workshops, from the counting room. We come from the vexations and annoyances of daily life, from the heat of partisan discussion, to gather around the stars and stripes, all proud of our country and of its history; come to celebrate an event which has been momentous in shaping the destinies of nations. It is sometimes said that Fourth of July cele- brations have lost their interest. This can never be until civil and religious liberty cease to be cherished by mankind. But for the events which we to-day commemorate, those of you who were born under a foreign flag would, in all probability, not be here, and instead of being surrounded by the comforts, the prosperity which distinguish ADDRESS AT LA SALLE. 231 our land, you would still be amid the miseries and the poverty that are the fruit of ages of despotism; and you, my fellow citizens, who boast of a long lin,e of American ancestry, were it not for the events of 1776, you would not be American citizens, but you would still be British subjects, and instead of governing yourselves and making and unmaking Governors, Congressmen and Presidents, instead of "retiring to private life officials high and low, when they do not carry out your wishes, you would be humble suppliants at the throne of Great Britain — you would be humbly petitioning at the bar of the British Parliament — and that Parliament, not having been taught the salutary lessons which the Colonists taught it, would still be the rapacious, unjust and tyrannical body that it was a century ago, seeking only the enrichment and aggrandizement of the aristocracy of England, and the American continent would to-day be but little more than another edition of Ireland or of India. It is natural for us, when finding ourselves surrounded by all that makes up a high civili- zation, finding the affairs of the world moving day by day, to imagine that things have always been so, and that it required no great effort or suffering to bring them into existence; but a brief glance at the his- tory of the world soon shows us how greatly we err. Every mile- stone that marks the path of religious liberty is wet with the tears and the blood of martyrs, and every footstep along the path of civil liberty is red with the blood of patriots. Let us glance at the condi- tions which led up to, and the results that followed, the Declaration of Independence, and some of the lessons which we may draw from them. Attempts had been made at different times to found colonies on the American continent. The motive generally was love of gain — of gold — in some cases love of adventure. But in the meantime there had been developing in Europe, slowly but surely, the idea of civil and re- ligious liberty, and there had finally grown up in England a band of earnest men and women — not of the rich or powerful, not of the fashionable or great, but of the common people — to whom the privi- lege of worshipping God according to the dictates of their own con- science was more than country or home or friends; who, when driven from that country, rested for a brief interval on the shores of Holland, and then embarked upon a wintry sea for a home in the American wilderness, not to win gold or fortune, but io have peace. Before they landed they adopted a form of government, and asked the bless- ings of the Almighty upon it. They landed upon the shores of New England, and there, in a fierce climate, on a sterile soil, amid savage beasts and more savage Indians, they made their home and laid the 232 LIVE QUESTIONS. foundation of future greatness. They were a serious people; they were fearfully in earnest; they were industrious and frugal; they were actuated by stern morality and a strict adherence to principle — qual- ities which lie at the bottom of all human greatness. They soon prospered. They were educated and they cherished the cause of edu- cation. They founded schools; they built churches. Their very situation taught them to meet in council together to work for the com- mon interests of the community. In short, it taught them the art of Self-government. When, in 1755, there had sprung up a number of Colonies, the French and Indian war broke out, the necessity of the situation brought the Colonies to act together in their own com- mon defense, thus laying the foundation for a subsequent union of the Colonies, and at the same time enabling them to drive the French from the American continent — an event, the far-reaching consequences of which no man can calculate — wresting a great portion of the con- tinent from the Latin races and giving it over to the Anglo-Saxons. Finally came the conflict with the mother country. The British aristocracy and government, actuated by the same motives which have in all times and in all countries shaped the actions of aristoc- racies, could not rise above the idea of utilizing the Colonies for per- sonal aggrandizement and enrichment; and, devotedly as the Col- onies were attached to the mother country, they felt the injustice that was being done them. Again and again they petitioned Parliament and the throne for redress, but in vain, and when it was finally at- tempted to tax them, without giving them the right of representa- tion, they resorted to force, but still in the hope of a compromise. The British Government in its attempt to force the Colonies into sub- mission sent over an army, and on June 17th, 1775, was fought the battle of Bunker Hill. While the Colonists were not united, while there prevailed a difference of opinion as to the wisest course to take ; yet step by step the majority were driven to demand independence and on July 2d, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted a resolution in favor of severing the ties with the mother country, and on July 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence as we now have it, which had been drafted by Mr. Jefferson, of Virginia, was adopted and pro- mulgated to the world. If this' Declaration of Independence had been simply the throwing off of a foreign yoke. and the bending of the neck to a new master, it would have been unworthy of remembrance, it would simply have been one of the thousand cases in the history of mankind where there was a change of masters, but no improvement in the condition of the people, and no new principle given to the world. But this declaration contained two clauses, it enunciated two ADDRESS AT LA SALLE. 233 principles, — one that "All men are created equal," and the other that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the gov- erned." These were new to the world. While they had been broached in the speculations of philosophers they had never been carried into practice. It was looked upon as a dream. Kings jeered and courtiers sneered at the idea. Fashionable society throughout Europe and even in the States of America made sport of the whole matter. Let me say that the rich and the fashionable are always on the side of power. It was insisted by all the great influences of society and especially by the governing classes, that no country could exist with- out a standing army, that it could not repel invasion, that it could not suppress domestic insurrection, that it could not preserve order when conflicting interests met for settlement, and that without an estab- lished church men must relapse into barbarism; that man produced the best results with a yoke around his neck and a strong hand on him. Our fathers believed that the world had been governed too much, that instead of helping men it tended to cow them; that it ■ prevented the development of the faculties and defeated the highest achievement possible. They believed that the country needed no standing army, that it was a menace to the liberty of the citizens; that a State Church was a weight and hindrance to the development of the loftier religious sentiment, and that if the strong hand of the govern- ment and a State Church were taken off the neck, the conscience and the mind of man would rise to moral and intellectual heights that he had yet never attained. While the world doubted, they were deter- mined to make the experiment. They spoke of it as an experiment — they hoped it would succeed — they asked the blessings of the Almighty upon it. Under these circumstances the young Republic started upon its career. I will not recount the incidents of the war, the heroic en- durance of the Colonists and the friendly aid of the French, you are familiar with all this. In 1812 we had another conflict with the mother country, for al- though England had recognized our independence, she had never respected our government or our flag, but persisted in the practice of insolently boarding American ships on the high seas and forcibly taking from them all sailors which she claimed were Englishmen. A free people could not submit to this and the result was another war. Our government had no army, it had no navy, it had no money in its treasury. The English landed three armies, one near the entrance of the great lakes, one in the extreme south, another at the entrance of Chesapeake Bay. They captured Washington, burned the capitol. One would suppose that a government thus situated must succumb, m UV£ QUESTIONS. but it had the love and the patriotism of its people to fall back on. It raised armies, it filled its treasury, it built navies and it drove the English, defeated and humiliated, from our shores. From 1812 to i860 as far as our internal affairs were concerned was a period of peace. During this time the Nation grew and the country developed as no Nation or country had done. The achieve- ments of reality far surpassed the dreams of fiction. We grew in everything that tends to make a people great. The energies of men left unfettered and unrepressed leaped forth upon a career of inven- tion, a career of development, of manufacture and of education that astounded the world. School houses sprang up everywhere and never was there seen such a general diffusion of intelligence. Instead of re- lapsing into barbarism for want of a State Church, there was no country upon earth where so many church steeples pointed to the ever-living God and where on Sunday morning so many church bells tolled over the hills, calling man to commune with his Maker. In i860 came the struggle with the slave power. Surrounded by enlightenment and the spirit of freedom, it could not long exist without a struggle. Strange as it may seem to us, the Southern people regarded slavery as an institution that was sanctioned by Divine Providence, regarding their slaves as property and deter- mined to fight to maintain their property rights. Here again most of the rich and fashionable of the entire country sympathized with the South, that being the side of power. The North felt that to permit separation of the Union was to arrest and to a great extent destroy the prosperity and the development of the country, that we were in- separably bound together, that our interests were common and united, that we must eith'er remain united or drift into anarchy. Then, again, we had no army, we had scarcely any navy, we had no money in the treasury, we had nothing to fall back on except the patriotic senti- ment of the people, but this sufficed. We filled the treasury, we built a navy that stretched from Chesapeake Bay around to the Cape of Florida, and from there on around to the coast of Mexico — 2,400 miles of sea-coast ; and instead of one army we equipped many armies, and instead of operating on a small territory and conducting one campaign,' as had been the case with the great military chieftain's of other countries, we conducted a number of campaigns simultaneously, carried on military operations that stretched over half the continent. Then was presented to the world one of the grandest spectacles ever beheld. A navy guarding 2,400 miles of sea-coast, a million men in the field,, all actuated by one common purpose, all stepping to the same music, all moved by one motive, not of plunder, not of conquest, ADDRESS AT LA SALLE. 2$$ not of aggrandizement, but the one lofty sentiment: "This Union Forever." No monarchial, no aristocratic government ever presented such a spectacle to the world. The Union was maintained, and when the war was over one of the most difficult problems was presented, namely, how to deal with the subdued South. To govern a people subdued by military operations has always been a most difficult task; in this case it was rendered more difficult by the fact that there were four million people who had formerly been slaves added to the citizenship and given the right of suffrage. They were to be citizens, standing on the same plane with their former masters. In other countries this condition of affairs would have been impossible. Russia maintained order in Warsaw, after the conquest of Poland, but it was the order of death — to shoot down men, women and children, and let them lie in heaps upon the street, was the only method of preserving order that military despotism could devise. But we relied upon the principles of self-government. We withdrew our armies; we asked these people to govern themselves, and they have succeeded to a degree which, under other conditions, would have been impossible. To, be sure there were outrages, there were isolated cases of violence, but year by year the conditions were improving. The principle of self-government is triumphing again. Other countries had found the disbanding of a great army a source of danger. Soldiers who had been fighting for plunder or aggrandize- ment did not hold high ideas of citizenship. We disbanded a million of men. The generals laid down their swords; the privates laid down their muskets. They returned to their former occupations — to their shops, to their counting rooms, to their offices; yea, to their pulpits, and began again to make their living by the sweat of their brow. There was no disturbance, no disorder. The principle of self-govern- ment solved the question. Our fathers prepared a government for three millions of people, scattered along the Atlantic coast. To them the Alleghany Moun- tains were far in the West. They thought that in the course of centuries the people might reach the mountains. They stood, as it were, upon the threshold of a new continent, a new century and a new era. They could not see the wonderful and the rapid_ develop- ment of either. Could they return to-day and stand, not on the Atlantic coast, but on the great mountains that seemed so far west to them, and gaze out over the great Mississippi Valley, see it covered with States any one of which is greater, in all that goes to make a na- tion, than any of the empires of the past ; could they see the wonderful cities, the vast extent of railroads, the school houses, the churches, 22,6 LIVE QUESTIONS. the colleges; could they see all the agencies of this civilization; could they see how far-reaching have been the principles which they pro- mulgated, of equality and of government by the consent of the gov- erned, reaching out not only over the whole Western Hemisphere, but stirring up the nations of the Old World, they would be speechless with amazement. Now, my fellow citizens, after the Revolution there continued a tide of immigration from the countries of the Old World. The im- migrants who came were not of the nobility, not of the rich, but they were of the poor, whose lot had been made hard by the opera- tions of despotism. They came in great numbers to our shore. They did not settle in the Southern States, but sought homes in the North- ern free States. These people brought with them many of the quali- ties and characteristics of the Pilgrim Fathers. They were indus- trious; they had strong arms and great endurance; they were frugal in their habits; they were accustomed to observe law and order; they were honest and loved liberty; they came over here to better their condition, to make homes for themselves and their children; and it is a remarkable fact that the development, the prosperity and the greatness of the different States of the Union is in proportion to the number of immigrants that settled in them. It is in these States that we find the largest cities, the most splendid architecture, the most railroads, the greatest factories, the greatest development of nature's resources, the most schools, the best schools, the most churches, the most libraries, the most printing presses. It is in these States that we find the highest development of our civiliza- tion, and those States which have few or no immigrants have the least development and are behind in everything that makes a great State; and in the great struggle for the Union, the men who fought to main- tain the institution of slavery, and the men who fired upon the Amer- ican flag — who sought to destroy our government — were, almost with- out exception, not only Americans, but the sons of Americans; while, on the other hand, nearly one-half of the men who fought to maintain the Union — who defended our flag in the days of its peril, and who helped to perpetuate free institutions, were either foreign-born or were the sons of foreign-born parents. One-half the men who filled South- ern graves because they cherished freedom and abhorred slavery, were of foreign origin. Fifty years ago there was a cry of "America for Americans," a cry directed against the foreign-born citizens. It failed of its purpose. Now we hear it renewed, and strangely enough, it comes from among the ranks of one of the great parties that has been kept in power by these foreign-born citizens. Need I say that ADDRESS AT LA SALLE. 237 this cry must fail again in its purpose? For no honest patriot and no liberal man can read the history of this people without being con- vinced of the injustice of such a cry. It comes from a set of men who boast of no great deed done for their country — men who avoid the sun and hide under the mask of secrecy. Now, my fellow-citizens, the lessons we gather from this brief survey of our history are, first, the necessity for universal intelligence. Resting upon the patriotism and the good judgment of the people it is indispensable that they should be intelligent and well informed, and our very existence depends upon the maintenance of our schools and of all the agencies that tend to enlighten or elevate mankind. We learn further to respect opposing opinions. At every stage in the career of our country there have been differences between men equally honest, equally patriotic. Generally, coming generations accepted a part of the theory of each and rejected a part of the theory of each. For example: After the Revolutionary War, when it was sought to establish a permanent government, there were two schools of men. There was the school of Hamilton, leaning toward a monarchy, believing in aristocracy, having no confidence in the people, believing that the people were incapable of self-govern- ment, and holding that the Union between the States was one and inseparable. There was the school of Jefferson, which believed in the people, which abhorred kings and aristocracy, believing that the peo- ple were capable of self-government, and holding to the theory that the Union was a mere compact between the States, from which any State could withdraw. Subsequent generations have accepted a part of the theory of each. They have said to Hamilton: "We repudiate your monarchial and aristocratic leaning, we repudiate your distrust of the people, but we accept your doctrine that the Union is one and inseparable." They have said to Jefferson: "We repudiate your theory of the right of secession, but we accept with all our hearts your doctrine that the people can be trusted and are capable of self-government." When Abraham Lincoln said that the government should be "Of the people, for the people and by the people," he virtually added another line to the Declaration of Independence as drafted by Jefferson, and when Lee surrendered at Appomattox there died forever the doctrine of the right of secession. We learn further, that to reach the highest intellectual and moral development the government should leave its hands off the neck of the citizen. There should be no interference with the private affairs of the individual; that to attempt to interfere with the private affairs 238 LIVE QUESTIONS. of the citizen and his personal rights is not a step forward but a step backward. It is going back to the condition of things that existed centuries before the birth of the Republic. And we learn to have confidence in the continuity of our government, in the perpetuity of our institutions. Institutions which have come up through such trials and tribulations, possess a vitality that will not succumb before ordi- nary difficulties. Again, we learn that great reforms, great principles re- lating to the uplifting of humanity, great social movements that bene- fit mankind never come from the rich, the fashionable or the powerful, but always from the common people. They come not'from the clouds but from the earth. The Savior of the world came not of the great but of the lowly. The upper classes of America were Tories in 1776 and were ready to tolerate slavery in i860. Gladstone recently said that the leisure classes of England always voted on the wrong side. This country has gained little from swallow-tail coats or big shirt fronts, from lofty platitudes or after-dinner patriotism, but it has always been able to rely on the good sense, the love of country and the sturdy character of the masses, and whatever reforms may be needed will have to come from the common people. And we learn, lastly, the necessity of toil and of endurance. Our people, our young me"h, must learn to patiently endure; must learn that it is only by heroic toil and endurance and a sturdy adherence to lofty principle that they can reach the high places of this universe and those golden mountain tops where dwell the spirits of the dawn. SPEECH AT A SOLDIERS' REUNION. (Delivered at Olney, 111., 1892.) About thirty years ago there was seen one of the grandest and most awful spectacles ever witnessed upon the earth; one of the largest navies ever known stretched along and blockaded over two thousand miles of sea-coast. At the same time upwards of a million men, divided into great armies, formed an almost unbroken line from Chesa- peake Bay across the continent down to the shores of Mexico. The men comprising this great navy and forming these great armies stepped to the same music. They were moved by one common impulse, one sentiment actuated them all; not plunder, not adventure, not aggrandizement, not conquest, but the cry of "This Union Forever." But one resolve ran through these lines as they stretched along and across the continent, and that was, that the flag that floats above us must be protected. Who were these men and whence came they? SPEECH At A SOLDIERS' REUNION. 239 They were not janizaries, they were not slaves, they were not hirelings, they were not adventurers. They were freemen and sons of freemen, they were American citizens, and if it was once the greatest of honors to be a Roman citizen, it was a far greater honor to be a citizen of the greatest Republic on earth. These men came from the occupations of freemen, came from the homes of freemen, came from the shops, the fields, the stores, the school houses, the mines and the pulpits of the land. Two and a half millions from first to last marched from the North to the South. No State in the Union gave the flower of its youth and the strong arm of its men more freely than did the State of Illinois, and this is especially true of this section of this State. They left their homes, left everything that was dear upon earth, and marched to the scene of war, and the numerous soldiers' monuments that I find all over this country, rearing their heads toward heaven as though silently guarding the field of fame and watching over the graves of patriots, proclaim to the world that hundreds of thousands of those who went have not returned and will return no more forever. They lie in the fields, they rest in the pine groves, tbey moulder in the swamps and dark ravines of the South, they care for neither friend nor foeman, neither the hand of man nor the kiss of woman, they sleep the sleep that knows no breaking, they dream of battlefields no more, of days of danger and nights of waking. Wrapped in pale elysian mists they will sleep on while time endures. When they were falling victims to disease and to bullets of the enemy, and as from time to time the messages reached the homes in the North, stating that all was over, how many were there all over this land, who in the anguish of their souls cried out: "All my heart is buried with him, all my thoughts go onward with him?" Now you lived to return to your homes and your former occupations, you lived to see the day dawn, you lived to see the glow of a new era on the eastern sky, you lived to see this great country take a forward bound in education, in intelli- gence, in manufacture, in railroad building, in the development of cities, in everything that makes a country great, such as had never been witnessed before. You lived to see a Republic greater than man ever dreamed of. You have lived to see the shackles stricken from four millions of slaves, yea, you have lived to see new troubles arise, that may be more difficult of solution than was the slave question. Economic and industrial difficulties have arisen, of so serious a char- acter, that there are good citizens who feel gloomy over the outcome, who are in doubt whether we shall have in this country a plutocracy created largely by governmental aid, haughty, unreasonable, domineer- ing and protected by the bayonet, or whether we shall have anarchy, 246 live QUESTIONS. bloodshed and general destruction and ruin, or lastly, whether we may yet find a way and a will to subject both the plutocrat and his victim to the reign of law; whether the law will rise superior to and above every difficulty, guarding and conserving the accumulations and the civilization of centuries on the one hand, and protecting the poor, the weak and the helpless on the other. It may be a sore trial for republican institutions, but I have hopes — I believe — the good sense and the intelligence of the American people, those whom we may call non-combatants, will be equal to the emergency, and instead of sinking into despotism on the one hand, or drifting into civil strife- on the other, the Republic may take a new bound forward and reach yet higher planes of greatness. But these are chiefly questions for the younger generation to settle. You did your work well. The result of your work was the establishment of liberty for all, and let us hope that the coming generation will be equally happy in its efforts. The idea of those who marched side by side in the great conflict, who in common endured the hardships and faced the perils of war, and who yet survive, I say the idea of their getting together annually in social reunion, reviving old memories, talking over old times, grasping the hands of comrades whom they love, is a beautiful one. I can think of nothing that will give an old veteran more pleasure than in this way to meet his old comrades. I know something about the exposure incident to a soldier's life. I have seen men fall down- in their tracks from exhaustion ; I have seen them wasting away in the hospitals; I have seen them sleeping in swamps; I have seen them subjected to almost every kind of exposure, where they contracted diseases which they carry with them for life and which must shorten their days; and I also know something of the sacrifices which these men made when leaving home, and I feel that they should have justice done them. At the beginning of the war, the government needed money, and in order to raise it issued bonds which it sold to the moneyed classes at a little over sixty cents on the dollar, and when the war was over it was decided that the honor of the government would require that these bonds should not only be paid in full, but should be paid in gold ; and I say that if the honor of the government required that those rich men, who had loaned the government money with which to prose- cute the war, should be paid nearly two dollars for each one they loaned, and should be paid that in gold, then the honor of the govern- ment, as well as good faith, justice and equity, required that those men who had left their homes and imperiled their lives in order that the government might be saved so that it could pay anything, should SPEECH AT A SOLDIERS' REUNION. 241 have at least dollar for dollar; and some years ago the publishers of a soldiers' newspaper requested me to publish my views on the pension question, and I did so, considering the question from the standpoint of what justice, fair dealing between man and man and between gov- ernment and man required, and insisted that the soldier should be made whole; that if practicable to do so, he should have dollar for dollar for the actual loss he had sustained in money, in limb or in health; that, while the government cannot pay for patriotism; that while patriotism cannot be estimated in dollars and cents, and is above all money considerations;' that while the government cannot pay for the anguish, the heartaches incident to going into the war; while it cannot pay for the spirit of patriotism which promptly drops all private affairs and private business, and responds to the call of the country and marches to the field without promise of reward, not knowing whether he will ever return, the government can pay and should pay for those losses that can be estimated and ascertained in dollars and cents; that when property is taken by the government it always makes compensation ; when money is loaned it not only pays it back but pays a large bonus. Therefore, when the highest kind of service is rendered, service which requires the greatest possible sacri- fices known to man, the government should extend the proper recog- nition. These were my views then, they are my views now. The publication containing them was circulated over the country and was used before Congress. When the gallant Capt. Wallace Foster, of Indianapolis, Ind., was making his fight for justice to the deaf and dumb soldiers, I repeatedly gave him what assistance I could before the National Congress. It may surprise some of you to know that until a few years ago a man who was deaf and dumb received but $13 a month pension, although if thrown out upon his resources it was impossible for him to make a living. Now, I wish to say that the old soldiers owe me nothing. I have no claim upon them. What I did was done in the cause of justice and fair dealing, and work thus done creates no debt, no obligation. I simply recognize the great service done, the great suffering endured by the soldiers. I am satisfied that these organizations not only give a great deal of pleasure, but they have been the means of extorting more equitable treatment from the hands of Congress, and if they are kept up for the purpose for which they were created, a social reunion, they will con- tinue to be both pleasant and mutually protective in their character; but if the time should come when they are used for political pur- poses, when they are run by men who have been described as being invisible in war and invincible in peace, men who never saw the 242 LIVE QUESTIONS. enemy, who followed the baggage train of the American armies; or, if they shall be controlled by a few men, who, although they did see actual service, are now forever rehearsing, with a view of getting the old soldiers to help them to fat offices, then the usefulness of the order ceases. Men who are brave usually do not talk much, and the" great majority of the old veterans who are carrying rebel lead in their bodies or suffering from incurable wounds are not making great noises. The men who are engaged in doing that are men who found it profit- able to do so. Now I will say to you, go on with your reunions, enjoy the days that are left you, keep your organization above the domain of politics, and you will have not only the respect but the good will, the good wishes and the God-bless-yous of all good people. SPEECH TO OLD SETTLERS. (Delivered at Cedarville, near Freeport, August 31, 1892.) It seems to me that on an occasion like this, when the old settlers come out to have their annual picnic — their annual social reunion — the principal object should be to have a good time, to interchange reminiscences, interesting experiences and cultivate good fellowship. In short, it should be a picnic, a social reunion, and not a solemn occasion. But it appears there has grown up a custom of having, at each of these reunions, something like a short set speech, and it is in pursuance of this custom that it has fallen to my lot to address you to-day. As I am not an old settler myself, as I cannot recall the day when the wild Indian galloped his pony over the prairie, and when herds of wild buffalo grazed almost undisturbed along our streams; as I was not an actor in the events which have become memorable in this section of the State ; as I may be said to belong to the following generation, I cannot entertain you with any personal experiences, but must view you and your career as a friendly new-comer, who finds the structure already built and ventures to make observations in regard to some of its features. In this light we will glance briefly at some parts of your career and the character of the work you have done, in so far as it regards the laying of the foundations of society, the founding of institutions, and the building up of a great State. Up to the year 1832, when Mr. Waddams settled in Stephenson county, there do not appear to have been any permanent white settlers. From that year up to 1836, and in fact, from then on, there was a rapid influx of people, coming from different countries, speaking dif- ferent languages and professing different religions. History tells us SPEECH TO OLD SETTLERS. 243 they were American, German, English and Irish, and some of other nationalities. While they all professed the Christian religion, some were Catholics, and some belonged to the different Protestant denomi- nations. The population that subsequently moved into this section may be said to have been of the same general character. As a rule, they were industrious, they were frugal and they were honest, and they all loved liberty. Many of them, perhaps, did not possess much education, but they possessed a hardy manhood and a spirit of ad- venture, which no education could give. All possessed a spirit of tolerance, and they were democratic in their habits. They respected law and endeavored to maintain order, and believed that that govern- ment was best which interfered least with the private affairs of indi- viduals. They believed in education and they believed in allowing every man to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience. This was the condition of affairs at that time. The Black Hawk war was over. In 1837 the Legislature created the county of Stephenson. The development of the country after that was more rapid. The little school, with which Miss Goodhue had struggled so valiantly in the early years, had been followed by many others. The country having thus begun to develop, the nature of this development and the char- acter of the institutions that were to follow, were chiefly determined by the character and the wisdom of these early settlers. There are places in the United States where there was no advance and where, two cen- turies after the first settlement, the conditions remained the same; but this was not true in Northwestern Illinois. The early settlers here recognized the hard conditions of existence and that excellence is only to be attained by hard labor, and they believed that the influence of the church, when properly directed, is beneficial to mankind, even here, to say nothing of the hereafter. They made hard labor a condi- tion of existence, and began by tilling the soil. There soon sprang up as good a system of agriculture as was to be found anywhere. School houses were built, churches were built. Not only was the school-master seen abroad in the land, but it is related the traveling preachers were among the first comers. In this way the start was made. It was not long before there had grown up an intelligent and influential community. Courts were established and with them came the lawyers, who have exerted such a powerful influence upon the history of America, having, as a rule, drafted the constitutions of the States and shaped most of the legislation of the country. Some of the men, who have become great in the annals of America, spent their early days in this section of the State. 244 LIVE QUESTIONS. Simultaneously with the coming of the early settlers, came politics. It was necessary to have government, and this brought with it the necessity of selecting those who should govern, and as men were not any more inclined to agree than they are now, there at once arose differences of opinion as to the men to be selected and the policy to be pursued, and it was in the neighboring city of Freeport where was held one of those great debates between Lincoln and Douglas, debates which then attracted the attention of the entire American people, which now are read all over the domain of the English language, and which form a part of the basic political literature of our country. Then came the great civil war, and history records that the sons of the Northwest, Democratic and Republican, rallied by the thousand to support the flag, and -the different soldiers' monuments that I find in this section of the State, that seem to be solemnly and silently guard- ing the camping ground of fame, proclaim to the world, that many, very many, of those who went forth to battle, of those who went forth to the swamps, the pine forests and the dark ravines of the South," never returned. , During all this period there arose from time to time questions of public policy in regard to schools, in regard to public improvements, the building of railroads, in regard to public institutions, which had to be decided and which were decided as they arose, and every such decision had something to do with shaping the destiny of the country. Standing here to-day, looking back over these sixty years that have elapsed since ' the first settlement in this county, viewing the results of your work during that time, I feel that it has been a momentous period and has produced marvelous results.- It was the formative period of our State, for the same conditions which I have described as existing here in this section, were to be found almost all over the State. All moved along the same line to practically the same end. There are men here to-day who have witnessed it all, who have not only stood by and seen grown up, but who have actually helped to build up one of the greatest States of the civilized world. At no other era has such a privilege been given to man. I say it was the formative period, the period during which the foundations were laid, during which the course was determined upon, during which the insti- tutions were formed and their character formed, during which our civilization was moulded, and given not only a forward but an upward impetus ; a period, during which the mind of man, left unhampered by superstition and uncowed by the iron hand of tyranny, unfolded and leaped forward to a career of discovery, a career of invention, a career of improvement, mental and physical, a career of development of the SPEECH TO OLD SETTLERS. 245 country, a career of education, a career of. industry in the arts, in the sciences, in agriculture, in architecture, in everything that goes to make a people great ; and it did this in spite of governmental policies that bore hard on agricultural communities. So, to-day, when we look over the State of Illinois, we find a splendid agriculture, the finest cities under the sun, the most complete architecture yet conceived by man, the largest factories, the most numerous and the most wonderful machines and inventions,, the most perfect system of railroads, the finest schools, the most newspapers, the most churches to be found anywhere. I have recently been practically all over the State, in its cities, through its shops, over its prairies, have met all classes of its people, and I say to you, that few of us to-day have any conception of the greatness of this State of Illinois, which has formed and practically grown up within the last sixty years. No ancient monarch ever con- ceived of such a State, neither Mede nor Persian, neither Egyptian nor Carthagenian ever dreamed of such a country. With them a despot ruled barbarism, with us an independent people rules itself. Neither Greece in her glory nor Rome in her power ever gazed upon such an empire as this State of Illinois. This, let me say, is a brief sketch of the work you have done and of the fabric you have reared, not perfect, not free from serious economic errors, yet when I gaze upon this fabric, human though it is, with many imperfections, I am so impressed with its greatness that I bow in reverence before the men who reared it. You settled the questions that arose from time to time — upon the whole you settled them well. You are fast retiring from the field. Your faces are set westward, and you leave this great State to the care of the following generation. You had dangers to face in your day and difficult questions to settle, and such is the character of human affairs and such the ever changing nature of conditions, that every day brings new dangers to be met, every day new questions to be settled. Our development has been so rapid, and new methods of transportation and communication have so transformed our society, that difficulties which are novel and very serious in their character are presenting themselves, and in assuming to follow in your footsteps and to protect and conserve the institutions which you have founded, the generation which follows you has a serious and most difficult task, and while your experience will be a lamp to guide our feet in some things, there are others which are so new in character, that we can get no aid from those sources, and must deal with them as original questions and settle them as best we can. 246 LIVE QUESTIONS. We learn from your history that that government is best which inter- feres least with the private affairs of the people ; that it is not good for either the State or the church to interfere with the freedom of con- science or the personal liberty of the citizen ; that the people can be trusted to govern themselves; that while sometimes duped for years, yet in the long run their judgment can be depended upon to adopt the right and detect the wrong, and that their honesty and their patriotism can be depended upon to, in the main, pursue the right. We also learn from your history that different nationalities, even when they profess different religions, can live harmoniously together in the same community and become a prosperous, happy and contented people; in short, that a spirit of toleration and a broad sentiment of justice and fair dealing between man and man is necessary for the government of a great people. Had the early government of Illinois indulged in class legislation, or been guided by a policy by which one class attempts to lay down the law against another class, or had the different nationalities that settled in the country here indulged in and kept up feuds, had the different religious sects indulged in persecution, the history of Illinois would have been different, and she would not be the great and proud empire to-day that she is. Consequently, when we now see efforts made by one class of people to force their views upon another class of people by means of legislation ; when we see efforts made to have the. State inter- fere with the personal liberty of citizens, we feel it is an unwise pol- icy that must, if successful, in the end belittle instead of exalt the citi- zen ; and when we hear the cry of "America for Americans" and the cry of "Put none but Americans on guard;" when we see the spirit of Knownothingism, which reared its head forty years ago and was then squelched by the American people, again assert itself, we know from your experience, that this spirit is unwise and unpatriotic, and that, if this cry were to be successful, it must result in the formation of classes, must result in breeding discord and hatred among the peo- ple; in short, that it would be a step backward and must entirely change the nature of our institutions, narrowing them and in the end endangering their very existence. In connection with this question we also see, by actual observation, that those States of the Union which have the greatest immigrant population, have also the greatest development in everything that goes to make a great nation and a great people, while those States of the Union, notably the Southern States, which have scarcely any immi- grant population, are more than a century behind in these particulars ; SPEECH TO OLD SETTLERS. 247 and we further note, that of the men who made up the Southern army, the men who fired upon the American flag, almost every one was not only native born, but boasted of a long line of American ancestry; while of the men who went forth to save the Union, almost one-half were either foreign born or of foreign born parents. So that not only good policy and the voice of patriotism, but the cause of justice must unite in condemning this resurrection of a spirit that belongs to another era and a less civilized country. But other questions have arisen that are not of easy solution and that embarrass some of our ablest statesmen. The question of the relation between capital and labor is entirely different to-day from what it was fifty years ago. Then it affected a few individuals only, now it affects «not only entire communities, but the State. Capital is becoming more and more concentrated into a few hands, and by means of trusts and combinations, which have grown at an alarming rate within the last ten years, is frequently enabled to practice extortion and wrong upon the entire public. Again, the policy to be pursued toward foreign nations in relation to commerce _ is not yet settled: Whether we shall by means of legislation try to exclude the foreign people from our markets, so that the quantity they buy and sell here is insignificant when we consider the vastness of our resources, or whether we shall seek to have free commercial intercourse with all the nations of the earth, so that, if the products of the factories and the farms of this country do not find a market in one quarter, they can try to find one in another, is a question yet to be settled. Other questions are already appearing above the horizon, which must be met in their time. Fortunate will we be if we can display the same good sense and superior judgment in settling these questions, that you displayed, and if it shall be followed by the same happy consequences. Again, the young men of to-day can learn of you and your career. They can learn that the conditions of life are hard — that life is a struggle and not a frolic — and that nothing can be accomplished without severe and continuous industry. That work is the mother of greatness; that there can be no- permanent success in life without continuity of purpose; that they must keep their faces toward the sun, for nothing great ever grows in dark places. Shams and hollow pretense, fraud and deceit are the dirty children of a blind mother; they drag out a miserable existence and die unhonored. Now, may you live to enjoy many of these reunions ; live to meet each other often around the social board, to talk over the days that are gone, and as you near the horizon, as your day grows shorter, and the shadows grow longer, as yon gaze back over the work you did 248 LIVE QUESTIONS. and the career you have run, may you have that peace of mind, that sweet comfort that grows out of the feeling that you did the best you could. ELGIN LABOR DAY SPEECH. (Delivered at Elgin, September 6, 1892.) The invitation which you extended to me named the topic which you wished me to discuss, namely: "What does the party, of which I am a candidate, offer as a remedy for the present unequal distribution of wealth ?" I wish first to say that the framer of that question labored under the mistaken idea that a political party is a fixed entity, re- maining the same from year to year, whereas, in reality, it is simply a collection of individuals who, while disagreeing in most things, agree upon some important principle of government, and, so far as it affects it, act together. For example: Those comprising the Democratic party to-day may differ as widely as the poles on many important ques- tions, some being radical and others conservative, but they believe in democratic government ; a government based upon the consent of the governed. They all believe that that government is best which least interferes with the private affairs of the individual, and they are op- posed to the idea of the government attempting to favor or build up one class at the expense of another. Those comprising the Republi- can party likewise differ on very many essential points, but, as a rule, they favor the policy of protecting some even though it be at the expense of others. They believe in the doctrine of Hamilton, who promulgated the idea that the government should take care of the rich and let the rich take care of the poor. There is also another element found in the Republican party, made up of people who, as a rule, are no wiser, no more patriotic, no more honest and no more intelligent than their fellow men, who yet are forever striving to lay down the laws for their neighbors to obey ; who want to force every- body to their way of thinking and acting by law; who favor inter- ference by the government with the personal liberty of the citizens. These may be said to be the distinguishing features of the two great parties to-day. I say the two great parties, for, while there are other parties representing a great deal of patriotism and intelligence, they are so small numerically that there is little prospect of their having much to do with shaping the affairs of government for the present, so that- every citizen will be obliged to act with one or the other of the two great parties if he wishes to assist directly in shaping the policy of the country, and does not want to throw away his vote. In this labor day Speech. 249 country, government is run by majorities, and if a majority of the people of the country should favor any important measure in the fu- ture, even though neither of the parties advocate it to-day, one or the other of them would then espouse it and carry it out ; and I will say here, that new questions of vital importance have already arisen that are now being agitated, and will have to be settled in the near future. The great question must soon be determined as to what the State can do to prevent industrial strife, and, in fact, a civil war. The question of protecting the noncombatants, that great portion of the community that has no personal interests in these strifes, that, conse- quently, wants them either entirely avoided or speedily adjusted, is being discussed. It is a question whether or not it is practical to enforce arbitration in these cases and make them subject to law, as we do every other dispute between individuals. The time has come when we can no longer permit a civil war to be carried on between employer and employe. The law must step in promptly and protect all, and see that justice is done. Teach the employer that he is not above the law and the employe that he is not beneath its notice. Coming now to our question, I will endeavor to answer it as can- didly as I can, for I feel that I am dealing with honest men who are endeavoring to find what is the best policy to pursue. It is a momen- tous question, that strikes at an evil which, if unchecked, will destroy not only our government, but our civilization. It is a fact, that in the last twenty years there has been such a rapid concentration of wealth into a few hands, such an increase of millionaires, and such a multipli- cation of those who have no homes and no farms, that the friends of the Republic may well be alarmed. Mr. Thomas Shearman, of New York, has lately published some statistics on this subject, which must arouse the fears of even the most hopeful ; for it is a fact that great concentra- tion of wealth into a few hands has been the cause of the downfall of nearly all the great governments of the earth and the destruction of their civilization. History and statistics tell us that when Egypt went down, two per cent, of her people owned ninety-seven per cent, of her wealth. When Persia went down, one per cent, of her popu- lation owned all the land, and when Rome went down eighteen hundred men owned all the known world. In this country, in 1850, the capi- talists owned thirty-seven and one-half per cent, of her wealth. To-day they own seventy-five per cent, of it. Twenty-five years ago five- eighths of our people owned their own homes. To-day only three- eighths of them own their own homes. How long will it be until there will be less than one-eighth? The truth is, that unless the present policy, which centralizes wealth in a few hands and impoverishes the 250 LIVE QUESTIONS. great masses, can be arrested, this Republic is doomed. In consider- ing the remedy, it is also necessary to discover the cause of the trouble, and generally it is true that when the cause is removed the matter soon rights itself, and the party of which I am a candidate believes this to be true to a very great extent now. The trouble we complain of is not due to natural causes. It has been brought about, to a very great extent, by artificial means, by interference with natural laws, and it is being aggravated to-day by those means. It has been brought about, to a very great extent, by the policy and action of government. Very few men would accumulate so large a fortune as to be a menace to the rest of the community if left to their own efforts, and if the natural conditions had not been interfered with by government, there would probably be little cause for complaint. This government existed nearly a century before we heard much of millionaires. The trouble has arisen out of a change of policy by the government, out of the fact that for thirty years the government, both National and State, has pursued a true Hamiltonian policy ; that is, to favor a few at the expense of the many, to assist the rich and let them take care of the poor. For example : The government gave to the Pacific Railroad builders out- right, in land and money, almost twice as much as was needed to build and equip the roads. That is, the government took up a dozen or more men and made millionaires of them. Not only this, but it then gave away to others almost the entire public domain — millions on millions of acres that should have been reserved for actual settlers. Many of the gigantic fortunes of this country were made in this way. Their possessors are now haughty and attempt to dictate, not only to labor, but to law-making and to law-executing power, and they still enjoy immunities from taxation — from the payment of their just debts to the government — which other individuals do not enjoy. The government now gives $10,000,000 a year to some sugar growers in Louisiana, because they complain that they cannot raise sugar at a profit on account of foreign competition. Now the government does not help you or the farmer, when your business does not pay, but it compels you to make millionaires of the sugar men. Let these immunities be withdrawn; let these individuals be treated as other citizens; force them to pay their share of taxes, and their fortunes will, in time, melt away or be divided, and the waters will soon find their level again. PAUPER LABOR. Then for twelve years or more, the large manufacturing and mining corporations in the East have, through the aid of numerous steamship companies, been enabled to import laborers under contract from nearly LABOR DAY SPEECH. 251 all despotic countries of Europe, where what is commonly called pauper labor exists, thus bringing over a set of men who do not come to permanently settle, and who have no idea of becoming American citi- zens and educating their families, but who come simply to get a little money and then, instead of setttling down and assimilating with our people, return to their own country. These people work for about one-half of what is necessary to pay the American laborer, both naturalized and native born, who seeks to maintain and educate his children. Mr. Powderly tells us that in this manner almost every native born and naturalized laborer has been driven out of the great State of Pennsylvania and their places filled with this pauper labor brought over from Europe. Not only this, but when these last named people objected to a reduction of wages, they were simply locked out and their places filled with fresh importations of paupers, who worked under the protection of soldiers, and if the former laborer did not tamely submit, he was simply shot down. Now, there was during all these years a law upon the statute book prohibiting the importation of pauper labor, but Federal authorities have winked at this violation of the law and the large manufacturing and mining corporations, such as the Carnegie institutions, are enabled to get their work done for little more than one-half of what they otherwise would have to pay, and in this way were enabled to amass vast fortunes. Employing in many instances thousands of men who thus worked at starvation wages, they soon became rich and powerful, and then assumed not only to dictate to labor, but to shape legislation in their own interest, and to control elections when necessary for this purpose. Now, if this law against the importation of pauper contract labor had been enforced, . as laws governing the humble citizen are enforced, it would have been impossible for a few individuals to amass vast fortunes ; the laborers, instead of being driven out of that great State, would have remained there, receiving living wages, would have educated their children and maintained their families in comfort, and if to-day these laws were enforced, it would not be very long until in the natural course of events these fortunes would dissolve, Carnegie would stop building castles in Scotland, he would stop importing pauper labor, and would stop hiring a private army to shoot down working men at so much per day. TARIFF. Again, under the false and deceiving pretext of protecting the American laborer, these manufacturing and mining corporations suc- ceeded in getting the government, by tariff legislation, to relieve them of foreign competition. This enabled them to sell their goods at higher 2S2 LIVE QUESTIONS. prices, there being at present an average tariff of sixty per cent., which entirely shuts out some lines of goods, so that, while they were enabled to get their labor cheap, they were relieved of competition and thus to get higher prices for their goods. While the American laborer found that his struggle was becoming more and more severe, he had to com- pete with the pauper labor of Europe, while everything he had to buy was made dearer by reason of the action of the government. I do not say dearer than ever before, for invention has cheapened produc- tion all over the earth, but dearer than they would be if there were free competition. For if there had been free competition in goods as there was in labor, he could have bought what he needed for but little more than half what it now costs ,Jhim. When the tariff was taken off of sugar it went down to but little more than half what it was formerly. The same result would follow if it were taken off of other things. It is sometimes insisted that it is impossible to keep this pauper labor out ; that, as the steamship companies make money by carrying these people here, they can be landed in spite of all vigilance. If this is so, if the American laborer must compete with all the world, then simple justice requires that the employer should do the same. If foreign competition is to determine his wages, then the laborer should be permitted to buy his tools, his household goods, and the clothing for his family at foreign competition prices. As an example of the workings of this whole system, let us take the manufacturers of clothing in Chicago, a point where there is not that direct importation of pauper labor that there is in Pennsylvania and New York. I find that Section 396 of the McKinley Tariff Law provided that the duties on ready-made clothing and articles of wearing apparel of every description, made up or manufactured wholly or in part, and composed wholly or in part of wool, shall be sixty per cent, ad va- lorem, and in addition thereto there shall be paid on each pound four and one-half times the duty paid on a pound of unwashed wool of the first class, making the total duty on some lines of clothing from eighty to one hundred per cent. This is nearly twice what it was under the law of 1883, and, we are told, for the protection of the American laborer. It prevents cheap clothes from being brought in from other countries and necessarily makes clothing higher for all who have to buy it, including the laboring man. I\ T ow let us see what he is paid. About a year ago public attention was aroused to the fact that there were scattered all over Chicago what were called sweating shops, that is, shops where men, women and children were sweating their lives out, making clothing for large establishments amid sanitary condi- LABOR DAY SPEECH. 253 tions that must breed disease. An investigation was made by a com- mittee, which was accompanied by some of the high city officials. They visited a great many of these places and found everywhere prac- tically the same conditions. The "Inter Ocean," in commenting on what the committee found, said : "The condition of the places visited was terrible. Overcrowding, long hours, and low pay was the rule. Girls of ten years of age were found to be working ten and twelve hours a day for eighty cents per week. Ten girls were found, none being over ten years of age, that worked ten hours a day for seventy-five cents to $1 .20 per week. In a Dekoven street den were found a half dozen men working eighteen hours a day for from four to nine dollars per week. At No. 168 Maxwell street were found ten men that worked sixteen hours a day each and received from $6.50 to $9.00 per week. They worked on cloaks that were sold to J. V. Farwell & Co. In the same place were six girls working from twelve to fourteen hours a day, whose weekly pay was $3.00. In one house was found a child who worked for seventy-five cents per week. At No. 455 South Canal street, a girl was found who declined to tell what she received, fearing she would be discharged, and discharge meant starvation. At No. 69 Judd street the wages of the men were found to be from $5.00 to $9.00 per week, and one child there received $1.00 per week. At No. 151 Peoria street is a cloak finishing establishment. Here the women receive one and a half cents for finishing cloaks. One woman was found on the street with a bundle of cloaks she had finished. She said that by hard work she finished twenty cloaks a day and earned thirty cents. This supported herself and two babies. The place at No. 258 Division street was by far the worst visited. Eleven men worked twelve hours a day and received from $5.00 to $9.50 per week. Twelve children here worked twelve hours for seventy-five cents per week. The place was terribly crowded, there being no water or ventilation." While the tariff was doubled wages were steadily forced down. Other investigations made in Chicago at different times, disclosed the same condition of affairs, and an investigation by a Congressional commit- tee some years ago, into the condition of labor in New York City, brought out the fact that the great majority of both the men and the women who work in the protected industries get starvation wages and work long hours. The laborer has to compete with the labor of all the earth. It is the employer who is shielded from foreign compe- tition. You have a large watch factory here, which is said to be one of the greatest money making establishments in the United States. I am told that the net earnings average almost forty per cent, a year. A 254 LIVE QUESTION'S. , number of men have made large fortunes out of it. Under the law of 1883 there was a tariff of twenty-five per cent, on watches and the McKinley law continues this tariff, and we are solemnly told that this is done to enable this watch company to pay high wages. Yet I learn that wages have been steadily cut down from year to year until men, who fifteen years ago received $6.00 a day, do not get half of that now, while the great majority do not average $10.00 a week, in fact wages have been forced down to the lowest point possible without precipitating a strike. Here again the employes have had to compete with all the world, while the government has made everything they have to buy dearer than it would have been if there were free compe- tition. There is at present a tariff which varies from about 20 per cent, on some things to upwards of 100 per cent.on others. For a number of years it was sought by a kind of sophistry to create the impression that the foreigner pays this duty, and that it did not cost the consumer anything, and that, therefore, it was not a tax on the American people. Very seldom, now, do we hear this claim made, but occasionally some one is found who has a sufficiently low estimate of the intelligence of the public to still make such an assertion. All admit that if the tariff paid by the foreigner at the custom house is simply added to the price of the goods, and the goods sold at enough to cover it, the consumer pays for it, and it is, in fact, a tax. Now, let us analyze the question a moment and see the actual operation of the tariff law. The average tariff is now about 80 per cent, on woolen goods used by the common people. Let us take blankets : If the foreigner, in the absence of a tariff, was importing blankets and selling them for one dollar apiece, it is apparent that the American manufacturer would have to sell his for a dollar apiece, because foreign competition would compel him to. But he manages, no matter by what means, to get Congress to impose a duty of say 80 per cent. — that is, the government says to the for- eigner, "Here, before you can land your blankets you must pay eighty cents each at. the custom house into the United States Treasury." Now, if it is true that the tariff is paid by the foreigner, then the for- eigner will pay this eighty cents at the custom house, will land his blankets and still sell them at the old price ; that is, a dollar apiece. In other words, he pays eighty cents duty to get the privilege of selling a blanket for a dollar, which he sold at that sum before when he paid no duty. If, on the other hand, when he pays the eighty cents he simply adds this to the price of the blanket and sells it to the consumer at $1.80, then it is clear that the consumer pays this tax. Not only is this so, but he pays more than $1.80, because he must pay a profit on LABOR DAY SPEECH. 255 the eighty cents that was invested. Now, at this step the American manufacturer, although paying nothing to the government in the way of tariff duties, puts the price of his blanket up to, we will say, $1.70. This seventy cents, you will observe, is clear profit to him in excess of what he got before, because no part of it goes into the Treasury. All of it goes into his pocket. Yet he undersells in this way the for- eigner by ten cents on the blanket. The foreigner, finding that he has got to either lose ten cents on every blanket he sells or quit trading in this country, soon decides upon the latter course, and having done this the American manufacturer is in sole possession of the market. Having in this way driven the foreigner out and gotten so much com- petition out of the way, and having only the other American manu- facturers to compete with, he soon succeeds in making a combination, so that he can still hold the price of his blankets up to in the neighbor- hood of $1.70, and every time 1 blanket is sold he gets, in addition to the profit he got when he had to sell them at $1, this 70 cents, and this is paid by the man who buys the blanket, and does not go into the Treasury but into the pocket of this manufacturer. It is in this way that the tariff is the mother of trusts and combinations, for, by shutting out foreign competition, it reduces the competitors here to a small number, and makes it comparatively easy to effect a combina- tion and found a monopoly. Again, if we take an article like plate glass or pearl buttons, upon which the tariff is upwards of 140 per cent., if the foreigner brings a thousand dollars worth over here, he has to go to the custom house and pay, say $1,400, before he can land his goods. Now, if he sells these goods afterwards for the same price that he did before, then he will have paid $1,400 for the privilege of selling a certain quantity of goods for $1,000. Need I tell you that he will not do this long, no matter what Major McKinley may assert upon that subject? If, on the other hand, he simply adds the $1,400 to his former price,_ so as to sell the same quantity for $2,400, then the consumer is simply $1,400 more out of pocket than he would have been had there been no tariff. Here, again, the American manufacturer advances the price of his goods, although he does not pay one cent into the Treasury more than he had before. Every cent that he advances is clear gain to him in addition to the profit he made before, and by fixing the price on his goods at just a small per cent, under what the foreigner must get, in order not to lose money, he is enabled to drive the foreigner out of the market entirely, and to supply it himself at a figure nearly double what he would otherwise have received. This is a short outline of the manner in which it works. The foreigner, finding that he cannot sell 256 LIVE QUESTIONS. goods in our market, naturally will not buy what we have to sell if he can get it at some market where he can also dispose of his goods. He will not bring his ships empty to our shores and pay us cash, if he can load his ships with his goods and go to some port where he can sell his goods and at the same time supply himself with what he wishes to buy in return. The consequence is, that foreigners will buy of us such articles only, as a rule, as they are compelled to buy of us ; in other words we are practically shut out from the markets of the world. For, if we attempt to ship our own articles abroad, we have got to bring our ships back empty; or else, if we load them with foreign goods, have got to pay a duty on those goods here, which we cannot possibly collect back. It is apparent that the manufacturer, being thus relieved of foreign competition, can get very much better prices for his goods and in many cases get almost double what he got before ; paid by the men who buy the goods, and not a dollar going into the Treasury. In this way he is enabled soon to accumulate vast fortunes, which he could not have done had not the government stepped in and relieved him of foreign competition. In order to relieve himself of home com- petition, he effects a combination or a trust for the purpose of keeping up prices, fixing and even reducing the price of labor, all of which would be impossible were there free competition. It is the men who have been made millionaires by the operation of this law, who are haughty and dictatorial, and who do not hesitate to corrupt Legislatures for the purpose of maintaining their advantage. It is clear that in so far as they are enabled to keep prices above what they would be, if there were free competition, the consumer is com- pelled to pay more for what he vises than he otherwise would be. In other words, the government compels him to pay from 20 to 50 per cent, more for what he needs, than he otherwise would, and it is remarkable that everything which the laboring man and the farmer needs is in this way taxed, not for the benefit of the government, but for the benefit of private individuals. The clothes they wear, the tools they use, the blankets and household utensils they use, all cost them from one-third upwards to two-thirds more than they would have to pay if the government left its hands off them. This system is maintained by the specious plea of protecting the American laborer, that is, of securing him higher wages ; yet, it is a noteworthy fact that those men who work at industries that are not protected get the largest wages, namely, bakers, bricklayers, carpenters, masons, plumbers, black- smiths, iron moulders, etc., while in those industries which are pro- tected, such as workers in bar iron, steel and glass goods, steel rails, woolen goods, pig iron, steel blooms, etc., wages upon the whole are LABOR DAY SPEECH. 257 poorer and the laborer most disturbed. There is not a large protected establishment in the United States that raised the wages of its men after the McKinley bill was passed. There is not and has not been a manufacturer in the United States, who, after the passage of a tariff law, went into his shop and marked up wages, or called his men around and said to them: "Now, boys, the government relieves me of foreign competition, I can now get better prices for my goods, I can combine with the other manu- facturers and keep the prices up, and as the government did this for your benefit, I will raise your wages from thirty to eighty per cent." On the contrary, it is in the protected establishments where we have had the strikes and the most serious labor disturbances in the country. The Congress which enacted the McKinley law, which increased the former tariff almost forty per cent., had scarcely adjourned when up- wards of three hundred of the large protected establishments, instead of raising the wages of their men, actually reduced them. I am aware that a fellow named Peck, who claims to be a com- missioner of some sort in New York, has recently published a letter claiming that he is a Democrat and held a position nine years ago under Governor Hill, and that he has collected information to show that more wages have been paid since the enactment of the McKinley law than before. But there is this remarkable fact about his letter, he claims to have written to six thousand people, but he did not write to a single laborer or labor organization in the United States. He simply wrote to some establishments, of which the proprietors were reaping a benefit from the tariff, he allowed them to fix up such answers as suited them, and then tells us that he cannot give their names without a breach of confidence. Now, if he had declared him- self to be a Republican, his letters would have been laughed at all over the country. It was necessary for him to claim to be a Democrat in order to get any notice at all. I need not tell you that there are men in this country who make money out of politics, and who, when they have found which party will pay them the most money, always claim to belong to the opposite party, in order that their statements may carry more weight and command more cash. Neither is it necessary to tell you that occasionally we meet men who remind us of the adage "Figures don't lie, but liars can figure." The fact is, during the twenty months which have elapsed since the passage of the McKinley act, there have been 473 cases of re- duction in wages, strikes and lockouts in the large protected estab- lishments of this country, the most serious of which was that at the Carnegie establishment at Homestead. This Christian gentleman, who 17 258 LIVE QUESTIONS. had just induced Congress to greatly increase the duty on the goods he made, in order, as he said, that he could pay higher wages to his men, not only at once reduced wages, but undertook to crush organ- ized labor in America, and for this purpose locked out the men whom he had imported several years ago, and proceeded to fill their places with a fresh collection of pauper labor, guarded by rifles and bayonets. While all this was going on he was rusticating at Cluny Castle'which he built in Scotland, was telling the American people how a cultivated gentleman should spend his millions and was telegraphing his con- gratulations to President Harrison. No ; the effect of the tariff is to keep out foreign competition, thus making it possible for the manufacturer to form trusts and monopolies, and its next effect is to make the laborer and the farmer pay more for every manufactured article they need. It makes living dearer for them, while it adds not a penny to their wages; and as to the farmer, it simply tends to deprive him of the markets of the world, and compels him to sell his produce at a very much lower price. For example, at present he is selling his wheat for sixty-five cents a bushel and other farm products in proportion. As a further illustration of what may be expected if the tariff were greatly reduced, I call attention to the fact that the same Congress which passed the McKinley bill put sugar on the free list ; that is, it took the tariff of upwards of 20 per cent, off of sugar, and the result was that sugar instantly fell from an average of about eight cents a pound down to an average of five cents per pound. Now, the difference between five cents a pound and what it formerly cost was paid by the people who bought and used the sugar. In short, the consumer paid it and not the foreigner ; and if all other articles now paying a duty were to be put on the free list, there would follow the same reduction in price to the consumer. I am aware that the absolute abolition of all tariff duties at present would be impracticable, for the government must have funds to pay its expenses. The process must be gradual, but the present iniquitous tariff, which started as a war measure, and then kept increasing after the war was over, until to-day it is almost double what it was when the government was in the throes of war, should be abolished, for it does not put much money into the Federal Treasury; it simply puts it in the pockets of trusts and monopolies. If the present prohibitory tariff were abolished, and a moderate tariff for revenue substituted, heavy importations would at once begin, the government would get more revenue, we would again have commercial relations with the nations of the globe and our farmers a market for their products, while both they and the laborers could buy LABOR DAY SPEECH. 259 the articles they need for about two-thirds of what they now pay. In this connection let me call your attention to the fact that every one of the so-called pauper labor countries of Europe has a high protective tariff, and has had for centuries, and the tariff has had the same effect there that it is having here. It has made some immensely rich, while it kept the multitude at starvation point. We sometimes hear a reference made to England and the wages paid there. Now let me tell you that until about forty years ago England had a high protective tariff, and had had for more than a century ; and it was during the existence of this tariff that the conditions which we still find in England grew up. About forty years ago it was abolished, and since that time wages, although still low, have nearly doubled. All lines of industry have been active, and her commerce has become the greatest on earth. In the language of Mr. Gladstone : "Trade is five times as great as formerly, population has doubled, and there has been an enormous increase and improvement in the material, moral and political condition of the country." But we are now told, that if the present tariff were abolished the manufacturers would have to shut down and the country would go to ruin. This is not a new cry ; it has been heard for many centuries. Every time that an effort was made to correct some abuse, or put an end to special privileges that a few individuals enjoyed, the cry went forth that it would ruin the country. When it was proposed to abolish the tariff in England, all of the privileged classes, including the aris- tocracy and the clergy, raised the cry that it would ruin England, and that it would destroy the British Empire ; but when the tariff was abolished not a single protected industry failed. On the contrary, the country bounded forth on a career of prosperity such as it had never seen before, and the greatness of England to-day is largely due to the abolition of her tariff. In this country all of our manufacturing establishments were run- ning seven or eight years ago, and were prospering ; yet the tariff was but little more than half then what it is now. .Can they not run on the same tariff now they did then? When, some years ago, it was pro- posed to take the tariff off of quinine, a cry went forth that it would ruin all who were engaged in that business. Well, the tariff was taken off, and instead of being ruined, the men engaged in that busi- ness prospered as they never did before. But says some one, "You claim that if the tariff were abolished the prices of protected goods would be much lower. If this is so can these manufacturers go on and meet the new competition?" I answer, yes. All experience has shown, not only that they can, but that they enjoy a more healthy 260 LIVE QUESTIONS. prosperity afterwards than before. It simply compels them to cut loose from the government and rely on their own resources. It simply takes them out of the hot-house where they have an unnatural growth and are always delicate, into the open air, out into nature's fields, where they acquire strength and endurance. Instead of spending their time and their money trying to carry elections, or being lobbyists to secure legislation, they will attend to business; they will study the condi- tions and the best way of meeting them. Of course, there will be some failures, just as there are now in all kinds of business ; but they will come from a want of capacity, and not from a want of protection. At present our protected manufacturers are like the young man who got his father to start him in business and give him sufficient capital to compete with others already established ; but, instead of relying on himself, he simply looked to his father, and at the end of the year called for more money, and at the end of two years for still more money; and so on, until he got all the old man had, and then he went under. While at the same time another young man, who relied wholly on him- self — who attended to business — who studied the conditions and met them, not only prospered without aid, but grew rich. There are two other causes which have operated in the past to centralize wealth, one of which -has almost spent its force, but the other has not. The first of these was railroad building and other en- terprises carried on by corporations, in which they watered the stock as well as bonds, that is, issued great quantities of stock and of bonds to themselves, for which they paid no consideration and which were subsequently sold, and upon which the public has now to pay interest in the way of freight and passenger charges. The issuing of this stock and these bonds was frequently done by methods that bordered on fraud, and sometimes by methods that were criminal. At the same time that this process was going on, there was a system of railroad wrecking carried on by men who generally held the position of trustee in some capacity, and whose object was to defraud the owners of the road out of their property. The methods resorted to for this purpose were such as would have sent a common man to the penitentiary. I am happy to say that this practice of stock watering and railroad wrecking seems to have about spent its force, and most of the great fortunes made in this way, will in time be divided, and will dissolve. The element of fraud which taints them will rot them and their pos- sessors to the ground. The second cause which has operated to build up large fortunes is what has been called the unearned increment, that is, the holding of land, which has been made exceedingly valuable, not by anything which the owner did, but by the labor and the enterprise LABOR DAY SPEECH. 261 of others. There are, in this country, very many people who have been made millionaires, not by anything which they did, but solely through the enterprise and labor of others. They simply held some land, which they would not sell and would not improve. Frequently they were an obstruction to public improvement in their neighbor- hood, but other people built a city around them and thus made their owners immensely rich, without any effort on their part, and once rich, many of them assumed an air of superiority and acted as if they felt it their duty to put their heels upon the necks of the men who made them rich. For this seeming injustice of letting one man have the fruits of other people's enterprise, no satisfactory remedy has yet been offered. Many able statesmen have considered it, but could not see their way clear. The advocates of the single tax system believe they have a remedy, but it has not yet secured the confidence of enough people to put it in practice, but the matter is being discussed by able and patriotic men, and it is safe to say that the time will come when some solution of the problem will be found, which will do justice to all. Again, ladies and gentlemen, the party of which I am a candidate, not only believes in self-government, but it believes in every person, so far as possible, taking care of himself, always keeping within the pale of the law. The experience of the world is, that only those who are in a position, to take care of themselves, have their rights respected or their feelings regarded. So long as any individual has to depend up- on the liberality or the good will of another individual, just so long will he be the cuffed dog and be thrown a very poor bone to pick, and just so long as one class of people have to depend upon the good nature, or even the spirit of fair dealing, of another class, just so long will it be shivering in the wind and eating the bitter husks of disap- pointment and injustice. Selfishness rules the earth, and the only difference in its working in the different conditions of society is simply one of refinement of method. Its nature is, in all cases, the same, and it generally produces the same results, and that is, the swallowing of the substance of the weak by the strong. Consequently we find that in all ages only those people have had a measure of justice who were in a position to compel it. In this age everything is tending towards cen- tralization and organization. All classes are organizing on the theory that in unity there is strength, and in order to be better equipped to hold their own and to secure justice in the fierce struggle that is going on in the world. The only hope of the laboring man in this country lies in organization. Standing alone as an individual against the mighty organized forces that are surrounding him, he must be crushed to powder, and his children in time reduced to a condition of slavery — 262 LIVE QUESTIONS. slaves who have not even a master that will look after them when they are sick, or give them a decent burial when they die. Organization educates ; it incites to reading and investigation ; it leads to discussion and to deliberation ; it tends to dispel ignorance and to remove preju- dice, and while not always, it yet generally results in the adoption of a wise and conservative course. The workingmen of this country are in a majority. If they will but learn to organize, learn to pull together and to stand together, shoulder to shoulder, they can materially im- prove their own condition and that of their children. They can, with- out violence and without revolution, compel the payment of fair wages ; can compel the adoption of reasonable hours of labor; can enforce any reasonable and fair demand ; can thus prevent the rapid and dan- gerous accumulations of vast fortunes by a few individuals, and secure a more general and more just distribution of the fruits of their labor. It will be an evil day for our country when the laborer is reduced to the condition of a slave, and when his purchasing power is de- stroyed. The great factories and the great railroads of the country will not be worth fifty cents on the dollar then, and not half the men now engaged in business pursuits will then find occupation. It is the purchasing power of the laborer, the fact that he has been in a meas- ure able to surround himself and his family with the thousand little things that go toward making up the comforts of life, which has created and to-day makes this wonderful home market that keeps manufac- turer, carrier and business men engaged. Reduce the laborer to that condition where he cannot afford to buy these thing's, where it takes all that he can earn to get the mere rough necessaries of life, and this home market will vanish, and States which now absorb millions upon millions of dollars' worth of goods per annum, will be reduced to the condition of some of the Oriental countries, where the market is con- fined to a few exceedingly wealthy people, and where the poor buy only some coarse food and still coarser and cheaper clothes. SPEECH AT JOLIET, OPENING THE CAMPAIGN. (Delivered September 13, 1892.) Mr. President and Fellow Citizens : We have in this State some of the largest institutions — charitable, benevolent, and penal — that are to be found in America. We have asylums for the insane, homes for the blind, reform schools for the youth, besides large penal institutions. These institutions were created for the most noble purposes, and the people of the State of Illinois SPEECH AT JOLIET. 263 actually pay several millions of dollars yearly to keep them up. They are not political and cannot honestly be used for political purposes. The taxes which support them come alike from Democrat and Republi- can. Yet these institutions have been converted into the most shame- less political machines, in order to secure the political advancement of the present Governor, and where a man was found at the head of such an institution, who declined to prostitute it for such a purpose, he was removed. At the reform school at Pontiac a most able and competent superin- tendent had been in charge for years, but in time the political exigen- cies of the Governor required that the employes of this institution should secure him a renomination. The superintendent of the institu- tion, however, insisted that that did not come within the line of his duties for which the people paid him. The result was that he was promptly removed and a more pliable man, who stood ready to do political jobs of any character, was put in his place. At Anna we have one of the largest hospitals for the insane to be found in the world, and it had been for a number of years in charge of a man who, among his own people, was at least regarded as honorable. The Governor wanted a delegation from that county to support him for renomination, but the people from that county preferred another man. The result was that the former superintendent was removed and another put in his place who could not only manipulate the Republican politics of that county, but who could run that great institution for purely political purposes, until now, I am informed, it attempts to dic- tate the politics for that whole section of the country, and, having nearly twice as many men on the pay roll as are needed, they are enabled to give the better part of their time to politics. ARE THEY PAID FOR THIS? The people complain to me at points sixty miles away from that institution, that the employes thereof come over there, not only to run Republican primaries and whip unfriendly Republicans into line, but come over there to carry elections, and for this purpose do not hesi- tate to employ any kind of means and resort to any kind of device in order to carry their point. The penitentiary at Joliet is one of the largest institutions of that character in the country. During the early part of the present State administration there was a man in charge who had the reputation of being conscientious, but there came a time when the political exigen- cies of the Governor required that a friendly delegation should be sent from Joliet to the Republican State Convention. The Republicans of 264 LIVE QUESTIONS. Will county, however, had ideas of their own which looked in another direction, and when the warden of the penitentiary declined to coerce them or whip them into line, he was promptly removed and a man put in his place who, while a genial and shrewd politician, had had absolutely no experience in the management of prisons. He knew nothing about penal science, but he was a graduate in the art of political management. He was a past grand master of the caucus. He was sent to Joliet to teach the Republicans there their duty, which he at once proceeded to do ; and, although the citizens of Will county had plans which looked toward the honoring of one of their own prominent and honored citizens, they were soon taught that they were not a match for the machinery of the penitentiary. They found that that great institution, like the insane asylum at Anna, was, in violation of the spirit of the law, prostituted to low political purposes and used so as to enable a small band of politicians, who had become known in the State as "the Bloomington ring," to override the wishes of the people and to dominate party politics, and complaints come to me al- most daily, that many of the men who are on the pay roll of this great institution, and being supported by the State, spend most of their time at present, not in the institution discharging their duty, but out at different points in Will county, and even adjoining counties, work- ing to carry the election ; so that we have to-day the entire machine of the State government, especially that part appointed by the Govern- ' or, and made up of individuals who belong to what has been designated as the "Bloomington ring," and consisting of Railroad and Warehouse Commissioners and their employes ; Penitentiary Commissioners and the vast number of their employes ; Canal Commissioners, Grain In- spectors, and others occupying minor positions, all actively at work, not in the discharge of their duties, but in trying to carry the election. HOMES FOR MENDICANTS. The truth is, that during the quarter of a century in which these institutions have been under the control of one political party, they have been converted into homes of political mendicants, homes for the politically unfortunate, so that there is not now a crack in the wall, a knothole in the floor, or a corner in the attic of any of them but what has been chucked full with hungry politicians, and their highest notion of duty is to securely hold on to that job. There is, it is true, some analogy between them and the people for whom these institutions were built ; that is that it would be very hard for them to make a living, if they were driven out, and that, politically speaking, they are totally blind. It is the history of institutions of this char- SPEECH AT JOLIET. 265 acter everywhere, that when one party has been long in power and its favorites collect in these asylums and almost fill them up, not only living there themselves, but bringing their sisters, and their cousins, and their aunts there, it frequently, also, becomes corrupt, and the favorites look upon the whole institution as having been erected for their benefit. And the only way to guard against this is to have an occasional change — to introduce a new broom — for the new broom is not only a*great factor of cleanliness and purity in the kitchen, but of reform in the public service. Some years ago an evil of what was known as the convict contract system became so great as to arouse the people of most of the North- ern States. It was the practice of hiring hundreds of convicts in a prison to some contractor, or rather a manufacturer, at an insignificant price per day, having them work at some trade that could be carried on in the prison, where they came in direct competition with free labor outside. As a rule they worked at shoemaking, harness making, stone cutting, coopering, and similar trades, and the price paid for each convict per day was from forty to fifty cents ; once in a while as high as sixty cents per day was paid for a few men. The State furnished the building, furnished the guards, and sometimes even the machinery. There were at times in the neighborhood of 75,000 convicts in all of the penitentiaries of the Union. Working at these low figures the State got very little out of them, but the contractors in many cases managed to make fortunes. Green stone houses, brown stone houses, and large business blocks were erected by the men who had these contracts, and there soon grew up around the penitentiaries, in which labor is thus hired out, what was known as a penitentiary ring, made up partly of prison contractors and partly of prison officials and commissioners and of smooth go-be- tweens, or men with political influence, all managing to make money out of the State. The result of it was that the goods made by the , convicts in this way soon came, not only in competition with the goods made by free labor outside, but in some cases drove it out of the mar- ket. Mechanics who had earned $2 and $3 per day and been enabled to support their families in comfort^ found they could not compete with the prison contractor, who had no rent to pay, no capital invested in buildings, and who got his labor at about fifty cents a day. ABOLISHED IN THE NORTH. As a result most of the Northern States adopted laws prohibiting the hiring out of convicts by contract in any manner whereby they might come in competition with free white labor. In Illinois the peo- 266 LIVE QUESTIONS. pie went farther. They amended their fundamental law ; they did not trust to the Legislature, but at a general election held in 1886 they adopted an amendment to the Constitution of the State prohibiting the contracting for the "labor of convicts" confined in our penitentiaries. It was in the following language : "That hereafter it shall be unlawful in the State of Illinois to let by contract to any person or persons, or corporations, the labor of any convict confined within said institu- tions." This was in the fall of 1886. The gallant Gov. Oglesby did what he could to enforce it, but went out of office before anything could be done. It was soon found that the penitentiary ring that I have spoken of set to work, in all of the States where steps had been taken to stop the hiring of convicts, to circumvent and defeat the law. In cases where they could not by any means defeat or circumvent it, they did their best to make it odious. In Illinois this constitutional, amendment has been deliberately disregarded and systematically circumvented. This was done by the commissioners with the knowledge and tacit assent of the Governor. Since this amendment became a part of the fundamental law of the State of Illinois it was the duty of the Governor to see that it was faithfully carried out. The people having adopted it, it was no longer any business of the Governor's to say whether it was wise or unwise. Having taken the oath to enforce the laws of the State of Illinois as he found them, it was his business to carry it out ; yet, although six years have elapsed, the competition of convict labor in this State in certain lines is as ruinous to free labor as it ever was, and the- law has not only been systematically but boldly defied and disregarded. The commissioners appear to stand, in with the con- tractors in this matter, and ostensibly set the prisoners to work for the contractors on what was known as the piece-price plan, whereby they contracted to work at so much a piece for what they made. SUBTERFUGES OF THE RING. This, even if honestly carried out, would have been a violation of the law, for the law prohibited the hiring of the convict labor. Gov- ernor Oglesby declared the piece-price plan to be a violation of the Constitution. In some cases they resorted to the flimsy subterfuge of using the words "Product of labor on the labor of a given number of convicts," instead of the "labor." Even this method has not been hon- estly carried out; they did not go to work on the piece-price plan in good faith. In practice they have gone right on under the old contract system, while ostensibly working by the piece. They managed it in this way : No fixed price per piece was agreed upon in advance be- tween the commissioners and the contractors, as would have been SPEECH AT JOLIET. 267 necessary had they been acting in good faith, but there was an under- ■ standing that the contractor should go on and work convicts, and at the end of a month the_ number of days was to be multiplied by the price per day which he paid under the old contract system, being gen- erally in the neighborhood of fifty cents, once in a while fifty-five cents, and this sum was to be divided by the number of pieces the convict had made during the month, in order to ascertain what each piece would have cost the contractor under the old contract system; and having ascertained that, they made out a bill at the end of the month against the contractor, charging him with so many pieces at so much a piece, which bill the contractor paid. This was not only an evasion of the law, it was a fraud. If convicts were to be hired out to work by the piece, some price per piece should be agreed upon in advance, and when no price per piece is agreed upon in advance, and the amount to be paid by the contractor to the State is determined at the end of the month, and is determined by the price which he paid under the old contract system, it is farcical to talk about the convicts being hired out by the piece. Yet such is the intimate relation that exists between the present contractors and the Penitentiary Commissioners of this State ; that they not only all connive at violating the law, but at practicing a fraud upon the public. As a result, some lines of business, particularly the cooperage business in Chicago, has been totally destroyed by convict labor, and* almost every shop in Chicago that made barrels for the market has had to shut down. Tierces which free labor cannot make for less than twenty- five cents apiece, are made in the penitentiary so as to cost the con- tractor five cents apiece. This enabled the contractor to undersell the work made by free labor just enough to drive free labor clear out of the market, and yet leave an enormous profit for the contractor. There are in Chicago to-day over 1,000 coopers who used to earn $3 a day at their trade, but are now working on the street at $1.50 a day ; and some of the proprietors of shops have been ruined, while the penitentiary contractors are amassing fortunes. The coopers of Chi- cago have to furnish their building and machinery ; that is, must either pay rent or interest on investment. A barrel or tierce cannot be made by free labor for less than twenty-five cents apiece, storage costs two cents a month per piece, taxes -are high and insurance is high. ROTTEN METHODS IN THIS STATE. An investigation of the penitentiary discloses the fact that the com- missioners hired to a Mr. Winterbottom the able-bodied convicts at about fifty-seven and a half cents a day, and relieved him of the pay- 268 LIVE QUESTIONS. ment of all taxes and all insurance, and furnished him not only a com- plete plant, but all the guards, buildings, and storage room he wanted free of charge, so that he can store several thousand barrels for a year without costing him anything. Up to a little over a year ago he em- ployed fifty convicts there. For some unexplained reason, the com- missioners put in new and improved machinery, costing the State up- ward of $25,000, and then they gave him fifty more convicts, so that now with one hundred men and the improved machinery he makes 1,100 to 1,206 tierces or barrels per day, which cost just five cents a piece to make, and I understand that he gets from the penitentiary at Michigan City, in Indiana, 2,000 tierces a day, and consequently is enabled not only to supply but to overstock the market, and he has succeeded in shutting up every cooper shop making the same line of goods: By thus destroying competition and creating a monopoly he is enabled to dictate terms to the men who furnish cooperage stodk and gets his staves at his own price. Look at the action of our State of- ficials a moment. In spite of the constitutional amendment they hire out the convicts at old contract prices, they put in new and the latest improved machinery for the contractor, they relieve him of the pay- ment of taxes and insurance, and furnish him storage room free, and then, on every occasion, they go out of their way not only to shield and assist him, but to perpetuate the infamy. Is there any other conclusion possible than that while free labor is being ruined the State is being robbed? The commissioners having all the buildings and machinery could have worked the convicts themselves and limited the output, and then sold the product at prices which would.have made money for the State and at the same time would not have ruined free labor. Besides making goods to be used in other State institutions, the convicts could have been set to work in the stone yards of the State adjoining the penitentiary to prepare material for macadamizing the public roads of the State — a question upon which I *shall have more to say in this campaign, for the question of good roads is one of the most important that confronts the farmer of the State. It is a question upon which it is high time that the State should take some decisive action. " The most remarkable feature of the whole matter is, that some of the Penitentiary Commissioners, who are paid large salaries and are supposed to have no personal interest in the matter, have been especial- ly active and vigilant, not only in circumventing and defeating the law, but in lobbying at the State House when the Legislature was in ses- SPEECH AT, JOLIET. 269 sion, doing their utmost, in every manner possible, to prevent any investigation or any action by the Legislature in regard to the matter of any kind or character. One of the commissioners, in particular, was almost as regular in his attendance at the State Capitol as any member of the Legislature, sometimes going onto the floor of the House and of the Senate in order to defeat some measure or some step which might change the condition of things in the penitentiary. Who paid him for this I do not know ; his duties as commissioner called for no such work, and in view of the seemingly confidential relations existing between the penitentiary contractors and the commissioners appointed by the Governor, I leave you to judge as to the nature of his reward ; GOVERNOR NEGLECTS HIS DUTY. Now, these commissioners are appointed by the Governor and can be removed by him, and if at any time they are not obeying the law, then it is very clearly his duty to remove them, especially if they are de- liberately disregarding it. Not only has the attention of the Governor been repeatedly called to this matter, but committees and delegations of men from Chicago, particularly the employing coopers, who have been ruined by this condition of affairs, have repeatedly waited on the Gov- ernor and directed his attention to the matter, but never got any satis- faction. They were met first with one quibble and then another, and finally were given to understand that nothing would be done for them. The penitentiary ring seems to be absolutely master of the situation. Now, gentlemen, it is time that this condition of affairs were ended ; it is time that the law was enforced in the penitentiary as well as out of it, and it is time that these rings and cliques which have grown up in our State institutions be turned out. It is time that our institutions were run again on purely business principles and according to law. It is the history of all parties and of all countries, that when one set of men remain long in charge of public institutions, a system of favorit- ism, whereby the friends and favorites are all provided for and quar- tered on the State, grows up, and by and by a species of corruption, whereby these favorites attempt to enrich themselves at the expense of the public grows up, and for this purpose, if for none other, it is necessary that there should be, at reasonable intervals, a thorough overhauling — the application of a new broom. This management of our penitentiaries is another illustration of the State's impoverishing a large number in order to enable a few favorites to make fortunes. 270 LIVE QUESTIONS. TREATMENT OF LABOR. I have shown you that the Republicans, instead of trying to help the laborer, resort to every device in order to defeat the law which was passed for his protection. I will now call your attention to what the Democrats did in the last Legislature of Illinois, being the first Legis- lature in which the Democrats absolutely controlled one house and had an actual Democrat, the Hon. Clayton E. Crafts, for Speaker. First — They enacted and secured the passage of a bill introduced by Mr. Gill, chairman of the Committee on Mines and Mining, and now the candidate for Lieutenant Governor, requiring the examination of mine managers, so that the lives and health of the miners should not be jeopardized by negligent or incompetent mine managers. Second — They introduced and secured the passage of the anti- trust law. It was introduced by Mr. Ferns, a Democrat. Four Re- publicans voted against it. Third — They introduced and secured the passage of what is known as the "anti-truck-store bill," which was introduced by Mr. Arnold, a Democrat. It has since been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, but it showed that the Democrats had the disposition to protect the employe from the injustice of being compelled to buy goods at exorbitant prices of his employer. Fourth — They secured the passage of a bill providing for the gross weighing of coal, so that the miners should not be wronged by the process of having the coal screened through very coarse screens, and weighing only that which did not pass through, while most of that that did go through was, however, sold in the market, but for which the miner received no compensation. Fifth — They enacted and secured the passage of a bill for weekly payment of wages. It was introduced by Senator O'Connor, a Demo- crat. Sixth — They introduced and secured the passage of a bill to assist farmers to hold county institutes. It was introduced by Mr. Curtis, 3 Democrat. Seventh — One of the most important measures of the session: They secured the repeal of what was known as "the conspiracy law/' one of the most iniquitous special measures that has ever been placed upon the statute book, and was intended to crush organized labor. The bill to repeal this measure was introduced in the Senate by Sena- ator Coppinger, a Democrat, and was referred to the Committee on Judicial Department, of which Senator Bacon was chairman. The committee reported in favor of having this bill laid on the table ; that speech at joliEt. ^i is, they reported against the bill. The Republicans had a majority in the Senate. On the motion to table this bill twenty-one Republi- cans voted in favor of tabling the bill, twenty-two Democrats and four Republicans voted in favor of the bill ; that is, all of the Republicans but four were against the bill, while all of the Democrats and four Republicans were in favor of it and against tabling it. When the bill came up on its passage in the Senate, all of the Democrats and four Republicans voted for it, while twenty-one Republicans voted against it. When it went to the House Mr. Craig, a Democrat, moved that it pass. Every Democrat voted in favor of this motion and thirty-nine Republicans voted against it. In other words, the Democrats in the Legislature, assisted by four Republicans in the Senate, secured the passage of this bill, while all of the Republicans in the Legislature, with the exception of four, voted against this bill and in favor of retain- ing upon the statute books the infamous conspiracy act. In other words, the Republican party, so far as it could place itself upon record, voted against organized labor and in favor of maintaining a measure which had been specially enacted to crush it. CHURCH AND SCHOOL. Another question which is local to Illinois, but which is of far- reaching importance, because it strikes at one of the fundamental principles of free government, has to be considered by our people in this campaign. It is the question as to how far the government can interfere with the most sacred private affairs of the individual, and how far it can interefere with affairs pertaining to the church. This has grown out of an attempt to engraft upon our excellent common school system an un-American exotic. We have in the State of Illinois one of the best common school systems in America ; a system of which we are proud ; a system which was promulgated and embodied in a law in Virginia by that great apostle of Democracy, Thomas Jefferson, a century ago, and which we will strive to still further improve and to carry to the highest degree of perfection possible. Indeed, the perpetuity of democratic in- stitutions depends upon the education of the masses and the universal dissemination of intelligence. We have at the same time a large number of private and also a large number of parochial schools maintained at private expense. The State contributes nothing toward the support of these schools, and so long as they violate no law the State has nothing to do with them. The State has no right to interfere with them any more than it has a right to interfere with the private business of the individual. The ty* LIVE QUESTIONS. parochial schools generally are connected with some church, and are in fact a kind of branch of it, and some parents prefer to send their children there at least a part of the time, because they get a degree of religious education there which they do not get in the public schools. These people all pay their taxes and support the public schools without a murmur. They do their full duty as American citizens, and then they pay for the education of their children besides. As a rule, they are patriotic, conscientious, and intelligent, and generally are among the most substantial and industrious of our people. THE EDWARDS LAW. Several years ago it was discovered that in some sections of the State, particularly in large cities, there were neglected children who were not receiving the rudiments of an education, but who were grow- ing up amid conditions which did not fit them for the high duties of American citizenship, but which tended to prepare them for a career of crime or of pauperism ; and some patriotic citizens of Chicago draft- ed a bill through which they hoped in a measure to correct this evil. It was sent to Springfield for the consideration of the Legislature, but the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Dr. Edwards, as I am informed, so changed the bill as to make it practically a different measure, by engrafting upon it some very objectionable and very dangerous features. This bill became known as the "Edwards Bill" and was passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor. I am informed that many members of the Legislature had not been advised of the radical changes Dr. Edwards had made in it, and voted for it under the impression that the bill was substantially as it had been originally drawn. After it had become a law it was discovered that it took away from the parent the right to educate his child ac- cording to his judgment and his conscience; that it gave almost un- limited and arbitrary power to the local directors of each school dis- trict, enabling them in many cases to break up the private or parochial schools. It provided : First — That all the children in the district must be sent to school a certain number of months in the year. Second — That they must be sent to some school in the district, so that, if it was two miles to the public school, and only a quarter of a mile to the private school, they could not be sent to the private school without the approval of the local directors. Third — It practically made private and parochial schools subject to the interference of the local directors, so that, no matter how ignorant, how prejudiced or spiteful they may be, they have it in their power to SPEECH AT JOLIET. 273 say whether a parent may or may not send his children there, and thus have it in their power to break up the school. It did not matter what the judgment or the conscience of the parent might dictate to him as to the manner of educating his children, this local directory had abso- lute power, and there was no appeal from its decision. The parochial schools being, in many cases, a part of the church, it put it in the power of these directors to interfere with the management and control of the children by determining whether the children of the church mem- bers might or might not attend the educational branch of the church, and there was no appeal from their decision. PERSECUTION BEGINS. It was not long before a regular system of persecution was begun .under this law in the different sections of the State — for there are always men who want to not only lay down the law for their neigh- bor to obey, but who want to lord it over him, and who never lose an opportunity to assert their authority — consequently, in some of the localities, some of the most substantial, intelligent and law-abiding citizens, who helped build up our country, who pay their taxes to maintain our public school system, were dragged into court, were subjected to heavy expenses, were systematically not only prosecuted, but persecuted, under this law, because they were sending their chil- dren to a private school to be educated ; and this was done generally at the instance of local school directors who were not distinguished for anything that goes to make up good citizenship, but who happened to hold the office of school director, and at once proceeded to harass their neighbors. This law does violence to the principles of the Demo- cratic party. It interferes with the most sacred private affairs of the individual. It seeks to enable one class of individuals to force their views, in regard to private and personal matters, upon another class by means of legislation. It is an attempt by the State to mix in and inter- fere with the affairs towards which it contributes nothing, and where there is no violation of law ; and further, it is the beginning of the regu- lation of the church by the State ; for if the State can destroy so im- portant a feature of the church as its school, it can destroy every other feature of it ; if it can regulate or interfere with so important a feature of the church as its school, it can interfere with every other feature of it, and if this law is permitted to stand it will not be long until the same fanatical spirit, which is forever trying to legislate over others, will be attempting to interfere with the management of the various churches of this country. Thus far onlv those churches which maintain parochial schools. IS 274 LIVE QUESTIONS. have been directly affected, but the principle involved, if once admitted, will embrace every feature of church management. For if the so-called welfare of the State is sufficient constitutional ground to sustain a law, it will not take a fanatic long to convince himself that the welfare of the State requires that his views on the subject of religion or church management should be enforced by law. Giving the State the right to interfere with the running of an institution carries with it the im- plied duty to assist in the paying of the bills of that institution. In short, it is difficult to conceive a piece of legislation which has in it so much that is vicious, and that must, at the end, be destructive of free institutions. BELIEVE IN EDUCATION. Let me remark here that the Democratic party, and even these people who are most affected by the present law, do not believe in per-. mitting any child to grow up in neglect and without receiving any education, but they do believe that it is the duty of the State not to interfere in cases where children are being educated, but to look after those children who have the care of no one, and so far as practicable be a parent to them. Therefore the Democratic party — from prin- ciple, and not as a mere political expedient — demands the repeal of this law, and I -will here call your attention to the fact that the Republican party of the State of Illinois, in its platform adopted at Springfield, in May last, declared unequivocally in favor of the repeal of this law, thus admitting that it is bad. It is claimed, however, by many intelligent observers that this declaration of the Republican party is not made in good faith; that it is intended to deceive; that it is a mere vote- catching, campaign-shift, intended, if possible, to hold the allegiance to the party of that class of citizens who have been most affected by the law, while at the same time retaining the support of that element which favored the law, and still favors it ; and I will remark here that while the Republican party has in it very many broad-minded, patriotic, - and liberal citizens, it has also in it a very large element of the nar- row, the pharasaical class, a class which, while possessing no more virtue, nor patriotism, nor intelligence than other people, is yet forever pretending to it, and is forever trying to lay down the law for other people. It seems to be true, that this element dominates the counsels of the party and controls the policy of it all the time except during a campaign. Two years ago, after the objectionable features of the law had be- come manifest, the party, in its platform, declared itself opposed to State interference in any form with private schools. It was a broad, unqualified declaration, but after the elections were over, and it was SPEECH AT JOLIET. 275 sought to change the law so as to make it accord with that declaration in the platform, the party refused absolutely to do it, and the leaders of the party boldly stated to the representatives of the Lutheran people that the platform was not binding on the Republican members of the Legislature, but under the pretext of wanting to see that the English language was taught in these private schools, insisted upon maintaining the right of State interference, although not a single instance was cited of a private or parochial school which did not give instruction in Eng- lish ; and when it was argued that there was no necessity for this, be- cause all the children were learning the English language, and fur- ther, that, even if they were not, the State could provide for examining the children at stated periods to see whether they were learning English or not, and could do this without interfering in the control of either the children or of the schools, the Republican managers replied that that did not suit ; that they wanted to be in a position to supervise the schools themselves. ADHERED TO STATE INTERFERENCE. In other words, under one pretext or another, they resolutely ad- hered to the principle of State interference, and, so far as is known, the Governor of the State then approved of that decision. Now, nothing has happened since that time to change the character of the school law. The same men, as a rule, are again running for office throughout the State, especially the leaders, from Governor down to the members of the Legislature. It would be violent to presume that the whole crowd should have undergone a conscientious change of sentiment, especially inasmuch as not one of them has personally said anything to indicate it. There is, therefore, but one conclusion in the matter, and that is that the present plank in their platform, declaring in favor of a repeal of the law, is a mere campaign shift, made by the same people who two years ago inserted a plank against State interference with private schools, and after the election shamelessly declared that it had no binding force, and who, after the coming elec- tion, will again declare that the plank in their present platform signi- fies nothing. The fact is that this Edwards compulsory education act is rather in harmony with the latter-day principles of the Republican party ; that is, for the few to rule the many, and for those who possess nothing but a lofty pretension to force their views upon more modest people. KNOW-NOTHING ORDERS. Now, my fellow citizens, there have sprung up within the last few years several branches of secret Know-nothing orders that seem 276 LIVE QUESTIONS. to fear the light of day. One of them is known as the United Order of Deputies ; another, which is, I believe, of more recent formation, is known as the Patriotic Sons of America, and I believe there are one or two more known by different names. While these orders differ in some slight particulars, they are practically in accord in opposing every- body of foreign birth. They have such watchwords as "America for Americans," "Put none but Americans on guard," etc. They boast of no great things done by themselves, they point to no country which their industry and their wisdom built up and developed, they point to no cities which they built, no great institutions which they founded, no great thing of any kind or character which they did, and notwith- standing the fact that it is in those States where we have the greatest immigrant population that we find the highest development in Ameri- ca, that we have the greatest cities, the finest architecture, the best agriculture, the most railroads, the most churches, the best schools, the most libraries, the most of everything that goes to make a great Nation, while in those States where there was no immigrant popula- tion, especially in the south and eastern part of Maine, the country is more than a century behind in all of those particulars; and not- withstanding the fact that when the country was in peril, almost every man who pointed a rifle at the American flag and did his best to de- stroy the government, was not only American born, but boasted of a long line of American ancestry, nearly one-half of those who went forth to save our institutions and protect the flag, were either foreign- born or were children of foreign-born parents ; and nearly one-half of those who to-day fill Southern graves, because they responded to the call of patriotism, were foreign-born or the children of foreign-born parents. I say, notwithstanding all these facts, these Know-nothing orders are to-day trying to proscribe those of our citizens who are not born on American soil, no matter what their achievement, no matter what sacrifices they made. While prostituting the great word "pa- triotic" in endeavoring to give themselves a name, they are engaged in a most unpatriotic business. If they were to be in any degree suc- cessful they would sow the seed of discord, of class hatred, of religious feuds, and of contention between the people of different nationalities ; for every effort at proscription begets a counter movement and sooner or later leads to open conflict. These orders are to-day fighting the battle of the Republican party. Men who for years have been in the employ of the Republican com- mittee and who are still in its employ, working for its success, are trav- eling over the country lecturing to these orders and trying to form others, In short, while these orders do not march directly under the SPEECH AT JOLIET. 277 Republican banner, they are being utilized to a man by the party man- agers to carry this election. Now, these orders have declared in favor of the maintenance of the Edwards act, and Washington Camp, No. 16, of the Patriotic Sons of America, April 19, 1892, issued a manifesto, in which they said, among other things, in regard to the existing com- pulsory law : "We hereby declare ourselves opposed to any attempt to repeal said law by any party or organization, or to the making of any material change therein, and we furthermore pledge our unqualified support to the retention of the said law in its entirety. Wm. D. Towner, President. James A. Cox, Secretary." Subsequently, the State Executive Committee of the State Camp of Illinois, in regard to the above resolution, adopted the following : "The State Executive Committee of the State Camp of Illinois most heartily indorses this resolution and pledge our unqualified sup- port to assist in promulgating the same throughout the great State of Illinois. We want the assistance of every individual member of every camp in this State in pushing this work to the front, thereby showing any political party or organization in Illinois that we are uncompro- misingly in favor of the present school law as spread upon our statute books. A. E. Garnet, State President. W. A. Saunders, State Secretary." I have been informed that the candidate for Lieutenant Governor on the Republican ticket is a member of one of these orders, that sev- eral more of the candidates on the State ticket are members of these orders, and notwithstanding the fact that the Governor is making all manner of pledges to the Lutherans, promising the repeal of this law, yet every member of these orders in the State of Illinois is actively working for him. The Lutherans ask for the repeal of the law; the Republican platform promises it and the Governor promises it; the Patriotic Sons of America declare themselves uncompromisingly op- posed not only to the repeal of the law, but opposed to any material change in it, and yet they are, from one end of . Illinois to the other, working for the re-election of the Governor. It is asserted that they have a perfect and thorough understanding with him, that this particular law shall not be molested in the event of his re-election, and that the party leaders shall, after the election is over, 278 LIVE QUESTIONS. do as they did before, simply boldly say that planks in the platform and campaign promises are not binding. It is asserted that different members of this order, for the purpose of satisfying themselves, wrote to the Governor in regard to this mat- ter, and received answer from him giving them the most positive as- surances that the law would not be molested or materially changed. I do not know whether he wrote letters giving such assurances in writ- ing or not — it is immaterial whether he made them in writing or not — certain it is that the action of the Patriotic Sons of America through- out the State, in declaring that they would not support anybody who was not in favor of maintaining the existing law without material changes, while they are not actively working for his re-election, can only be explained on the theory that the Governor has given them assurances that no material changes will be made in this law, notwith- standing any promises or pledges he may make to the Lutherans, and notwithstanding the Republican platform. The Lutheran people are in earnest on their side, the Patriotic Sons of America are fanatically in earnest on their side — they are moving in opposite directions — certain it is that the Governor cannot satisfy both of them, and one or the other of them will certainly be disappoint- ed if they repose confidence in him. A REASONABLE INFERENCE. When we consider the Governor's original position on this ques- tion, considering that in all the speeches he made up to the beginning of this campaign he expressed himself in favor of the law ; considering the position the party leaders took in the last Legislature without any protest from the Governor; considering the attitude of his party in this State and in Wisconsin two years ago, and considering the fact that the Know-nothing orders are now supporting him with all their might ; and when we consider the fact that it is the pharasaical element of the Republican party that dominates its councils when the election is over, the reasonable inference is that 'it would be the Lutherans who would be disappointed. On the other hand, the Democratic party opposes this Edwards act from principle. It declared itself opposed to it two years ago in Illinois and Wisconsin, and in each State it made good its promise ; and in Wisconsin not only repealed a similar law, but then enacted a reasonable law for the care and education of neg- lected children ; a law, which, so far as I can ascertain, is satisfactory to all reasonable people. One further observation in regard to the position of the Governor with reference to this law. In one of his speeches in the southern end of the State, in trying to apologize to the SPEECH AT JOLIET. 279 Lutherans for having signed it, he stated that he did not fully under- stand its character ; that when it was brought to him he gave it only such consideration as he could in a hurry, and that within half an hour after it was brought to his office he signed it. I am sorry for his sake that the Governor made this statement, sorry that any man holding so high and so important a position should discharge his duties in such a careless manner. The Constitution has created two branches of government to enact legislation ; it did not create either as a mere matter of form, but intended that each branch should give every measure thorough and serious consideration before enacting it. It calls for just as careful an examination by the Governor as it does by the Legislature, and if the Governor discharges his duties in so ex- ceedingly careless a manner that such a measure as the Edwards act, which was short, and which struck at the liberties of our citizens and involved principles that are dangerous to free government, can have his signature, then the great affairs of this State and liberties of our people are in unsafe hands. AS TO THE TARIFF. Before entering upon the discussion of the American tariff, I wish first to call your attention to the fact that in every country of the old world where the so-called pauper labor exists, where the laborer has been reduced to the condition of a slave without even a master to give him decent burial when he dies, they have a high protective tariff and have had for centuries, and the conditions which the tariff has created in this country — that is, the concentration of wealth into a few hands, the building up of the few at the expense of the many — grew up there while they had a high protective tariff. England had a high protective tariff until about forty years ago, and had had one for cen- turies, and it was during the time that England had a high protective tariff that the unequal conditions that still exist there — that is, the concentration of great wealth into a few hands and the impoverishment of the many — grew up. I will not stop here to examine just how far the tariff there was responsible for these conditions, but will simply call attention now to the fact that it was under a tariff that they grew up. I shall later examine the question as to how far the tariff is responsible for these conditions in this country. While wages are still low in England, they have doubled since she wiped out her tariff — in fact since the abolition of the tariff in England her population has doubled, wages have doubled, her trade with foreign nations has increased five-fold, her manufacturing and commercial affairs have increased more than five- 280 LIVE QUESTIONS. fold, and the moral, political and intellectual condition of her people have greatly improved. In fact the greatness of Great Britain can almost be said to have begun with the abolition of her tariff. Her in- dustries at once became diversified, the energies of her people bounded out along almost every line of human endeavor, and even those pro- tected interests, which had had a kind of hothouse existence, and had always been looking to the government for help — just as some young men who are excessively assisted by a kind father, and who conse- quently never become self-reliant, but are always in distress and always calling for more help — these interests, thrown out on their own re- sources and compelled to study the conditions which are necessary to success, soon had a natural growth, acquired a strength, and a prosperity which they never could have done under a tariff. DOES NOT HELP THE LABORER. It is a further noticeable fact, that in all other countries of the world where they have a high protective tariff, it is the rich, the priv- ileged classes, who are interested in maintaining it. In none of them does it help the laborer, because the laborer's wages have long been at the starvation point ; long been to the lowest point possible without compelling him to go to the poor-house. In this country we have had tariff legislation for about a century. It is not necessary here to name the different tariff acts and the rates they impose. During the first half century what was then called a high tariff alternated with a revenue tariff. I wish; however, to call attention to the fact that what was, during the first sixty years of our career, considered a high tariff, and sufficient to protect American industries, was not equal to one-third of the present tariff. In other words, those who have been advocating the principle of protection have found themselves obliged to raise the tariff every time that they had it in their power. They now have a tariff that is nearly four times what it was deemed necessary when they started ; that is, nearly double what it was even during the war of the Rebellion, when they enacted what was considered an excessively high tariff, in order to raise rev- enue for the government — a tariff which they then declared to be simply a war tariff and which would be reduced when the war was over, but which, instead of reducing, they have constantly increased. Under the act of 1883, they very greatly increased the war tax, and under the McKinley act they again increased the tariff duties of 1883 by an average of nearly forty per cent., so that to-day we have an average tariff rate of over sixty per cent., or about four times what was deemed necessary when they started in to protect infant industries SPEECH "AT. JOUET. 281 and build up manufacturing interests a century ago. If this is any criterion, then, if the Republican party again revises the tariff, it will nearly double it, for every successive increase since the war has been very large. In contradiction to this let me call attention for a moment to the last so-called revenue, or free-trade tariff, enacted in 1846, and in force for upward of ten years till near the outbreak of the war. It was known as "the Walker tariff," because framed in accordance with the views of Robert J. Walker, who was a member of the cabinet. The tariff abol- ished the high duties which then existed and imposed only moderate duties to secure revenue for the treasury. It was enacted in 1846, and notwithstanding that the Whigs won a victory in 1848 and had pos- session of the government, they did not disturb it. And in comment- ing upon this fact, Mr. Blaine, in his "Twenty Years in Congress" says: "The tariff of 1846 was yielding abundant revenue and the business of the country was in a nourishing condition at the time the administration of Gen. Taylor was organized. Money became very abundant, large enterprises were undertaken, speculation was preva- lent, and for a considerable period the prosperity of the country was general and apparently genuine. The principles embodied in the tariff of 1846, seemed, for the time, to be so entirely vindicated and approved that resistance to it ceased, not only among the peo- ple, but among the protection economists, and even among the manu- facturers to a large extent. So general was this acquiescence that in 1856 a protective tariff was not suggested or even hinted by any of the three parties which presented presidential candidates." Certainly this cannot be said to be the judgment of a biased man. And it is- a fact that during this period not only did the manufacturers who had formerly been protected prosper, but there was general pros- perity throughout the country. All industries thrived, agriculture prospered. The business of the country prospered, and it was during this comparatively short period that we built up the greatest com- merce then on earth. Mr. Blaine tells us that our tonnage exceeded that of any other nation on the globe. There was not a sea in the world upon which a ship could float but what it had upon it American ships laden with American products and flying the American flag. It was during this period that our industries became diversified as they never had before, and that our country developed so as to enable it to successfully cope with the great civil war. The avowed object and principle of the tariff in this country for thirty-five years has been to keep out foreign competition on what was styled pauper made goods, and to enable the manufacturer to pay higher wages to his a§2 LIVE QUESTIONS. men. In fact, the advocates of the tariff have been enabled to keep in power almost solely through the cry of protection of American labor. This had a beautiful sound, and we shall presently see that it has turned out to be a cruel deception, by means of which both the laborer and the farmer have been robbed of their substance. The first effect of the tariff is to enable the manufacturer to sell his goods at higher prices than he could have if there was more competition. In fact, if this were not the object and effect there would be no use in having it. But it is not only the theoretical, but it is found to be the practical, effect of it. It is true that for a while there were men who argued that the importer paid this tax levied by the government, and that the con- sumer did not pay it. TIMES HAVE CHANGED. It is rare that we now meet with a man who has so low an estimate of public intelligence as to still claim that. There are many articles, for instance, plate glass, upon which the duty is in the neighborhood of one hundred and forty per cent., depending somewhat upon the size of the pieces. If a man brings $1,000 worth of it over, before he can land it he must pay $1,400 tax to the government. Now, if it were true that the importer pays the tax and the consumer does not, and that it costs the consumer nothing, then we should have the spectacle of a man paying $1,400 in cash for the privilege of landing goods which he would sell at $1,000 when he had landed them. This illus- trates the working of the whole system. The fact is that the importer simply adds the amount he has to pay to the government to the former price of the goods, and the consumer pays, not only the former price of the goods, but the tax which the importer has paid, together with a small profit again upon this tax. For instance: $1,000 worth of plate glass will cost the consumer in the neighborhood of $2,600. So with articles upon which the tariff is lower. Take an article upon which the tariff is fifty per cent. If it former- ly cost $1 and the importer has to pay fifty cents before he can land it, then he is obliged to get $1.50 or a little more, because he must have a profit on the fifty cents, and this sum is paid by the man who finally buys it, that is, the consumer. So that the tariff simply compels the mechanic and the farmer to pay more for all manufactured articles which they have to buy than they would need to pay if there were free competition. To illustrate the workings of the tariff a little further, we will take woolens, blankets, and similar goods upon which the duty is in the neighborhood of 80 per cent. So long as the import** SPEECH AT J0L1ET. 283 paid no tariff and sold his blanket for $i the American manufacturer was obliged to do the same. When the government stepped in and said to the manufacturer that he must pay eighty cents apiece on his blankets before he could land them, the importer was compelled to mark the price of his blankets up to a little over $1.80. Then the American manufacturer marked his blankets up to, we will say, $1.70, so as to just undersell the importer. In this way he soon drives the importer out of the market. The importer cannot afford to sell blankets at $1.70 which cost him $1.80. The result is that the Ameri- can manufacturer soon has entire control of the market. The importer stops bringing blankets, and it will be observed that not a penny of the seventy cents on each blanket which the American manufacturer sells goes into the public treasury. It simply goes into his pocket, because he has no duty to pay. He does not have to go through the custom house. The American people in this way pay millions of dollars, annually which they would not need to pay if there were free competition, yet very little of this goes into the public treas- ury ; it simply goes into the pockets of manufacturers, of trusts, and of combinations. For, when the manufacturer finds that he has driven the importer entirely out of the market, he manages to combine with the other American manufacturers, and form a trust or combination, not only for the purpose of keeping up prices, but of fixing wages. It is in this way that the tariff is the mother of trusts. It makes it possible for men to combine and prevent competition where it would not be possible if there were no prohibitory tariff. A THEORY THAT IS FALSE. It was one of the theories advanced years ago, and recently reit- erated by President Harrison, that protection in the end cheapens production. That is, that by governments encouraging certain indus- tries, many people would embark in those industries, and very soon there would be created such a competition or rivalry that the price would be reduced below what it would be if there were no tariff and free competition. Now, it is to be observed in regard to this, first, that if it were true, then the moment that point had been reached, why, the tariff might as well be abolished, because it would be no longer needed. If our manufacturers who have been coddled and fed and petted by the government, got to a point where they can make goods cheaper than they would otherwise be made, instead of from time to time increasing the duties on those goods, the tariff ought to be entire- ly abolished as to them. But the experience of the last ten years has demonstrated to the American people that this theory is a false one, 284 . UVB QUBSTIONS. for instead of this competition we simply have trusts and com- binations, by means of which prices are kept up. Even if the theory were a correct one, it shows the tariff to be a monstrous injustice to the consumers in the country ; for, until the different industrial establish- ments have been so far developed as to bring about this theoretical competition, the American people are compelled to pay on an average of nearly 60 per cent, more for the manufactured articles they buy than they otherwise would have to pay. And as already shown, this 60 per cent, does not go into the treasury, but goes simply into the pockets of the proprietors of these industrial establishments, and as we have now had an application of the protective principle with comparatively little interruption for an entire century, I will ask : How long will it be until this home competition, that President Harrison speaks of, shall bring about this reduction in price? It is apparent that the la- borer has had to pay more for his tools, more for his clothes, more for his household effects, and that the farmer has had to pay more for every manufactured article that he buys by reason of this tariff, and thus far the promised local competition and reduction in price has not come about. Instead of that, the tariff has given us million- aires by the thousand, and has given us local combinations and trusts, while it has destroyed our foreign commerce. When the importer found that he could not sell goods in our market because of the tariff, he naturally quit coming here. And when he ceased to bring goods here he also ceased to buy goods here, but would buy the products he wanted to buy in those markets where he could also sell the goods he had to sell. As a result the splendid commerce we had prior to the war, which, according to Mr. Blaine, was the grandest upon earth, has been destroyed. Then the farmer was not confined to a home market, but he had all the markets of the earth to sell his products in. ANOTHER THEORY. It was also a theory which was much talked of years ago, that the tariff would diversify home industry and would create a home market for the farmer to sell his products at. It was admitted that the tariff tended to destroy the foreign market. But he was assured that the home market would be very much better anyhow, and I notice that Senator Cullom recently, at Joliet, estimated the intelligence of his audience sufficiently low to again repeat this old theory. Now, twenty- five years ago, when we heard most of this theory, the farmer was selling a bushel of wheat for from $1.00 to $1.25, and he was selling other farm products in proportion. To-day he is selling his wheat at sixty cents a bushel and other farm products in proportion. I would SPEECH AT J0L1ET. 285 like to ask the Senator if the home-market theory has produced this reduction in twenty-five years, how long it will take to further reduce the price of farm products so that a bushel of wheat will sell for a quarter, and other farm products in proportion ? But to-day the whole fabric of production rests on the foundation of protecting American workingmen. This is the substance of all the arguments to-day, and if it does not do this, then the entire reason for its existence, offered by its strongest advocates, is at an end. For the last twenty years the great steamship companies have found it profitable to bring immi- grants from Europe to this country, and through their agents they have induced hundreds of thousands of people in the pauper-labor countries to come to America. To successfully do this, they generally arrange with American employers, mine owners, proprietors and manu- facturers, and other employers of labor, to give these people employ- ment at wages upon which the American laborer could not live. Thus the steamship companies have brought them over generally under contract. And as the means of transportation were constantly im- proved they were enabled to, at almost a moment's notice, bring hundreds of thousands of people here in two weeks' time. The result was that our country was flooded with the cheapest kind of laborers to be found in the world; all poor and willing to work for one-half of what other laborers were being paid. So that wages have from time to time been forced down, except in those few instances where the labor organizations were enabled to compel the payment of living wages. CHEAP IMPORTED LABOR. The large mine owners and the manufacturers in eastern cities discharged their regular American laborers, both native born and natu- ralized, and filled their places with laborers imported from the cheapest European fields, so that Mr. Powderly, who is a high authority on this subject, tells us that almost every American laborer, whether na- tive born or naturalized, was driven out of the great State of Penn- sylvania, and his place filled by the imported laborer, while at the same time the great cities were being literally crowded with this im- ported pauper labor ; so that both in the mining districts, in the manu- facturing centers, and in the great cities, the American laborer, male and female, had to compete with the cheapest labor to be found on the earth. It was expecting too much of employers to pay the highest wages when there were throngs at their door ready to work at starva- tion wages ; so while the tariff was constantly being increased, and the cost of everything the laborer had to buy was kept up, his wages were everywhere declining:, and there is not a case on record where 286 LIVE QUESTIONS. any manufacturer, after an increase in the tariff, went into his shop and said to his men: "Now the government has levied a tariff; it has relieved me of foreign competition; it has enabled me to make combinations with other manufacturers and to keep up the price of goods. This was all done for your benefit, and I will now raise your wages from 30 to 80 per cent." In fact, there is not an instance in America where wages have been raised in the last twenty-five years, except where it was forced by organized labor. A few lines of skilled labor that could not be supplied instantly by sufficient importation, have been able, by means of organization, to prevent a reduction down to starvation wages. But even in these there has been a steady decline. In fact, the Con- gress which enacted the McKinley bill and nearly doubled the duties on many articles, had scarcely adjourned when upward of three hun- dred of the largest protected establishments in this country at once reduced wages. And it is a melancholy fact, that during the twenty months that have elapsed since the enactment of the McKinley law, four hundred and seventy-three of the largest protected establish- ments in this country have reduced wages ; have had strikes and lock- outs, the most serious of which was at the Homestead works, near Pittsburg, owned by Mr. Carnegie, a gentleman who has been enabled to make $50,000,000 because the government assisted him, practi- cally, in levying a tax upon the whole American people for his benefit. During the session of Congress which enacted the McKinley law, he was urging for increased duties, in order, as he said, that he could pay his men higher wages; yet the ink of the President's signature to that bill was scarcely dry when he proceeded to reduce wages, and not only that, but undertook to crush out organized labor in America. It was organized labor which compelled him, in a few small depart- ments, to pay living wages. If he could crush out the organization and deal with each man individually he could at once reduce them to the level of the pauper labor which he had from time to time imported. As an illustration of the manner in which the tariff has affected wages, let us look at the manufacture of clothing, which is a fair illustration of every other line of industry. Under the law of 1883, tnef e was a duty on ready-made clothing of from 40 to 50 per cent. The Mc- Kinley act nearly doubled the duty, and made it from 80 to 100 per cent., thus preventing the importation of cheap clothing. Now, let us see what the laborer is paid. About a year ago public attention was aroused to the fact that there were scattered all over Chicago what were called sweating shops — SPEECH At J0L1ET. 287 that is, shops where men, women and children were sweating their lives out, making clothing for large establishments amid sanitary con- ditions that must breed disease. An investigation was made by a committee, which was accompanied by some of the high city officials. They visited a great many of these places, and found everywhere practically the same condition. Even a Republican paper, comment- ing on the system, said : "The condition of the place visited was terribie. Overcrowding, long hours and low pay was the rule. Girls of ten years of age were found to be working ten and twelve hours a day for eighty cents per week. Ten girls were found, none being over ten years of age, that worked ten hours a day for seventy-five cents to $1.20 per week. In a DeKoven street den were found a half dozen men working eighteen hours a day for from $4 to $9 a week. At 168 Maxwell street were found ten men that worked sixteen hours a day each and received from $6.50 to $9 per week. They worked on cloaks that were sold to J. Y. Farwell & Co. In the same place were six girls working from twelve to fourteen hours a day whose weekly pay was $3. In one house was found a child who worked for seventy-five cents per week. At 425 South Canal street a girl was found who declined to tell what she received, fearing that she would be discharged, and discharge meant starvation. HARDLY ENOUGH TO LIVE ON. "At 69 Judd street the wages of the men were found to be $5 to $9 per week, and one child there received $1 per week. At 151 Peoria street is a cloak finishing establishment. Here the women received one and one-half cents for finishing cloaks. One woman was found on the streets with a bundle of cloaks she had finished. She said that by hard work she finished twenty cloaks-a day and earned thirty cents. This supported herself and two babies. The place at 258 Division street was by far the worst visited. Eleven men worked twelve hours a day and received from $5 to $9.50 per week. Twelve children here worked twelve hours a day for seventy-five cents per week. The place was terribly crowded, there being no water or ventilation." While the tariff was doubled wages were steadily forced down. Other investigations made in Chicago at different times disclosed the same condition of affairs, and an investigation by a congressional committee some years ago into the condition of labor in New York City brought out the fact that the great majority of both men and women who work in protected industries get starvation wages and work long hours. The laborer has to compete with the labor of all the earth. 288 LIVE QUESTIONS. The coat on his back costs him nearly twice what it would if thefe were free competition, but his wages are fixed on the starvation basis. In other words, we have had absolute free trade in labor for nearly twenty years. The employer can buy his labor on a free-trade basis ; why should not the laborer be permitted to buy his tools, his clothing and his household goods on the same basis? Formerly there was a duty on sugar that made a pound of sugar cost about eight cents. Of course the consumer, the man who bought the sugar, paid it. This tariff was abolished, and sugar instantly dropped to five cents, showing that not only had the consumer been paying the tariff, but also showing what would result if the tariff was taken off of all other articles. I do not say that the tariff makes things dearer now than they were before, for invention has reduced the cost of production all over the world. Many things can now be made for one-tenth of what it formerly cost. But I do say that the tariff prevents a laborer and the farmer from getting the full benefit of this invention, and compels them to pay more than they would have to pay if there were no tariff. THE GOVERNMENT WOULD PROFIT. If this prohibitory tariff were abolished and some moderate duty imposed to supply revenue for the government, heavy importations would begin and the government would collect many times as much as it now collects, while the people would save the millions which they now pay to protected individuals. When it is proposed to reduce the tariff so as to enable the government to establish closer com- mercial relations with other countries, we are told it will ruin our manufacturing industries. This cry is not new. Every time that there was ever a suggestion of correcting an abuse it was heard. When some years ago it was proposed to "put quinine on the free list, it was again asserted that it would ruin all who were engaged in the quinine in- dustry, but instead of the quinine interests being ruined, they are to-day five times as great as they were under protection. When it was proposed to abolish the tariff in England, all of the privileged classes united with the entire aristocracy, and even the clergy, in the cry that it would ruin England and destroy the British Empire. When, in 1846, it was proposed to remove the high tariff in this country, the cry again went up that it would ruin the manu- facturing classes and destroy the industry of the countrv; but in- stead of having ruined it the British Empire enjoyed a prosperity under free trade which it had never seen before. We have already shown that instead of being ruined in 1846, not only the great business in- SPEECH AT BATTERY D. 289 terests, but the manufacturing interests, which had been protected, prospered as they had not done before, so that all idea of further pro- tection was abandoned. At present many of our industries are main- tained by unnatural stimulants ; they are mere hot-house plants ; they are always tender and ready to wilt. If they were taken out of the arti- ficial atmosphere and put out into the sunlight and permitted to have a natural growth, they would acquire a strength and a prosperity which is impossible under existing conditions, and inasmuch as the tariff affords the laborer of this country absolutely no protection ; in- asmuch as he has for at least fifteen years had to compete with the cheapest labor on earth, brought right to his door ; inasmuch as the present tariff compels him to pay almost double of what he would otherwise have to pay for what he buys, it is but justice to him that it should be abolished. Reciprocity means the trading with foreign countries on equal terms. When applied to England it would mean free trade ; as it is used by the present administration it is a deception and a fraud, for they have limited it to a few obscure South Ameri- can countries with whom we have scarcely any relation — obscure people, of whom Tom Reed said that some of them wore shirts on Sunday. When it is considered that we ought to have the greatest commerce in the world, because we have more sea coast, more natural resources, more manufacturing establishments, a better agriculture, more railroads, more invention, more skilled labor, more native en- ergy, push and pluck than any other people on the face of the globe, it is humiliating to see this great republic go down to a half-civilized people in the extreme end of South America and humbly enter into negotiations with it for the privilege of trading on equal terms. SPEECH AT BATTERY D, CHICAGO. (Delivered September 26, 1893.) (From the "Chicago Times:" "Democratic enthusiasm broke bounds last night. Battery D the scene of the biggest Democratic rally of the campaign. Fully 7,000 persons were in the building and enough left over to blockade Michigan avenue and Monroe street. It was Democratic enthusiasm that brought the big crowd together which had collected to hear its nominee for Governor. The crowd was not only large, but representative.") Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: In appearing to-night here in our own wonderful city and meeting my neighbors and fellow-citizens, with whom I have lived, with whom I have done business, and with whom I have led that hurrying, bust- ling, high-pressure life that distinguishes this city from all others, I 19 290 LIVE QUESTIONS. desire to lay aside the character of a candidate for office, and to be simply one citizen conferring with his fellow-citizens, and in that capacity glance for a moment at the achievements of this century, the forces that wrought them, and the political duty which patriotism imposes on all of us. Some of you are aware that I have not a high opinion of the achievements of office-holders, but am an enthusiast on the subject of the private individual; I believe that the wonderful achievements of this century, in all the fields of human activity-, are to be credited to the genius and labor of private individuals ; that in this country, where we have a government of law, policies are all important, and the personnel of the office-holder is a matter of indifference, ex- cept in so far as it stands as a guaranty and assurance that the law will -be fearlessly and honestly administered. This feeling is intensified when I gaze out over our great State of Illinois, richer, greater, grander in everything that goes to make a great people, than any of the former empires of the earth ; and it is still more intensified when I contemplate our own marvelous city, for which I have an admiration and a love that exceed the bounds of enthusiasm. Its rapid growth, its wide extent, its wonderful architecture, its great business houses, its gi- gantic industrial establishments, its almost countless railroads, its schools, its churches, and its libraries, are the achievements of private individuals ; even in so far as governmental agencies were used, it was the character and influence of private individuals that secured these. DICTATES OF HIGHER THOUGHT. In all fields of intelligence we find mankind occupying more ad- vanced ground than formerly. Great institutions for the elevation of mankind, as well as institutions for relieving the distressed or unfor- tunate, are found everywhere, and even government occupies a higher plane than formerly. What is the force that brought all this about? It is what may be called the higher thought of the world, that thought that keeps its eye upon the star of eternal justice and right. It was the higher thought that opened the way for human liberty, and it is the higher thought that must direct the governments of the world, if they are to be a blessing to mankind. Let us glance for a moment at what this higher thought has done for the world ; find out what the lessons are that it teaches to those who love their country, and what action does it ask of all patriotic citizens. Having taken a glance at what it has done, we will then inquire for a moment whether the policies of the general government and the administrative acts of the State government are in harmony with this higher thought ; and if they are, then I will say to you now SPEECH AT BATTERY D. 291 that a reasonable and proper conservatism would require that they be continued ; if. however, they are not, if they are found to do violence to ever}- element of its character, then it will be our duty as patriots loving our country, to make a change. It was the higher thought that proclaimed to the world that all men were born free and equal, and that governments derived their just powers from the consent of the governed. This was laughed at as a wild chimera by those who were fattening on privilege and eating the substance of a crushed people ; but the times soon came when this chimera became the corner- stone of the greatest government on the earth. It was advanced thought that led John Howard to visit the prisons of the world in the last century, and then insisted that, instead of being chambers of horrors, too frightful for human contemplation, they should be governed by law and be made places where men convicted of crime are undergoing that legal punishment which the law imposes, and not that suffering which brutes inflict, and the result was that a great stride forward was taken in prison management. Not very long ago the insane were regarded as possessed of the devil ; were chained to a tree, or locked up in dark chambers. The higher thought pro- claimed that they were diseased and should be treated in a humane spirit, and soon great asylums were erected for the care of these unfortunates. It has not been long since the deaf and dumb and the blind simply dragged out their lives in the most wretched almshouses. CREATED A NATION OF NATIONS. The higher thought proclaimed that they should be educated, and it was not long until schools were founded by the State for their instruction and keeping. It has not been long when only the children of the rich could be given even the rudiments of an education. The higher thought proclaimed that the best interests of mankind, the wel- fare and perpetuity of civilized institutions, required that the children of the poor should be educated as well as those of the rich, and it was not long until there were founded those splendid common school systems which have had the support of all good citizens, have attained a wonderful degree of excellence, and are the pride if not the bul- wark of our country-. It has not been long since traffic in human chattels was not only permissible but even regarded as respectable. The higher thought arose and declared that no man can have property in human flesh and blood, and when the question of slavery threatened the destruction of our country the higher thought proclaimed, from Democrat and Republican alike, that free institutions among men depended upon maintaining the integrity of the Union. It was this 292 LIVE QUESTIONS. higher thought that impelled 2,500,000 men, as brave as any that ever marched to battle, to leave their homes, their families — to leave every- thing they had on earth — and rally around the flag of their country and go down to the swamps, the forests, and the fields of the South, and face not only hardships, but death. It was the higher thought which proclaimed to the world that instead of having in America simply a branch nation of one of the other nations of the old world, the oppressed of all lands should be invited to come here and seek homes. The native American element, with its magnificent genius, its invention, and its wonderful enterprise, led the way, and was soon joined by people from all lands, bringing their industry, their frugality, and steady habits, and nativeand immigrant worked hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, and as a result we have a homogeneous peo- ple, made up of representatives of nearly all of the nations in the world, and possessing in consequence a vitality, an energy, and a strength which no one nationality possesses. It was the higher thought which proclaimed that church and State should be separate, and that the peo- ple of different religions as well as of different nationalities should live peaceably and harmoniously in the same country, neither interfering with the other, and all alike devoted to free institutions; and as a result we have what the world never saw before — not only all nation- alities, but the votaries of nearly all forms of religion living side by side in peace and harmony, working- for the development and the progress of our whole country, all loyal to our flag and forming a State the grandeur of which baffles human conception. Greece in her glory and Rome in her power never dreamed of such an empire. THE GREAT FAIR. This same higher thought suggested the idea of celebrating the discovery of this country, because this discovery furnished a field for the development of free institutions, and such a celebration would advance civilization by bringing the nations closer together; and it was in harmony with this idea that we have just had a dedication which attracted the attention of all the civilized world. Not only have we had within our gates countless multitudes of our own people, but representatives of the different governments of the world. And those distinguished American citizens who had charge of this celebration, and who have managed it with that excellent tact and great ability, which have won for them the encomiums of our people, found that no brute force was necessary; they simply had to appeal to the deeply implanted sense of right, of love of law and order and the spirit of patriotism of the great multitude. This dedication was to open an SPEECH AT BATTERY D. 293 exposition where the nations of the earth are to meet and display their highest achievement. The wonderful buildings which have been pre- pared for this purpose reveal the development in architecture, in the sciences and in the arts, as well as the lofty conception of the grand and that appreciation of the beautiful that characterizes the higher thought of the world; and I want to say, those able and public spirited men of our city, who conceived the idea of this exposition, and those who carried it out with such remarkable success, as well as the architects and engineers who designed, directed and superin- tended the construction of these marvelous buildings, and who have thus helped to bring about a meeting of all the nations of the world in friendly relations, have done more for mankind than any of the conquerors named in history. A monument may commemorate for- gotten deeds of the latter, but no monument can commemorate the great works of these men, and women, too, in the cause of human civilization. THE SACREDNESS OF OFFICE. Turning again to the political field, we find it is not very long since an office was regarded as a private perquisite. The higher thought came and proclaimed that an office was a public trust. There are to be found even yet some men who seem to think that corruption and abuse in their own party should be condoned rather than exposed and punished; that bad government by their own party is preferable to good government by the opposition party ; but the higher thought is at work leavening the intelligence of the masses, and proclaiming that the duty which the citizen owes to his country is greater than that which he may owe to any political organization. Now, my fellow-citizens, let us briefly examine the political con- ditions existing in our State and in the Nation, and then see what does the higher thought, what does eternal justice and right demand at our hands. ENEMIES OF REFORM AT WORK. There had grown up in Illinois and other Northern States, an evil known as the penitentiary contract system, under which great and powerful rings grew up around the different penitentiaries. The higher thought proclaimed that this evil should be stopped. The • people of Illinois, heeding this voice, adopted a constitutional amend- ment six years ago to forever stop this wrong; but unfortunately the reform was given into the hands of enemies to> carry out. The Peni- tentiary Commissioners, who, for some reason which can easily be surmised, were interested in maintaining the old system, at once set 394 LIVE QUESTIONS. about to defeat the reform, and they have systematically and delib- erately violated this fundamental law of this State for six years. They set the convicts to work at what they called the piece-price plan, and they did this because they claimed that the Legislature had made no appropriation for them, although it is an undisputed fact, well known to everybody who has had occasion to be about Springfield, that the Penitentiary Commissioners themselves lobbied with the Legislature and prevented all legislation. Still, while this piece-price plan is in itself a violation of the law, it would not have been so serious a matter if they had adopted it in good faith; but they did not. They practiced a fraud in the manner of carrying it out. I have time to recite you only one example, which, however, illustrates the entire working of the system. They do not agree in advance upon the price which the contractor should pay per piece made by the convict, but they give the contractor as many convicts as he wishes to work, and at the end of the month they ascertain the number of pieces that have been made, and then they fix a price per piece which will require the contractor to pay the same sum per day for each convict that he formerly paid under the contract system. So that, for example, Mr. Winterbotham, the cooperage contractor, who has still a few convicts that are working under the old contract plan, at the rate of fifty-five cents per day, has also a large number working at the piece-price plan. The two classes work side by side and each class costs him fifty-five cents per day. At the end of the month they ascertain the number of barrels made by those working under the piece-price plan, and then they fix the price at such sum as will require Mr. Winterbotham to pay exactly fifty-five cents a day for each convict who is working under the piece-price plan. With the improved machinery he has there, ioo convicts make 1,200 barrels per day. He works from 150 to 200 con- victs. Paying fifty-five cents a day, you see it costs him just five cents apiece to have his barrels made. FREE LABOR RUINED. We had in Chicago several years ago a great many large cooperage shops working free labor. It cost them upward of thirty cents to make and deliver a barrel. It costs Winterbotham about five cents a barrel. The result was the inevitable one. Winterbotham undersold the Chi- cago coopers and still had a profit of upward of twenty cents a barrel left on the making alone. So that while he was making large fortunes all of the Chicago coopers making barrels for the market were driven out of the business. The employing coopers, after they found they were being ruined, called on the Governor and asked him to enforce SPEECH AT BATTERY D. 295 the law, but they got little satisfaction. After repeated effort they succeeded in getting a meeting of the Governor and the commissioners with themselves. These employing coopers, who are men of high standing in our city, have published a report stating what took place at that meeting. They say that the Governor finally stated to the commissioners that it was wrong to have convicts work in this cooper- age business in the manner in which it was done, so as to give this Mr. Winterbotham this extraordinary advantage, and that something should be done to stop it, but that Commissioner Jones insolently replied that they would not do it, and when the Governor again in- sisted that it should be done, Jones simply repeated that they would do nothing of the sort, and put on his hat and left the conference, and that ended the matter. This was over a year ago. The law is not enforced, the Chicago coopers are being ruined and have no remedy. The Governor is said to stand in awe of the penitentiary ring because of its political influence in not only controlling State conventions, but in helping to control elections, and all of this time the Legislature of the State appropriates large sums of money for the benefit of this penitentiary. A couple of years ago they had a warden there who seemed un- willing to use the institution for political purposes, and he was promptly removed by the direction of the present Governor, and his place filled by a man who is not only an adept at political manipulation, but who at once proceeded to use the force of the institution for that purpose. ABUSES AT OTHER INSTITUTIONS. At Chester, in the southern end of this State, we have another penitentiary, for the support of which the Legislature makes large appropriations. The Commissioners of this institution, while drawing a large salary from the State, are traveling around over the State devoting their whole time to carrying the election for the present Governor. We have at Anna, this State, a large insane asylum. Until about two years ago it was in charge of Dr. Wardner, who had the reputa- tion of being an able and conscientious man. He found that there were about a dozen Democrats employed in the institution out of nearly one hundred employes. Dr. Wardner was told that he had either to discharge the twelve Democrats or he would be discharged himself. He replied that he did not like the idea of prostituting the great institution to low political purposes anyhow, and he would go. He went, and so did the few Democrats who were there. The 296 LIVE QUESTIONS. doctor was succeeded by Mr. Elrod. Since Elrod took charge he prepared a blank to be filled up and signed. Among the very first questions he asks is this one: "To what political party do you be^ long?" I hold here a report of this institution signed by the warden and trustees. In this I find there are upward of twenty pages devoted to giving an itemized account of the expenditures of the institution down to the minutest items, with the exception of salaries. The total amount paid for wages and salaries was $57,402.92. Who got the salaries and wages, what they did, how much salary per year or per month or per day, nobody can find out. I have examined the reports of the fourteen or more State institutions, and I find they all make out their reports in the same way, giving full information as to the small items of expense and withholding all information on the subject of the pay roll. RUN AS POLITICAL MACHINES. The fact is, that all of these institutions are run as political ma- chines. There is a political ring connected with the management of each of them. Now, where there is extravagance in the management there is also laxity of discipline. We find this to be true in these asylums and other State institutions. In January, 1891, a patient sent to the insane asylum at Jacksonville from Quincy was missed, but there seems to have been but little or no attention paid to his dis- appearance, for he was gone thirty-three days before he was found. He was then found floating in the reservoir from which the institution gets its water. He was fished out and simply buried, without inquest, in violation of law. Subsequently the matter leaked out, and an in- vestigation was had by the State Board of Charities. At this investi- gation the superintendent was asked whether or not he had run the water out of the reservoir after the corpse was takers out, and he said "No." And when asked why, he said that it was not worth while; that that corpse floating around in the water for thirty days would make no perceptible impression on the water. It also appeared that there had, during the last seven years, been 254 sudden and unex- plained deaths in that institution, and out of the whole number four inquests were held, and the law violated in 250 cases; but that man is still superintendent, and the trustees, who are men of a great deal of political influence, are still in charge of the institution, and the Board of Charities has not dared to make a report. Now, my fellow-citizens, these institutions are supported by the taxpayers of the State, Republicans and Democrats alike. They were created for the noblest purposes for which a State can appropriate SPEECH AT BATTERY D. 297 money ; that is, the care of the unfortunate. They were the outgrowth of the higher thought, and this same higher thought requires that these institutions should be run upon purely business principles. As a citizen and a business man of this great city, I say to you that if I am to have anything to do with the running of these great charitable in- stitutions, they will be lifted out of politics and run for the purposes for which they were created. And I will also say to you that if I am to have anything to do with the control of the penitentiaries of this State, they will be run according to law, and no commissioners will be permitted to deliberately disregard the law, to go out of the way to give a contractor special advantages free of charge, and then snap their fingers defiantly in the face of the Governor when told that this must stop. NATIONAL AFFAIRS DISCUSSED. When we turn to national affairs we find there has prevailed for more than a quarter of a century, an utterly un-American policy, bor- rowed from the monarchies of Europe, which enables a comparatively few individuals to appropriate to their own use the substance of the American people, and do this by the operation of law. Every one of the pauper countries of the old world has a high protective tariff and has had for centuries. This tariff long ago produced there, in a complete and most hideous form, these conditions which it has par- tially created here in the last twenty-odd years, and is now rapidly completing, that is the concentration of the wealth of the land in a few hands, and the impoverishment of the vast masses of the people. Under its blighting influence we have seen our foreign commerce and carrying trade, which was almost the greatest upon earth, not only driven off of the seas, but utterly annihilated. We have seen the con- dition of our farming and industrial classes made harder year by year. This policy is sucking the blood of our people, and it is gratifying to know that the higher thought of the land is arising to condemn it. Not only do we hear the protestations of the victims and of the political party which has always set its face against this iniquity, but we find that the higher intelligence of the land is stepping to the front and denouncing it. I have not the time to name the scores of these patriotic men, but I will name a few that are well known to our people here. You recall that great lawyer and statesman, Wayne MacVeagh, who was a member of a Republican cabinet years ago, and who showed his high character by insisting on having the star-route scoundrels brought to justice, even though they were Republicans. He has 29S LIVE QUESTIONS. grown weary of, even by his silence, supporting this great iniquity, and boldly declares in favor of that great Democratic principle of equal rights to all and special privileges to none. Many of you per- sonally know Judge Cooley, of Michigan, who has made for himself the name of being one of the greatest jurists this country has pro- duced. He, like MacVeagh, is unwilling to lend even a silent sup- port to the plundering of his country by insatiable greed and corrup- tion and is supporting the Democratic standard. And, nearer to us than all, that great soldier-statesman and jurist of our own city, Judge Gresham, whose keen sense of the wrong that is being inflicted upon his country by this policy of enriching the few and injuring the many, has caused him to make the sacrifice and to lift his voice in favor of reform. FREE BALLOT IN -DANGER. Again, my fellow-citzens, the dominant party, seeing that the con- sciences of the Nation are awakened and that the intelligence of the country is turning against it, that its hold of power must soon be relaxed, has attempted to place upon the statute books legislation that would enable it to perpetuate its power at will; that would enable a President to absolutely control any election in any State of the Union ; a law which would virtually put an end to republican institutions ; and it is well understood that it is still the intent of the leaders of this party to pass such a law the moment they can get sufficient power to do so. If they shall succeed in this the ballot of the American freeman will not be worth a rush. The American citizens will no longer be per- mitted to hold their own elections, but their elections will be held and managed by unscrupulous and desperate partisans holding power from the government, and having only one object in view, and that the perpetuating of themselves in power. Here, again, the higher thought of the land protests, and declares that this is not the way in which to perpetuate free institutions among men. Now, my fellow-citizens, I have endeavored to point out to you that locally, speaking of the State, the higher thought, the patriotic senti- ment of the land, demands an honest and a fearless execution of the law, and a non-partisan and business-like administration of the great charitable institutions, that should be placed high above politics. It requires, in short, that the affairs of this wonderful State of Illinois should be kept upon the high plane of excellence in keeping with the humane, enlightened and progressive spirit of our people, and the vast expenditure and effort they have made to' put this State in the very front rank of all of the States upon earth. SPEECH AT AUDITORIUM. 299 I will only add, upon this point, that having spent most of my life in endeavoring to build up and uphold the institutions of my country, as a teacher in the public school, at the bar practicing law, as a State prosecutor, and then as a judge, if I am elected to the. office of chief executive of this State, it will be the pride of my life, not simply to hold an office, but to give the great institutions of our State a business management, and to place them upon that lofty plane that they should occupy. DEMOCRATIC POLICY OF EQUAL RIGHTS. Turning, in conclusion, to the affairs of the Nation: I have en- deavored to point out to you that the drift of education, the drift of the intelligence of the country, the voice of the consciences of the country, and the voice of the higher thought of the country, are all calling to every patriotic citizen, no matter what his political affiliations may have been, to rise to the emergency and discharge the high duty of the hour by putting a. stop to the growth of this aristo- cratic policy which was imported from Europe, and cast a vote in favor of that genuine American policy of equal rights to all and special privileges to none; and I congratulate you and all patriotic citizens, to whom their country is dearer than the ties of party, that we have, as a national standard bearer, a man who, in the opinion of even Republicans, embodies within himself all of those great elements of higher character, of sterling honesty, of lofty patriotism, of keen sense of justice, of indomitable will, and, what is still more than all of these combined, possesses the courage of a hero; a man who would rather lose the Presidency than be wrong. Every patriotic citizen, no matter what his past political affiliations may have been, feels that in the hands of this great man the affairs of the Nation are not only safe, but will be guided along the channel of a true American policy, along the channel that leads to eternal justice and right; yea, every patriotic citizen feels that the interests of this nation will be safe in the hands of Grover Cleveland. SPEECH AT AUDITORIUM, CHICAGO. (Delivered October, 1892.) Ladies and Gentlemen: It is with diffidence that I arise after the brilliant addresses to which you have just listened, and this diffidence is intensified because I am conscious of the fact that I can add neither thought nor wisdom to 366 LIVE QUESTIONS. what has already been said to you by the illustrious men who have preceded me. I can only join in the chorus, which is sung by the many — the chorus of the awakened thought and the aroused con- science of the American people — proclaiming that a wrong is being done the masses of this country by an unjust economic policy. With your permission, I will consider this subject for a short time in its relations to freedom, which is the basis of all progress and de- velopment. It was freedom of conscience that released man from the superstition and the chains of the past; that presented to him the gospels in a higher, a purer garb; that gave him a higher conception of his relations to his Maker, and of his relations to his brother man ; that lifted religion to a plane that it could not occupy under the ham- pering restrictions of the past. Again, it was freedom of thought that released the mind of man from the myths and the darkness of the past ; that developed our sciences; that gave us a new philosophy, a new literature, and gave to the world an entirely new intellectual life. Thus grew up the idea of freedom in politics, in the affairs of govern- ment. During all of the centuries that had passed no progress had been made in governments. Governments were simply great, rapa- cious organizations, eating the substance of a people who seemed to have been created only for the purpose of being devoured. It was the principle of freedom in civil affairs that made possible our Repub- lic, and that is placing not only the governments but the nations of the world upon a higher plane. In all of these cases freedom acted like magic on human energies. It electrified whatever it touched. It aroused the world from a lethargy of thousands of years, and was the cause of that marvelous activity to be seen in this century in all fields of thought and of human endeavor. Finally, there was ad- vanced by an English economist the notion of freedom of trade, for the idea of hampering and restricting trade is not modern. It is as old as superstition and as hoary as its prototype, the great wall of China. Subsequently England decided to give her people freedom of exchange; for, remember that England had a high protective tariff down to a little over forty years ago, and it was while she had this tariff that the conditions, which are still found there, arose. Vast wealth concentrated in a few hands, while the masses are in poverty. England's tariff did for her what our tariff is rapidly doing for us — enriching the few and impoverishing the many. But a little over forty years ago she opened her ports to the world, and invited the nations of the earth to trade with her. Then, again, was seen the electrifying effect of applying the principles of freedom. The energies of the English people embarked, as it were, upon a new career in every line SPEECH AT AUDITORIUM. 301 of industry, enterprise and human endeavor. Her manufactories in- creased and flourished as they never had before, and began to supply the markets of the world. Her financial and mercantile interests grew until they are the wonder of the earth, and are now, to a great extent, handling the commerce of the earth. Her population has doubled, the wages of her working people have just about doubled, and her foreign trade has increased five fold; and, we are told by Mr. Gladstone himself, that since England adopted the prin- ciple of freedom of exchange, not only have all her interests flour- ished, but that the physical, the moral, the intellectual and the political conditions of her people have undergone a wonderful development. Another enthusiastic writer tells us that the greatness of the British Empire may almost be said to date from the time that she threw down the restrictive barriers of the ages and adopted the principle of free intercourse with the other people of the world. In this country we had a slightly varying policy down to in the 40's. We had what was then considered a high protective tariff, though it was not one-fourth of what it is now; but in 1846 our government took a stand in favor of freedom of intercourse and it adopted a low revenue tariff. It did it against the protests of the men who were then getting the benefit of the high tariff. So great was the impetus given to all lines of industry by this application of the principle of freedom, that the ten years which then followed are among the most pros- perous years we have ever seen. Even Mr. Blaine, in his book, pre- pared with deliberation, was forced to say that the prosperity and activity of those years had scarcely a parallel; that every business flourished; that money was plentiful; that the manufacturers them- selves shared in this general prosperity until they abandoned all thought of protection ; that even the economic writers who had written in favor of the protective principle, abandoned the idea of it, and that our commerce flourished until it was nearly the greatest on earth. He tells us that our foreign tonnage was greater than that of any other nation on the globe at that time. There was then not a sea or a river that would float a boat, but what the American flag could be seen upon it, floating from the tops of American masts, on American ships, that were loaded with American goods and manned by American sea- men. The ship building industry became one of the greatest indus- tries of the country. Not only was this so, but in 1857, after the operation of ten years of this policy of free intercourse, so great was the general prosperity of the country, that it was the representatives of the manufacturing industries in Congress who brought forth and carried through a measure to still further reduce the then low duties. 362 LIVE QUESTIONS. Then came the great war, and since then the country has seen the sowing, the growth and the ripening of Hamiltonism; the application of the principle of having the government take care of the rich and letting the rich take care of the poor; the principle of having the government build up a few favorites and having these interests in turn be the friend of the administration. For the purpose of raising revenue, duties, which were then considered intolerably high, were imposed, with the specific promise that, as soon as the war was over they should be abolished ; but, instead of this, they have not only been retained under various false pretenses, but have from time to time been increased, until to-day they are about double what they were then. Whenever one false pretense was exposed the champions of this system simply advanced another. First, they talked of having an American system, but this deceived nobody, for every one of the so- called pauper labor countries of the old world has a high protective tariff, and has had for centuries, and the tariff is in inverse ratio to the wages paid — the higher the tariff, the lower the wages. In those countries, as here, it is a few privileged classes that get the- benefit of this tariff, while the great body of the people is impoverished. Then they renewed the talk of protecting infant industries. Morally, this furnished no good reason for continuing these high duties, for why should you be compelled by law to pay more for what you buy, than the market price of the world, in order that some other man may make an experiment. But we have heard nothing of this for a number of years, because the infants finally became of age, and instead of wear- ing swaddling clothes, they wore plug hats, and, according to Inger- soll, they wore number thirteen boots and they came forth out of their nursery and proceeded to choke the life out of less favored brothers. Then we are told that the object was to create a home market for the farmer by making manufacturing establishments so numerous that he could sell everything he raised at. high prices, for home con- sumption. This was twenty-five years ago. At that time the farmer ' was selling his wheat at from $1.00 to $1.25 a bushel, and other farm products in proportion. Now, after a fourth of a century of making a home market for him, he has been selling his wheat in this State at sixty cents a bushel, and other farm products in proportion. He finds that his grain and his stock has to go to Liverpool, to be sold in the free trade markets of the world, and that he has to compete with the wheat of Russia and India, with the wheat raised by the cheapest labor in the world, but he is forbidden to buy there. If he does buy an article there and undertakes to bring it with him, he is not SPEECH Af AUDITORIUM. $6$ permitted to land it until he has paid a duty, which in some cases is equal to the first cost of the article. Then we are told that they wanted to make the foreign nations pay oui taxes. Even McKinley has stated that he was not in favor of taxing the American people, so long as they could find some other nation to tax. The beautiful theory was held out of getting some- thing for nothing. We are told that we, could just sit still — other people of the world would have to come and furnish the money to run our government and it would not cost us a cent — that men would bring their goods here, would pay cash into the United States treas- ury for the privilege of landing them, and then sell the goods at the same price they sold them for before. It is not necessary to comment upon the moral principle involved in the endeavor of getting some- thing for nothing. It is sufficient to say, that in this case it did not work. The American has yet to be found who managed to get some- thing for nothing from the foreigner in this way — a number of individ- uals have managed to get a great deal for nothing, under this law, but they did not get it from the foreigner, but they got it from our own people. When it was found that the duty on some article was greater than the first cost, that, for example, the duty on plate glass was 140 per cent., and these theorists were asked whether, if a man brought a thousand dollars' worth of plate glass across the ocean and was then "compelled to pay $1,400 in cash for the privilege of landing it, he would still sell the glass at $1,000, and if he did, how long he would probably keep that up, there was no reply. But the consequences of these excessively high duties soon became apparent. The foreigner, finding that he could not sell his goods in our market, stopped com- ing, and as he stopped coming he stopped buying to a very great extent, and the result was that our magnificent foreign trade began to vanish from the face of the earth, and as our high tariff made ship building an impossibility, so long as ships could be built free in Eng- land, it was not long until our shipping disappeared from the waters of the earth, and England got the benefit of it. Then we were told that the purpose of the tariff was to cheapen production; that it would induce so many men to engage in the same lines of manufacture that, in competing among themselves, they would finally put the price down to a point below what it would be if there were no tariff. Now, if this had been so, then you were compelled to pay high prices while this development was going on, and until the point was reached when they began to sell cheap, you were forced to pay more money for what you needed than you would have had to pay if you were permitted to buy in a competitive market. But the 364 UP£ bVEStiOtiS. trouble was, that the time never came when these petted industries competed with themselves. Instead of that, they met at Delmonico's, they had a wine dinner, and then they formed a trust; so that, instead of cutting each other's prices, they simply pooled their issues and formed a combination whereby they kept up prices. To be sure, there has been a decline in the price of some articles, but it is due to the great inventions of the age. So great has this been, that in most lines of manufacture it does not cost the twentieth part to-day of what it cost to manufacture twenty years ago, and the effect of the tariff is to de- prive the consumer of the benefit of this invention. While some ar- ticles are sold cheaper now than formerly, they are not sold nearly as cheap as they would be if the market was competitive; and the differ- ence in price between a competitive market and a protected market; in other words, the difference in price between what we are obliged to pay now for an article, and what we would have to pay if there were no tariff, goes not into the treasury to support our government, but goes into the pockets of these trusts and combinations. For, if there were no duties, they would be obliged to sell at the same price that the imported articles were sold. The tariff prevents foreign articles from coming in, thus enabling the home manufacturers to keep up their price, and this difference, which is paid by the American consumers, does the government no good, but simply enriches a few individuals. This is illustrated by the legislation on sugar. Formerly sugar was a shilling a pound. There was a high duty on common sugar. The processes of manufacture by degrees were so improved, both abroad and here, that sugar went down to eight cents a pound, and the pro- tectionists told us: "You see what the tariff has done; it has reduced sugar from a shilling to eight cents a. pound." But, two years ago they put common sugar on the free list, and what happened then? Why, it instantly went to five cents a pound. That is where the com- petitive price put it. Now, what had held it at eight cents in this country? Why, the protective tariff. The processes of sugar making had so cheapened its production that the price necessarily went down, but it did not go down as much as it would have gone had there been no tariff; for the moment the tariff was removed it fell upwards of thirty per cent. But the last pretense advanced was that of protecting the Amer- ican laborer, and if this had had in it a grain of truth I would have been a protectionist; but, like all of .the other pretexts, it has proved to be false, and I tell you the laborer is finding it out. He is learn- ing the fact by sad experience, that while duties have increased right along, his wages are steadily falling. He finds that there has been, right along, the most absolute free trade in labor; not only that, SPEECH AT AUDITORIUM. 305 but by combinations between the large manufacturing and mining in- terests and the steamship companies, the country has been flooded, not only by thousands, but by millions of laborers, who were brought over under contract from the pauper fields of Europe to supplant the Amer- ican workmen. The laborer finds that he has to compete with the cheapest labor on earth right at his door ; he has got to compete even with Chinamen ; he finds that his wages are fixed by the law of supply and demand; that when there are two jobs of work for one workman, wages go up ; but when, as has been the case now for many years, there are two workmen for one job of work, then wages go down. He finds, in other words, that he has got to sell his labor in a competitive mar- ket; has got to compete with the labor from all over the world, and that for him there is no protection. He is discovering that the effect of this protection is simply to make him pay more for everything that he has got to buy than he would have to pay if he could buy in a com- petitive market; that it deprives him of the benefit of invention and the cheapening process of manufacture, and does this all for the benefit of a few individuals. He has found out that the government, in putting mil- lions of dollars into the pockets of a few trusts and favored industries, did him no good. He has found out that the building of magnificent castles on the hills of Scotland does not put bread into the mouths of his children. Not only does this restriction upon the freedom of intercourse affect the farmer and the laborer by compelling them to sell in a competitive market and buy in a protective market; not only does it affect every consumer in this country, by requiring him to pay more than he would have to pay in a competitive market, thus depriving him of the cheapening process of manufacture, but it affects all lines of business. For the articles of trade are sensitive, and a hampering restriction at one point is soon felt in a greater or less degree through- out the entire body. Again, my fellow-citizens, so eager has been the government to protect monopolies, that it has taken up the great sugar monopoly and relieved it from competition. When a business man finds the competition severe and he cannot hold out, he is turned over to the sheriff; when the manufacturer finds that the conditions are against him he is forced into the bankruptcy court; when the farmer finds he cannot run his farm without losing money, he is obliged to mortgage it and ultimately to give it up and farm for the shares; but when the great sugar combine protested that it could make no money making sugar at competitive prices, the government at once said to it: "Be calm, my child, I will give you two cents a pound bonus on every 20 306 LIVE QUESTIONS. pound you make. We will spend ten millions of dollars a year from money collected from the whole American people in order to enable you to compete and to prosper." Now, my fellow-citizens, we have here all of the conditions neces- sary to make us the most prosperous people on earth — richness of soil, vast resources, a splendid climate, an enterprising, sober and in- dustrious people. We enjoy some degree of prosperity, and amazing as it may seem, there are men abroad in the land to-day who will tell us that we owe this prosperity to protection. At some places in the South, my fellow-citizens, where the soil is very rich and the climate salubrious, 'and all of the conditions favorable, there is a luxuriant vegetation ; and, occasionally, you will see a tree upon which the moss, or some parasitical plant, has fastened itself and is growing in great luxuriance, until it covers the tree, sucking the sap out of it and ulti- mately killing it. Now, if this moss had the tongue of a McKinley, or could wield the pen of Ben Harrison, it would say- to .the astonished world: "Behold me! I have made this tree; it was by reason of my fastening myself upon it and sucking the blood out of it all these years that it grew and flourished." "But," says somebody, "if you will abolish the high protective tariff you cripple our industries and ruin the country." Now, it is a noteworthy fact, that whenever and wherever a great wrong was eating the substance of the people, and it was proposed to abolish it, the cry of ruin was heard. When it was proposed in England to abolish the tariff forty odd years ago, all of the privileged classes, the entire aristocracy, joined even by the clergy, united in the cry of "ruin" — that it would ruin the British Empire. But it had the opposite effect. When in 1846 it was proposed in the United States to abolish the protective tariff, again the cry of ruin was heard, and just the opposite results followed. When some years ago it was proposed to put quinine on the free list, we again were told that it would ruin all connected with that industry; but instead of that, the quinine interests to-day are five times as great as they were when there was a duty on quinine. At present some of our manufac- turing establishments have only a hot-house life; the least wind chills them. Let them be put out into the open air, on the broad prairies, out into the sun; let them study the conditions necessary to success and they will acquire a healthful tone, a much more vigorous nature, a much steadier and more permanent prosperity. It is gratifying to know, my fellow-citizens, that the conscience and the higher intelligence of the country is at last aroused, and demand- ing that this arbitrary and medieval restriction be wiped out,' and SPEECH AT AUDITORIUM. 307 that the principle of freedom be applied here the same as in other lines of human activity. Let me say, in conclusion, that not only is the coming election of vital importance in a national way, because it will settle the question whether we shall tend toward mediaeval restrictions and the building up of classes, or whether we shall enter upon the high plateau of free- dom, of the elevation of all mankind ; but it is important for the peo- ple of Chicago and of the State in a local way. During the next four years questions that are vital to our city will have to be settled by the Legislature and the State Government. We have the question of drainage and pure water for Chicago; questions that may arise in connection with the Columbian Exposition; the question whether we shall have a consolidation here in Cook county of the three govern- ments that are now overlapping each other — city, township and county; whether we shall have, if possible, less machinery and more efficiency; and then comes the great question of revenue. Our pres- ent revenue law is everywhere felt to be a patch-work and a botch. A well digested, comprehensive and just revenue system for this great city and this great State is the need of the hour, and attempts will be made to create one. Hence, it is a matter of serious import to every citizen of Illinois as to whom he supports for the Legislature, and whom he supports for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor. There is a further question, involving, so far as it relates to the State, whether the laws shall be fearlessly and thoroughly enforced, or whether a set of officials and money making rings shall be per- mitted to deliberately not only disregard the law, but trample it under foot; whether our great State institutions shall continue to be mere political machines, used to control conventions and to carry elections, made homes for political mendicants, or whether they shall be lifted out of politics, lifted from the low plane of political intrigue, lifted upon that high plane, which the people intended they should occupy when they were created; whether we shall continue to pay about $130,000 a year more to take care of in the neighborhood of 9,000 objects of charity than it costs the people of Ohio to take care of an equal number of objects of charity. During the past year some manufacturers of Chicago, whose busi- ness was being ruined by penitentiary competition, called on the Governor and asked him to enforce the law. They succeeded in get- ting the Commissioners and the Governor to meet them. They have published a report as to what took place there. I will read you just a few lines from the report. They say: "When our committee met Governor Fifer and the Commission- 308 LIVE QUESTIONS. ers, and explained to the Governor the wrong that was being perpe- trated in the name of the State, the Governor acknowledged that he had been a stranger to the real condition of affairs at Joliet, and he, in the presence of the committee, ordered the Commissioners to re- move all piece-price convicts from the cooper shop. This Commis- sioner Jones opposed, and when the Governor insisted that it should be done, Jones became so incensed that he put on his hat and in- solently left the conference." That was all that transpired. No change was made in the man- agement of the penitentiary; the law was not enforced; Jones is still Penitentiary Commissioner ; no relief of any kind is being given to the men who were ruined because the law was not enforced. The Penitentiary Commissioner insolently snaps his finger in the face of the Governor, and the Governor has not the courage to interfere. Now, I will say to you, that if the people of Illinois make the change this fall that from present indications they are determined to make, there will be no repetition of that scene during the next four years. Nationally we have a ticket, both ends of which represent that high character, that patriotism, that statesmanship, that courage to do right, that alone is a guaranty that the affairs of this Nation, in their hands, will be administered for the best interests of all of the people of this country. INAUGURAL ADDRESS. (Delivered to the General Assembly, January 10, 1893.) It has become the custom for each incoming Executive to deliver an inaugural address defining his position on public measures, and, to a limited extent, outlining the policy of the new administration. I shall follow this custom, although I realize that in this busy age com- paratively few people pay any attention to inaugural addresses, but that both men and parties are judged by what they actually do, rather than by what they profess or promise. In order better to understand the present, we will glance for a moment at the past. The policy of the State of Illinois was directed, almost wholly, by one of the great existing political parties, during the greater portion of the time from 1818, when it was admitted to the Union, until near the beginning of the civil war. This was the formative period, during which the foundations of our institutions were in great part laid, and those broad and liberal policies relating to education, internal im- provements, the freedom of conscience and of speech, the rights of the citizens, the protection of property and the welfare of the masses, INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 309 were not only adopted, but became so firmly rooted that their subse- quent growth, as well as the development and greatness of the State, were assured. It was during this time that our common school sys- tem, the bulwark of free institutions, was founded and munificently endowed, in order that we might in time have the best schools in the world. During this time the State fostered a system of internal im- provements, so as to encourage and hasten the development of our great natural resources. It not only caused the construction of a canal to connect the great lakes with the Mississippi system, but it encouraged the building of railroads so as to bring remote parts of the State close together. Notwithstanding its youth, Illinois then excelled almost every other State in that regard. At the same time the interests of the public were carefully guarded. It was during this period that an arrangement was made with the Illinois Central Rail- road Company, in pursuance of which it now pays annually nearly half a million of dollars into the State treasury. Then came a change of party control, and soon thereafter the civil war. The young State, which had led in the development of civil institutions, took an equally patriotic and aggressive stand in favor of upholding the Union, and gave a greater per cent of its population to carry on the war than almost any other State; and we now have a home for the aged heroes who were disabled in war, which is supported by the liberality of the State, and it will be our duty to see that this worthy object of a State's bounty is fairly and liberally treated. The richness of our soil has attracted husbandmen from all quar- ters of the globe. Our great mineral resources and central location have drawn the manufacturers of" almost every kind of goods; great railroads traverse nearly all parts of the State, while, owing to the push and enterprise of our people, our commercial interests are scarcely rivaled in the world. The present condition of our people, both in the State and in the Nation, is an illustration of the fact that in this country the people are greater than the .government, and that they can attain a reasonable degree of prosperity and happiness in spite of unjust and injurious governmental policies. The recent ac- tion of our people at the polls is a warning that their patience has a limit, and that they cannot be long fed on empty and delusive prom- ises. They demand of their servants that honesty and good faith which every employer has a right to expect at the hands of those who serve him. , Now, after an interval of more than thirty years, that political party which guided the councils of the State in its earlier history, again assumes control of its destinies, and we are confronted by a 3io LIVE QUESTIONS. number of important problems, which, for their proper solution, re- quire painstaking investigation and deliberate judgment. These must all be treated by general laws, inasmuch as special legislation is not only prohibited by our Constitution, but it is antagonistic to demo- cratic principles. EDUCATION. Our "great educational system is so well grounded that, with the exception of wasteful extravagance in some localities, it is working reasonably well. Its farther improvement will depend more upon the emulation of those who are laboring in that field, and their efforts to reach the highest degree of excellence, than it will upon legisla- tion. But we have a statute, passed four years ago, known as the compulsory education act, which is no part of our common school system, and which violates the fundamental principles. of free govern- ment. It will be our duty, not only to repeal this act at as early a day as practicable, but to provide in its place another law that shall be free from the objections that apply to this, and which shall make ample provisions for the care of neglected children. The State cannot per- mit children to grow up on the street, learning nothing but the rudi- .ments of crime, and learning nothing to fit them for the discharge even of the ordinary duties of American citizenship, even that of self- maintenance. PUBLIC FUNDS. The question as to who shall have the interest on public funds calls for the attention of the Legislature. While it may be true that the law does not contemplate that the funds shall be deposited at interest in banks, it is a notorious fact that all custodians of public funds actually draw interest on the balances of such funds. When the sums held were smaller, the matter attracted but little attention, but condi- tions have changed. The salary paid the custodians, whether of State, County, City, Park, School or other public funds, having been fixed when the amounts held were small, is now, in most cases, entirely disproportionate to the bond which has to be given and the respon- sibilities assumed; the custodian now obtaining, as a part of his compensation, the interest upon the public funds in his custody, but as this is in most cases many times as great as a reasonable com- pensation would be, the excess should belong to and be accounted for as part of the public funds ; and inasmuch as the Constitution will not permit the salary of an official to be changed during his term of office, and as the terms of most of the custodians of public moneys-, whether State, County, City, School, or other public funds, are brief, INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 311 in my judgment the proper course will be to provide, by general law, that all such custodians that may hereafter be elected or appointed and qualified, shall be paid a salary to be determined by a per cent of the amount of money they handle, and that all interest or increment earned by the fund in their possession, shall belong to the fund and be accounted for. LIBERTY OF THE CITIZEN. Practically, there is at present neither Magna Charta nor Bill of Rights for the poor of our great cities. They have to submit to in- sult, assault and false imprisonment, and have no remedy, except a suit at law, which takes from three to five years, and requires time and money to prosecute; so they are practically without any remedy. Any man, rich or poor, taken into our higher courts, no matter on what charge, can have a jury trial and a full and fair hearing before sentence can be pronounced against him, but in the magistrate's court they deprive him of a jury trial by requiring him to advance the jury fee, which, when poor, he cannot do, so that he is compelled to submit to anything the magistrate may do, which frequently means anything that a police officer may wish to have done. In the city of Chicago, where there are a number of magistrates sitting at the same time, there are from thirty to fifty men and women tried by one magistrate in from one to two hours every day. The proceedings are not under the criminal laws as a rule, but fines are imposed, and when these are not promptly paid, imprisonment follows, just as it would in a case of conviction for crime in the higher court. While a judge of a higher court could not imprison a man for an hour without a jury trial, a simple magistrate actually does imprison scores every day without a jury trial. During the year 1891, the police of Chicago alone arrested and carried to prison 70,550 people, including men, women and children. Of these, 32,500 were discharged by the magistrate, because, in most cases, no offense of any kind was proved; yet these people had been arrested, sometimes clubbed, taken through the streets in charge of officers, and sometimes kept in prison several days, just as if they were charged with murder; and all this not on any charge of crime, but generally at the mere discretion of some man wearing the uniform of law. When they finally got out they were practically without a remedy for the reason stated. Of the remaining 38,050, a little over 8,000 were sent to prison for various terms by the magistrates, be- cause of their inability to pay .the fines which had been imposed, and nearly all, except about ninety of these, were charged with trivial of- 312 LIVE QUESTIONS. fenses, generally simply disorderly conduct. Yet their treatment was the same as if they had committed highway robbery, except that in the latter case they would" have had something like a fair trial. The practice has long prevailed in Chicago and other cities, of raids being rriade by the police in the night-time, and as many as a hundred or more men and women, sometimes only women, arrested and carried to prison in one night on no specific charge of crime, but simply at the caprice of a policeman. These cases have to be continued till the next morning. A bond is generally given, signed by a professional bailer. The justice charges a dollar for taking each bond, and the bailer all he can get for signing it, so that it is an exceedingly profit- able business for those connected with the so-called police court. While the law at present provides that nearly all other officers shall pay what fees they collect into the public treasury, and shall receive a salary for the services they render, this does not seem to apply to the magistrates. The law should be made more strict, and prohibit every officer, whether judicial or executive, who is in any way connected with the administration of justice, from keeping any fees under any pretext, for so long as he profits by the amount of business that is run in, there is a standing bribe to do injustice. The law should secure to all persons a fair jury trial before judgment can be pro- nounced by which they can be thrown into prison. These so-called raids neither prevent nor punish crime, but are simply irritants, and it is a notorious fact that real criminals frequently ply their vocation with great boldness at the very time that these raids are made, and they go uncaught and unpunished. On the other hand, there are many cases in which the police are rendered powerless to suppress crime by reason of political intrigue and interference. Our police system should be, so far as possible, placed beyond the reach of this character of interference. I will also, in this connection, direct your attention to the fact that our system of administering justice in this State does not command the entire confidence of the public. This is due to the fact that, with our present machinery, litigation is so prolonged, and rendered so uncertain, without regard to the merits of the case, that many prudent men feel that they had better relinquish a claim and submit to an injustice than to venture into the courts. As a rule, the men who are directly occupied in the administration of justice in the higher courts of this State, are not only of the most able and learned, but of the highest character and unquestioned integrity. But the system is so defective that personal ability cannot overcome its deficiencies. IX AUGURAL ADDRESS. 313 PUBLIC SERVICE. It will be our duty to endeavor to reduce the expense of the civil service of the State. There has been a tendency to create tmriecessary boards, and, while some of these do not craw a salary, they are paid their expenses and a per diem, and they manage to draw large sums out of the State treasury. Many of these should be abolished, and their duties, so far as they perform any necessary service, be assigned to some of the regular County or State officers, who could attend to them without increased expense to the public. Again, the public ser- vice is frequendy crowded by placing many more persons on the pay roll than are necessary to do the work. This not only increases the expenditure, but destroys the efficiency of the service. Whenever four men are set to do one man's work, no one of them will make an effort; all become careless, thoroughness will be lacking, and the result will be poor service. I desire to say a word in this connec- tion in regard to the extraordinary demand for offices, both elective and appointive. While there are many men anxious to hold office for the honor of serving the people, and without reference to salary. there is no doubt that the demand is largely due to the fact that the applicants can get larger salaries while holding office than they can earn at the private employment for which they are qualified. The people of Illinois are willing to pay fair salaries for the service ren- dered, yet the question is worth considering, whether, if we were to reduce salaries, we would not get rid of the persistent demand for official positions, and at the same time increase the efficiency of the service. As the matter now stands, many capable but modest men who would gladly serve for a moderate salary are deterred from ap- plying. It is a mistake to suppose that high salaries secure a higher grade of service to the public: if anything, they have the opposite effect They give the office the character of spoils, and simply in- crease the endeavor to obtain it by men who want it for the money there is in it. In some States the experiment has been made by pay- ing officials high salaries, and in none of them has the service been improved. While we must pay such salaries as will enable poor men to hold office, yet we must not lose sight of the fact that we get the highest grade of service from those men who esteem it an honor to serve the public, and with whom salaries are a secondary considera- tion. Xearly all the great institutions of the State have, for years, been conducted on a partisan basis, and some of them rather offensively so. This has created a feeling of bitterness, and there is a widespread de- m LIVE QUESTIONS. mand that there shall be a change in the management. There is also a belief that many of these institutions are extravagant and that their expenses are unnecessarily increased to accommodate political favor- ites. Inasmuch as it will be our duty to have them run in as economi- cal a manner as possible, it will be necessary that those in charge shall be in thorough sympathy with the administration. Such changes as may be necessary should be made, care being taken to bring the ser- vice to the highest degree of excellence possible. I wish, however, in this connection, to submit that the time has come in the develop- ment of our great State when its public service should be, as far as possible, divorced from partisan politics, and when we should estab- lish by law a classified civil service based upon honesty and capability, such as already prevails in some of the Eastern States. In all cases where the head officer is not directly responsible for the acts of his subordinates, such a civil service system should be established. This would apply to attendants in our State charitable and reformatory in- stitutions and in the government of our cities. CLAIMS OF LABOR. The State of Illinois already contains one of the greatest industrial communities in the world, and is rapidly growing. Not only are hundreds of millions of capital invested, but employment is given to hundreds of thousands of persons. The State must do justice to both employer and employe; it must see to it that law and order are maintained, and that life and property are thoroughly protected. Any weakness in this regard would be pusillanimous and invite incalcul- able evils. On the other hand, the State must not pursue such a policy as to convince the masses of the laboring people that the au- thority of the State is simply a convenient club for the use of the employer. When the State follows such a policy it forfeits the con- fidence of its people and itself sows the seed of anarchy. We must not forget that the law contemplates that the civil officer shall protect life and property, and for this purpose may order out the posse comi- tatus when necessary, and that a too hasty ordering out of the military creates irritation and bitterness, which frequently results in unneces- sary bloodshed. Many civil officers have shown a disposition to shirk their duty during a strike, and this has been followed by the introduction of an irresponsible armed force controlled by private individuals. The presence of these armed strangers always acts as an irritation and tends to provoke riot and disorder; and we should take warning by the experience of some of our sister States and abso- lutely prohibit the use of these armed mercenaries by private cor- INAUGURAL ADDRESS. $1$ pofations or individuals. At the same time we should see to it that the civil officers do their duty. If we are to prosper we must make all of our people feel that the flag which floats over them is an emblem of justice. Our laboring people must either advance or retrograde. There is no such thing as standing still. If they are to advance, it must be by their own con- servative and intelligent standing together. Only those forces sur- vive which can take care of themselves. The moment individuals or classes become dependent they are objects of charity, and their case is then hopeless. If the laboring classes cannot thus stand together, they will be reduced to the condition of the laboring classes in the poorer countries of the old world. Such a condition would destroy the purchasing power of the American laborer, and with it destroy also the great American market. If ever the American laborer is reduced to that condition where he can buy only a little coarse cloth- ing and a little amount of coarse food, the entire character of our institutions will be transformed, and the value of much of our manu- facturing and railroad property depreciated. STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS. The question of the protection of non-combatants — the great public — in the event of a strike or lockout, must not be overlooked in this connection. Conditions have so changed that it can no longer be said that it is nobody's business what other people do. All the elements of American society have become so interdependent, each class or interest has so adjusted itself to the other classes or interests, as to be in a measure dependent on them, and a suspension of the operation of one must injure the whole. For example, a strike on a railroad is not limited to a contention between employer and employe, but it affects all people along the line of the road who have adjusted their affairs to the operation of the road, and who are entitled to protection at the hands of the State. Not only this, but when a large number of men are suddenly thrown out of employment, conditions are created which beget pauperism and crime and increase the bur- dens of the public. Especially is this true when an employer, who has so far interfered with the natural distribution of population as to cause a large number of men to settle where they would not other- wise have settled, suddenly attempts to discharge them all at once and to fill their places with others. The reign of law has so broadened in this century as to cover almost every other controversy between man and man, and in the development of society some way must be found to subject the so- 3i6 LIVE QVEST10HS. called "labor controversies" to law. This suggests the practicability of arbitration, and raises the question of the powers of the State in that regard. There seems to be no doubt about the right of the State to make a thorough investigation and render a decision, but the difficulty arises in enforcing the decision. The State cannot compel an unwilling employer to run his shop, nor can it compel unwilling employes to go to work. The State might compel an employer, who disregarded its decision and persisted in operating his works, to pay the expense of any special protection he received. On the other hand, if employes should refuse to go to work in accordance with the terms of a decision, the State can give its entire power in protecting the employer in hiring new men; but the moral influence alone of a State decision would, in many cases, be sufficient to end a strike, and some of the States have adopted laws creating Boards of Arbitration with this end in view, while others have gone further and attempted, in certain cases, to enforce the decisions of Boards of Arbitration. The constant increase in the use of labor-saving machinery tends to throw more and more men out of employment every year. This sug- gests the necessity of shortening the hours of labor, wherever this can be done by legislation, in order that all may still be able to get em- ployment, and also that the working classes may derive some benefit from the great inventions of the age. INSANE. While we already have erected four very large hospitals for the insane, still only about two-thirds of the insane of the State are prop- erly cared for. Nearly one-third are in the poor-houses of the State, where they cannot be cared for, and exist in a horrible condition. CHILD LABOR AND SANITATION. The increasing density of population in our large cities, and the establishment of what has been called "the sweating system," whereby many people are made to work amid sanitary conditions which con- stantly imperil the health of the community, and the employment of children in factories and shops, where they become stunted in both body and mind, and unfit for citizenship, call for more thorough legis- lation. Steps should also be taken to facilitate the work of furnish- ing proper homes in private families for dependent and neglected children. MUNICIPAL POWERS. A number of large cities, both in this country and in Europe, have made the experiment of supplying their inhabitants with water, gas, INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 317 electric light, and even operating the street railways, with very satis- factory results. I commend this subject to your careful consideration. ROADS. While our State has developed in every other respect, we have made no progress in the matter of roads. We are, in this regard, al- most where we were half a century ago, so that for a number of months in a year our roads are almost impassable. The loss and inconvenience of this falls most heavily on our agricultural communi- ties. Not only is the farmer subjected to a heavy loss in the wear and tear of his team, but he is frequently prevented from availing him- self of favorable markets by the impassableness of the roads. The State should again take up the subject of internal improvements, and adopt a policy that will tend to the building of good roads in every county in the State — roads that can be traveled every day in the year. As the railroads do all the carrying for long distances, wagon roads are, to a great extent, a local matter in each county. This being so, the roads will not need to be so wide, and can, therefore, be' more cheaply built than would otherwise be possible. It is also probable that some of the convicts in our penitentiaries could be used to pre- pare material for the building of roads. PENITENTIARIES. An amendment to the Constitution was adopted by the people in 1886, which prohibits the hiring of convict labor. This provision has been evaded and disregarded, and the affairs of the penitentiary have been so managed in the granting of space to the contractors as to make it difficult for the State to work prisoners on its own account. After the amendment was proposed, and in anticipation of its adop- tion, some contracts running for eight years were made. Although many other contracts had run out, these contracts have been presented as an excuse for the failure to enforce the command of the Constitu- tion, but it has not been accepted as a valid one by the people. At the present time nearly all contracts have by their terms expired. The duty of the Legislature is plain. The convicts must be kept at work. A few of them could be set to preparing material for the making of roads, but other employment must be furnished for the remainder. Immediate action should be taken for the adoption of a plan for work- ing convict labor consistent with the fundamental law. I suggest that many industries be established, so as to interfere as little as pos- sible with the markets and outside labor and industries. While this will require some considerable outlay for machinery and tools, there 3i§ LIVE QUESTIONS. is no doubt that the penitentiaries can then, by proper management, be run without violating the law, without becoming a burden on the State, and without coming into ruinous competition with outside free labor. PENAL LEGISLATION. In this connection I wish to call attention to the fact that, in the matter of penal legislation, our State is not abreast of the times. We still adhere to the old system of fixed sentences, under which the greatest inequality results; the vicious and hardened are frequently given short terms by a jury, while the comparatively innocent are given long terms by another jury. At best, first offenders and old criminals go in and out of prison together, while as a rule all classes come out without such training as will enable the individual to make a living, and utterly unable to find employment. Naturally these drift into a career of crime, and either prey upon the community or are returned to prison. Instead of this method, some of the States have adopted a system of indeterminate sentences, under which a prisoner is sentenced generally to the penitentiary, the law fixing the minimum and maximum time of imprisonment, and the actual length of confinement between these two points depends upon the general characteristics and personal conduct of the prisoner. Under this sys- tem the vicious and hardened can be restrained, while those who are comparatively innocent are released on parole, that is to say, on good behavior, but only after having been secured employment by the prison officials that will enable them to make an honest living. Un- der such a system, the number of convicts in our penitentiaries would be greatly reduced, and all problems involved in the treatment of criminals and the conduct of our penitentiaries more easily solved. REDISTRICTING. The redistricting of the State will be one of the most important duties devolving upon this General Assembly. It will be difficult to so redistrict the State as to do exact justice to all interests and parties. Nevertheless, every effort should be made to come as near doing so as possible. As a rule, injustice benefits nobody, and almost invariably comes home to plague its authors. TAXATION. Some of the States have tried the experiment of a heavy graduated succession tax on the estates of deceased persons. This has been fol- lowed with very satisfactory results. I commend this fact to your consideration; likewise the advisability of providing for a heavy remarks at A Banquet. 319 Corporation fee, co be paid at the organization of a corporation, as well as by all outside corporations coming here to do business. The practice of forming corporations to carry on the simple business af- fairs of life is becoming so common that a tax of this kind would be proper. Then, there is a wide-spread conviction that the present revenue system of our State results in the greatest inequalities and injustice in the matter of taxation. The subject is too great to be considered at present. Various measures in relation to it will no doubt be presented to your consideration, the most important of which is, perhaps, the question, whether any comprehensive change can be made without a revision of our constitution. In the past, our State has revised its constitution at intervals of thirty and twenty-two years. A number of questions have arisen in the development of recent years, relating to various subjects on which legislation is needed, but where there seem to be constitutional difficulties in the way. This is especially true of the revenue system and of the question of enlarging the elective franchise, on which latter subject the law is left in a condition of uncertainty that is not creditable to the intelligence of our people. But I am aware that, as a rule, where so much is prom- ised little is accomplished. I will, therefore, not go further into de- tails. If I may be permitted to do so, I would like to suggest, for the consideration of the General Assembly, the propriety of making the sittings of the Legislature a little more continuous. A practice has grown up of working only a few days in the week. This not only tends to prolong the session, but necessitates constant interruption in the matter of considering any measure, and where this is the case, there cannot be that thorough examination of a subject that would otherwise be possible, and which is of the greatest importance as the preliminary of intelligent legislation. REMARKS AT A BANQUET GIVEN THE DUKE OF VERAGUA, MAY 2, 1893, AT THE AUDITORIUM HOTEL. (From the "Chicago Herald.") Director General Davis took advantage of a momentary lull to speak in the following words: Gentlemen: I do not propose to make a speech. I made one yesterday, but I notice here this evening representatives of all the na- tions of the earth, which presents a splendid scene, and I think those who have come from abroad, who are visitors to our city, and to assist in making a success of this great Exposition, among whom are the 320 LIVE QUESTIONS. direct descendants of Columbus, should hear from the Governor of the great State of Illinois, and I therefore call upon Governor Altgeld. At the conclusion of the remarks of Director General Davis, the air was filled with cries of "Altgeld," and as the Governor arose to re- spond the applause was tremendous. He said: Mr. President, Marquis and Gentlemen: I understood the President to say that there were to be no more speeches and that you were to have a good time. Just why he should want to change the programme and rob you of a good time, is more than I can comprehend. If I must say a word, gentlemen, here in Illinois — and especially in Chicago — we admire nerve; we admire lofty purpose and inflexible resolution. During the last quarter of a century and more the American people have witnessed some mag- nificent examples in this line — in warfare and in civic achievement. In the building of our great enterprise we imagine we have shown a degree of nerve, courage, of lofty purpose that is rarely witnessed. If you will permit me to go back four hundred years, I will call your attention to a young man who, so far as I know, did not wear a big shirt or a swallow-tail coat — was not a leader in the fashions of his day. He was a sailor, and he was familiar with the art and the clangers incident to sailing. He did not attend banquets, so far as I can learn; but he spent his time pondering over charts, and came to the conclusion that he could. discover a new route to India. He tried to get the men of commerce to help him, but they pronounced his scheme impracticable; he tried to get the men of authority to help him, and they pronounced him a crank; he tried to get the scientific men to help him, and they told him it was impossible — the earth was flat and he could not go that way. When all of his resources failed, he applied to a high-minded, spirited woman, and he succeeded. He started out in three little vessels, in none of which you or I would care to venture a hundred miles upon the Atlantic. He sailed weeks and weeks and weeks and there was no land. The rations ran low, the crew mutinied; but he was steadfast in his purpose. Finally they threatened to kill him, but he did not waver an instant. Re- flect a moment! The wealthy people were against him; the scientific men were against him ; the men in office were against him ; the ele- ments were against him, and it seemed as if the fates were against him ; but he was immovable in the prow of that boat until he saw land — the most magnificent example of cool nerve, of inflexible purpose, ever witnessed upon earth. All had been defied — the very fates had been defied, and had been conquered. OPENING OF ILLINOIS BUILDING. 321 He did not know what a great work he was doing — usually men do not; but he not only called the attention of the world to what a great woman can do — a fact which has again been exemplified in the building of the great white city by the lake here — but he destroyed the canons of navigation; for, at that time, it was contended that, at the point where the horizon dipped into the waters, there was the end. Not only that, he forced the creation of a new geography, and he laid the foundation of a new basis for fame and for civilization — a basis for fame of individual achievement. There had been many conquerors in the world and great rulers, but they are forgotten. There have been many since his day, and they are forgotten ; and yet, four hundred years after that magnificent achievement, the greatest nation upon earth delights to invite his de- scendants, and we delight to honor them. I say he laid a new foun- dation — for fame and for civilization, and that is individual achieve- ment, and the coming centuries will no longer inquire, as they see the monuments erected in past times, over what country did this man rule and in what age did he reign? They will no longer inquire: What office did he hold? They will no longer inquire: Did he live in a palace, or did he sleep in a garret? Did he ride in a carriage, or did he walk? The question which coming ages are going to ask is: What did this man do for humanity? And, gentlemen, the fame of rulers dies, but the fame of Christo- pher Columbus will grow brighter and brighter as the centuries roll by. When this great continent shall become covered with cities, and when it shall be peopled by an enlightened and enterprising people having the spirit of Columbus — that of individual achievement, that of cool nerve, of lofty purpose and of fierce determination, a people stretching from the North Pole to the South Pole — only then, gentle- men, will the world fully appreciate what Christopher Columbus has done. ADDRESS AT THE OPENING OF THE ILLINOIS BUILD- ING. (Delivered at the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, May i8, 1893.) Mr. President of the Illinois Board of World's Fair Commissioners, and Madam President of the Illinois Woman's Exposition Board, and Ladies and Gentlemen: We have met to formally open the Illinois Building and make it, with its contents, a part of the Columbian Exposition, an exposition whose grandeur neither pen nor pencil can picture. 322 LIVE QUESTIONS. We feel that this is a great day for the people of our State, for it is the first time in their history that they have attempted to stand beside the nations of the earth for the purpose of comparing achieve- ments. We are, in a sense, the host of the world, which has gathered within our borders to exhibit the products of its highest civilization, and, as these products are addressed to the eye, and silently tell the story of the past and the condition of the present, we are endeavoring, as host, to respond in kind. This building, with its grand proportions, its majestic height, its symmetry, and beautiful lines, will testify to our skill in the art of building, and we expect the numerous exhibits gath- ered here to tell, in silent eloquence, the brilliant history of Illinois. But, my friends, while we are thus vying with the nations of the earth, in showing the wonderful things accomplished, let us not forget that all that we see here is emblematical. This exposition, while sur- passing even the dreams of genius, is but intended to commemorate a great event in the history of the world. These life-like statues ; these Grecian columns and Roman arches ; these temples of industry, of sci- ence and of learning, which challenge the admiration of the gods, are but the language, they are but the words, the exclamations with which ' this age expresses its admiration for the achievements of Christopher Columbus. More than four centuries ago, when the world was about to awaken from a long night; when literature showed new signs of life; when art began again to breathe; when science and philosophy again lifted up their heads; when the centuries were in labor to give birth to a new era and new civilization, in which man might again walk the earth, not with his head bowed, his hands shackled and his spirit crushed, but with mein erect and his face to the sun; a civilization in which woman should no longer be a beast of burden, but a companion to man; then there went through the universe a silent call for a new land with a new atmosphere in which to rock and nurture the new time, for the countries of the old world were so covered with the malaria which had thickened during centuries of tyranny, of supersti- tion and darkness, that nothing beneficial to mankind could flourish there. Responding to this call, there came forth a young man who knew little of the fashions of his day, took no part in the gay frivolity of his time, did not live in luxury nor go forth in fine raiment. The idle aristocrats felt that they were of greatly more consequence than he; but he had what all men who have helped mankind had, and that is, industry, perseverance and self-reliance. He was a sailor and was OPENING OF ILLINOIS BUILDING. 323 familiar with the hardships and dangers of a sea-faring life, and in- stead of going to banquets he spent his nights pondering over charts, until he conceived the idea of finding a new route to India by sailing westward. The art of navigation then consisted of sailing from head- land to head-land. The earth was supposed to be flat, and the regions beyond the horizon to be peopled with monsters. He sought assist- ance from the commercial people and they laughed at him; he ap- plied to the learned and they pronounced it impossible; he appealed to the men in office and they said he was insane ; finally he appealed to a sympathetic woman, and she assisted him. In three little vessels, which to-day would be pronounced unseaworthy, he embarked on an unknown ocean. He sailed for months, with the world against him, the elements against him, the crew against him, and starvation in front of him; but he never faltered a moment, and finally sighted land. He had defied and conquered the learning of his time; the influences of his time, the authorities of his time, as well as the danger of the elements and the frown of the fates, and he gave to the world a new science, a new navigation, a new geography, a new continent, and ultimately, a new civilization and a new hope. It was on the continent discovered by Columbus that there was the first successful experi- ment among men of absolute freedom of religion, freedom of con- science, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of action, and the highest form of a free man's government. It was here that the first successful attempt was made of lifting up the masses by uni- versal education. And it is this continent which has given to the world most of those wonderful inventions which have revolutionized indus- try, have brought all people close together, and are covering the earth with intelligence. Nowhere else have the possibilities of human achievement, when the mind is given freedom of action, been so fully exemplified as here. Let me say in conclusion, that it was proper that this celebration of the discovery of America should be held in the United States, be- cause the important results following that discovery had their birth here. Again, it was fitting that it should be held in Illinois, for it possesses, not only the richest, most productive and extensive agri- cultural resources of any State in the Union, but, extending over more degrees of latitude, it has a greater variety of climate, and conse- quently of products, than almost any other State; and particularly was it fitting that the great Exposition should be located in the city of Chicago, which exemplifies more than any other city in the world, not only the possibilities of human achievement when the mind is given freedom of action, but has demonstrated to the world that men 324 LIVE QUESTIONS. of all nationalities, of all religions, and all conditions can live harmo- niously in the same community ; can toil side by side and rally to the support of the same flag. I am proud to open this building because it is not the creation of either King or Emperor, but of the independent citizens of the State of Illinois, and the marvels that are on exhibition here are the work of their hands, and they will go away from here with higher ideals, with newly kindled patriotism; with renewed confidence in themselves and their high destiny, and they and their children will stand nearer the altar of our common country than ever before. Let me tell you another thing. In preparing for this Exposition, women of different lands have learned to help each other, and thus the nucleus of an international woman's organization has been formed, the ultimate, far-reaching influence of which in the emancipation of her sex no man can foresee. Now, ladies and gentlemen of the Illinois Board, I commit the management of this, the distinctive Illinois exhibit, to your hands, and in doing so I would remind you that a great responsibility rests on you. Our people are proud of this State, they know its riches and its resources, they are proud of its achievements and its glorious history, and being in a sense the host, they want to make an exhibit that shall be a credit to them. They have been liberal, even lavish, in supplying means for this purpose, and will examine your work with a critical eye; but, judging from what you have already done, I am satisfied that the honor and the glory of the State are here safely left in your hands. SPEECH AT UNVEILING OF SOLDIERS' MONUMENT. (Delivered at Jerseyville, May 30th, 1893.) Ladies and Gentlemen: I see here people from all walks in life; from all professions, pur- suits and avocations; old, middle-aged and young. You have left your farms, your stores and your shops and have gathered here, on this beautiful day, and at this charming spot, and there is something in your countenances that tells me that you are not here simply on a holiday excursion. You are here for a higher, a greater purpose; you have come to commemorate a great event; you have come to cover the last resting places of heroes with tributes of your love; you have come to shed a tear over the remains of some one who was dear to you. But that is not all; you have still a higher purpose; you have come to unveil to the world, and to give to mankind, and to SOLDIERS' MOXUMEXT SPEECH. 325 the future, this monument, which is an evidence of your patriotism and an evidence of your valor in the past. You have not erected this monument because of the beauty of its form, nor to decorate the land- scape. It is to you not a dumb, inanimate, speechless stone; you expect it to talk to the ages to come, and to tell a story that will be brilliant when you and I are gone. Monuments are the mile-stones erected along the pathway of time. They mark the spot or they tell the hour where or when humanity halted; where or when mankind struggled; where or when heroes died. They mark the point where a new era begins ; like the hammers in the horologe of time they an- nounce to the universe the beginning of a new day. What, then, is the story which this monument is to tell? A third of a century ago there were heard the rumblings of war; a great na- tion stood, with pale face, on the brink of destruction; there was hanging in the balance the question whether mankind was capable of self-government; whether "the great American experiment had been a failure; whether the people of the earth, who had been looking hither with high hopes for the future, should sink into disappoint- ment and despair. There was hanging in the balance the question, whether, after all, there are a few people, with no superior virtue or talents, who by reason of the accident of birth, or of other accidental advantages, hold a divine commission to govern their fellows and to eat the bread that others toil for; it was the question whether govern- ment of the people, for them and by them, should perish from the face of the earth. Never before in the history of the world was so mo- mentous, so far-reaching a question at stake, or a question fraught with such mighty consequences to humanity. Then there came from among your midst, from your fields and stores and shops, young men, middle-aged men, even old men; the sons of widows; the heads of families, the patriarchs of communities, and they offered themselves upon the altar of their country. They came by the thousand and the tens of thousands. They were free men, coming from the homes of free men, and coming to the rescue of a free government. They saw before them the spectre of disease, of privation and of suffering; they read the inscription of death in the skies, but with heads erect and unfaltering feet they stepped to the music of war. It was not ignor- ance, nor the hardihood of folly, that stimulated them. They had in- telligently counted the cost. They gave all they had and faced death. They went to the South, and this monument tells the story that hun- dreds and thousands of them never returned. They are buried in the fields, the swamps, the forests, and the dark ravines, of what was then the enemy's country. ''Nothing care they for friend or foeman; for 326 LIVE QUESTIONS. hand of man or kiss of woman; they dream of battle-fields no more; of days of danger and of nights of waking." While that fearful struggle was in progress, when from day to day the intelligence reached the poor man's hut or the rich man's , house in your midst, that a son, or a husband, or a father had laid down his arms forever and would return no more, how many there were who cried out in the anguish of their souls, "All my heart is buried with thee; all my thoughts go onward with thee." I cannot picture that great struggle. The Nation was in the field; it would not fly; it could not yield; its armies stretched across a continent, from the salt waters of the Altantic to the borders of Mexico. The nations of the earth were watching this great spectacle; it was to be a turning point in the history of government, in the history of civiliza- tion, in the progress of humanity, and the heroes who gave up their lives there are beyond and above the reach of our praise and of our admiration. This monument does not mark the place of their burial. All the world is their sepulcher, and their epitaphs are not chiseled upon stone, but they are engraved upon the hearts of mankind. '"Wherever language is spoken, wherever there is knowledge of noble deeds, there they are held in remembrance." What we say and do will be forgotten by the morrow; what they did will be sung through the ages. We stand over their graves and we say to them, the blessings of the world shall follow you; and do they hear us? Is there intelli- gence that can reach them and give them our good morning? Thous- ands of years ago, when the Greeks buried their heroes they looked into their graves and asked in grief and anguish, "Is there no work, nor thought, nor wisdom, nor breathing of the soul in the silence of the grave? Will there be no rolling of chariots nor voice of fame heard in that dark abode? Wrapt in pale Elysian mists, will you waste on forever?" Our age gives us hope. We hear the rustling of a wing ; we feel a breath from the other shore ; we do not know when, but are sure we shall meet over there. But if this monument is not to add to the glory of the dead, what is it to teach the living? Greater things than language can tell — language can reach the ear, this monument reaches the soul ; language may stir to temporary action, this monument to everlasting resolve. We can learn, first, that the shackles were struck from four millions of human beings who had been children of sorrow and victims of the lash for many dark centuries. They were set out into the sunlight of freedom. Where, in all the glories of the past, is there such a page? And let me say a word here about these newly emancipated and enfranchised children of the South, I know it is claimed that SOLDIERS' MONUMENT SPEECH, 327 the experiment of giving them freedom and the ballot is a failure, but they have not yet had a trial. We have no right yet to sit in judg- ment; we have no right yet to so much as make an inquiry. Wait until the third generation has grown to manhood. Ask yourself then, first: What you have done to help these victims of ignorance and of oppression to a higher manhood and a better citizenship? When the white man shall have demonstrated that he has done his full duty, and given them a fair chance, then he may proceed to inquire how the Negro is getting along; and he should then inquire cautiously, for, if you subject the Caucasian race to the treatment these people have received, reduce them to the condition of helplessness to which they have been reduced, and then give them the treatment that they are now getting, and your proud Caucasian race will require, not thirty years, but five times thirty years, before it can make any satisfactory showing. Meantime, let me say, the colored race is doing even better than could have been expected. It is doing the work of the South; it is slowly imbibing the intelligence of the age, and what is now called a vexed question there will in time settle itself. Second, this monument should admonish us that those old heroes who were not slain in battle, who have lived and returned to us, are entitled to consideration; and where, by reason of any infirmity, either physical or mental, they cannot maintain the struggle in the fierce competition of the times, we should see to it that these heroes do not suffer for want of bread; that they do not languish in the alms- houses of the land, and are not buried in the potter's field. The government, which would have no existence but for what they did, owes them this. The great struggle which this monument commemorates formed the beginning of a new era in our country. Dormant energies seemed to be all at once let loose. In every field of knowledge, labor and "achievement mankind entered upon a new career, which has given us a grandeur and a glory that surpasses the dreams of patriots and the speculation of philosophers. Look out upon our country to-day: From ocean to ocean,, from the frozen North to the waters of the Gulf — one nation, one country, one people — intelligent, industrious, patriotic. School houses, like watch fires, in every neighborhood from Maine to California; colleges in almost every valley; great in- dustrial establishments everywhere; the agencies of intelligence and for the elevation of man at work everywhere. Mankind never gazed upon such a scene before. A hundred minarets may call the Mus- sulman to prayer at noonday, but it is largely the worship of slaves. In our country every hamlet has its church, which appeals silently to 328 LIVE QUESTIONS. the God of nations and draws to its altar the worship of intelligent free men. Let your children visit this monument. Let them learn the story it tells. Let them learn lessons of patriotism. Let them here dedi- cate themselves to the service of humanity and devote their lives to the glory of their country, and let us, who are older, learn from it a serious lesson, for it tells us that we have a serious duty to perform, a great trust to discharge; that this great country and this government, cemented by the blood of heroes, is committed to our care and that it depends upon us and what we do, as to whether it shall continue to be a beacon light to all the people of the earth; whether it shall go on in a career of grandeur, of prosperity and of happiness, or whether it shall go down in darkness and all the heroic deeds of the past shall be covered with gloom. And let us swear over the graves of our dead, by the eternal Goddess of Liberty, by the God of Battles and the Ruler of Nations, that while we live the glory of our country shall remain unsullied. ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS. (Delivered at Champaign, June 7, 1893.) Ladies and Gentlemen: The first question which will present itself for your solution when you leave these halls is what to do for a living; what course to pursue, and how to run a career. This is true, not only of the young men, but of the young women. No doubt the most felicitous condition possible for woman is to be happily married and to be the center of a refined household; the object of tender regard and love; surrounded with all the comforts of life ; but this is an ideal condition, and the ideal is rarely found. Thousands cannot marry for want of opportunity; millions do marry, and instead of being happy, they drag out a mis- erable, gloomy and slavish existence. While no condition is so felicitous as that of being happily married, there is no one so much to be pitied, no one who will carry so many sorrows through life, as the woman who is absolutely dependent upon being married. The long wail of woman's misery, the great black cloud stretching back over her career to the dawn of history grew from the condition of absolute dependence in which she was kept by the strong hand of man. No matter how able her brain or how ingenious her fingers, she could not go into the great fields of human activity and earn her bread; an unreasonable and inhuman custom forbade it, and when her ADDRESS TO GRADUATES. p§ frame was consumed with hunger and her soul was sinking into despair, she had either to eat the bread of charity, sell herself in the market place or lie down by the wayside to die, and she was more than human if she did not do all three. AN AGE OF RELIEF. In one particular, at least, this age has stretched out its hand to her relief. It is knocking down the barriers reared by selfishness and superstition. It is bidding her throw aside the veil of slavery and helplessness. It is calling her to step out into the sunlight. It is permitting her to stand by the side of man in the industries. It is telling her to do anything that the great world may have to do. In this country, at least, all fields of human activity are open to her. Wherever brain thinks, hand shapes or will directs, there she may go; and she has already demonstrated her ability to stand alone every- where. Let me say to you, young women, that nothing so surely commands homage as independence. Men do not care for what is forced upon them or is easily gotten. The things near enough to be admired, yet difficult of access, are the ones struggled for. Be independent and the world will come to you. "But," says an objector, "the world now pays homage to woman. Why change this glorious condition?" Ah, if it only were so! The world pays homage to the few who possess the graces, but, I beg you, do not insult the intelligence of the millions of unfortunates who are being crushed because they are weak; who are faint with hunger and cold; who toil long hours and earn only a pittance; the millions for whom every day brings new humiliations, new sorrows and new sufferings. Do not insult these by telling them that the world pays them homage. One of the most remarkable women of the age, and holding high social position, in a recent address, that has the imprint of genius on every line, said on this subject: "Sentimentalists should have reduced their theories to set terms and applied them. They have had ample opportunity and time to provide means by which helpless women could be cherished, protected and removed from storms and stress of life. Women could have asked nothing better. We have no respect for a theory which touches only the favored few who do not need this protection, and leaves unaided the great mass it has assisted to push into the mire. Babble it not, therefore, until it can be uttered, not only in polite drawing rooms, but also in fac- tories and work-shops, without a blush of shame for its weakness and inefficiency." To a young man, the selection of a vocation means more than 33o UVn QUESTIONS. simply making a living; more than merely getting bread to eat. It means either failure and humiliation, or it means being a man among men; being a leader in progress; being a factor in your time; in short, it means a career. You are fortunate in living in an age when possibilities of a career are not confined to the three professions and the government — when you must be either a lawyer, "a doctor, a preacher, or serve the government. This is an age of individual achievement in all lines of activity; an industrial and scientific age. To-day the world does not ask who you are, what is your rank nor what is your lineage. It simply asks: "What have you done, or what can you do?" MEN WHO COMMAND ATTENTION. The men of this age, whom history will deign to notice, are the men who have spanned our rivers, built and operated our railroads, built our cities, reared our mighty temples of learning and of in- dustry; the men who have harnessed the lightnings and made them beasts of burden for man; the men who are covering the earth with intelligence. It will be the men who are making and moulding the age. They will be the kings and princes of this century. Being an officeholder myself, I may be pardoned for saying that most of the men who are holding the offices and wielding authority will be forgotten before the grass has had time to grow over them; for they are not the great captains; they are not the leaders of our progress and of our civilization. As a rule, they do not gaze into the firmament or measure the stars; their vision is limited to the weather vane on public buildings. They never give the order for advance on any great question, they wait to be commanded to move, and then hesitate until assured that it is the voice of the majority calling to them. They wait until the leaders of thought have captured the strong- hold of a wrong, and then they try to plant their flag over the ram- parts that were stormed by others. As a'rule, they are moral cowards, following the music wagon of their time, and holding the penny of im- mediate advantage so close to their eye as to shut out the sunlight of eternal principles. The second time I say to you: This is an age of personal achievement. While accident and a thousand things over which' you have no control will, to a limited extent, shape your course, and possibly determine the field in which you are to operate, still, to a very great extent, your career will be just what you make it. I warn you that the conditions of success are hard; that the path to em- inence is difficult. The competition in every field you survey is fierce; ADDRESS TO GRADUATES. 331 the general standard of intelligence is high; a remarkable degree of excellence has already been achieved; if you do not surpass it you must stand with the multitude, and to surpass it means to contest with thousands who are just as able, just as bright and just as ambitious as you are. It requires spirit and tenacity to win. It is not the size of the army that determines the victory, but the spirit pervading it. It is not the hardness of the resisting substance that is to be con- sidered so much as. the persistence of the attacking force. AN ADAGE WHICH NEVER FADES. I have tried to frame a sentence that should be an improvement on the old adage, "Perseverance wins the day," but I could not do it. To those of you who are literary experts, I say, "try it." It has only four words in it, yet it tells the story of every great career and great achievement in the entire history of man. You will pardon me for repeating it. "Perseverance wins the day." Perseverance in what? I say in aggression; in a forward move- ment. Perseverance in sitting still can achieve nothing; cannot pre- vent your starving if you have no bread. All progress is the result of aggression; this brings me to a point I want to emphasize: Ag- gression is the father of greatness and the mother of achievement. It is the aggressive, the attacking armies of the world that still excite our wonder. Alexander commanded aggressive armies, Hannibal crossed the Alps with an aggressive army, Caesar conquered the world by aggression, Frederick the Great and Napoleon changed the map of Europe by forward movements. To be sure, there are isolated cases of heroic defenses, but these are rather the still places in the water; the great current is running the other way. In science, in literature, in art, in government, in learning, in the industries, in the thousand changes that have given us the glories of the century, we see the spirit and the hand of aggression. Let me now say a word about the indispensable handmaid of both perseverance and aggression, and that is labor — hard labor, without which nothing is accomplished in life. It is labor that lays the founda- tions of empires, that clears up continents, that builds cities, that op- erates railroads, gathers news, prints papers, cultivates the earth, feeds the nations and elevates man, and it is the men who toil with their hands that are entitled to special consideration, although they get little credit for their work. The men who gather at banquets dressed in fine linen and soft raiment may imagine that they are the State, but it is not so. Many of them are simply parasites, eating bread that others toil for; all could be wiped out and the nation would 332 LIVE QUESTIONS. go right on; they would scarcely be missed. It is the intelligent men who create and produce the things that make a State, who are its bulwarks. Remove them suddenly from existence and the State is lost. Let me impress upon you that labor is the only door to achieve- ment; there is no other way open. I address you on the assump- tion that you want to do more than merely live. The four-footed kine which lie down, rise up and lie down again, do this. If you are willing to be simply some rich man's son-in-law and be taken care of, then I have nothing to say to you. If you are content to simply be well clothed, well fed and well housed, and occasionally invited to a thanks- giving dinner, then you must take little interest. in my address. But the fact that you have had the spirit to pursue your course through college, convinces me that you have higher aims, and I^commend you to the goddess of ambition. True, she cannot change the laws by which the Almighty governs the universe; she cannot remove the accursed stuff that weighs upon the heart ; she cannot soften the pillow upon which you end your career nor light the way through the dark- ness beyond. You must go to another altar for these things; but she teaches the three great virtues of labor, aggression and perseverance, and she points her pupils to the experience of the world to show them that dishonesty rots a man down, limits his usefulness and shortens his career, and that therefore he is a fool who will pursue that path. She loves her votaries and few be they who, following her precepts, come away from her altars empty-handed, or visit her shrine in vain. BRAINS MANAGE AFFAIRS OF MEN. You will find, as you go out into the world, that most of the affairs of the country, both governmental and civil, banking, manufacturing, merchanting, railroading, etc., are managed by men who either had no collegiate training or else came from the smaller colleges, and not from the great universities of the East; and those few men who come from those institutions and are in any way conspicuous, graduated there when the institutions were smaller, and not so rich. I do not know the reason for this, unless it is that the young men there be- come institutionized. That is, they are educated out of or away from the spirit that prevails among the people, and having been so long under tutelage they lose all self-reliance, and the consequent ability to go out and manage affairs. In fact, starting as rich men's sons, they learn little or nothing about the practical side of life before enter- ing college, and they leave when almost at middle age, with no knowl- edge of affairs except the art of spending money. You will find grad- 'ADDRESS TO GRADUATES. 333 uates by the hundred who have come from the large Eastern universi- ties, and very many from great European universities, who are un- able to make a living. They have to be cared for almost as a fash- ionable young woman must be. Although they seemed to have fair natural ability, they are helpless ; helpless at the bar, in the pulpit, and in affairs. You will also soon learn that, while a college education is invalu- able, it is not the end and aim of life. It is only a training to begin work. I have already said the conditions of success are hard. You must get right down on the ground; understand the spirit of every- day life; understand human nature and the spirit that pervades the affairs of men, and work up along that line. If you understand how to do this, then, with your college training, your progress will be rapid; otherwise, it will fail. You cannot step out of the university into a high position, and it is not best that you should; for, without a practical knowledge of human nature, and without understanding the spirit of everyday affairs, without actual contact with them, you would soon fail. You are to be congratulated on attending a college where you are kept as near the people as possible, and where those conditions have not yet grown up which tend to give a false notion of life. Again, if you want to be a potent factor in your day, then you are to be congratulated on attending a college which endeavors to meet the need of the times, and to prepare young men for the great practical problems which confront them. I have nothing to say against the dead languages. I suppose there are cases in which a man should study them, but the impression made upon my mind, from a wide ob- servation at the bar and on the bench, was that the only thing that Greek did for a man now was to enable him to take a licking philo- sophically, and that, usually, from a man who never heard of Homer nor his Iliad, but who understood the spirit of modern affairs. Do not understand me to undervalue the refining effect of literature on the mind. It is a necessity, but it would be strange indeed if, with all the genius and eloquence of the last century, we did not have English classics equal to, if they did not surpass, anything written in Greek, and, I believe, some of the ablest Greek scholars are beginning to admit this. TRUE MEANING OF EDUCATION. Education means training, not memorizing or stuffing. The mind must be a workshop, not a storehouse. It has at times seemed to me that many young men coming from the great universities, had had 334 LIVE QUESTIONS. their minds transformed into garrets, in which you could find many antique and interesting old things, but nothing that was needed in a modern workshop. Consequently they found themselves three thou- sand years behind the times and unable to make a living. Bear in mind, there is nothing perfect on earth ; don't expect it, for you will be disappointed. The stronger force devours the weaker — in the woods, in the water, in the church, in business — in fact, everywhere. Institutions are at best only on a level with the men of the times, and frequently a hundred years behind. You expect ministers of the gospel to be better than other men. Why should you? They are human, with all the weaknesses of humanity. They are teachers, and they should do their, best to set an example. At least many of them are trying to elevate the race, and to inculcate what they believe to be eternal truths, and are doing the best they can. That is all you have a right to ask of them. You turn to the courts of justice; you think of a goddess, blind- folded, holding the scales; you recall eloquent things about eternal justice, etc., and you say, here I will find exact right, here wrongs are corrected, the strong are curbed and the weak protected. You will be disappointed. The administration of justice, or rather of the laws, is better than it ever has been, but it is only a struggling toward the right; only a blind groping in the darkness toward light. The men who administer the laws are human, with all the failings of humanity. They take their biases, their prejudices, with them onto the bench. Upon the whole, they try to do the best they can; but the wrongs done in the courts of justice themselves are so great that they cry to heaven. You say, why not abolish this if this is so? Because we have nothing better to put in their place, and, defective as they are, they are an immeasurable improvement on the savage state, where each man righted his own wrongs, whether fancied or real. Again, you have read eloquent chapters about the origin of gov- ernment. Let me say to you they are simply romance; they belong to the realm of fiction. You say, "Here only those things are con- sidered which are for the best interest of man." Well, that is the ideal government and does not exist. Government grew out of an effort to further selfish purposes and personal interests. It has improved a little at every step in its history, and has broadened out and is more humane in its character now than ever before. But to-day you find legislative bodies everywhere, here and in Europe, made up of repre- sentatives of selfish interests, and instead of standing on ideal ground and considering only what is for the best interest of mankind, it is simply a struggle by one selfish interest to get an advantage over ADDRESS TO GRADUATES. 33$ another. And it always has been so. The point where conflicting selfish interests compromise or check each other, that point marks the level of the law, and the wrongs done by government are so great that they can be measured only by the eye of omniscience. Some shortsighted people, seeing this fact, conclude it ought to be abolished. This is a fatal mistake. Defective as it is, it is yet the best that man has been able to devise, and until the level of morality and intelligence is elevated no better can be devised. People who talk about the aboli- tion of government fail to consider the one great, all-important factor, and that is human selfishness. The same selfishness which has dis- figured the governments of the present will shape the new ones and make them worse than the present, because it was only after centuries of effort that they could be made as good as they are. But you say, "If this is the case, had we not better keep still about the real char- acter of the courts, the government and all institutions; won't it do harm to talk about it?" No. The greatest reformer and purifier in the physical world is the sun. Let sunlight into the dark places and the poisons collected there disappear. So with the dark places in the government and civil affairs that are now festering with wrong; let the sunlight of eternal truth and justice shine on them and they will disappear. Wherever there is a wrong, point it out to all the world, and you can trust the people to right it. Wrongs thrive in secrecy and REASON FOR PLAIN LANGUAGE. Another reason why I talk thus plainly to you is to impress upon you that the ideal has not yet come. In the pulpit, in the courts, in government, in business — everywhere there is a kind of blind groping toward it, and that man will render mankind the greatest service who, recognizing this fact, will help the race, onward to this high plane of eternal sunlight. And let me say, that all great reforms, great move- ments, come from the bottom and not the top. Here I want to congratulate you, or certainly most of you, upon not having enervating riches or a paralyzing pedigree. It is grati- fying to have had an honorable ancestry, but the fates seem to have decreed that great men shall not have great sons. Great philoso- phers are not the sons of great philosophers; great generals not the sons of great generals; great statesmen not the sons of great states- men; great engineers not the sons of great engineers, and so on through the whole category. Ex-Senator Ingalls, of Kansas, the most brilliant epigrammatist of our country, recently said: "A pedigree may be gratifying to pride, but it is not consoling to ambition." One thing, however, must be said of nearly all great men: They had not 336 LtP£ QUESTIONS. brilliant but very sensible mothers. As to riches — they are a great advantage after you have developed ability; after your character is formed and your habits of industry are fixed, but until this is the case, riches shut the gate to the pathway of glory. This is a strange decree of nature. You would suppose that the surroundings of wealth and refinement and the fact of distinguished ancestry would tend to form a higher grade of men, of superior power and usefulness, but just the contrary is the case. Luxury does not form the hard, strong fiber necessary to greatness. The everywhere present and always active law of disintegration pulls them down. Read Froude's "Life of Caesar," a little volume, and you will be astonished to see how the vices and follies of the aristocracy helped to pull down the mighty Roman Empire. Read the first five or six chapters of Trevellian's "Life of Charles James Fox," and you will be amazed to see how de- bauchery devoured the so-called noblemen of England in the last century. It was new blood continually coming up from the ground that saved the empire. Notice some of the rich men's sons in dudish attire lounging around the club rooms of our cities and aping English manners, and you will understand the feelings of the old farmer, who exclaimed when he first saw one: "Gosh! what things a feller sees when he hain't got his gun along." The trouble with rich men's sons, even When they are not dudes, is that they are too much taken up with society matters where the atmosphere is not congenial to greatness. As a rule, the men who have done great things for the world were not society men. The immortal Pericles who made Athens the wonder of the world is known to have attended but one evening's enter- tainment in his life. I repeat that all great things, great move- ments and great reforms grow from the ground up and not from the top downward. When you go away from this institution in search of work, you will find capital consolidated; instead of a few men, hundreds, sometimes thousands, are working in one establishment. You can't see the owners; you see only the manager, who will deal more harshly with you than the owners would, for the manager wants to make a good showing; wants to get his salary raised; wants to make his own family a little more comfortable. He cannot cut salaries above him, so he presses hard below him. You will consider this unjust, but don't forget that selfishness is yet the governing force in the world. You cannot change it, and therefore you must make the best of it. Let me tell you something, confidentially, here. If you are sent to bring something, bring it, and not an explanation. If you agree to do something, do it; don't come back with an explanation. Ex- ADDRESS TO GRADUATES. 337 planations as to how you came to fail are not worth two cents a ton. Nobody wants them or cares for them. The fact that you met with an accident and got your legs broken, your neck twisted and your head smashed is not equal to a delivery of the goods. Let me tell you another thing, also confidentially. Only about one-fourth of your efforts will produce satisfactory results. The sower went forth to sow; some fell by the wayside and the birds got it; some fell in stony places and it could not get root; some fell among thorns and got choked by its wicked neighbors, and some fell on fertile ground and brought forth a harvest. It always has been thus and" is everywhere so to-day. If all the efforts I have made, which have produced no results, were collected and piled on top of me, they would bury me so deep that Gabriel's, horn would never awaken me. You say I am making you a pessimistic speech. Not at all. I am simply telling you what there is ahead. The old cardinal said to the young woman: "You are Richelieu's ward; you are a soldier's wife; you must not shrink from hearing the truth." Now, young friends, you are children of the great State of Illinois ; you have shown pluck, ambition and spirit; you are college graduates; you are going out as soldiers in this great intellectual and industrial battle ; it is necessary that you should understand the character of the situation. Besides, I have been talking to you about seed time; abotit preparing the ground, planting the seed and tilling the field. I have said nothing about the harvest; it was not necessary; the harvest will be looked after. Men don't grow eloquent in the seed time; it is all toil then; but when the harvest is gathered and the barn is filled with golden grain, 'tis then that the heart is glad and man rejoices. And let me say to you, in conclusion, that just as sure as effect follows cause, as sunlight follows darkness, just so sure does harvest follow sowing; just so sure does reward follow honest effort. Do your duty; work while it is time to work; be true to yourselves and your nobler manhood; stand by the flag of your country, and not only will your last days be days of gladness, but you will reach the high places of this universe, and your eyes will gaze upon the golden mountain tops where dwell the spirits of the dawn. 22 338 LIVE QUESTIONS. OFFICE HOLDERS MORAL COWARDS. POTENCY OF THE PRIVATE INDIVIDUAL. (Interview, "Evening Post," Chicago, July 31, 1891.) Judge John P. Altgeld passed his last day upon the Superior Court bench of Cook county to-day. He came down at 10:30 and found but one litigant in his court, a lawyer's clerk, who wanted some un- important motion entered of record. The dockets were cleared up, and at 1 1 o'clock th,e well-known jurist and able lawyer was ready to lay aside the honors and duties of the judgeship. To a reporter for the Evening Post, Judge Altgeld talked freely upon a number of im- portant topics appertaining directly and indirectly to the high office which he was about to vacate. "Do you expect to resume the practice of law?" "After a while I expect to resume my law practice to some extent." "Will you in future take part in politics?" "I do not expect to take any more interest in politics than any ordinary citizen." "Is there any truth in the statement that you are a candidate for the office of Governor?" "No. I am not a candidate for any office." "Suppose you were tendered the nomination, would you accept it?" "That is an idle supposition. There is going to be a scramble next year for the nomination for Governor. I do not want to be Governor and naturally do not wish to enter a scramble for something I da not want. Understand me, I am not declining something that has not been offered and that is not within reach. I believe in the private individual. It is the successful private individual who is the im- portant factor in American society— the man who has convictions and who dares to express them. The whole officeholding class is getting to be a cowardly hanging on class, which always is careful to see how the wind blows before daring to either have or express an opinion, and the result is it is a negative class. They do not lead in public opinion or in the formation of a public sentiment on any ques- tion. We have in this country now forty odd Governors, and it would be difficult for any man to point out wherein the whole forty had, for ten years, done anything of an enduring character for their country, or for the progress of civilization. We have several hundred Congressmen, we have legislators without number, we count even our judges by the hundred, and taking the whole officeholding class to- gether, it is difficult to point out wherein it does anything that can be OFFICE-HOLDERS MORAL COWARDS. 339 regarded as raising the standard of public morals, creating a healthy public sentiment, or solving in a proper manner any of the great ques- tions, both economic and social, that are calling for solution. On the contrary, the whole officeholding fraternity simply follows the public band wagon. The really influential men in America are, I re- peat, the successful private individuals — positive men, earnest, con- scientious, thorough-going men. Take successful business men, suc- cessful manufacturers, leading railroad men, lawyers, physicians, and even preachers, when they have sufficient independence to develop any individuality — these are the men. who mold public opinion and whose favor and support is sought by the politicians, and who, in the end, secure legislation and shape the policy of the country, using the officeholding classes simply as instruments by which to carry out a purpose. While politics has a strong fascination for me, just as gambling has for some men, and I have, consequently, at different times taken part in politics, yet I have always felt that I would be a great deal better off and could do more for my country if I would let politics alone." "Have you, then, no future policy in regard to political life?" "Absolutely none." "What are your views on the question of the salaries paid the judges of Cook county? Several lawyers, including some judges, have said the salary paid was not high enough to have secured the best men for the bench?" "I have always regarded the salary paid . the judges in Cook county as not only ample, but exceedingly liberal, and the truth is that there' are very few men on the bench here who ever made as much practicing law as they are making as judges. High salary does not secure the highest order of judges. New York City pays almost fancy salaries to its local judges, and the bench there will not com- pare favorably with the bench in other cities where the salary is very low. The truth is, that when the salary is made very high the office becomes a plum which is scrambled for by the politicians, and the abler lawyers and modest men decline to enter into the contest. There are many very able lawyers at our bar who would be glad to serve the public on the bench for even a much lower salary than is now paid, provided they could get the positions without a political scramble. "Further, outside of Chicago the judges get only one-half what is paid here ; they have to work the whole year, and as a matter of fact, do much more business during the year than Chicago judges do, for they frequently open court at 8 o'clock in the morning and run 34Q LIVE QUESTIONS. until 9 o'clock at night, and it is claimed by lawyers who practice throughout the State, as well as in Chicago, that the bench in the country is much abler than in Chicago. Being still on the bench myself," added the Judge, with a smile, "I can talk with a little more freedom on this subject than I otherwise could. "The people of Chicago will have no trouble in getting plenty of good men to serve them as judges, and in my opinion they will get a higher order of talent and get more painstaking and conscientious men, if the salary of judges is not increased, than if it is increased." "Have you any ideas as to how the judgeships could be taken out of the ordinary scramble and swirl of politics?" was asked. "I do not believe in taking the election of judges out of the hands of the people," answered Judge Altgeld, after a minute's meditation. "The people can be trusted in the long run to discriminate in this regard and select pretty good men. I do not believe in a few com- mitteemen sitting in a back room and determining who shall and who shall not occupy a position on the bench, and while it is desirable that the bench shall be non-partisan, I question whether the attempt to have a few men select judges and divide them between the parties, will, in the end, prove satisfactory. I would leave it in the hands of the people, as it has been, but I would not convert the office into such a fat plum that it would be sought after by any other class of men than those, who, from the very highest motives, are willing to serve the public as judges, without reference to any extraordinary moneyed compensation, and, I will repeat, there are many men, who have long been an ornament to the Chicago bar, and who would be an honor to the bench, who would serve for even a much smaller salary than is now paid, if they were not elbowed out of the way by politicians." ADDRESS TO THE LABORING MEN OF CHICAGO. (Delivered September 8, 1893.) Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: You are to be congratulated on the success of your celebration. Two great demonstrations in Chicago alone are vying with each other in honoring Labor Day. These vast assemblages represent sturdy manhood and womanhood. They represent honest toil of every kind, and they represent strong patriotism and desirable citizenship. The law has set apart this day in recognition of the nobility of labor, and as the Governor of this great State, I have come to pay homage to that force which lays the foundation of empires, which builds cities, builds ADDRESS TO LABORING MEN. 341 railroads, develops agriculture, supports schools, founds industries, creates commerce, and moves the world. It is wisely directed labor that has made our country the greatest ever known, and has made Chicago the wonder of mankind. I say wisely directed labor; for without wise direction labor is fruitless. The pointing out and thie doing are inseparably connected. More than this, ahead of the direct- ing, there must go the genius which originates and conceives, the genius which takes the risk and moves a league forward. All three are necessary to each other. Weaken either, and there are clouds in the sky. Destroy either, and the hammer of industry ceases to be heard. Glance over this majestic city, see its workshops, its ware- houses, its commercial palaces, its office temples, and the thousand other structures that show the possibilities of human achievement and tell who did all this. You say the laboring men; yes, that is correct; but I tell you that if the gods keep a record of our doings, they have set down the men who originated all this, and then dared to make a for- ward step in building, as among the greatest of laborers. We are at present in the midst of a great industrial and commercial depression. Industry is nearly at a stand-still all over the earth. The consump- tive power, or rather the purchasing power, of the world has been in- terfered with, producing not only a derangement but a paralysis, not only stopping further production, but preventing the proper distribu- tion of what there is already created; so that we have the anomalous spectacle of abundant food products on the one hand, and hungry men without bread on the other. Abundant fabrics on the one hand, and industrious, frugal men going half clad on the other. Employer and employe are affected alike. There are thousands of honest, industrious and frugal men who "walk the streets all day in search of work, and even bread, and there are many hundreds of the most enterprising employers who sweat by day and walk the floor by night trying to devise means to keep the sheriff away from the establishment. You are not responsible for this condition. Men here and in Europe, who call themselves states- men, have inaugurated policies of which this is a natural result. Con- sidering the increase in population, the increase in the industries and commercial activity of the world, as well as the increased area over which business was done, there has in recent years been a practical re- duction in the volume of the money of the world of from thirty-three to forty per cent., and there had of necessity to follow a shrinkage in the value of property to a corresponding extent. This has been going on for a number of years, and as it has progressed it has become harder and harder for the debtor to meet his obligations. For the 342 LIVE QUESTIONS. v^lue of his property kept falling while his debt did not fall. Conse- quently, every little while a lot of debtors, who could no longer stand the strain, succumbed. The result was that each time there was a flurry in financial circles. By degrees these failures became more fre- quent, until finally people who had money took alarm, and withdrew it from circulation. This precipitated a panic and with it a harvest of bankruptcy. No doubt there were secondary causes that contributed, but this one cause was sufficient to create the distress that we see. If for some years to come there should not be sufficient blood in the in- dustrial and commercial world to make affairs healthy, then you must console yourselves with the thought that our country, with all the other great nations, has been placed on a narrow gold basis, and you will not be troubled with any of -these cheap dollars that the big news- papers claim you did not want. The present depression, resulting from a lack of ready money in the world, shows how indispensable capital is to labor — all the wheels of industry stand still the moment it is withdrawn. It also shows that while the interests of the employer ' and the employe may be antagonistic on the subject of wages, they are the same in every other respect ; neither can do anything without the other — certain it is that the employe cannot prosper unless the em- ployer does. On the other hand, if the purchasing power of the em- ploye is destroyed, the employer must soon be without a market for his goods. The great American market was due to the purchasing power of the laboring classes. If this should in the end be destroyed it will change entirely the character of our institutions. Whenever our laboring classes are reduced to a condition where they can buy only a few coarse articles of food and clothing, then our glory will have departed. Still another -thing has been made more clear than before, and that is, that the employers, as a rule, are not great capitalists of the country. As a rule, they are enterprising men who borrow idle capital, and put it to some use, and whenever they are suddenly called on to pay up and are not able to borrow elsewhere, they are obliged to shut down. There are many advanced thinkers who look forward to a new industrial system that shall be an improvement on the present, and under which the laborer shall come nearer getting his share of the benefits resulting from invention and machinery, than under the pres- ent system. All lovers of their kind would hail such a system with joy. But we are forced to say that it is not yet at hand. As we must have bread and must have clothing, we are obliged to cling to the old sys- tem for the present, and probably for a long time to come, until the foundations can be laid for a better one by intelligent progress. 'ADDRESS TO LABORING MEN. 343 Classes, like individuals, have their bright and their dark days, and just now there seems to be a long dark day ahead of you. It will be a day of suffering and distress, and I must say to you there sqems to be no way of escaping it, and I therefore counsel you to face it squarely and bear it with that heroism and fortitude with which an American citi- zen should face and bear calamity. It has been suggested that the State and different branches of government should furnish employ- ment during the winter to idle men. Certainly everything that can be done in this line will be done, but I must warn you not to expect too much from this source. The powers of government are so hedged about with constitutional provisions that much cannot be done. The State at present has no work to do. The parks can employ only a few men. The city has work for more men, but it is also limited in its funds. The great drainage canal may, and probably will, give em- ployment to a considerable number of men, but, after all, you must recognize that these things will be only in the nature of makeshifts; only to tide over; only to keep men and their families from starving. And on this point let me say it will be the duty of all public officials to see to it that no man is permitted to starve on the soil of Illinois, and provision will be made to that end. But all this is temporary. The laborer must look to ways and means that are permanent for the im- provement of his condition when the panic is over, and these measures must be along the line of and in harmony with the institutions of this century, and 'must move by a gradual and steady development. Noth- ing that is violently done is of permanent advantage to the working man. He can only prosper when his labor is in demand, and his labor can be in demand only when his employer prospers and there is nothing to interfere with consumption. The world has been slow to accord labor its due. For thousands of years pillage, plunder and organized robbery, called warfare, were honorable pursuits, and the man who toiled, in order that all might live, was despised. In the flight of time, it was but yesterday that the labor of the earth was driven with the lash, and either sold on the block like cattle, or tied by an invisible chain to the soil, and was for- bidden to even wander outside his parish. In the yesterday of time, even the employers of labor were despised. The men who conducted great industries, who carried on commerce, who practiced the useful arts, the men who made the earth habitable, were looked down upon by a class that considered it honorable to rob the toiler of his bread, a class which, while possessing the pride of the eagle, had only the character of the vulture. Great has been the development since then. This century brought upon its wings higher ideas, more of 344 LIVE QUESTIONS. truth and more of common sense, and it announced to mankind that he is honorable who creates; that he should be despised who can only consume; that he is the benefactor of the race who gives it an addi- tional thought, an additional flower, an additional loaf of bread, an ad- ditional comfort ; and he is a curse to his kind who tramples down what others build, or, without compensation, devours what others create. The century brought with it still greater things. Not only did it lift the employer to a position of honor, influence and power, but it tore away parish boundaries, it cut the chains of the serf, it burned the auction block, where the laborer and his children were sold; and it brought ideas; it taught the laboring man to extend his hand to his fellow- laborer; it taught him to organize, and not only to read but to investi- gate, to inquire, to discuss, to consider and to look ahead; so that to- day, the iaborer and his cause, at least theoretically, command the hom- age of all civilized men, and the greatest States in Christendom have set apart a day to be annually observed as a holiday in honor of la- bor. The children of Israel were forty years in marching from the bond- age of Egypt to the freer atmosphere of Palestine, and a halo of glory envelops their history. In the last forty years the children of Toil have made a forward march Which is greater than any ever made in the wilderness. True, the land is not conquered. You have sim- ply camped upon that higher plane where you can more clearly see the difficulties of the past, and where, in the end, you may hope for a higher justice and a happier condition for yourselves and your chil- dren, but a great deal remains to be done. In a sense, you are just out of the wilderness. You ask, along what lines, then, shall we pro- ceed when the times get better in order to improve our condition? I answer, along lines which harmonize, not only with nature's laws, but with the laws of the land. Occupying, as I do, a position which makes me in a sense a conservator of all interests and classes, I de- sire to see the harmonious prosperity of all; and let me say to you that, until all the active interests of the land prosper again, there can be no general demand for your services, and, consequently, no healthy prosperity. What I wish to point out is the absolute necessity of each class or interest being able to take care of itself in the fierce struggle for existence. You have not yet fully reached this state. In the industrial world, as well as in the political world, only those forces survive which can maintain themselves, and which are so concentrated that their influence is immediately and directly felt. A scattered force, no matter how great, is of no account in the sharp contests of the age. This is an. age of concentration. Everywhere there is concen- 'ADDRESS TO LABORING MEM. 345 tration and combination of capital and of those factors which to-day rule the world. The formation of corporations has greatly accelerated this movement, and no matter what is said about it, whether we ap- prove it or not, it is the characteristic feature of our civilization, and grows out of increased invention, the speedy communication between different parts of the world, and the great industrial generalship and enterprise of the time. It is questionable whether this tendency to combination could have been stopped in any way. It is certain, without this concentration of force, the gigantic achievements of our times would have been an impossibility. Combination and concen- tration are the masters of the age. Let the laborer learn from this and act accordingly. Fault-finding and idle complaint are useless. Great forces, like great rivers, cannot be stopped. You must be able to fight your own battles For the laborer to stand single-handed before giant combinations of power means annihilation. The world gives only when it is obliged to, and respects only those who compel its respect. Government was created by power and has always been controlled by power. Do not imagine that it is sufficient if you have justice and equity on your side, for the earth is covered with the graves of justice and equity that failed to receive recognition, because there was no influence or force to compel it, and it will be so until the millennium. Whenever you demonstrate that you are an active, concentrated pow- er, moving along lawful lines, then you will be felt in government. Until then you will not. This is an age of law as well as of force, and no force succeeds that does not move along legal lines. The laboring men of the world always have been, and are to-day, the support and principal reliance of the government. They support its flags in time of war, and their hands earn the taxes in time of peace. Their voice is for fair play, and no great government was ever destroyed by the laboring classes. Treason and rebellion never originated with them, but always came from the opposite source. Early in our history there occurred what was called Shay's rebellion, but they were not wage- workers who created it. Then came the so-called whisky rebellion, created not by day laborers. During the war of 1812, a convention was held in the East which practically advocated a dissolution of the JJnion, but wage-workers were not among its members. The great rebellion of 1861 was not fomented by the laboring classes, but by those classes which ate the bread that others toiled for. It was a re- bellion by those who had long been prominent as leaders, who largely controlled the wealth of the country, who boasted of aristocratic so- ciety, and many of whom had been educated at the expense of the 34^ LIVE QUESflOUS. country whose flag they fired on. While, on the other hand, the great armies which put down this rebellion and supported the flag were composed of men who had literally earned their bread by the sweat of their brows. It is true that at times a number of laborers, more or less ignorant, who thought they were being robbed of the fruits of their toil, have indulged in rioting; and, while they have always lost by it, and while they cannot be too severely condemned, yet they do not stand alone in this condemnation, for there have been many broadcloth mobs in this country and in different sections of it, whose actions were lawless and as disgraceful as that of any labor mob that ever assembled. I must congratulate organized labor upon its free- dom from turbulence. Rioting is nearly always by an ignorant class outside of all organizations, and which, in most cases, was brought into the community by conscienceless men to defeat organized labor. There should be a law compelling a man who brings this class of peo- ple into our midst to give bond for their support and their good be- havior, for at present they are simply a disturbing element. They threaten the peace of society and bring reproach on the cause of labor. The lesson I wish to impress upon you is that in business, in the industries, in government, everywhere, only those interests and forces survive that can maintain themselves along legal lines, and if you permanently improve your condition it must be by intelli- gently and patriotically standing together all over the country. Every plan must fail unless you do this. At present you are to a great extent yet a scattered force, sufficient- ly powerful, if collected, to make yourselves heard and felt ; to secure, not only a fair hearing, but a fair decision of all questions. Unite this power and you will be independent; leave it scattered and you will fail. Organization is the result of education as well as an educa- tor. Let all the men of America who toil with their hands once stand together and no more complaints will be heard about unfair treatment. The progress of labor in the future must be along the line of patriotic association, not simply in localities, but everywhere. And let me caution you that every act of violence is a hindrance to your progress. There will be men among you ready to commit it. They are your enemies. There will be sneaks and Judas Iscariots in your ranks, who will for a mere pittance act as spies and try to incite some of the more hot-headed' of your number to deeds of violence, in order that these reptiles may get the credit of exposing you. They are your enemies. Cast them out of your ranks. Remember that any per- manent prosperity must be based upon intelligence and upon con- ditions which are permanent. And let me say to you again, in conclu- 'ADDRESS TO LABORING MEM. 34? sion: This fall and this winter will be a trying time to you. The record of the laborers of the earth is one of patriotism. They have maintained the government, they have maintained the schools and churches, and it behooves you now to face the hardships that are upon you and see that your cause is not injured by grave indiscretions. Make the ignorant understand that government is strong and that life and property will be protected and law and order will be main- tained, and that, while the day is dark now, the future will place the laborer in a more exalted position than he has ever occupied. SPECIMENS OF NEWSPAPER COMMENT ON ABOVE SPEECH. ALTGELD ON LABOR DAY. "Words fitly spoken are like apples of gold in pictures of silver." And nowhere of late have such words been spoken with more force and with promise of more good effect than by Governor Altgeld, at Chicago, on Labor Day. Governor Altgeld, at that meeting, was emphatically the right man in the right place. Not because of his official rank, though it was entirely proper, under existing circumstances in Chicago, that the Governor of Illinois should be there. It is, however, as a citizen of Chicago, elected to high office by the votes of its workingmen, who believe in and trust Him as they do no other man, that John P. Altgeld could be most effective on such an occasion. He has the demagogue's opportunity. He could easily have fallen in with the schemes of those who propose to use the State as a means of relief. Instead of this, having in mind the constitutional limitations of the powers of the State, he pointed out the impossibility of such a plan. He held before his hearers no illusory' hopes or promises, but while insisting that it was the duty of society to assist them, he pointed out the necessity of sacrifice and courage on their own part. The mutual dependence upon each other, of labor and capital, met with clear and forcible treatment at the Governor's hands. The argu- ment is somewhat trite, but is usually without effect because made by men who have no sympathy with labor, in answer to other men equal- ly without sympathy with capital, who declare eternal war between the two elements. In the hands of Governor Altgeld, talking to the Chicago workingmen, the argument becomes effective. When made in connection with a statement of the causes which have brought about 348 LIVE QUESTIONS. present conditions and the things necessary to their betterment, it cannot fail to exert a deep and wholesome influence. This speech is one of the most notable made since the beginning of hard times. In many respects it is more important than any which has been made at Washington. It required both courage and a high sense of duty to make it. Its influence is for good, and it should have wide circulation and acceptance. — St. Louis Republic, September 7, 1893. ALTGELD'S CONSERyATIVE SPEECH. Just as all sensible, patriotic citizens were shocked, and their sense of the duty and limits of the State Executive outraged, by Gov, Alt- geld's famous fulmination pardoning the anarchists, so the same citi- zens should rejoice that within a few months he should give utterance to views upon the existing evil conditions of industries at once calm, sound and fearless. Nothing is more remarkable about Governor Altgeld's address at Kuhn's Park, Labor Day, than its freedom from truckling demagogy. If the laboring men looked for a fiery Mark Antony harangue, ca- tering to their discontent and dwelling upon the wrongs that labor suffers at the hands of capital, they must have been woefully disap- pointed. He faced the industrial situation as the Governor of the State of Illinois should, squarely and candidly. He told his hearers -that if "there are thousands of honest, industrious and frugal men who walk the streets all day in search of work or even bread, there are many hundreds of the most enterprising employers who sweat all day and walk the floor by night trying to devise means, to keep the sheriff away from the establishment." He counseled his hearers to face the situation like men, and endure the present hardships with "that hero- ism and fortitude with which an American citizen should face and bear calamity." But the most important part of the Governor's speech was that in which he spoke of the government as the creature and safeguard ■of the laboring men. He cautioned his hearers against every act of violence, that could only hinder their progress, and closed by a warn- ing to the ignorant, that "government is strong, and that life and prop- erty will be protected and law and order will be maintained." Such was the tenor of Governor Altgeld's speech to the representa- tives of that labor which has no affinity or sympathy with anarchy and violence. It was rendered all the more noteworthy by the fact that on the day of its delivery hundreds of pamphlets containing his incendiary message of pardon were being distributed through the mails from the "Executive Mansion, Springfield, 111." Evidently the THE DEBUT OF ILLINOIS. 349 Governor is essaying the difficult role of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. He cannot too quickly cast off h'is anarchist notions and act up to the lights "and views of his Labor Day speech. — Chicago Journal (a Re- publican newspaper). THE DEBUT OF ILLINOIS. (Delivered at a Banquet to Foreign Representatives, at the World's Fair Grounds, Oct. n, 1893.) Illinois was young; many of her citizens remembered the time when she was not yet a State; thousands remembered the time when the Indians roamed over her prairies. But she was conscious of hav- ing had a most romantic and remarkable career. Upon her prairies and along her rivers had been performed deeds of heroism equal to any famed in song or story.. Here the red savage had committed some of his most bloody butch- eries, and within her boundaries was fought that great battle of debate and of ballots which, in 1822, arrested the progress of the slave power and then and there fixed the doom of Slavery and shaped the future of the entire country, by determining that Illinois should forever be a free State. On her State plains were mustered many of the great armies, and from her people came many of those renowned chieftains who crushed the mighty rebellion; and she gave to the Nation a number of states- men whose genius shaped the policy and whose hands guided the destiny of the Republic through its darkest days. She was also conscious of having no rival in material growth, grandeur and greatness. There was not another State in the world, four hundred miles long and two hundred miles wide, nearly every acre of which was a garden. She was the greatest agricultural State, the greatest dairy State, one of the greatest fruit States; she surpassed all other States in the extent of her coal fields, and had scarcely an equal in the extent of her quarries; her railroads penetrated every neighborhood, her manufacturing industries covered the whole field of human ingenuity, and the enterprise of her merchants was seen in every mart under the sun. She had built great cities, and when the fury .of the elements had laid one in ashes, while the embers were yet smoldering, she re-built it upon a scale of grandeur and magnificence that astonished man- kind. But while she was conscious of all these things, she had not yet formed a close acquaintance with the people of the world; she had not 350 LIVE QUESTIONS. yet formally made her debut. While her older sisters had received some attention, she had stood in th'e background; but she now re- solved to step to the front and to close this century by bringing to- gether, in one grand group, all of the highest and best achievements of modern civilization. She resolved to celebrate the anniversary of the discovery of America by bringing together here, on her soil, the greatest material productions, as well as the creations of genius and the conceptions of the grandest intellects of the time, so that the spirit which guided the discoverer across the. ocean could now, four hun- dred years later, at one glance, in one enchanting view, see the mighty results which followed in the wake of that lonely voyage. With this end in view, she asked her sister States, the older and the younger sisters, to help her; and promptly, generously, nobly they re- sponded. The nations of the earth were invited, people of all coun- tries, of all climes, and of all conditions — from the most highly civil- ized to the savage — all the devotees of learning, scholars in their se- clusion, scientists in their laboratories, philosophers amid their spec- ulations, and religionists amid their devotions, were invited to come, and they accepted the invitation. There are here represented nations whose histories run beyond the advent of letters, nations whose corner- stones are hidden in tradition. Their representatives, have come, bringing the good will of the sovereigns, and bringing with them the highest and best products of their people, material and intellectual; they have come from the great empires of Europe, from the vast countries of Asia, from the snow-covered lands of the North, from the time-worn basin of the Mediterranean, from the depths of Africa, from the islands of the sea; all are here, bringing not only the product of their hands, but the achievements of their intellect. Representative women were here from all over the civilized world. Woman, for the first time in her history, standing on an independent basis in the Congress of Nations. Men of science were here, men who have stolen from nature her secrets, men who arrest disease and strangle pestilence, men who span rivers and build cities, men who have harnessed the lightning to the chariots of men were here; men whose eyes have pierced the rocks and who have forced Mother Earth to give us anidea of her age, men who have reached into the Universe and measured the faces of the stars were here; men who paint for the ages and men who chisel for all time were here; moralists who hold their faces to the sun and Took to the elevation of man were here; and the devotees of religion were here— the children of Buddha, the sol- diers of Mohammed, the followers of the Cross — worshipers from every altar and from every shrine were here; not to destroy, nor even OPENING COL UMB US CLUB HO USE. 3 5 1 to anathematize, but rather to confer for the good of humanity. Never since the first gray dawn of time has there been such a collection of all that was great in achievement, such an assemblage of the master spirits of the world. But the entertainment is drawing to a close. The sighs of autumn are heard in the air, the Spirit of Dissolution — yea, sad thought — the Spirit of Dissolution is hovering over the great- Exposition ; that mir- acle of the centuries is going the way of all the earth. And as our guests take their departure, we hope they will carry with them that same kindly feeling for us that we have conceived for them. Gentlemen of the Old Worlds, as you go back to your ancient capitals, to your cities that are white with the frost of ages, tell your sovereigns and tell your people that the people of Illinois and of the great American Republic appreciate the honor which has been done them, and will ever remember it. We could not have succeeded with- out you. It was not a local, it was not a national Exposition; it was the Grand Exposition of the human race. Say to them that Illinois affords a market for everything that grows, from the equator to the poles; for everything that is produced, from Siberia to Africa; for everything that genius can design or hand can make. Say to them that Illinois has not only been introduced into the, society of Nations, but that henceforth she will keep "open house;" that she stands on the shore of the great Inland Sea and holds aloft a torch to light the way for every traveler and every wayfaring man under the sun to her gates ; that at her door all honest people are welcome. Say to them that every man who comes with good intent or noble purpose, or who brings new thought or lofty sentiment; every man who comes with mind to think or hand to do, no matter at what ajtar he kneels or at what shrine he bows, is welcome in Illinois. ADDRESS AT THE OPENING OF COLUMBUS CLUB HOUSE, CHICAGO. (Delivered October 12, 1893.) Gentlemen: You ask me to speak for Illinois. This is so great a subject that, to do it justice, would keep you here a week. But I have no thought of making a talk four hundred miles long or two hundred miles'wide. I will simply say that the most enthusiastic of us have no conception of the greatness and wonderful development of Illinois. So rapid has been its growth that we ourselves do not fully comprehend it. You have been an eye-witness of its more recent 35^ LIVE QUESTIONS. development; you are familiar with its institutions and know of the constant struggle to keep them abreast with the age. -The State has reached the highest pinnacle of material grandeur — no matter what she may do in the building of cities, she can never surpass her re- cent effort. She can never build greater railroads, greater warehouses, greater factories, or finer buildings. If her development is to con- tinue, then the great' forces which have created these things must be turned into new channels; we have got to look to a broader field; we have got to fix our eyes upon a higher point in the distant heavens, and instead of laboring only for the attainment of the material, we must strive for the intellectual; instead of dealing only with houses and •railroads and lands and shops, that can last but for a day in the Almighty's calendar of time, we must turn to principles that run through the ages, and to truths that live through eternity. From the coining of dollars, we must turn to the building of character. We must stop our mad rush after the material long enough to reflect that manhood is a matter of growth, that can expand, grow strong, or can shrivel up and be lost; that it gradually takes on not only the color, but the actual nature of the things that occupy it; so that he who contemplates only the earth will become earthy, while he who gazes at the stars will acquire elevation of thought, and in time the one or the other will be written on his countenance. The object of your organization is social, and neither political nor commercial, but you have adopted a name which stands for a new era and a higher order of things, and which implies that you have a higher motive than simply to have a good time. The State could feel but little interest in this, and it would be entirely at variance with the character and career of the great discoverer. If your aim is to be as 'earnest in life as his was, then you are in a position to render the State great and lasting service, to become a pillar and a power in it. Whether you do this or not, will depend upon the course you pursue. If you make this club house a center of intelligence, a place for dis- cussions and the growth of a broader- thought; — if you keep your finger upon the pulse of humanity, upon fhe great masses of the peo- ple, keep so near to them that you feel their breath and hear their heart-beats, so near to them that you understand their wants, and know the real nature as well as the cause of their suffering, and then shape your actions accordingly — then, let me say to you again, this club will become a power in the land and an ornament to the State. 'But, on the other hand, if you pursue the policy, so common with clubs, of being exclusive, of feeling that when you get within your own precincts you are so much better than the men who walk outside; OPENING COLUMBUS CLUB HOUSE. 353 if your spacious rooms become the lounging place for the weaklings who want to hang on to the skirts of fashionable society, or if, in time, you simply become a rich man's club, then the State will have little to hope from you ; for there never was a rich man's club that fought for liberty or struggled for humanity; there never was a rich man's club that won a battle or saved a nation. Occasionally they have had gen- erous impulses and lofty purposes; but even then, when they honestly intended to do something for the world, they generally began wrong. They usually commence at the top and want to work downward; a process which is contrary to the laws of Jehovah and the decrees of nature, and which, of necessity, fails. In all nature, in all conditions of life, development, growth, progress is from the ground upward. The seed must be planted in the ground, and must have time to grow. This accounts for the fact that some of our wealthy clubs wield so little influence. I asked an intelligent man recently, "Why is it that some of our clubs, made up of brainy, energetic, wealthy, and even public-spirited men — men'who, in their individual capacities, wield power, exert in- fluence — why is it that, when acting in concert, or in a body, as a club, the reverse is true; for they make very little imprint upon the history of their country? As clubs they exert little or no influence in mu- nicipal government, or in shaping any public measure, or in settling any great public question, whether it be social, economical or politi- cal." "Why," he replied, "it is because these clubs do not go with or even attempt to direct the great currents that make up our active life. They are exclusive, and when they do venture out, they talk over and talk at the people, and not to them; for they never get near enough to them to be heard. Their influence is nil, and the great mass of the people go along managing their affairs, running the government and making our history, unconscious of the existence of these finely clothed clubs." Again, gentlemen, you will become a power and a blessing to the State if you make this club an agency to quietly but earnestly sow the seeds of patriotism; not in the air, but in the ground; not as an effervescence, but as a serious fact; not in revelry, but with all the sol- emnity of prayer. So that all young men and young women shall acquire a serious and lofty idea of the duty they owe their country. On the other hand, if you deal with patriotism simply as a fash- ionable subject, then the State can expect but little of you; for there is nothing so cheap in this country to-day as this postprandial, cham- pagne-effervescing, after-dinner patriotism. Patriotism is serious; it 23 354 LIVE QUESTIONS. is like piety, it is like virtue; it vaunteth not, and it never stands on street corners and proclaims itself. Its habitation is deep in the soul, and its face is always modest. And the men who are ready to die at the altar of their country are not the boasting patriots of a banquet hall. Building up empires and developing, as well as maintaining, human institutions is serious work, and it requires the strength that comes from deep and solemn convictions to do it. The safety as well as the glory of the State, lie in the patriotism of the great masses of the people. They carry its burdens and move its machinery in time of peace, and they shoulder the muskets and go forth to battle and to death in time of war. If your club shall keep in close touch with them and sow seeds of patriotism on this ground, and see that they are watered by the dews and warmed by the sunlight of liberty and truth, then the career of this club will become memorable in the annals of the State. STATE CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS. (Address to the Trustees and Superintendents of the Charitable Institutions of Illinois, at Springfield, November 28, 1893.) Gentlemen : I have invited you to meet here to-day in order to have a general conference relating to the management of the great public institutions of this State, and to enable me to make a few sug- gestions which I could not so well make by correspondence. While public sentiment in America has been progressive and liberal, and while almost countless sums have been appropriated in the most generous manner, for the building and maintaining of great public institutions for almost every purpose, these institutions have not yet all reached the highest degree of excellence. Another fact to be deplored is that the officials in charge of these institutions are not held in that high regard by the public to which the great responsi- bilities and importance of their duties should entitle them. In some European countries to serve as a superintendent or as a trustee of a great hospital or a great asylum is to hold a position of honor and distinction in the eye of the public, and to consequently enjoy the confidence and good opinion of the public, while in this country these places have, in some cases, come to be regarded as political spoils, and the men who hold them have come to be looked upon merely as politicians who have been lucky enough to get a few plums for them- selves and their friends, and instead of being honored and regarded with a still higher degree of confidence, it often happens that men who ADDRESS TO TRUSTEES, ETC. 355 are appointed to these places are looked upon with jealousy and even distrust. Now, I want to say, that all of these great charitable institutions were founded for the most noble purpose that man can conceive, and in this State they have become so large that they require a high order of business capacity and integrity to manage them, and there is no field in which a man can do more good for the unfortunate, or in which he can render his country more valuable service, than he can right here, and there is no work that should give a man more honor or the confidence and esteem of the public in a higher degree than the work you have in hand. Gentlemen, those of you who are trustees are serving without com- pensation. You have agreed to give your time, as far as it may be necessary, to these institutions free of charge, and let me impress upon you strongly right here, that there is only one way in which you can get anything out of it in the way of satisfactory compensation, and that is to manage these institutions better than they have ever been managed; to place them upon a higher plane than they have ever been placed, and to make them do better work than they have ever done. It is not necessary to say a word in disparagement of the past. No matter how good it may have been, almost infinite improvement is yet possible. Those of you who have passed middle life have long since dis- covered that the things which give us most pleasure are those which we have done extraordinarily well. If we have done one thing in all our lives better than other people could do it, that one thing will give us pleasure as long as we live, while the ten thousand other things which we have done only, tolerably well are forgotten. If you will take hold of these institutions in the right spirit you can, in a few years, make more reputation, win more honor for yourselves and your families, than you can in thirty years of the ordinary management. The people of Illinois have been exceptionally liberal. They have aimed to make provision for almost every class of unfortunates, and they want these to have the best of care. There is ho reason in the world why the institutions of this State should not be made the very best upon earth. Everything is furnished by the people that they could be asked to furnish. But I notice that a great source of weakness in some American institutions is the fact that the management has no high conception of duty or principle, and instead of looking only to the highest interests of the institution, spends its energy in seeing how it can take care of friends or how it can make money out of the public, and the result is poor discipline, inefficient service, extravagant man- 356 LIVE QUESTIONS. agement and a general lowering of the tone of the institution. In this State I have adopted the policy of requiring that all those who fill important places must be in personal sympathy with the adminis- tration, and personally interested in carrying out its policies ; but this rule has not been applied to minor places, and my instructions have been not to employ anybody, no matter by whom recommended or urged, unless it was reasonably apparent that he, or she, was honest and competent and would do efficient work ; and further, that nobody must be retained for one hour after it became apparent that he, or she, was not the right pefson for the place, and that political pressure must be absolutely disregarded in passing upon a case of this kind ; that only the best interests of the institution must be considered. But, notwithstanding these instructions, we have had trouble in certain localities. That was one reason why I wished to have you meet here to-day, and I wish now to repeat and to emphasize these instructions ; that the whole energy of the superintendents and of the trustees, and of everybody connected with the management, shall be bent to place these institutions upon the very highest plane of excellence and su- periority possible, and that no personal considerations, no considera- tions of friendship or political patronage must be permitted to stand in the way one minute. The public is reasonable. It asks only what is fair. This being a Democratic administration, when you employ men for important positions the public will not find any fault with you if you employ Democrats, but it will find fault and it should condemn you for em- ploying men who are either incompetent or dishonest, or who are not thorough-going. Let me say here, one trouble constantly met with in the employment of men who are urged by local politicians is that they are simply what is called "good fellows." Now, no business can be run on good-fellowship alone. We need energy and thorough- going purpose; and let me say to you, gentlemen, that if you were to attempt to make places for the friends of local politicians in these public institutions, and were to shut your eyes to laxity of management and extravagance, you would never get any satisfaction out of having held this office; for when you step out of the office there will be nothing to give you any comfort, and the very men whom you have helped to place in positions will not respect you after you have ceased to give them a job. In this connection let me suggest, further, that you cannot manage an institution with a high degree of independ- ence and thoroughness, if you fill the places with men whom, for any reason, it may be embarrassing to remove. You should not have an employe in an institution whom you can not remove, without a mo- ADDRESS TO TRUSTEES, ETC, 357 merit's hesitation, whenever it becomes apparent that the best interests of the institution require it. There has been some embarrassment on account of the great expectations of the localities or towns in the immediate vicinity of certain institutions. The people of these towns seem to regard the institutions as belonging to them, and they expect to run them — to furnish the help and supplies — and they usually want to do it in their own way, and they do not want to have too thorough a scrutiny of the management. They don't want too much competition in furnishing supplies, and they don't want such thorough-going methods employed as interferes with their friends. The position of the local trustee is most embarrassing. No matter how able or honest a man is, his position is embarrassing. His town expects everything of him. To serve his townsmen and neighbors he must go in one direction, while his duty toward the State may require him to go in another. In a few cases we have no local trustees, and our experience is the most satisfactory there. INSPECTION BY TRUSTEES. On the subject of inspection by trustees and by the State Board of Public Charities, I will say that, to my mind, little is accomplished by going to an institution in a body, getting a good dinner and taking a walk around it, or even through it, and those trustees who simply go to the board meetings, and do not give the institution much attention in any other way, do not do their full duty. Each institution is so large that it is almost impossible for one man, acting as superintendent, to keep a wide-awake, energetic spirit prevailing all over it, and the trustees can help very much in this regard if they will go singly, and go often and go at unexpected hours, to an institution, and go all over it ; look into every room, nook and corner of it ; go into the kitchen ; go into the dining-room when the patients are eating; look after everything. In this way they will greatly assist in keeping up the tone, and will make it very much easier for the superintendent to keep the entire force of employes in that spirit in which nothing will be neglected. I want to impress upon you that every person who is guilty of brutal conduct toward patients should be promptly dis- charged, not simply for some particular act, but because of a dispo- sition unsuited for the place. Let me here also suggest the advisability of having a competent female physician in each of our large asylums, where women are confined. BILL OF FARE. The vital importance of having a thoroughly competent person to supervise the making of the daily bill of fare, and the cooking and 358 LIVE QUESTIONS. service, must not be overlooked. The success of your management will depend largely on this. There is such a great variety of substan- tial articles of food, costing about the same price, that with a little ingenuity the table can be greatly improved without increasing the expense. This has been too generally neglected in the past. Not only the superintendent, but the trustees, should give the table all the attention possible. PURCHASING SUPPLIES. But the principal reason for calling you together here to-day was to consider the subject of purchasing supplies, and in doing this I do not wish to be understood as reflecting upon any person who has bought supplies for any of the institutions in the past, and certainly not upon the able men now filling these places, but I want to speak of the system. The system which has been retained thus far is the old system of having a man who is connected with the institution go out into the market and look around and buy where, in his judgment, he can buy the best. At least that is the theory of it ; but in practice' the system generally works this way : If the man who does the pur- chasing is dishonest he makes an arrangement with some business house, or rather with the salesman of whom he buys, to be paid a commission in cash upon all that he buys. If he is honest at the beginning, then the usual experience is about this : He gets ac- quainted with the different salesmen in large establishments. He is invited to take a ride. He is invited to go to the theater. He is invited to do the town. He is treated to wine. He has a good time. He is treated right royally. He gets a kindly impression of his host, and when on the following day the host assures him that certain goods are the best and cheapest in the market, he is inclined to be- lieve it, and he buys them. Later on, as purchases increase, the host very kindly presents him with a watch, as a Christmas gift. Occasion- ally he throws in a suit of clothes, and ere long a point is reached where valuable presents are made very frequently. These presents are not. given by the head of the business house which makes the sales ; they are given by the salesman who makes them, and then they go onto the books of the concern under the head of expense account. Now, the large corporations of this State and other States, the railroad com- panies and other concerns that do heavy buying, long ago abandoned this system, abandoned it absolutely. They said they did not want to send a dishonest man into the market to buy for them ; that it was wrong to send an honest man into the market under existing con- ditions ; and third, what is still more important, that the most honest" ADDRESS TO TRUSTEES, ETC. 359 man living could not, on the whole, buy as cheaply in that way as they could buy under what is called the competitive system; that is, by giving everybody who has the goods to sell a chance to bid. Hence, all of the corporations have adopted the plan of never permitting a purchasing agent to go into the market ; but they make out a requisi- tion of what they need, or of what they will need for a few weeks or a month ahead. They make fifteen or twenty copies of this, send it out to that many different houses carrying the line of goods that are wanted, and receive bids from all these houses, and the lowest bidder is given the contract, the right being always reserved to reject any goods that are not satisfactory. Their experience is, that even in the pur- chase of the most staple articles, the bids will vary from ten per cent, to twenty per cent. By purchasing in this way the supplies are ob- tained, not only at the lowest figure that some one reliable house may be willing to sell for on that particular day, but at the lowest figure that any reliable house is willing to sell for on that day, and among so many business houses there will always be one or more that will have special reasons for bidding low on one day that may not have on others, especially when it is remembered that the orders from these institutions are usually large and that the institutions pay cash. Almost everything that is needed in these institutions can be described in a requisition, and when it comes to the purchase of an article like cloth, the bid may be accompanied by sample. Several of the institutions of the State have already adopted this system, and their experience is that they get their supplies from ten per cent, to twenty-five per cent, cheaper than they were able to get them before. But even if, in the long run, supplies could not be obtained cheaper in this way than under the old system, this plan should be adopted because it is correct in principle, and because it gives everybody an equal chance and is a preventative to scandal. I want this system adopted in every institution in this State and rigidly adhered to. It is not necessary to discuss the feasibility or practicability of it, because it has been tried too long to be open to question. Requisitions should be made out in copies of at least twelve or more, and copies sent to every business house that is at all within reach or that competes in that country, and then when the bids come in they should all be attached to a copy of the requisition. The lowest should be accepted, and they, together with each requisition, should be laid away, so that they can be examined at any time in the future. With rare exceptions all supplies should be purchased at the office of the institution, and the purchaser should not go into the market. Now, in conclusion, gentlemen, let me say, that if you can get this 360 LIVE QUESTIONS. system of purchasing supplies firmly established, you will have ren- dered a great service to the State and have succeeded in putting our in- stitutions upon a business plane that they have not occupied so far, and if you shall succeed in placing the institutions of this State upon so high a plane that they will be regarded as the very best in the world, then you can afford to retire from their management soon, with the con- sciousness that as long as you live you will derive a pleasure from the thought that this thing was done better than it was ever done before; that you have led the way in establishing a reform, and that you have rendered your country a substantial service, which entitles you to the gratitude and the honor of all patriotic people. I shall have something to say to you at another time, on the subject of.placing the institutions of this State on a higher scientific plane. SPEECH AT UNVEILING OF STATUE OF GENERAL SHIELDS. (Delivered in Memorial Hall, in the Capitol, at Washington, D. G, December 6. 1803.) Note. — The proceedings were in the presence of a vast assemblage, in- cluding the Vice-President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and prominent men from all parts of the country. Fellow-Citizens of America : We are here to perform an unusual ceremony, to do an act that is not common, and that has never been and never can be so. We are here not to mourn the. departure of a friend, but to honor the memory of a hero ; not to shed tears, but to place a laurel wreath. We are here to pay that tribute which civilized people give to the memory of such of their sons as have rendered great and distinguished service to their country. Occasions of this kind are not common, because few men ever render a service to mankind that ensures the gratitude of a Na- tion. There have been ages in the history of the world in which no monu- ments were erected, either because there were no men of sufficient gen- ius and grandeur of soul to do great deeds, or else there were no people of sufficient appreciation to recognize them ; and the fact that occa- sions of this character are now more frequent than ever shows the ad- vance of civilization, and it also shows that liberal institutions, giving freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of action for honest men, are more conducive to the growth of genius and the development of greatness than the repressive institutions of the past. UNVEILING OF STATUE, ETC. 361 The greater frequency of occasions of this character in this cen- tury may warrant us in saying that the genii travel in groups; that brilliancy never wanders alone, but as the brighter stars range them- selves together, so in the march of ages, by a kind of natural assimila- tion, superiority and brilliancy go together. The basis of all demon- strations of this character is gratitude — that gratitude which a living people feel for the distinguished dead. In early times great services were always of a military character, because all people were exposed to the ravages of war. Nearly all the early heroes were warriors. But ( as the world progressed, as civilization moved a league onward, and men began to understand that only through the arts of peace can the world be permanently blessed, they came to regard the founding of States as an act of immortality, and instead of remembering only sol- diers, they began to erect statues to those men who made it possible for cities to grow, for learning to flourish, for industries to thrive, and for the arts to beautify life. OTHER HEROES CREATED. And then, when civilization had again moved a step forward, and the wants of man began to develop under the new order of things, when it was discovered that there is nothing fixed or stationary in all the universe ; that change and consequent growth or dissolution are per- petual ; that the law of concentration and the law of separation are everywhere simultaneously at work, and that those laws apply not only to the heavens and to the entire physical creation, but to all social, religious, economic and political existence; when it was noticed that the tendency of the strong to devour the weak was inherent and eter- nal; that grasping selfishness is but a manifestation of universal law: that government, instead of being the protector of the poor and the weak, is in constant danger of being used as an instrument by the cunning and designing to despoil the ignorant and the unwary ; when it was found that it required constant vigilance to prevent the very best institutions from being productive of great wrong, and that problems constantly arise that are difficult of solution, and vitally affect the happiness of men, then the world created another class of heroes. It began to honor the men who devoted their lives to the solution of these problems. It began to build statues to statesmen. Not to the men who were merely office-holders, for they do little good and win no glory, but it built statues to the men who, whether in office or out of office, helped to light the way for humanity. 3& LIVE QUESTIONS. ADDED GLORY TO THE FLAG. To-day we honor the memory of a man whose career meets all three of the requirements we have mentioned. He was a brilliant soldier, he helped ,to lay the foundation of States, and he assisted in guiding the destiny and shaping the institutions, not only of a great commonwealth, but of the great American Republic. A lawyer and a soldier, a judge and a legislator, an executive officer and a popular leader, he was honest, brilliant and brave. He added glory to the flag of his country on both foreign and domestic soil. I shall not attempt to tell the full story of his life ; there are others who can do it better. I will refer to only such parts of it as tell a les- son to the age and to posterity. James Shields was born in a village in Ireland in 1810. When about sixteen years old he came to America and stopped for a time on the seaboard, working his way upward, teaching school and doing some newspaper work. He then studied law and settled in Kaskaskia, 111. The military bent of his mind led him to participate in Indian warfare for a time, but he returned to his law practice. In 1836 he was elected a member of the Illinois Legislature, and later held the office of Auditor ; in 1843 ne was appointed one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the State, and in 1845 was made Commissioner General of the United States Land Office. BRAVE IN BATTLE. At the commencement of hostilities with Mexico, he was appointed Brigadier General and served under Gen. Zachariah Taylor on the Rio Grande, under Gen. Wood in Chihuahua, and through the extended campaigns of Gen, Scott, everywhere displaying great skill as a mili- tary leader. At Cerro Gordo he was shot through the lungs and was breveted as Major General for gallant conduct. After his recovery he participated in all of the campaigns in the valley of Mexico, and was again severely wounded at the battle of Chapultepec. Returning from Mexico, he was, in 1848, elected a United States Senator by the Legislature of Illinois, and served in the Senate of the United States until in the spring of 1855. Subsequently he went to the then Territory of Minnesota, assisted in organizing the State govern- ment there, and was elected United States Senator from that State, serving, however, but a short time. He then went to California, and at the beginning of the civil war was in Mexico superintending a mine. He at once hastened to Washington, tendered his services to the gov- ernment, was appointed a Brigadier General in August, 1861, and on UNVEILING OF STATUE, ETC. 363 March 23, 1862, he won a victory over the great Stonewall Jackson at Winchester, in one of the hardest fought battles of the war, and was again severely wounded. So brilliant was his conduct in this battle, that he was congratulated, not only by Generals McClellan and Banks, but by the great War Sec- retary, Stanton, for "energy, activity and bravery" displayed by him, and was further honored by Gov. Curtin, of Pennsylvania, who ordered that the flags of Pennsylvania be inscribed "Winchester, March 23, 1862." In 1863 he resigned his commission in the army and went to Cali- fornia, but afterwards returned, settled in Missouri, and resumed the practice of law, for Gen. Shields was always obliged to work for a living. In Missouri he served as a railroad commissioner ; he was a member of the Legislature, and in 1879 was appointed to serve out the brief unexpired term of Senator Bogy in the United States Senate. This was his last public service. The people of Illinois delight to honor him, and having been in- vited to erect two statues in Memorial Hall, at Washington, of citizens who had achieved military or civic renown, the Legislature of that great commonwealth, at its last session, declared Gen. Shields to have been a distinguished warrior, statesman and jurist, and it directed this statue to be made and placed in position here. PATRIOTISM DOES NOT DEPEND ON BIRTH. The life of Gen. Shields shows that love of country and lofty patriot- ism do not depend on the locality of birth. He was reared almost to manhood on foreign soil, and yet no truer patriot ever bled for the American flag. The American Nation differs from all other nations on earth; it differs from its ancestry and differs from its component parts. The brain and muscle of all peoples meet here ; all give and all re- ceive ; all are burnished ; none remain the same ; all are transformed, not by intermarriage through generations, but as by magic, so that in a few years after landing on our shores, even though they retain their mother language, they are no longer English, German or Scandinavian — no longer Teuton, Celt, Latin or Slav — but are of that new, cosmo- politan people known the world over as Americans. Empires can only be founded by labor ; it requires labor to clear forests and span rivers, to found schools and churches, to build factories, railroads and cities. The making of a mighty State requires hewing and lifting, delving and spinning. It requires that endurance that comes from being used to hard conditions. Gen. Shields saw this ; he saw that where the for- 3&J- LIVE QUESTIONS. eign-born people joined hands with the native-born, joined their in- dustry and frugality to the magnificent genius of the native-born citi- zens, it made a force such as existed nowhere else. He saw that those States which had the greatest number of foreign- born citizens co-operating with and standing shoulder to shoulder to the native-born made the greatest progress. In them was found the best agriculture, the most railroads, the most factories, the finest cities, the best schools, the most libraries, and the greatest material and intellectual development, while those States having no foreign- born citizens lagged far behind. More than this, he saw that these people did not take up arms against their adopted country, but came promptly forward in support of the Union. Not only did their industry, joined to that of the native American, help to produce that material wealth which enabled the government to carry on a protracted war, but they and their sons made up a large per cent, of our armies, and formed a large per cent, of the dead and wounded on every battle-field. Gen. Shields himself was shot a number of times while fighting for the flag of his country ; yet, he in his day heard men, as we do in our day, inveigh against the foreign-born, and seeking to apply a different law to them from that applied to the native. The life of Gen. Shields is a fitting response to all such people. If the great Shields could animate this statue but for an hour, with what infinite scorn would his proud spirit look upon these men, who, having bled on no battle-field, stormed the ramparts of no armed enemy, solved no great problem for humanity, done nothing to de- velop our resources, taken no part in laying the foundation of State or building its superstructure ; who, having done nothing to make their country great, or their age illustrious, now seek to turn the accident of birth into a virtue by an act of Congress. POVERTY NO BAR TO SUCCESS. But to my mind, the most important feature in the career of Gen. Shields, the most inspiring lesson to the world, and especially to the ambitious young men of America, is the fact that he was poor ; that he had to toil for daily bread, not only for himself, but for his family ; that, notwithstanding this poverty, by strong resolution, by lofty purpose, by keeping his eye fixed upon the star of patriotism and of duty, he has won renown and a place in the galaxy of the world's heroes. Every age has produced millions of brilliant and able men, who, failing to keep their eye turned to the sun, losing sight of lofty ideals, gave way to 'REASONS FOR PARDONING, ETC. 365 dissipation and carried only indescribable wretchedness to miserable graves. Every age has produced millions of strong and industrious men who knew no higher God than the dollar, who coined their lives in sordid gold, who gave no thought to blessing the world or lifting up humanity ; men who owned ships and palaces and the riches of the earth, who gilded meanness with splendor and then sunk into oblivion. Posterity erected no statue to their memory, and there was not a pen in the universe that would even preserve a letter of their names. Let the young men of America learn from this statue and from the career of Gen. Shields that the paths of virtue and of honor, the paths of glory and immortality are open to them. REASONS FOR PARDONING FIELDEN, NEEBE, AND SCHWAB, THE SO-CALLED ANARCHISTS, JUNE 26, 1893. STATEMENT OF THE CASE. On the night of May 4, 1886, a public meeting was held on Hay- market Square, in Chicago ; there were from 800 to 1,000 people pres- ent, nearly all being laboring men. There had been trouble, growing out of the effort to introduce an eight-hour day, resulting in some collisions with the police, in one of which several laboring people were killed, and this meeting was called as a protest against alleged police brutality. The meeting was orderly and was attended by the mayor, who remained until the crowd began to disperse, and then went away. As soon as Capt. John Bonfield, of the Police Department, learned that the mayor had gone, he took a detachment of police and hurried to the meeting for the purpose of dispersing the few that remained, and as the police approached the place of meeting a bomb was thrown by some unknown person, which exploded and wounded many and killed several policemen, among the latter being one Mathias Degan. A number of people were arrested, and after a time August Spies, Albert R. Parsons, Louis Lingg, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden, George Engle, Adolph Fischer, and Oscar Neebe were indicted for the murder of Mathias Degan. The prosecution could not discover who had thrown the bomb and could not bring the really guilty man to justice, and as some of the men indicted were not at the Haymarket meeting and had nothing to do with it, the prosecution was forced to proceed on the theory that the men indicted were guilty of murder, because 366 LIVE QUESTIONS. it was claimed they had, at various times in the past, uttered and print- ed incendiary and seditious language, practically advising the killing of policemen, of Pinkerton men, and- others acting in that capacity, and that they were, therefore, responsible for the murder of Mathias Degan. The public was greatly excited and after a prolonged trial all of the defendants were found guilty ; Oscar Neebe was sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment and all of the other defendants were sentenced to be hanged. The case was carried to the Supreme Court and was there affirmed in the fall of 1887. Soon thereafter Lingg committed suicide. The sentence of Fielden and Schwab was commuted to im- prisonment for life, and Parsons, Fischer, Engle and Spies were hanged, and the petitioners now ask to have Neebe, Fielden and Schwab set at liberty. The several thousand merchants, bankers, judges, lawyers and other prominent citizens of Chicago, who have by petition, by letter and in other ways urged executive clemency, mostly base their appeal on the ground that, assuming the prisoners to be guilty, they have been punished enough ; but a number of them who have examined the case more carefully, and are more familiar with the record and with the facts disclosed by the papers on file, base their appeal on entirely dif- ferent grounds. They assert : First — That the jury which tried the case was a packed jury selected to convict. Second — That according to the law as laid down by the Supreme Court, both prior to and again since the trial of this case, the jurors, according to their own answers, were not competent jurors, and the trial was, therefore, not a legal trial. Third — That the defendants were not proven to be guilty of the crime charged in the indictment. Fourth — That as to the defendant Neebe, the State's Attorney had declared at the close of the evidence that there was no case against him, and yet he has been kept in prison all these years. Fifth — That the trial judge was either so prejudiced against the defendants, or else so determined to win the applause of a certain class in the community, that he could not and did not grant a fair trial. Upon the question of having been punished enough, I will simply say that if the defendants had a fair trial, and nothing has developed since to show that they were not guilty of the crime charged in the indictment, then there ought to be no executive interference, for no punishment under our laws could then be too severe. Government must defend itself; life and property must be protected, and law and 'RPAsdNs pop Pardoning, etc. 367 order must be maintained ; murder must be punished, and if the defend- ants are guilty of murder, either committed by their own hands or by some one else acting on their advice, then, if they have had a fair trial, there should be in this case no executive interference. The soil of America is not adapted to the growth of anarchy. While our institu- tions are not free from injustice, they are still the best that have yet been devised, and therefore must be maintained. WAS THE JURY PACKED? I. The record of the trial shows that the jury in this case was not drawn in the manner that juries usually are drawn; that is, instead of having a number of names drawn out of a box that contained many hundred names, as the law contemplates shall be done in order to insure a fair jury and give neither side the advantage, the trial judge appoint- ed one Henry L. Ryce as a special bailiff to go out and summon such men as he (Ryce) might select to act as jurors. While this practice has been sustained in cases in which it did not appear that either side had been prejudiced thereby, it is always a dangerous practice, for it gives the bailiff absolute power to select a jury that will be favorable to one side or the other. Counsel for the State, in their printed brief, say that Ryce was appointed on motion of defendants. While it appears that counsel for the defendants were in favor of having some one appoint- ed, the record has this entry : "Mr. Grinnell (the State's Attorney) suggested Mr. Ryce as special bailiff, and he was accepted and appointed." But it makes no differ- ence on whose motion he was appointed if he did not select a fair jury. It is shown that he boasted while selecting jurors that he was man- aging this case; that these fellows would hang as certain as death; that he was calling such men as' the defendants would have to chal- lenge peremptorily and waste their challenges on, and that when their challenges were exhausted they would have to take such men as the prosecution wanted. It appears from the record of the trial that the defendants were obliged to exhaust all of their peremptory challenges, and they had to take a jury, almost every member of which stated frankly that he was prejudiced against them. On Page 133, of Volume I, of the record, it appears that when the panel was about two-thirds full, counsel for defendants called attention of the court to the fact that Ryce was summoning only prejudiced men, as shown by their examinations. Further: That he was confining himself to particular classes, i. e., clerks, merchants, manufacturers, etc. Counsel for de- fendants then moved the court to stop this and direct Ryce to summon 3^8 LIVE QUESTIONS. the jurors from the body of the people ; that is, from the community at large, and not from particular classes; but the court refused to take any notice of the matter. For the purpose of still further showing the misconduct of Bailiff Ryce, reference is made to the affidavit of Otis S. Favor. Mr. Favor is one of the most reputable and honorable business men in Chicago ; he was himself summoned by Ryce as a juror, but was so prejudiced against the defendants that he had to be excused, and he abstained from making any affidavit before sentence because the State's Attorney had requested him not to make it, although he stood ready to go into court and tell what he knew if the court wished him to do so, and he naturally supposed he would be sent for. But after the Supreme Court had passed on the case, and some of the defendants were about to be hanged, he felt that an injustice was being done, and he made the fol- lowing affidavit : STATE OF ILLINOIS, ) ss Cook County. f Otis S. Favor, being duly sworn, on oath says that he is a citizen of the United States and of the State of Illinois, residing in Chicago, and a merchant doing business at Nos. 6 and 8 Wabash Avenue, in the city of Chicago, in said county. That he is very well acquainted with Henry L. Ryce, of Cook county, Illinois, who acted as special bailiff in summoning jurors in the case of The People, etc. vs. Spies et al., indictment for murder, tried in the Criminal Court of Cook county, in the summer of 1886. That affiant was himself summoned by said Ryce for a juror in said cause, but was challenged and excused therein be- cause of his prejudice. That on several occasions in conversation between affiant and said Ryce touching the summoning of the jurors by said Ryce, and while said Ryce was so acting as special tailiff as aforesaid, said Ryce said to this affiant and to other persons in affiant's presence, in substance and effect as follows, to-wit: "I (meaning said Ryce) am managing this case (meaning this case against Spies et al.), and know what I am about. Those fellows (meaning the defendants, Spies et al.) are going to be hanged as certain as death. I am calling such men as the defendants will have to challenge peremptorily and waste their time and challenges. Then they will have to take such men as the prose- cution wants." That affiant has been very reluctant to make any affidavit in this case, having no sympathy with anarchy nor relationship to or personal interest in the defendants or any of them, and not being a socialist; communist or anarchist; but affiant has an interest as a citizen, in the due administration of the law, and that no injustice should be done under judicial procedure, and believes that jurors should not be selected with reference to their known views or prejudices. Affiant further says that his personal relations with said Ryce were at said time, and for many years theretofore had been most friendly and even intimate, and that affiant is not prompted by any ill will toward any one in making this affidavit, but solely by a sense of duty and a conviction of what is due to justice. Affiant further says, that about the beginning of October, 1886, when the motion for a new trial was being argued in said cases before Judge Gary, and REASONS FOR PARDONING, ETC. 369 when, as he was informed, application was made before Judge Gary for leave to examine affiant in open court, touching the matters above stated, this affiant went, upon request of State's Attorney Grinnell, to his office during the noon recess of the court, and there held an interview with said Grinnell, Mr. Ingham and said Ryce, in the presence of several other persons, including some police officers, where affiant repeated substantially the matters above stated, and the said Ryce did not deny affiant's statements, and affiant said he would have to testify thereto if summoned as a witness, but had refused to make an affidavit thereto, and affiant was then and there asked and urged to persist in his refusal and to make no affidavit. And affiant further saith not. OTIS S. FAVOR. Subscribed and sworn to before me this 7th day of November, A. D. 1887. JULIUS STERN, Notary Public in and for said County. So far as shown no one connected with the State's Attorney's office has ever denied the statements of Mr. Favor, as to what took place in that office, although his affidavit was made in November, 1887. As to Bailiff Ryce, it appears that he has made an affidavit in which he denies that he made the statements sworn to by Mr. Favor, but un- fortunately for him, the record of the trial is against him, for it shows conclusively that he summoned only the class of men mentioned in Mr. Favor's affidavit. According to the record, 981 men were ex- amined as to their qualifications as jurors, and most of them were either employers, or" men who had been pointed out to the bailiff by their employer. The following, taken from the original record of the trial, are fair specimens of the answers of nearly all the jurors, except that in the following cases the court succeeded in getting the jurors to say that they believed they could try the case fairly notwithstanding their prejudices. EXAMINATION OF JURORS. William Neil, a manufacturer, was examined at length ; stated that he had heard and read about the Haymarket trouble, and believed enough of what he had so heard and read to form an opinion as to the guilt of the defendants, which he still entertained ; that he had ex- pressed said opinion, and then he added : "It would take pretty strong evidence to remove the impression that I now have. I could not dis- miss it from my mind ; could not lay it altogether aside during the trial. I believe my present opinion, based upon what I have heard and read, would accompany me through the trial, and would influence me in determining and getting at a verdict." He was challenged by the defendants on the ground of being pre- judiced, but the court then got him to say that he believed he could give a fair verdict on whatever evidence he should hear, and there- upon the challenge was overruled. 94 370 LIVE QUESTIONS. H. F. Chandler, in the stationery business with Skeen, Stuart & Co., said : "I was pointed out to the deputy sheriff by my employer to be summoned as a juror." He then stated that he had read and talked about the Haymarket trouble, and had formed and frequently expressed an opinion as to the guilt of the defendants, and that he believed the statements he had read and heard. He was asked : Q. Is that a decided opinion as to the guilt of the defendants ? A. It is a decided opinion ; yes, sir. Q. Your mind is pretty well made up now as to their guilt or inno- cence ? A. Yes, sir. Q. Would it be hard to change your opinion ? A. It might be hard ; I cannot say. I don't know whether it would be hard or not. He was challenged by the defendants on the ground., of being pre- judiced. Then the court took him in hand and examined him at some length, and got him to state that he believed he could try the case fairly. Then the challenge was overruled. F. L. Wilson: Am a manufacturer. Am prejudiced and have formed and expressed an opinion ; that opinion would influence me in rendering a verdict. He was challenged for cause, but was then examined by the court. , Q. Are you conscious in your own mind of any wish or desire that there should be evidence produced in this trial which should prove some of these men, or any of them, to be guilty? A. Well, I think I have. Being further pressed by the court, he said that the only feeling he had against the defendants was based upon having taken it for granted that what he read about them was, in the main, true ; that he believed that sitting as a juror the effect of the evidence either for or against the defendants would be increased or diminished by what he had heard or read about the case. Then on being still further pressed by the court, he finally said : "Well, I feel that I hope that the guilty one will be discovered or punished — not necessarily these men." Q. Are you conscious of any other wish or desire about the mat- ter than that the actual truth may be discovered ? A. I don't think I am. Thereupon the challenge was overruled.' George N. Porter, grocer, testified that he had formed and ex- pressed an opinion as to the guilt of the defendants, and that this opin- ion, he thought, would bias his judgment ; he would try to go by the evidence, but that what he had read would have a great deal to do with REASONS FOR PARDONING, ETC. 371 his verdict; his mind, he said, was certainly biased now, and that it would take a great deal of evidence to change it. He was challenged for cause by the defendants ; was examined by the court and said : I think what I have heard and read before I came into court would have some influence with me. But the court finally got him to say he believed he could fairly and impartially try the case and render a verdict according to law and evidence, and that he would try to do so. Thereupon the court overruled the challenge for cause. Then he was asked some more questions by defendants' counsel, and among other things said: Why, we have talked about it there a great many times and I have always expressed my opinion. I believe what I have read in the papers ; believe that the parties are guilty. I would try to go by the evidence, but in this case it would be awful hard work for me to do it. He was challenged a second time on the ground of being preju- diced ; was then again taken in hand by the court and examined at length, and finally again said he believed he could try the case fairly on the evidence ; when the challenge for cause was overruled for the second time. H. N. Smith, hardware merchant, stated among other things that he was prejudiced and had quite a decided opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants ; that he had expressed his opinion and still entertained it, and candidly stated that he was afraid he would listen a little more attentively to the testimony which concurred with his opinion than the testimony on the other side; that some of the police- men injured were personal friends of his. He was asked these ques- tions : Q. That is, you would be willing to have your opinion strength- ened, and hate very much to have it dissolved ? A. I would. Q. Under these circumstances do you think that you could render a fair and impartial verdict? A. I don't think I could. Q. You think you would be prejudiced ? A. I think I would be, because my feelings are very bitter. Q. Would your prejudice in any way influence you in coming at an opinion, in arriving at a verdict ? A. I think it would. He was challenged on the ground of being prejudiced ; was interro- gated at length by the court, and was brought to say he believed he could try the case fairly on the evidence produced in court. Then the challenge was overruled. 372 LIVE QUESTIONS. Leonard Gould, wholesale grocer, was examined at length ; said he had a decided prejudice against the defendants. Among other things, he said: "I really don't know that I could do the case justice; if I was to sit on the case I should just give my undivided attention to the evi- dence and calculate to be governed by that." He was challenged for cause and the challenge overruled. He was then asked the question over again, whether he could render an impartial verdict based upon the evidence alone, that would be produced in court, and he answered : "Well, I answered that, as far as I could answer it." Q. You say you don't know that you can answer that, either yes or no? A. No, I don't know that I can. Thereupon the court proceeded to examine him, endeavoring to get him to state that he believed he could try the case fairly upon the evidence that was produced in court, part of the examination being as follows : Q. Now, do you believe that you can — that you have sufficiently reflected upon it — so as to examine your own mind, that you can fairly and impartially determine the guilt or innocence of the defendants ? A. That is a difficult question for me to answer. Q. Well, make up your mind as to whether you can render, fairly and impartially render, a verdict in accordance with the law and the evidence. Most men in business possibly have not gone through a metaphysical examination so as to be prepared to answer a question of this kind. A. Judge, I don't believe I can answer that question. Q. Can you answer whether you believe you know? A. If I had to do that I should do the best I could. Q. The question is whether you believe you could or not. I suppose, Mr. Gould, that you know the law is that no man is to be convicted of any offense with which he is charged, unless the evidence proves that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? A. That is true. Q. The evidence heard in this case in court? A. Yes. Q. Do you believe that you can render a verdict in accordance with the law? A. Well, I don't know that I could. Q. Do you believe that you can't — if you don't know of any rea- son why you cannot, do you believe that you can't ? A. I cannot answer that question. Q. Have you a belief one way or other as to whether you can REASONS FOR PARDONING, ETC. 373 or can not ? Not whether you are going to do it, but do you believe you can not ? That is the only thing. You are not required to state what is going to happen next week or week after, but what do you believe about yourself, whether you can or can't? A. I am about where I was when I started. Some more questions were asked and Mr. Gould answered : Well, I believe I have gone just as far as I can in reply to that ques- tion. Q. This question, naked and simple in itself is, do you believe that you can fairly and impartially render a verdict in the case in ac- cordance with the law and evidence? A. I believe I could. Having finally badgered the juror into giving this last answer, the court desisted. The defendants' counsel asked : Do you believe you can do so, uninfluenced by any prejudice or opinion which you now have ? A. You bring it at a point that I object to and I do not feel com- petent to answer. Thereupon the juror was challenged a second time for cause, and the challenge was overruled. James H. Walker, dry goods merchant, stated that he had formed and expressed an opinion as to the guilt of defendants; that he was prejudiced, and stated that his prejudice would handicap him. Q. Considering all prejudice and all opinions you have, if the testimony was equally balanced, would you decide one way or the other in accordance with that opinion or your prejudice? A. If the testimony was equally balanced I should hold my pres- ent opinion, sir. Q. Assuming that your present opinion is, that you believe the defendants guilty, would you believe your present opinion would war- rant you in convicting them ? A. I presume it would. Q. Well, you believe it would ; that is your present belief, is it ? A. Yes, sir. He was challenged on the ground of prejudice. The court then examined him at length, and finally asked: Q. Do you believe that you can sit here and fairly and impartially make up your mind, from the evidence, whether that evidence proves that they are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt or not? A. I think I could, but I should believe that I was a little handi- capped in my judgment, sir, 374 LIFE QUESTIONS. Thereupon the court, in the .presence of the jurors not yet exam- ined, remarked : Well, that is a sufficient qualification for a juror in the case; of course, the more a man feels that he is handicapped the more he will be guarded against it. W. B. Allen, wholesale rubber business, stated among other things : Q. I will ask you whether what you have formed from what you have read and heard is a slight impression, or an opinion, or a con- viction. A. It is a decided conviction. Q. You have made up your mind as to whether these men are guilty or innocent? A. Yes, sir. Q. It would be difficult to change that conviction, or impossible, perhaps? • A. Yes, sir. Q. It would be impossible to change your conviction? A. It would be hard to change my conviction. He was challenged for cause by defendants. Then he was exam- ined by the court at length and finally brought to the point of say- ing that he could try the case fairly and impartially, and would do so. Then the challenge for cause was overruled. H. L. Anderson was examined at length, and stated that he had formed and expressed an opinion, still held it, was prejudiced, but that he could lay aside his prejudices and grant a fair trial upon the evidence. On being further examined, he said that some of the police- men injured were friends of his and he had talked with them fully. He had formed an unqualified opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants, which he regarded as deep-seated, a firm conviction that these defendants, or some of them, were guilty. He was chal- lenged on the ground of prejudice, but the challenge was overruled. M. D. Flavin, in the marble business. He had read and talked about the Haymarket trouble, and had formed and expressed an opin- ion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants, which he still held and which was very strong; further, that one of the officers killed at the Haymarket was a relative of his, although the relationship was distant, but on account of this relationship his feelings were perhaps different from what they would have been, and occasioned a very strong opinion as to the guilt of the defendants, and that he had stated to others that he believed what he had heard and read about the matter. He was challenged on the ground of prejudice, and, then stated, in answer to a question from the prosecution, that he believed REASONS FOR PARDONING, ETC. 375 that he could give a fair and impartial verdict, when the challenge was overruled. Rush Harrison, in the silk department of Edson Keith & Co., was examined at length; stated that he had a deep-rooted conviction as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants. He said : "It would have considerable weight with me if selected as a juror. It is pretty deep-rooted, that opinion is, and it would take a large pre- ponderance of evidence to remove it; it would require the preponder- ance of evidence to remove the opinion I now possess. I feel like every other good citizen does. I feel that these men are guilty; we don't know which ; we have formed this opinion by general reports from the newspapers. Now, with that feeling, it would take some very positive evidence to make me think these men were not guilty, if I should acquit them ; that is what I mean. I should act entirely upon the testimony ; I would do as near as the main evidence would permit me to do. Probably I would take the testimony alone." Q. But you say that it would take positive evidence of their inno- cence before you could consent to return them not guilty ? A. Yes, I should want some strong evidence. Q. Well, if that strong evidence of their innocence was not in- troduced, then you want to convict them, of course? A. Certainly. He was then challenged on the ground of being prejudiced, when the judge proceeded to interrogate him and finally got him to say that he believed he could try the case fairly on the evidence alone ; then the challenge was overruled. J. R. Adams, importer, testified that he was prejudiced ; had formed and expressed opinions and still held them. He was challenged on this ground, when the court proceeded to examine him at length, and finally asked him this question : Q. Do you believe that your convictions as to what the evidence proved, or failed to prove, will be at all affected by what anybody at all said or wrote about the matter before ? A. I believe they would. The court (in the hearing of other jurors not yet examined) ex- claimed: "It is incomprehensible to me." The juror was excused. B. L. Ames, dealer in hats and caps, stated that he was prejudiced ; had formed and expressed opinions ; still held them. He was chal- lenged on these grounds. Then the court examined him at length; tried to force him to say that he could try the case fairly, without re- gard to his prejudice, but he persisted in saying, in answer to the court's questions, that he did not believe that he could sit as a juror, 376 LIVE QUESTIONS. listen to the evidence and from that alone make up his mind as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants. Thereupon the court, in the presence of other jurors not yet examined, lectured him as follows: "Why not? What is to prevent your listening to the evidence and acting alone upon it? Why can't you listen to the evidence and make up your mind on it ?" But the juror still insisted that he could not do it, and was dis- charged. H. D. Bogardus, flour merchant, stated that he had read and talked about the Haymarket trouble; had formed and expressed an opinion, still held it, as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants ; that he was prejudiced; that this prejudice would certainly influence his verdict if selected a juror. "I don't believe that I could give them a fair trial upon the proof, for it would require very strong proof to overcome my prejudice. I hardly think that you could bring proof enough to change my opinion." He was challenged on the ground of" preju- dice. Then the court took him in hand, and after a lengthy examination got him to say : "I think I can fairly and impartially render a verdict in this case in accordance with the law and the evidence." Then the challenge was overruled. Counsel for defendants then asked -the juror further questions, and he replied: "I say it would require pretty strong testimony to overcome my opinion at the present time; still, I think I could act independent of my opinion. I would stand by my opinion, however, and I think that the preponderance of proof would have to be strong to change my opinion. I think the defendants are responsible for what occurred at the Haymarket meeting. The preponderance of the evidence would have to be in favor of the defendants' innocence with me." Then the challenge for cause was renewed, when the court re- marked, in the presence of jurors not yet examined : "Every fairly intelligent and honest man, when he comes to investigate the ques- tion originally for himself, upon authentic sources of information, will, in fact, make his opinion from the authentic source, instead of hearsay that he heard before." The court then proceeded to again examine the juror, and as the juror persisted in saying that he did not believe he could give the defendants a fair trial, was finally discharged. These examinations are fair specimens of all of them, and show conclusively that Bailiff Ryce carried out the threat that Mr. Favor swears to. Nearly every juror called stated that he had read and Masons for pardoning, etc. 37? talked about the matter, and believed what he had heard and read, and had formed and expressed an opinion, and still held it, as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants; that he was prejudiced against them; that that prejudice was deep-rooted, and that it would require evidence to remove that prejudice. A great many said, they had been pointed out to the bailiff by their employers, to be summoned as jurors. Many stated frankly that they believed the defendants to be guilty, and would convict unless their opinions were overcome by strong proofs ; and almost every one, after having made these statements, was examined by the court in a man- ner to force him to say that he would try the case fairly upon the evidence produced in court, and whenever he was brought to this point he was held to be a competent juror, and the defendants were obliged to exhaust their challenges on men who declared in open court that they were prejudiced and believed the defendants to be guilty. THE TWELVE WHO TRIED THE CASE. The twelve jurors whom the defendants were finally forced to ac- cept, after the challenges were exhausted, were of the same general character as the others, and a number of them stated candidly that they were so prejudiced that they could not try the case fairly, but each, when examined by the court, was finally induced to say that he be- lieved he could try the case fairly upon the evidence that was pro- duced in court alone. For example : Theodore Denker, one of the twelve : "Am shipping clerk for Henry W. King & Co. I have read and talked about the Hayrriarket tragedy, and have formed and expressed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the "defendants of the crime charged in the indictment. I believe what I read and heard, and still entertain that opinion." Q. Is" that opinion such as to prevent you from rendering an im- partial verdict in the case, sitting as a juror, under the testimony and the law? A. I think it is. He was challenged for cause on the ground of prejudice. Then the State's Attorney and the court examined him and finally got him to say that he believed he could try the case fairly on the law and the evidence, and the challenge was overruled. He was then asked fur- ther questions by the defendant's counsel, and said : "I have formed an opinion as to the guilt of the defendants and have expressed it. We conversed about the matter in the business house and I expressed my opinion there ; expressed my opinion quite tt% Live questions. frequently.. My mind was made up from what I read and I did not hesitate to speak about it." Q. Would you feel yourself in any way governed or bound in listening to the testimony and determining it upon the pre-judgment of the case that you had expressed to others before ? A. Well, that is a pretty hard question to answer. He then stated to the court that he had not expressed an opinion as to the truth of the reports he had read, and finally stated that he believed he could try the case fairly on the evidence. John B. Greiner, another one of the twelve: "Am a clerk for the Northwestern railroad. I have heard and read about the killing of Degan, at the Haymarket, on May 4, last, and have formed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants now on trial for that crime. It is evident that the defendants are connected with that affair from their being here." Q. You regard that as evidence? A. Well, I don't know exactly. Of course I would expect that it connected them or they would not be here. Q. So, then, the opinion that you now have has reference to the guilt or innocence of some of these men, or all of them ? A. Certainly. Q. Now, is that opinion one that would influence your verdict if you should be selected as a juror to try the case? A. I certainly think it would affect it to some extent ; 1 don't see how it could be otherwise. He further stated that there had been a strike in the freight de- partment of the Northwestern road, which affected the department he was in. After some further examination, he stated that he thought he could try the case fairly on the evidence, and was then held to be competent. G. W. Adams, also one of the twelve : "Am a traveling salesman ; have been an employer of painters. I read and talked about the Hay- market trouble and formed an opinion as to the nature and character of the crime committed there. I conversed freely with my friends about the matter." Q. Did you form an opinion at the time that the defendants were connected with or responsible for the commission of that crime ? A. I thought some of them were interested in it ; yes. Q. And you still think so? A. Yes. Q. Nothing has transpired in the interval to change your mind at all, I suppose. 'REASONS FOR PARDONING, ETC. 379 A. No, sir. Q. You say some of them; that is, in the newspaper accounts that you read, the names of some of the defendants were referred to ? A. Yes, sir. After further examination he testified that he thought he could try the case fairly on the evidence. H. T. Sanford, another one of the twelve : Clerk for the North- western railroad, in the freight auditor's office. Q. Have you an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the de- fendants of the murder of Mathias J. Degan ? A. I have. Q. From all that you have heard and that you have read, have you an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants of throw- ing the bomb? A. Yes, sir ; I have. Q. Have you a prejudice against socialists and communists? A. Yes, sir; a decided prejudice. Q. Do you believe that that prejudice would influence your ver- dict in this case? A. Well, as I know so little about it, it is a pretty hard question to answer. I have an opinion in my own mind that the defendants encouraged the throwing of that bomb. Challenged for cause on the ground of prejudice. On further examination, stated he believed he could try the case fairly upon the evidence, and the challenge for cause was overruled. Upon the whole, therefore, considering the facts brought to light since the trial, as well as the record of the trial and the answers of the jurors as given therein, it is clearly shown that, while the counsel for defendants agreed to it, Ryce was appointed special bailiff at the sug- gestion of the State's Attorney, and that he did summon a prejudiced jury which he believed would hang the defendants ; and further, that the fact that Ryce was summoning only that kind of men was brought to the attention of the court before the panel was full, and it was asked to stop it, but refused to pay any attention to the matter, but per- mitted Ryce to go on, and then forced the defendants to go to trial before this jury. While no collusion is proven between the judge and State's Attor- ney, it is clearly shown that after the verdict and while a motion for a new trial was pending, a charge was filed in court that Ryce had packed the jury, and that the attorney for the State got Mr. Favor to refuse to make an affidavit bearing on this point, which the defend- ants could use, and then the court refused to take any notice of it 3&> UV£ QUESTIONS. unless the affidavit was obtained, although it was informed that Mr. Favor would not make an affidavit, but stood ready to come into court and make a full statement if the court desired him to .do so. These facts alone would- call for executive interference, especially as Mr. Favor's affidavit was not before the Supreme Court at the time it considered the case. RECENT DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT AS TO COM- PETENCY OF JURORS. II. The second point argued seems to me to be equally conclusive. In the case of the People vs. Coughlin, known as the Cronin case, recently decided, the Supreme Court, in a remarkably able and com- prehensive review of the law on this subject, says, among other things : "The holding of this and other courts is substantially uniform, that where it is once clearly shown that there exists in the mind of the juror, at the time he is called to the jury box, a fixed and positive opinion as to the merits of the case, or as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant he is called to try, his statement that, notwithstanding such opinion, he can render a fair and impartial verdict according to the law and evidence, has little, if any, tendency to establish his im- partiality. This is so because the juror who has sworn to have in his mind a fixed and positive opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the accused, is not impartial, as a matter of fact. * * * "It is difficult to see how, after a juror has avowed a fixed and settled opinion as to the prisoner's guilt, a court can be legally satisfied of the truth of his answer that he can render a fair and impartial ver- dict, or find therefrom that he has the qualification of impartiality, as required by the Constitution. * * * "Under such circumstances, it is idle to inquire of the jurors whether they can return just and impartial verdicts. The more clear and positive were their impressions of guilt, the more certain they may be that they can act impartially in condemning the guilty party. They go into the box in a state of mind that is well calculated to give a color of guilt to all the evidence, and if the accused escapes conviction, it will not be because the evidence has not established guilt beyond a reason- able doubt, but because an accused party condemned in advance, and called upon to exculpate himself before a prejudiced tribunal, has suc- ceeded in doing so. * * * "To try a cause by such a jury is to authorize men, who state that they will lean in their finding against one of the parties, unjustly to REASONS FOR PARDONING, ETC. 381 determine the rights of others, and it will be no difficult task to predict, even before the evidence was heard, the verdict that would be rendered. Nor can it be said that instructions from the court would correct the bias of the jurors who swear they incline in favor of one of the litigants. * * * "Bontecou (one of the jurors in the Cronin case), it is true, was brought to make answer that he could render a fair and impartial ver- dict in accordance with the law and the evidence, but that result was reached only after a singularly argumentative and persuasive cross- examination by the court, in which the right of every person accused of crime to an impartial trial and to the presumption of innocence until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and the duty of every citizen, when summoned as a juror, to lay aside all opinions and prejudices and accord the accused such a trial, was set forth and descanted upon at length, and in which the intimation was very clearly made that a juror who could not do this was recreant to his duty as a man and a citizen. Under pressure of this sort of cross-examination, Bontecou seems to have been finally brought to make answer in such a way as to profess an ability to sit as an impartial juror, and on his so answering he was pronounced competent and the challenge as to him was overruled. Whatever may be the weight ordinarily due to statements of this character by jurors, their value as evidence is in no small degree impaired in this case by the mode in which they were, in a certain sense, forced from the mouth of the juror. The theory seemed to be, that if a juror could in any way be brought to answer that he could sit as an impartial juror, that declaration of itself rendered him compe- tent. Such a view, if it was entertained, was a total misconception of the law. * * * "It requires no profound knowledge of human nature to know that with ordinary men opinions and prejudices are not amenable to the power of the will, however honest the intention of the party may be to put them aside. They are likely to remain in the mind of the juror in spite of all his efforts to get rid of them, warping and giving direction to his judgment, coloring the facts as they are developed by the evidence, and exerting an influence more or less potent, though it be unconsciously to the juror himself, on the final result of his delib- erations. To compel a person accused of a crime to be tried by a juror who has prejudiced his case is not a fair trial. Nor should a defendant be compelled to rely, as his security for the impartiality of the jurors by whom he is to be tried, upon the restraining and controlling in- fluence upon the juror's mind of his oath to render a true verdict ac- cording to the law and the evidence. His impartiality should appear 3&2 LIVE QUESTIONS. before he is permitted to take the oath. If he is not impartial then, "•his oath cannot be relied upon to make him so. In the terse and ex- pressive language of Lord Coke, already quoted, the jury should 'stand indifferent as he stands unsworn.' " Applying the law as here laid down in the Cronin case to the an- swers of the jurors above given in the present case, it is very apparent that most of the jurors were incompetent because they were not impartial, for nearly all of them candidly stated that they were preju- diced against the defendants, and believed them guilty before hearing the evidence, and the mere fact that the judge succeeded, by a singular- ly suggestive examination, in getting them to state that they believed they could try the case fairly on the evidence, did not make them competent. It is true that this case was before the Supreme Court, and that court allowed the verdict to stand ; and it is also true that in the opin- ion of the majority of the court in the Cronin case, an effort is made to distinguish that case from this one; but it is evident that the court did not have the record of this case before it when it tried to make the distinction, and the opinion of the minority of the court in the Cronin case expressly refers to this case as being exactly like that one, so far as relates to the competency of the jurors. The answers of the jurors were almost identical and the examinations were the same. The very things which the Supreme' Court held to be fatal errors in the Cronin case, constituted the entire fabric of this case, so far as relates to the competency of the jury. In fact, the trial judge in the Cronin case was guided by the rule laid down in this case, yet the Supreme Court reversed the Cronin case because two of the jurors were held to be incompetent, each having testified that he had read and talked about the case, and had formed and expressed an opinion as to the guilt of the defendants; that he was prejudiced; that he be- lieved what he had read, and that his prejudice might influence his verdict; that his prejudice amounted to a conviction on the subject of the guilt or innocence of the defendants; but each finally said that he could and would try the case fairly on the evidence alone, etc. A careful comparison of the examination of these two jurors with that of many of the jurors in this case, shows that a number of the jurors in this case expressed themselves,- if anything, more strongly against the defendants than these two did; and what is still more, one of those summoned, Mr. M. D. Flavin, in this case, testified not only that he had read and talked about the case, and had formed and ex- pressed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants, that he was bitterly prejudiced, but further, that he was related to one REASONS FOR PARDONING, ETC. 383 of the men who was killed, and that for that reason he felt more strongly against the defendants than he otherwise might, yet he was held to be competent on his mere statement that he believed he could try the case fairly on the evidence. No matter what the defendants were charged with, they were en- titled to a fair trial, and no greater danger could possibly threaten our institutions than to have the courts of justice run wild or give way to popular clamor; and when the trial judge in this case, ruled that a relative of one of the men who was killed was a competent juror, and this after the man had candidly stated that he was deeply preju- diced, and that his relationship caused him to feel more strongly than he otherwise might; and when, in scores of instances, he ruled that men who candidly declared that they believed the defendants to be guilty, that this was a deep conviction and would influence their ver- dict, and that it would require strong evidence to convince them that the defendants were innocent; when in all these instances the trial judge ruled that these men were competent jurors, simply bcause they had, under his adroit manipulation, been led to say that they believed they could try the case fairly on the evidence, then the proceedings lost all semblance of a fair trial. DOES THE PROOF SHOW GUILT? III. The State has never discovered who it was that threw the bomb which killed the policeman, and the evidence does not show any con- nection whatever between the defendants and the man who did throw it. The trial judge, in overruling the motion for a new hearing, and again, recently in a magazine article, used this language: "The conviction has not gone on the ground that they did have actually any personal participation in the particular act which caused the death of Degan, but the conviction proceeds upon the ground that they had generally, by speech and print, advised large classes of the people, not particular individuals, but large classes, to commit 'murder, and had left the commission, the time and place and when, to the individual will and whim or caprice, or whatever it may be, of each individual man who listened to their advice, and that in conse- quence of that advice, in pursuance of that advice, and influenced by that advice, somebody not known did throw the bomb that caused Degan 's death. Now, if this is not a correct principle of the law, then the defendants of course are entitled to a new trial. This case is without a precedent; there is no example in the law books of a case of this sort." 3«4 LIVE 'QUESTIONS. The judge certainly told the truth when he stated that this case was without a precedent, and that no example could be found in the law books to sustain the law as above laid down. For, in all the cen- turies during which government has been maintained among men, and crime has been punished, no judge in a civilized country has ever laid down such a rule before. The petitioners claim that it was laid down in this case simply because the prosecution, not having discov- ered the real criminal, would otherwise not have been able to convict anybody; that this course was then taken to appease the fury of the public, and that the judgment was allowed 1 to stand for the same rea- son. I will not discuss this. But taking the law as above laid down, it was necessary under it to prove, and that beyond a reasonable doubt, that the person committing the violent deed had at least heard br read the advice given to the masses, for until he either heard or read it he did not receive it, and if he did not receive it, he did not commit the violent act in pursuance of that advice; and it is here that the case for the State fails; with all his apparent eagerness to force conviction in court, and his efforts in defending his course since the trial, the judge, speaking on this point in his magazine article, makes this statement: "It is probably true that Rudolph Schnaubelt threw the bomb," which statement is merely a surmise and is all that is known about it, and is certainly not sufficient to convict eight men on. In fact, until the State proves from whose hands the bomb came, it is impossible to show any connection between the man who threw it and these defendants. It is further shown that the mass of matter contained in the record and quoted at length in the judge's magazine article, showing the use of seditious and incendiary language, amounts to but little when its source is considered. The two papers in which articles appeared at intervals during years, were obscure little sheets, having scarcely any circulation, and the articles themselves were written at times of great public excitement, when an element in the community claimed to have been outraged; and the same is true of the speeches made by the de- fendants and others; the apparently seditious utterances were suclv as are always heard when men imagine that they have been wronged, or are excited or partially intoxicated ; and the talk of a gigantic an- archistic conspiracy is not believed by the then Chief of Police, as will be shown hereafter, and it is not entitled to serious notice, in view of the fact that, while Chicago had nearly a million inhabitants, the meet- ings held on the lake front on Sundays during the summer, by these agitators, rarely had fifty people present, and most of these went from mere curiosity, while the meetings held in-doors, during the winter, REASONS FOR PARDONING, ETC. 385 were still smaller. The meetings held from time to time by the masses of the laboring people, must not be confounded with the meetings above named, although in times of excitement and trouble much vio- lent talk was indulged in by irresponsible parties ; which was forgotten when the excitement was over. Again, it is shown here that the bomb was, in all- probability, thrown by some one seeking personal revenge ; that a course had been pursued by the authorities which would naturally cause this; that for a number of years prior to the Haymarket affair there had been labor troubles, and in several cases a number of laboring people, guilty of no offense, had been shot down in cold blood by Pinkerton men, and none of the murderers were brought to justice. The evidence taken at coroners' inquests and presented here, shows that in at least two cases men were fired on and killed when they were running away, and there was consequently no occasion to shoot, yet nobody was punished; that in Chicago there bad been a number of strikes in which some of the police not only took sides against the men, but without any authority of law invaded and broke up peaceable meetings, and in scores of cases brutally clubbed people who were guilty of no offense whatever. Reference is made to the opinion of the late Judge Mc- Allister, in the case of the Harmonia Association of Joiners against Brenan, et al., reported in the Chicago Legal News. Among other things, Judge McAllister says: "The facts established by a large number of witnesses, and without any opposing evidence, are, that this society, having leased Turner Hall, on West Twelfth street, for the purpose, held a meeting in the forenoon of said day, in said hall, composed of from 200 to 300 indi- viduals, most of whom were journeymen cabinet-makers engaged in the several branches of the manufacture of furniture in Chicago, but some of those in attendance were the proprietors in that business, or the delegates sent by them. The object of the meeting was to obtain a conference of the journeymen with such proprietors, or their author- ized delegates, with the view of endeavoring to secure an increase of the price or diminution of the hours of labor. The attendants were wholly unarmed, and the meeting was perfectly peaceable and orderly, and while the people were sitting quietly, with their backs toward the entrance hall, with a few persons on the stage in front of them, and all engaged merely in the business for which they had assembled, a force of from fifteen to twenty policemen came suddenly into the hall, hav- ing a policeman's club in one hand and a revolver in the other, and making no pause to determine the actual character of the meeting, they immediately shouted: 'Get out of here, you damned sons-of- 25 386 LIVE QUESTIONS. bitches," and began beating the people with their clubs, and some of them actually firing their revolvers. One young man was shot through the back of the head and killed. But to complete the atrocity of the affair on the part of the officers engaged in it, when the people hastened to make their escape from the assembly room, they found policemen stationed on either side of the stairway leading from the hall down to the street, who applied their clubs to them as they passed, seemingly with all the violence practicable under the circumstances. "Mr. Jacob Beiersdorf, who was a manufacturer of furniture, em- ploying some 200 men, had been invited to the meeting and came, but as he was about to enter the place where it was held, an inoffensive old man, doing" nothing unlawful, was stricken down at his feet by a policeman's club. "These general facts were established by an overwhelming mass Of testimony, and for the purpose of the questions in the case, it is needless to go farther into detail. "The chief political right of the citizen in our government, based upon the popular will as regulated by law, is the right of suffrage, but to that right two others are auxiliary and of almost equal im- portance: "First. The right of free speech and of a free press. "Second. The right of the people to assemble in a peaceable manner to consult for the common good. "These are among the fundamental principles of government and " guaranteed by our Constitution. Section 17, article 2, of the bill of rights, declares: 'The people have a right to assemble in a peaceable manner to consult for the common good, to make known their opin- ions to their representatives, and apply for redress of grievances.' Jurists do not regard these declarations of the bill of rights as creating or conferring the rights, but as a guarantee against their deprivation or infringement by any of the powers or agencies of the Government. The rights themselves are regarded as the natural inalienable rights belonging to every individual, or as political, and based upon or aris- ing from principles inherent in the very nature of a system of free government. "The right of the people to assemble in a peaceable manner to consult for the common good, being a Constitutional right, it can be exercised and enjoyed within the scope and the spirit of that provision of the Constitution, independently of every other power of the State Government. "Judge Cooley, in his excellent work on 'Torts,' speaking (p. 296) of remedies for the invasion of political rights, says : 'When a meeting REASONS FOR PARDONING, ETC. 387 for any lawful purpose is actually called and held, one who goes there with the purpose to disturb and break it up, and commits disorder to that end, is a trespasser upon the rights of those who, for a time, have control of the place of meeting. If several unite in the disorder it may be a criminal riot.' " So much for Judge McAllister. Now, it is shown that no attention was paid to the Judge's de- cision; that peaceable meetings were invaded and broken up, and inoffensive people were clubbed; that in 1885 there was a strike at the McCormick Reaper Factory, on account of a reduction of wages, and some Pinkerton men, while on their way there, were hooted at by some people on the street, when they fired into the crowd and fatally wounded several people who had taken no part in any disturbance; that four of the Pinkerton men were indicted for this murder by the grand jury, but that the prosecuting officers apparently took no in- terest in the case, and allowed it to be continued a number of times, until the witnesses were sworn out, and in the end the murderers went free; that after this there was a strike on the West Division Street railway, and that some of the police, under the leadership of Capt. John Bonfield, indulged in a brutality never equalled be- fore; that even small merchants, standing on their own door- steps and having no interest in the strike, were clubbed, then hustled into patrol wagons, and thrown into pris- on, on no charge and not even booked; that a petition signed by about 1,000 of the leading citizens living on and near West Madison street, was sent to the Mayor and City Council, praying for the dis- missal of Bonfield from the force, but that, on account of his political influence, he was retained. Let me say here, that the charge of brutality does not apply to all 'of the policemen of Chicago. There are many able, honest and conscientious officers who do their duty quietly, thoroughly and humanely. As a specimen of the many papers filed in this connection, I will give the following, the first being from the officers of a corporation that is one of the largest employers in Chicago : Office People's Gas Light and Coke Co., Chicago, Nov. 21, 1885. To the Chairman of the Committee, Chicago Trades and Labor Assembly: Sir: In response to the request of your committee for information as to the treatment received by. certain employes of this company at the hands of Captain Bonfield, and by his orders, during the strike of the Western Division Railway Company's employes in July last, you are advised as follows: On that day of the strike, in which there was apparently an indiscriminate arresting of persons who happened to be up on Madison street, whether con- 388 LIVE QUESTIONS. nected with the disturbance of the peace or engaged in legitimate business; a number of employes of this company were at work upon said street, near Hoyne avenue, opening a trench for the laying of gas pipe. The tool box of the employes was at the southeast corner of Hoyne and Madison street. As the men assembled for labor, shortly before 7 a. m., they took their shovels and tools from the tool-box, arranged themselves along the trench preparatory to going to work when the hour of seven should arrive. About this time, and a little before the men began to work, a crowd of men, not employes of this company, came surging down the street from the west, and seizing such shovels and other tools of the men as lay upon the ground and about the box, threw more or less of the loose dirt, which before had been taken from the trench, upon the track of the railway company. About this time Captain Bonfield and his force appeared upon the scene, and began ap- parently an indiscriminate arrest of persons. Among others arrested were the following employes of this company: Edward Kane, Mike W. Kerwin, Dan Diamond, Jas. Hussey, Dennis Murray, Patrick Brown and Pat Franey. No one of these persons had any connection with the strike, or were guilty of ob- structing the cars of the railway company, or of any disturbance upon the street. Mr. Kerwin had just arrived at the tool box and had not yet taken his shovel preparatory to going to work, when he was arrested while standing by the box, and without resistance was put upon a street car as prisoner. When upon the car he called to a friend among the workmen, saying: "Take care of my shovel." Thereupon. Bonfield struck him a violent blow with a club upon his head, inflicting a serious wound, laying open his scalp, and saying as he did so: "I will shovel you," or -words to that effect. Another of the said employes, Edward Kane, was also arrested by the tool box, two of the police seizing him, one by each arm, and as he was being put upon the car, a third man, said by Kane and others to be Bonfield, struck him with a club upon the head, severely cutting his head. Both of these men were seriously injured, and for a time disabled from attending to their business. Both of these men, with blood streaming from cuts upon their heads, respectively, as also were all of the others above named, were hustled off to the police station and locked up. The men were not "booked" as they were locked up, and their friends had great diffi- culty in finding them, so that bail might be offered and they released. After they were found communication with them was denied for some time, by Bon- field's orders it was said, and for several hours they were kept in confinement in the lock-up upon Desplaines street, as criminals, when their friends were de- sirous in bailing them out. Subsequently they were all brought up for trial before Justice White. Upon the hearing the city was represented by its attor- ney, Bonfield himself being present, and from the testimony it appeared that all these men had been arrested under the circumstances aforesaid, and without the least cause, and that Kane and Kerwin had been cruelly assaulted and beaten without the least justification therefor, and, of course, they were all dis- charged. The officers of this company, who are cognizant of the outrages perpetrated upon these men, feel that the party by whom the same were committed ought not to remain in a responsible position upon the police force. PEOPLE'S GAS LIGHT AND COKE CO., By C. K. G. Billings, V. P. REASONS FOR PARDONING, ETC. 389 ROBERT ELLIS, 974 West Madison Street: Chicago, Nov. 19, 1885. I kept a market at 974 West Madison street. I was in my place of business waiting on customers, and stepped to the door to get a measure of vegetables. The first thing I knew, as I stood on the step in front of my store, I received a blow over the shoulders with a club, and was seized and thrown off the side- walk into a ditch being dug there. I had my back to the person who struck me, but on regaining my feet I saw that it was Bonfield who had assaulted me. Two or three officers then came up. I told them not to hit me again. They said go and get in the car, and I told them that I couldn't leave my place of business as I was all alone there. They asked Bonfield and he said, "Take him right along." They then shoved me into the car and took me down the street to a patrol wagon, in which I was taken to the Lake street station. I was locked up there from this time, about eight o'clock in the morning, till eight o'clock in the evening, and then taken to the Desplaines street station. I was held there a short time and then gave bail for my appearance, and got back to my place of business about nine o'clock at night. Subsequently, when I appeared in court, I was discharged. It was about eight o'clock in the morning, July 3, 1885, when I was taken from my place of business. ROBERT ELLIS. W. W. WYMAN, 1004 West Madison Street: Chicago, Nov. 19, 1885. I was standing in my door about seven o'clock in the morning of July 3, 1885. I saw a man standing on the edge of the sidewalk. He wasn't doing anything at all. Bonfield came up to him, and without a word being said by either, Bonfield hit him over the head with his club and knocked him down. He also hit him twice after he had fallen. I was standing about six feet from them when the assault occurred. I don't know the man that was clubbed — never saw him before nor since. W. W. WYMAN. JESSE CLOUD, 998 Monroe Street: Chicago, Nov. 20, 1885. On the morning of July 3, 1885, about seven o'clock, as I was standing on the southeast corner of Madison street and Western avenue, I saw Bonfield walk up to a man on the opposite corner, who was apparently looking at what was going on in the street. Bonfield hit him over the head with his club and knocked him down. Some men who were near him helped him over to the drug store on the corner where I was standing. His face was covered with blood from the wound on his head, made by Bonfield's club, and he appeared to be badly hurt. A few moments later, as I was standing in the same place, almost touching elbows with another man, Bonfield came up facing us, and said to us, "stand back," at the same time striking the other man over the head with his club. I stepped back and turned around to look for the other man; saw him a few feet away with the blood running down over his face, apparently badly hurt from the effect of the blow or blows he had received from Bonfield. There was no riot or disorderly conduct there at the time, except what Bonfield made himself by clubbing innocent people, who were taking no part in the strike. If they had been there for the purpose of rioting they would surely have resisted Bonfield's brutality. I affirm that the above statement is a true and correct statement of facts. JESSE CLOUD. 39° LIVE QUESTIONS. H. J. NICHOLS, 47 Flpurnoy Street: Chicago, Nov. 19, 1885. On the morning of July 3, 1885, I was driving up Madison street, just com- ing from Johnson's bakery, on Fifth avenue. When I got to the corner of Market and Madison streets, I met the cars coming over the bridge. On look- ing out of my wagon I saw Bonfield by the side of a car. He snatched me from my wagon and struck me on the head, cutting it open, and put me in a car, leaving my wagon standing there unprotected, loaded with bakery goods, all of which were stolen, except a few loaves of bread. I was taken to the Desplaines street station and locked up for about ten hours. I was then bound over for riot, in $500 bail, and released. During the time I was there I received no atten- tion of any kind, though my head was seriously cut. Julius Goldzier, my lawyer, went to Bonfield with me before the case was called in court, and told him I had done nothing, and Bonfield said, "scratch his name off," and I was released. I swear to the truth of the above. Signed, H. J. NICHOLS. The following is from Capt. Schaack, a very prominent police official : Department of Police, City of Chicago. Chicago, Illinois, May 4, 1893. Mr. G. E. Detwiler, Editor Rights of Labor: Dear Sir: In reply to your communication of April 13, I will say that in July, 1885, in the street car strike on the West Side, I held the office of lieu- tenant on the force. I was detailed with a company of officers, early in the morning, in the vicinity of the car barns, I believe on Western avenue and a little north of Madison street. My orders were to see that the new men on the cars were not molested when coming out of the barns. One man came out and passed my lines about fifty feet. I saw one of the men, either driver or conductor, leave the car at a stand-still. I ran up near the car, when I saw, on the southeast corner of the street, Bonfield strike a man on the head with his club. He hit the man twice and I saw the man fall to the ground. Afterwards I was put on a train of cars, protecting the rear. Bonfield had charge of the front. I saw many people getting clubbed in front of the train, but I held my men in the rear and gave orders not to strike anyone except they were struck first. Not one of my officers hurt a person on that day or at any time. Many people were arrested, all appearing. From what I saw in the after- noon and the next day, no officer could state what they were arrested for. The officers professed ignorance of having any evidence, but "some one told them to take him in," meaning to lock him up. On that afternoon, about four o'clock, I met Bonfield and he addressed me in the following words, in great anger: "If some of you goody-goody fellows had used your clubs freely in the forenoon, you would not need to use lead this afternoon." I told him that I did~ not see any use in clubbing people, and that I would club no person to please any one, meaning Bonfield; and that if lead had to be used, I thought my REASONS FOR PARDONING, ETC. 391 officers could give lead and take it also. I will say that affair was brutal and uncalled for. MICHAEL J. SCHAACK, 227 N. State Street. Again, it is shown that various attempts were made to bring to justice the men who wore the uniform of the law while violating it, but all to no avail; that the laboring people found the prisons always open to receive them, but the courts of justice were practically closed to them ; that the prosecuting officers vied with each other in hunting them down, but were deaf to their appeals; that in the spring of 1886 there were more labor disturbances in the city, and particularly at the McCormick factory; that under the leadership of Capt. Bonfield the brutalities of the previous year were even exceeded. Some affida- vits and other evidence is offered on this point, which I cannot give for want of space. It appears that this was the year of the eight-hour agitation, and efforts were made to secure an eight-hour day about May 1, and that a number of laboring men standing, not on the street, but on a vacant lot, were quietly discussing the situation in regard to the movement, when suddenly a large body of police, under orders from Bonfield, charged on them and began to club them; that some of the men, angered at the unprovoked assault, at first resisted, but were soon dispersed; that some of the police fired on the men while they were running and wounded a large number who were already 100 feet or more away and were running as fast as they could; that at least four of the number so shot down died; that this was wanton and unprovoked murder, but there was not even so much as an investi- gation. WAS IT AN ACT OF PERSONAL REVENGE? While some men may tamely submit to being clubbed and seeing their brothers shot down, there are some who will resent it, and will nurture a spirit of hatred and seek revenge for themselves, and the oc- currences that preceded the Haymarket tragedy indicate that the bomb was thrown by some one who, instead of acting on the advice of anybody, was simply seeking personal revenge for having been clubbed, and that Capt. Bonfield is the man who is really responsible for the death of the police officers. It is also shown that the character of the Haymarket meeting sus- tains this view. The evidence shows there were only 800 to 1,000 people present, and that it was a peaceable and orderly meeting; that the mayor of the city was present and saw nothing out of the way, and that he remained until the crowd began to disperse, the meeting being practically over, and the crowd engaged in dispersing when he 392 LIVE QUESTIONS. left ; that had the police remained away for twenty minutes more there would have been nobody left there, but as soon as Bonfield had learned that the mayor had left, he could not resist the temptation to have some more people clubbed, and went up with a detachment of police to disperse the meeting; and that on the appearance of the police the bomb was thrown by some unknown person, a'nd several innocent and faithful officers, who were simply obeying an uncalled-for order of their superior, were killed. All of these facts tend to show the im- probability of the theory of the prosecution that the bomb was thrown as a result of a conspiracy on the part of the defendants to commit murder; if the theory of the prosecution were correct, there would have been many more bombs thrown; and the fact that only one was thrown shows that it was an act of personal revenge. It is further shown here, that much of the evidence given at the trial was a pure fabrication; that some of the prominent police of- ficials, in their zeal, not only terrorized ignorant men by throwing them into prison and threatening them with torture if they refused ,to swear to anything desired, but that they offered money and em- ployment to those who would consent to do this. Further, that they deliberately planned to have fictitious conspiracies formed in order that they might get the glory of discovering them. In addition to the evidence in the record of some witnesses who swore that they had been paid small sums of money, etc., several documents are here re- ferred to. First, an interview with Capt. Ebersold, published in the Chicago Daily News, May 10, 1889. CHIEF OF POLICE EBERSOLD'S STATEMENT. Ebersold was chief of the police of Chicago at the time of the Hay- market trouble, and for a long time before and thereafter, so that he was in a position to know what was going on, and his utterances upon this point are therefore important. Among other things he says : "It was my policy to quiet matters down as soon as possible after the 4th of May. The general unsettled state of things was an injury to Chicago. "On the other hand, Capt. Schaack wanted to keep things stirring. He wanted bombs to be found here, there, all around, everywhere. I thought people would lie down and sleep better if they were not afraid that their homes would be blown to pieces any minute. But this man Schaack, this little boy who must have glory or his heart would be broken, wanted none of that policy. Now, here is some- thing the public does not know. After we got the anarchist societies REASONS FOR PARDONING, ETC. 393 broken up, Schaack wanted to send out men to again organize new societies right away. You see what this would do. He wanted to keep the thing boiling — keep himself prominent before the public. Well, I sat down on that; I didn't believe in such work, and of course Schaack didn't like it. "After I heard all that, I began to think there was, perhaps, not so much to all this anarchist business as they claimed, and I believe I was right. Schaack thinks he knew all about those anarchists. Why, I knew more at that time than he knows to-day about them. I was following ' them closely. As soon as Schaack began to get some notoriety, however, he was spoiled." This is a most important statement, when a chief of police, who has been watching the anarchists closely, says that he was convinced that there was not so much in all their anarchist business as was claimed, and that a police captain wanted to send out men to have other conspiracies formed, in order to get the credit of discovering them, and keep the public excited; it throws a flood of light on the whole situation and destroys the force of much of the testimony in- troduced at the trial. For, if there has been any such extensive conspiracy as the pros- ecution claims, the police would have soon discovered it. No chief of police could discover a determination on the part of an individual, or even a number of separate individuals, to have personal revenge for having been maltreated, nor could any chief discover a determina- tion by any such individual to kill the next policeman who might assault him. Consequently, the fact that the police did not discover any conspiracy before the Hay market affair, shows almost conclusive- ly that no such extensive -combination could have existed. As further bearing on the question of creating evidence, reference is made to the following affidavits: STATE OF ILLINOIS, \ County of Cook. ) Jacob Mikolanda, being first duly sworn, on oath, states that he took no part in the so-called May troubles of 1886; that on or about the 8th day of May, 1886, two police officers without a warrant, or without assigning any reason therefor, took this affiant from a saloon, where he was conducting himself peacefully, and obliged him to accompany them to his house; that the same officers entered his house without a search warrant, and ransacked the same, not even permitting the baby's crib, with its sleeping occupant, to escape their unlawful and fruitless search; that about a month after this occurrence, this affiant was summoned by Officer Peceny to accompany him to the police station, as Lieutenant Shepard wished to speak to me; that there, without a warrant, affiant was thrown into jail; that he was thereupon shown some photo- graphs and asked if he knew the persons, and on answering to the affirmative 394 LIVE QUESTIONS, as to some of the pictures, he was again thrown into prison; that he was then transferred from one station to another for several days; that he was im- portuned by a police captain and Assistant State's Attorney to turn State's witness, being promised therefor money, the good will and protection of the police, their political influence in securing a position and his entire freedom; and on answering that he knew nothing to which he could testify, he was thrown back into jail; that his preliminary hearing was repeatedly continued for want of prosecution, each continuance obliging this affiant to remain longer in jail; that eventually this affiant was dismissed for want of prosecution. JACOB MIKOLANDA. Subscribed and sworn to before me this 14th day of April, A. D. 1893. CHARLES B. PAVLICEK, Notary Public. STATE OF ILLINOIS, ) County of Cook. f Vaclav Djmek, being first duly sworn, on oath states that he knows of no cause for his arrest on the 7th day of May, A. D. 1886; that he took no part in any- of the troubles of the preceding days; that without a warrant for his arrest, or without a search warrant for his premises, the police entered the house on the night of the* 7th of May, 1886; that on being requested to show by what authority they entered, the police 'heaped abuse upon this affiant and his wife; that the police- then proceeded to ransack the house, roused this affiant's little children out of bed, pulled the same to pieces, carried away the affiant's papers and pillow slips, because the same were red; that on the way to the police station, though this affiant offered no resistance whatever, and went at the command of the officer, peacefully, this affiant was choked, covered by revolvers, and otherwise inhumanly treated by the police officers; that for" many days this affiant was jailed and refused a preliminary hearing; that during said time he was threatened, and promised immunity by the police, if he would turn State's witness; that the police clerk and officer Johnson repeatedly prom- ised this affiant his freedom and considerable money, if he would turn State's witness; that on his protestations that he knew nothing to which he could testify, this affiant was abused and ill-treated; that while he was jailed this affiant was kicked, clubbed, beaten and scratched, had curses and abuses heaped upon him, and was threatened with hanging by the police; that this affiant's .wife was abused by the police when she sought permission to see this affiant. ' VACLAV DJMEK. Subscribed and sworn to before me, this 14th day of April, A. D. 1893. CHARLES B. PAVLICEK, Notary Public. I will simply say in conclusion, on this branch of the case, that the facts tend to show that the bomb was thrown as an act of personal revenge, and that the prosecution has never discovered who threw it, and the evidence utterly fails to show that the man who did throw it ever heard or read a word coming from the defendants; consequently it fails to show that he acted on any advice given by them. And if he did not act on or hear any advice coming from the defendants, either REASONS FOR PARDONING, ETC. 395 in speeches or through the press, then there was no case against them, even under the law as laid down by Judge Gary. FIELDEN AND SCHWAB. At the trial a number of detectives and members of the police swore that the defendant, Fielden, at the Haymarket meeting, made threat to kill, urging his hearers to do their duty as he would do his, just as the policemen were coming up; and one policeman swears that Fielden drew a revolver and fired at the police while he was standing on the wagon and before the bomb was thrown, while some of the others testified that he first climbed down off the wagon and fired while standing by a wheel. On the other hand, it was proven by a number of witnesses, and by facts and circumstances, that this evidence must be absolutely untrue. A number of newspaper report- ers, who testified on the part of the State, said that they were standing near Fielden — much nearer than the police were — and heard all that was said and saw what was done; that they had been sent there for that purpose, and that Fielden did not make any such threats as the police swore to, and that he did not use a revolver. A number of other men who were near, too, and some of them on the wagon on which Fielden stood at the time, swear fo the same thing. Fielden himself swears that he did not make any such threats as the police swore to, and further, that he never had or used a revolver in his life. But if there were any doubt about the fact that the evidence charging Fielden with having used a revolver as unworthy of credit, it is re- moved by Judge Gary and State's Attorney Grinnell. On November 8, 1887, when the question of commuting the death sentence as to Fielden was before the Governor, Judge Gary wrote a long letter in regard to the case in which, in speaking of Fielden, he, among other things, says: "There is in the nature and private character of the man a love of justice, an impatience at undeserved sufferings. * * * In his own private life he was the honest, industrious and peaceful laboring man. In what he said in court before sentence he was re- spectful and decorous. His language and conduct since have been irreproachable. As there is no evidence that he knew of any prepar- ation to do the specific act of throwing the bomb that killed Degan, he does not understand even now that general advice to large masses to do violence makes him responsible for the violence done by reason of that advice. * * * In short, he was more a misguided en- thusiast than a criminal conscious of the horrible nature and effect of his teachings and of his responsibility therefor." The State's Attorney appended the foregoing letter, beginning as 39^ LIVE "QUESTIONS. follows : "While endorsing and approving the foregoing statement by Judge Gary, I wish to add thereto the suggestion * * * that Schwab's conduct during the trial, and when addressing the court before sentence, like Fielden's, was decorous, respectful to the law and commendable. * * * It is further my desire to say that I believe that Schwab was the pliant, weak tool of a stronger will and more designing person. Schwab seems to be friendless." If what Judge Gary says. about Fielden is true; if Fielden has "a natural love of justice and in his private life was the honest, indus- trious and peaceable laboring man," then Fielden's testimony is en- titled to credit, and when he says that he did not do the things the police charge him with doing, and that he never had or used a revolver (in his life, it is probably true, especially as he is corroborated by a number of creditable and disinterested witnesses. Again, if Fielden did the things the police charged him with doing, if he fired on them as they swear, then he was not a mere misguided enthusiast, who was to be held only for the consequences of his teachings; and if either Judge Gary or State's Attorney Grinnell had placed any reliance on the evidence of the police on this point, they would have written a different kind of a letter to the then executive. In the fall of 1887, a number of the most prominent business men of Chicago met to consult whether or not to ask executive clemency for any of the condemned men. Mr. Grinnell was present and made a speech, in which, in referring to this evidence, he said that he nad serious doubts whether Fielden had a revolver on that occasion, or whether indeed Fielden ever had one. Yet, in arguing the case before the Supreme Court the previous spring, much stress was placed by the State on the evidence relating to what Fielden did at the Haymarket meeting, and that court was misled into attaching great importance to it. It is now clear that there is no case made out against Fielden for anything he did on that night, and, as heretofore shown, in order to hold him and the other defendants for the consequences and effects of having given pernicious and criminal advice to large masses to com- mit violence, whether orally, in speeches, or in print, it must be shown that the person committing the violence had read or heard the advice; for, until he had heard or read it, he did not receive, and if he never received the advice, it cannot be said that he acted on it. REASONS FOR PARDONING, ETC. 397 STATE'S ATTORNEY ON NEEBE'S INNOCENCE. IV. At the conclusion of the evidence for the State, the Hon. Carter H. Harrison, then Mayor of Chicago, and Mr. F. S. Winston, then Corporation Counsel for Chicago, were in the court room and had a conversation with Mr. Grinnell, the State's Attorney, in regard to the evidence against Neebe, in which conversation, according to Mr. Har- rison and Mr. Winston, the State's Attorney said that he did not think he had a case against Neebe, and that he wanted to dismiss him, but was dissuaded from doing so by his associate attorneys, who feared that such a step might influence the jury in favor of the other defendants. Mr. Harrison, in a letter, among other things, says: "I was pres- ent in the court room when the State closed its case. The attorney for Neebe moved his discharge on the ground that there was no evidence to hold him on. The State's Attorney, Mr. Julius S. Grin- nell, and Mr. Fred S. Winston, Corporation Counsel for the city, and myself, were in earnest conversation when the motion was made. Mr. Grinnell stated to us that he did not think there was sufficient testimony to convict Neebe. I thereupon earnestly advised him, as the representative of the State, to dismiss the case as to Neebe, and, if I remember rightly, he was seriously thinking of doing so, but, on consultation with his assistants, and on their advice, he determined not to do so, lest it would have an injurious effect on the case as against the other prisoners. * * * I took the position that such discharge, being clearly justified by the testimony, would not preju- dice the case as to the others." Mr. Winston adds the following to Mr. Harrison's letter: March 21, 1889. I concur in the statement of Mr. Harrison; I never believed there was sufficient evidence to convict Mr. Neebe, and so stated during the trial. F. S. WINSTON. In January, 1890, Mr. Grinnell wrote a letter to Gov. Fifer, de- nying that he had ever made any such statement as that mentioned by Mr. Harrison and Mr. Winston; also that he did believe Neebe guilty; that Mr. Harrison suggested the dismissal of the case as to Neebe; and further, that he would not have been surprised if Mr. Harrison had made a similar suggestion as to others, and then he says: "I said to Mr. Harrison at that time, substantially, that I was afraid that the jury might not think the testimony presented in 398 LIVE QUESTIONS. the case sufficient to convict Neebe, but that it was in their province to pass upon it." Now, if the statement of Messrs. Harrison and Winston is true, then Grinnell should not have allowed Neebe to be sent to the peni- tentiary, and even if we assume that both Mr. Harrison and Mr. Winston are mistaken, and that Mr. , Grinnell simply used the lan- guage he now says he used, then the case must have seemed very weak to him. If, with a jury prejudiced to start with, a judge press- ing for conviction, and amid the almost irresistible fury with which the trial was conducted, he still was afraid the jury might not think the testimoay in the case was sufficient to convict Neebe, then 'the testimony must have seemed very weak to him, no matter what he may now protest about it. When the motion to dismiss the case as to Neebe was made, defendants' counsel asked that the jury might be permitted to retire while the motion was being argued, but the court refused to permit this, and kept the jury present where it could hear all that the court had to say; then when the argument on the motion was begun by defendants' counsel, the court did not wait to hear from the attorneys for the State, but at once proceeded to argue the points itself with the attorneys for the defendants, so that while the attorneys for the State made no argument on the motion, twenty-five pages of the record are filled with the colloquy or sparring that took place between the court and the counsel for the defendants, the court in the pres- ence of the jury making insinuations as to what inference might be drawn by the jury from the fact that Neebe owned a little stock in a paper called the Arbeiter Zeitung and had been seen there, al- though he took no part in the management until after the Haymarket troubles, it appearing that the Arbeiter Zeitung had published some very seditious articles, with which, however, Neebe had nothing to do. Finally one of the counsel for the defendants said: "I expected that the representatives of the State might say something, but as your honor saves them that trouble, you will excuse me if I reply briefly to the suggestions you have made." Some other remarks were made by the court, seriously affecting the whole case and prejudicial to the defendants, and then, referring to Neebe, the court said: "Whether he had anything to do with the dissemination of advice to commit murder is, I think, a debatable question which the jury ought to pass on." Finally the motion was overruled. Now, with all the eagerness shown by the court to convict Neebe, it must have re- garded the evidence against him as very weak, otherwise it would not have made this admission, for if it was a debatable question whether REASONS FOR PARDONING, ETC. 399 the evidence tended to show guilt, then that evidence must have been far from being, conclusive upon the question as to whether he was actually guilty; this being so, the verdict should not have been al- lowed to stand, because the law requires that a man shall be proven to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt before he can be convicted of criminal offense. I have examined all of the evidence against Neebe with care, and it utterly fails to prove even the shadow of a case against him. Some of the other defendants were guilty of using seditious language, but even this cannot be said of Neebe. PREJUDICE OR SUBSERVIENCY OF JUDGE. V. It is further charged, with much 'bitterness, by those who speak for the prisoners, that the record of this case shows that the judge conducted the trial with malicious ferocity, and forced eight men to be tried together; that in cross-examining the State's witnesses, he confined counsel to the specific points touched on by the State, while in the cross-examination of the defendants' witnesses he per- mitted the State's Attorney to go into all manner of subjects entirely foreign to the matters on which the witnesses were examined in chief; also, that every ruling throughout the long trial on any con- tested point, was in favor of the State; and further, that page after page of the record contains insinuating remarks of the judge, made in the hearing of the jury, and with the evident intent of bringing the jury to his way of thinking; that these speeches, coming from the court, were much more damaging than any speeches from the State's Attorney could possibly have been; that the State's Attorney often took his cue from the judge's remarks; that the judge's magazine article recently published, although written nearly six years after the trial, is yet full of venom; that, pretending to simply review the case, he had to drag into his article a letter written by an excited woman to a newspaper after the trial was over, and which therefore had nothing to do with the case, and was put into the articles simply to create a prejudice against the woman, as well as against the dead and the living; and that, not content with this, he, in the same article, makes an insinuating attack on one of the lawyers for the defense, not for anything done at the trial, but because more than a year after the trial, when some of the defendants had been hung, he ventured to express a few kind, if erroneous, sentiments over the graves of his dead clients, whom he at least believed to be innocent. It is urged that such ferocity of subserviency is without a parallel in 460 'LIVE QUESTIONS. all history; that even Jeffries in England, contented himself with hanging his victims, and did not stoop to berate them after death. These charges are of a personal character, and while they seem to be sustained by the record of the trial and the papers before me, and tend to show the trial was not fair, I do not care to discuss this feature of the case any farther, because it is not necessary. I am convinced that it is clearly my duty to act in this case for the reasons already given, and I, therefore, grant an absolute pardon to Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe and Michael Schwab, this 26th day of June, 1893. JOHN P. ALTGELD, Governor of Illinois. SPEECH AT BANQUET TO -DIRECTOR GENERAL DAVIS. (Tendered by Foreign Commissioners, at the Auditorium, November n, 1893.) But few men are so fortunate as to have their names associated with great affairs. But few men are ever blessed with an opportunity to render their country, or their age a service that will hand their names down to posterity. The temple of fame is so carefully guarded by the genii that but few mortals ever enter it. Millions of men with high ambition, with patriotic fervor and noble sacrifice, have had to content themselves with the approval of their own conscience and the good opinions of their neighbors. They have died in the arms of their families and passed to the shad- ows beyond without having left even a foot-print on the path they trod. The man in whose honor we have met to-night has been more highly favored. The fates seem to smile on him; again and again have they beckoned him onward and upward. He served his coun- try as 'a_ soldier; he served it in the national halls of legislation; he served it in a position of great financial responsibility, and then the fates beckoned him still higher, and he served his country as Director General of the great Columbian Exposition. Most fortunate man, to have his name prominently associated with the building, the making and the managing of that wonderful World's Fair! Most fortunate are all of the great men whose genius and creative force made and managed that marvel of the age which has placed a wreath of im- mortality on the brow of this century, and which will emblazon the names of its creators in the temple of achievement, where they will be honored by the generations to come as these read of, talk of, and wonder over the glories of the famous White City. SPEECH AT A BANQUET, ETC. 401 Gentlemen of the Foreign Commission, in honoring this distin- guished citizen of Illinois you honor our State and honor our people, and you place our State and our people under still greater obliga- tions to you and to your sovereigns and your people. As I have not heretofore had- an opportunity of conveying to you the gratitude of this great State, permit me now to say that in coming as you did from all countries and bringing us the best wishes of your sovereigns, and the highest and best productions of the genius and the industry of your people, you have done us an honor which our people highly appreciate and will take pride in repaying if ever an opportunity offers. But more than this, by the appreciative and friendly spirit you have shown while with us, by your generous kindness and obliging con- duct, you have won for yourselves, your sovereigns and your people, our love and affection. The exposition has taught its lesson to you and to us. It has pointed the tendency of civilization; it has shown the possibilities of human achievement; it has brought all people nearer together and it has most effectively taught the gospel of peace by showing that peace alone creates. The arm of war destroys, while the world halts; but the hand of peace builds and leads the world upward. Again, in my view, the exposition has taught that freedom is the great creative and moving force of all progress and of all achieve- ment. Freedom of thought, freedom of speech and freedom of action for the honest man give activity to hand and to brain, and set in motion all the agencies that advance civilization and move the world. I believe that the country which gives the greatest freedom to its citizens will have the advantage in the future, as it has had in the past, in the race between nations for industrial activity and general development. You are about to take your departure. You will return to your countries to wrestle with the great national problems which confront you there, while we struggle with those which confront us here. With many of you it is the question of militarism; the question of saving the mental and physical energy which it destroys and of avoiding the great burdens it entails. With us the great problem is that of industrial and commercial development. Some of us believe that herein we have an advantage because, not having to maintain a large military establishment, we can direct all this energy and force into the channels of industry and material and intellectual development, and that, having this advarj- ?6 402 LIVE QUESTIONS. tage, we should in time outstrip those nations that are not so fortu- nate. But however this may be, let me assure you of our good-will, and say to you that here in Illinois you will ever be kindly remembered, and here you will always find a welcome. Our benedictions will follow you across the seas to your homes in Europe and the Orient, and our prayers will bespeak for you the choicest blessings of Divine Providence. ADDRESS AT LAYING OF CORNER-STONE OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. (Delivered at Lincoln Park, Chicago, October 10, 1893.) Yesterday over 700,000 people celebrated the restoration of Chi- cago, that city which twenty-two years ago lay in ashes, and which has been rebuilt on a scale of magnificence and grandeur that excites the admiration and wonder of the world. But, great as is Chicago — great in its railroads, great in its factories, its warehouses, its office temples, great in its energy and enterprise of its people — its glory will fade unless it builds on more than material foundations. The generations to come will care nothing for our warehouses, our buildings or our railroads; but they will ask what has Chicago done for humanity; where has it made man wiser, nobler or stronger; what new thought, or principle, or truth has it given to the world? There have been nations which have had great material grandeur, but nothing more, and their very existence has faded from the mem- ory of time; and those nations and cities which we regard as the greatest, are remembered, not for physical prowess, but for their intellectual achievements. Greece was a great country for ages. It had granaries, and ships, and armies, and wealthy men; but they are all forgotten, and to-day the world looks with interest only to that period which it calls the classic age, when dramatists wrote, philosophers investigated, poets sang, artists created, and orators thundered. Rome was, in a material sense, the most mighty nation on earth.. It had conquering armies, countless slaves, great fleets, vast granaries, charming baths, and - wonderful temples; but those are all covered with the dust of time. The world calls that the golden age of Rome which followed these things. The age when poetry flourished, when jurisprudence was studied, when art was cultivated, and literature was patronizedt LAYING OF CORNER-STONE. 403 England has been a great nation for many centuries; the mis- tress of the seas, the counting house, and for a time, the work-shop of the world; yet men turn away from all this and look with admira- tion to the England of Elizabeth, for it was then that letters thrived ; that learning was fostered; that the mind of man looked upward, to higher ideals and nobler sentiments. The generations which coined their lives into sordid gold, are forgotten, while those which struggled to uplift humanity, are remembered and honored. New England has exercised a powerful influence over the entire Republic; has shaped its institutions and largely determined its des- tiny; and has done this, not through any material advantages, for she had none, but she has done it through her ideas. Her schools, her colleges, her universities have shed their lights across this conti- nent; and while we know little of her shops or her cities, we read her books with delight. We, of Chicago, must learn from the past that gold cast upon the waters will return no part bread, but sinks forever out of sight, while ideas given to the world go on for generations, and every new principle coaxed out of Nature's secrets will assist mankind in the onward struggle. We have reached the highest notch of material development and prosperity, and we must set our eyes toward the spiritual. We must look toward the ideal; must labor for the dis- covery and the establishment of truth. This age has wrested from the earth, from the air and from the clouds many of their secrets, and has harnessed some of their vital forces to the chariots of men and taught them to carry man's bur- dens and to do his work, while, at the same time, it has extended the horizon and given us a wider view of the universe. We are here to-day to lay the corner-stone of a temple that is to be devoted to science, devoted to analysis, investigation, to discovery; a temple in which the youth of the land may be instructed in all those branches of knowledge which lie at the basis of modern civilization. And if the lofty conceptions of its founders shall be realized, it will shed a light through the centuries, and will add to the luster of our achievements. On behalf of the people of the State of Illinois, on whose ground we stand, I place this stone in position, with the hope that the in- fluence of this institution which we here found may be as enduring as the earth on which it stands. 404 LIVE QUESTIONS. HOW WOULD I SPEND A MILLION DOLLARS AS A PHILANTHROPIST? (From the "New York Recorder.") A correspondent of the above paper submitted the following ques- tion: "How would you give away $1,000,000, if you were a rich philanthropist and had it to spare?" Answer: "Candidly, I don't know. I have thought about the best methods of spending money for the poor a great deal, and have not been able to arrive at any conclusion. To spend it at once would, of course, give temporary relief, and make a few people happy for the moment, but then it is gone. On the other hand, to arrange it so that it will be in the nature of a permanent fund, the increment of which shall be used for the relief of human suffering, means that there must be a board of managers, or a superintendent or matron, or some official of that kind, and it will not be long until it will be managed so that the official having it in charge will get not only the cream but the larger share of the sour milk, and the objects of charity for whom it was intended will be treated simply as a kind of convenience, whose existence is necessary in order to make the office of matron or superintendent or manager needful. EXTERIOR OF WORLD'S FAIR. (From the Inter Ocean, Nov. 12, 1893.) What particular feature of the World's Fair made the strongest impression on me? Why, the overwhelming grandeur of its ex- terior. When I gazed at the lagoons, the vistas, the courts, the temples of industry, the palaces of art, of science and of learning, covering the earth as far as the eye could see, all rearing their heads toward heaven; when I beheld the wonders of architecture smiling in the sun, and the flags of all nations floating on the breeze and speaking the language of peace, I had neither speech nor thought. It was an intoxication, an enchantment, a delight. The soul wanted nothing more. I feel its magic spell now, and marvel at the possi- bilities of human achievement. ANARCHY IN ILLINOIS. 405 INTERVIEW ON ANARCHY IN ILLINOIS. (Chicago "Tribune," August 31, 1893.) Governor Altgeld, in the course of an interview on reports of recent activity among anarchists in Chicago, said: "All talk of that kind is a malicious libel upon the great city of Chicago and the fair name of our State, and it is that kind of irre- sponsible talk in the past that has done incalculable injury to our good name, and it should be stopped, not only by individuals, but by the newspapers that have been indulging in it." "Why do you say it is a libel?" "Because it is and always has been absolutely without foundation, and has been indulged in, in part, for sensational purposes, and in part because Certain individuals found that they could not only make political capital out of it, but could derive personal benefit and ad- vantage by it." "Why do you say that?" "Because the man who was chief of police at the time the so-called anarchist agitation was at its height some years ago, the man who was one of the most honest and able chiefs of police Chicago ever had, has not only stated that he investigated the whole matter care- fully, and watched the so-called anarchists, and that he came to the conclusion that there was not much in the whole anarchist talk, but he has further stated that there were prominent police officials who wanted to have bogus anarchist conspiracies formed in order to get the credit of dispersing them, and who wanted to keep the conserva- tive public in a state of alarm, in order that they themselves might derive personal advantages out. of it in the way of achieving glory and promotion. Since that, the same tactics have been resorted to repeatedly by self-called detectives; and I have been informed at different times during the last seven or eight years, that some wealthy business men of Chicago were kept in such a state of uneasiness by this anarchistic talk, that they were induced, from time to time, to pay money to these fellows for the ostensible purpose of watching the maneuvers of a class of people who in reality had no existence. "They have not yet found out who threw the bomb at the riot in 1886, consequently there is nothing to show that he was an anar- chist. Vast sums of money have been spent and great efforts have been made to find out all about it, and if the police have any infor- mation on the subject, then the fact that they refuse to say who it was, would show almost conclusively that he was not an anarchist. 406 LIVE QUESTIONS. ANARCHY AND THE ELECTION. "Now, there is an election to be held in Chicago this fall, and some of the newspapers there have again shown a readiness to slander that great city by publishing paragraphs about anarchists, in order, as they imagine, to make some political capital out of it." "Do you think, Governor, that there are no anarchists in Chi- cago?" "I have examined the whole subject carefully. I have been in communication with all classes of people, including newspaper men and others, who had previously talked much on this subject, and I am convinced that there are not and there never have been fifty anarchists in the whole State of Illinois. I don't believe there are fifty in all America. Of course, small agitators will assert to the con- trary, but that signifies nothing. We have our criminal classes, as all other States and cities have. We have our percentage of thieves, of robbers, murderers, and of swindlers, but no more than our per- centage. We have discontented people, as every State and country in the world has. We have all manner of theorists, but they are law- abiding. We occasionally have serious labor troubles, as every in- dustrial community has. Let me say now that Illinois is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, industrial State on the face of the earth, and, considering the extent of its industries, we have not the per- centage of labor troubles that they have in other States. During times of strikes there are occasional collisions with the authorities, just as there are in other States, and in times of serious labor trouble, there is more or less irresponsible and wild talk, all of which subsides and is forgotten the moment the labor trouble is over. At present the outlook for laborers is bad, and we have a great many thousands of idle men. PATRIOTS AMONG BREAD RIOTERS. "Nobody likes to starve while there is bread in sight, and we may have an occasional bread riot, but it will be by people nearly every man of whom would fight for the Stars and Stripes. There are to be found in all cities a few irresponsible agitators who talk loud and make a noise, and if the newspapers will give them space the public may be led to believe that there are many men talking. The fact is, it is time our people were developing a little more State pride. The growth of the State has been so marvelously rapid, and its develop- ment so wonderful, that our people do not yet fully understand that jn everything that goes to make up a civilized and a mighty people, SECRET PROSCRIPTIVE SOCIETIES. 407 Illinois is the greatest State upon earth. Yet such has been the course of some of our great newspapers in the past, that an unfavor- able impression has been made upon the world, and as a consequence, some of the States, that have scarcely anything left but an over- weening conceit and a threadbare reminiscence, actually assume an air of superiority towards us. We can afford to smile at those pre- tensions, but while the people of the world are coming to us in great numbers, and are amazed at our achievements and our greatness, I hope the press will not stoop to slander the good name of our great State and of marvelous Chicago." SECRET PROSCRIPTIVE SOCIETIES. Milwaukee, January 11, 1893. The Catholic Citizen of to-day publishes the following letter from Governor Altgeld: Editor of the "Catholic Citizen," Milwaukee, Wis.: Dear Sir — In answer to your favor of the 5th inst., asking me to give you my opinion upon the A. P. A. movement, permit me to say that I have not the time at present to enter upon a discussion cf the subject, and can only give brief and off-hand answers to your specific questions: 1. 'What is your opinion of secret proscriptive societies?" Answer: Secret proscriptive societies, meeting in dark places and taking dark oaths to do dark things, have never benefited the world. They are the legitimate children of despotism and have no place in a Republic. The glory of our country is largely due to the fact that we have let sunshine in on every question and every place, and any proscriptive movement is at variance with our career and is antago- nistic to free government. 2. "What do you think of the A. P. A. movement?" Answer: The American people differ from all other people in the world in that they are composed or made up of all nationalities, representing all religions and all theories, and thus constituting an entirely new people, distinct from all of its elements, and possessing an energy and enterprise such as the world has not seen before. Our marvelous achievements and great advancement are due to the fact that all of the nationalities and religionists have lived together har- moniously, have worked side by side in peace and have lent each 4o8 LIVE QUESTIONS. other a helping hand. The effect of any proscriptive movement must be to entirely change this condition of affairs, to beget family feuds, to set neighbor against neighbor and townsman against townsman, to revive the spirit of fanaticism, and in the end lead to violence, riot and bloodshed. This being so, I regard the A. P. A. movement as being unpatriotic and dangerous in character, but I do not believe it can have a long life or meet with much success, because the in- telligence of the American people is too great to permit this mediaeval spirit to take root in this country. 3. "Do you think the A. P. A. sentiment is generally diffused among Protestants?" Answer: No, I do not; they are too intelligent for that. 4. "What is the right remedy against such movements?" Answer: The most wide and thorough discussion possible; hold the whole subject up to the sun and it will right itself. 5. "In what respect, if any, are Catholics blamable?" Answer: I do not know, unless it should be true that they have, in cases, been offensively aggressive, especially in the matter of secur- ing and holding public offices, and also, perhaps, in not repudiating the sentiments of some of the priests who openly assail our public school system. The American people believe in the public schools, and are quick to resent any attack upon' them. Hoping you will excuse me from a further discussion of the sub- ject at present, I am Very respectfully, JOHN P. ALTGELD, Governor of Illinois. WHY ILLINOIS GIVES THANKS. You ask: "Will Illinois give thanks this year, and, if so, why?" "Yes; Illinois will give thanks. She has enjoyed so many bless- ings this year, material and spiritual, intellectual and moral; she has taken such a forward stride in sight of all the world, and has been so loaded with honors and crowned with success, and she is feeling so grateful to all the earth, that if there were no God, she would create one, in order to have a being to whom she could pour out her soul" in gratitude. She has been free from famine or pestilence; free from the scourges that destroy humanity; and, while she has felt the de- pression of the times, she has had bread for her children and habita- tions for her people. She has, during the year, created new temples of learning and has been introduced to all the nations. She has WRY TRIAL W POLICE COURTS. 409 entertained the children of all lands and has seen the best products of the industry, the genius and the intelligence of all peoples exhibited here within her borders. She has witnessed a great step forward of all the forces that tend to elevate and enlighten mankind. Here, for the first time in history, has woman stood on an absolutely independ- ent basis, in carrying out a great work; and, here in Illinois, for the first time since man gazed at the sun, or appealed to a God, have the representatives of all religions met and offered each other friendly hands and given each other respectful hearing, and from her precincts has gone forth this year a new gospel of toleration and co-operation, a new gospel of peace among men and happiness upon earth. Yea, with uncovered head and with her face toward the morning, Illinois will give thanks to the Ruler of the Universe, for having placed her star in the brightest constellation and given her a year big with fate and great in results ; a year breathing progress, glowing with inspira- tion and covered with glory; a year forever memorable in the annals of time." JURY TRIAL IN POLICE COURTS. Executive Office, June 19, 1893. Adolph Kraus, Corporation Counsel, City Hall, Chicago: My Dear Kraus: I have your favor of the 17th inst. and will simply say in regard to the Jury Bill that I have no doubt on earth some of the police court officials will do their best to thwart it if they can, and to make just as much trouble on account of it as possible. This was to be expected. Men who have been making fortunes out of police courts and by hanging around police courts naturally are opposed to anything that will interfere with their slimy business, but that has nothing to do with the principle involved in this case. First, this bill assures every man, woman and child, of a trial by jury before they shall be sentenced to prison on a judgment. We have had this in theory ever since the foundation of the government, but so far it has in practice never reached the poorer classes. In the Circuit and Superior courts every one was given a jury trial before sentence, but in the police courts and justice courts wagon-loads of people against whom there was no evidence were sent to prison on the say-so of the justice, and then simply because a policeman stand- ing by demanded it. A judge of one of the higher courts could not sentence anyone to prison for an hour without a jury trial, but a police 4*a LIVE QUESTIOHS. justice will send a hundred persons to prison for six months in two hours. Now, Kraus, you are a democrat and have an extraordinarily large amount of good sense and remarkably good judgment, besides being one of the best lawyers in your town. I don't want you to tell me, as several little fellows have told me, that the proceedings in justice courts are civil, and are not criminal at all. I say I don't want you to talk to me along that line, because such a miserable subterfuge as that always tries my patience, for to rush a man through the farce of a trial and then lock him up in a small penitentiary for six months and then tell him that -the proceeding is civil entirely, and has nothing of the criminal nature about it, is an insult to intelligence. The proceedings in our justice courts, as you know, have been simply infamous for years and a disgrace to our city and our State, as well as a crime against humanity. Different efforts have been made to put an end to this infamy, but on account of some antiquated con- stitutional provisions it has been found impossible to do it, so that we see the spectacle almost every night of from fifty to one hundred peo- ple being run into a police station, the police justice getting $i out of each one of these wretches, who can give a bond, for approving the bond; the fellows who want to give bail for a consideration getting everything the poor wretches have for signing the bond, and at times, as is commonly believed, the officer in command of the station and who orders the raid, getting his share of this slimy harvest. On the next morning the police justice, who holds his appointment from the Mayor, and who feels that the influence of the police, backed by their aldermen, can secure his removal, frequently finds it necessary to protect the policemen who have run in men and women, boys and girls, without any .cause on earth, and for this purpose imposes a small fine and costs, and whenever this is not paid of course the vic- tims find themselves in the Bridewell immediately after dinner, and let me say that the Bridewell is a worse place to be locked up in than any prison in the State, not excepting Joliet and Chester, and this is not because of the management, which I believe is now pretty good, but because the conditions make it so. The down-town police justices come to their courts at 9 o'clock; generally get through before 1 1 o'clock, and then go up to their offices, where they do civil business the rest of the day. Consequently, in less than two hours they dispose of upwards of fifty cases. This mere statement shows that the proceeding is a farce. Now you say: "But, if you give every person who demands it a jury, then the present police justices can not possibly do the business." Well, Kraus, there are WRY TRIAL IN POLlCB COURTS. 4** men now holding police courts in Chicago who, if they were at once turned out upon the public to earn their living, would find it impos- sible to make $2,500 a year, net. Can you see any reason in the world why these men should be enabled to make from $12,000 to $15,000, and even $20,000 a year, by running a police court? The truth is, there are hundreds of men in Chicago just as able as the men who are now holding the police courts, who would be glad to give it all of their time and do the business for $2,000 a year, but they are not at present justices and, therefore, of course you can not use them. However, there are at present so many justices inside of the city limits who will be exceedingly glad to assist in doing this business and for less than half what the city now pays them, that you can not only double the number of police justices, but you can triple and quad- ruple them if you want to, and thus reduce the number to be tried by each justice to about one-fourth what it now is. Further, after the hangers-on around the police courts have done all they can towards defeating this Jury Bill, I am convinced it will ■work about this way: The police will stop running-in people against whom there is absolutely no evidence. They will stop making raids and running in one hundred or more people at a time simply to enable the magistrate to make $100, in one night, and other hangers-on around the station to make $1,000 between them. On the other hand, everybody against whom there is any evidence will prefer being tried by the justice rather than by a jury, because in cases where parties are guilty a jury is liable to sentence them more severely than a justice probably would. Consequently, I believe that after those who are op- posed to this bill have exhausted their efforts in an endeavor to defeat it, it will greatly reduce the number who are run in and will help to reform our police court practices. Now you see, my dear Kraus, that I am for this bill, and if it does not do the work some other way will have to be found to put a stop to the infamous practices that now dis- grace our police courts. Right here let me suggest that you can assist in this line, and that is by making a new arrangement with the police justices whereby they are simply to get a salary for doing the work and are not to get anything for taking bonds at night. As long as you permit a man to make from $40 to $100 in one night in taking bonds, just that long it is to his interest to have these raids made and the present order of things continued, and it ought to be stopped. With my very best wishes, I am, Truly yours, JOHN P. ALTGELD, 4« LIVE QUESTIONS. SECOND ADDRESS TO TRUSTEES. (June 8, 1894-) Gentlemen: I have convened you a second time because I believe that an exchange of ideas and comparison of experiences will be helpful to all of you and be a benefit to the great institutions with which you are connected. Besides I have some additional sugges- tions to make on matters that have heretofore been brought to your attention. While I will have some things to say in the way of criti- cism, I wish first to compliment you on the splendid work you have thus far done — work done in the institutions themselves, and not in the newspapers. But there still remains much to be done. Let me again say to you that Illinois should have the very best institutions in the world. Our people are liberal, they are intelligent and progressive, and are ready to support any progressive and' en- lightened policy, and if we do not place our institutions upon the very highest scientific plane and give them the highest order of busi- ness management, then we are not doing our duty. When you were assembled last fall I explained to you that we wanted the institutions of this State to buy their supplies like the great corporations buy theirs — that is, of the lowest bidder. Make out a list of what is needed, have a dozen or more copies of this made and mail them to the different houses dealing in the line of goods required. This system has now been generally introduced and may be said to be thoroughly established, but there have been a few cases of attempted evasion. In one or two cases there was a slight dispo- sition shown to follow the old methods, and in a few other cases the requisitions were made out in such a way that only one establishment could bid on them. These things were brought to my attention at once. They were mostly in small matters and were not of a sufficiently se- rious character to warrant me in making a change of management, but they pained me because it indicated a certain degree of weakness on the part of some officials. Let me now say finally on this subject that there is a principle involved, even if it were shown that supplies can be purchased as cheaply under the old method as they can with the competitive method (which, however, is not the case), still we will have to adhere to the new method because it is right and we cannot permit of any exception. The moment we admit of one exception, we weaken the position all along the line. The new method is not only right, but has been found to produce astonishingly favorable results, and I now SECOND ADDRESS TO TRUSTEES. 4*3 say to you that we do not want to have a single purchasing agent in the entire State of Illinois, and any Superintendent or Trustee who is not willing to carry out this principle, both in letter and in spirit, should sever his connection with the public service at once. This is a subject upon which we can tolerate neither evasion nor trifling. So long as a vestige remains of the old method of buying through a purchasing agent, no matter how honest he may be, just so long will the root of an evil be kept alive which will speedily bring a harvest of corruption. You must place the management of these great asylums 'on a plane that is far above friendship or favoritism. If you do this, you will reap a harvest of honor and of glory that will be a comfort to you as long as you live and that 'will make your children proud of the fact that their father served his country by bringing this or that institution on to a high plane of excellence. While, on the other hand, if you do not do this, then it will be very much better for you not to hold office or any public trust, because it can give you neither profit nor glory, and you will finally leave it feeling that you have wasted a great deal of time and have not done your country or yourselves any good. EXPENSE OF MANAGEMENT. In a few cases the expense of management has not been reduced to that point to which we think it should be and to which it has been in other cases, and it is claimed as an excuse for this that the pa'tients are better fed in the one than in the other, but inquiry has led me to conclude that that is a mistake. I notice that the managers of each institution claim they feed their patients better than those of any other institution are fed, but I do not believe that there is very much difference. Some have claimed that they use much better meat than others use, but inquiry has not confirmed this. In regard to the standard of dieting I will say that the law does not contemplate that the inmates of an asylum shall be kept in luxury, nor will it permit them to be stinted in good wholesome food on the other hand. I take it that a diet equal to that of the average self-supporting citizen of Illinois will fully meet the requirements of the law. From what information I can get I believe that upon the whole the diet in our asylums is fully up to this standard, and I also believe that in those cases in which the expense of management has not been brought down to the desired point, there has been a little too much liberality either in the business management or else in the employment of help. Upon the last subject I laid down some specific rules for the guidance of all the superintendents and trustees when they were 414 LIVE QUESTIONS. first appointed. First, we do not want any person on the pay-roll whose services are not absolutely needed. Second', do not employ any man who is not just the right man for the place, and it makes no difference who recommends him or what his influence is. Third, do not keep any man an hour after it is discovered that he is not exactly the right man for the place, no matter how many in- fluential men seek to have him retained. Fourth, do not pay any higher wages in an institution than similar services would command outside. These rules have been reiterated on every convenient occasion, and, I think, have been in a general way observed, yet I believe there are a number of cases in which there has been too much liberality shown on this point and in which a revision of the pay-roll is necessary. Wherever three men are doing two men's work, there you will find not only increased expense, but you will find poor service. Each man gets lazy and indifferent, and neither is at his best. I am aware that there is a strong pressure all over the State to have men put on the pay-roll, but I want to say to you that if you yield to this pressure it will be an evidence of weakness, for it will indicate an inability to say no, and a man who cannot do that in case of a public trust is not made of that strong fiber that we must have in these offices. No man should have more influence with you in regard to putting men on the pay-roll than the Governor, and the Governor has not a man in the entire State whom he wishes to have kept in place simply because he is his friend. I want the officials- of this State to be untrammeled in order that they may give to the public their very best efforts. Let me here again say to you, if you attempt to run yoitr institu- tion on the basis of favoritism, or if you allow the employment of men who are not needed, or if you allow yourself to be influenced im- properly by political pressure, then you cannot make a success of your administration and the sooner you quit the better, for you will be losing not only your own time, but you will be losing your own self-respect. The very people who over-persuade you and get you to do things that your best judgment does not approve of will in the end despise you. This being a democratic administration, the public will find no fault with you for giving the preference to democrats when other things are equal, but the moment you pass beyond that you destroy the possibility of your achieving any great success. In this connection let me say that during the campaign in '92 we criticised the former managements of these institutions because, in SECOND ADDRESS TO TRUSTEES. 415 their published reports, they did not publish the names of the people to whom salaries or wages were paid, nor what these people did, nor how much they were paid. In other words, they did not publish the pay-rolls. Xow, in the reports which you will be making out soon, this must be done. I want you to give the name of every man or woman to whom any money has been paid for services of any kind during the time covered by your report, and also state what such employe did and the amount of money paid each. The public has a right to know this and it will be a great deal better for you to have the public know it. In order to get any comfort out of the offices you hold you must not only manage affairs so that you will be willing to have them held up to the sun at any time, but you must hold them up to the sun yourselves. If any politician objects to your following the rules I have laid down, tell him that you were not appointed to directly serve any political party, that you were appointed to serve your country, but that you believe that the best way even to serve a party is to manage affairs so as to command the good opinion of all patriotic citizens. I shall expect of you all a rigid revision of the pay-rolls, both as to the number of people employed and as to the salaries paid beginning with the new fiscal year. Let me say. however, that if any salaries are cut, you should not begin at the bottom. I believe in most cases the ordinary attendants are not paid too much. This is especially true of the females. Simple justice requires that wherever female attendants do the same kind of work that male attendants do, and do it under the same conditions, and are in other respects as serviceable around the institution as male attendants are, they should be paid exactly the same wages as male attendants are paid. So that you may find it necessary to slightly reduce the salaries of male attendants and correspondingly raise the salaries of female attendants. There is another question I wish to call your attention to and that is the turning of money back into the State treasury. I believe you will all have more or less to turn back and we want to have every dollar returned to the State treasury that it is not absolutely neces- sary to spend for the benefit of the inmates. The mere fact that money has been appropriated for any particular purpose is no reason why it should be spent. If money has been appropriated for anv particular improvement and it should, on further examination, appear to you that that particular improvement was not necessary, then that money should not be spent. It has grown to be too much the policy of spending everything that can by any manner or means be gotten out of the State treasury. This policy must be reversed. Expend 4i& Live questions. only what an economical and enlightened administration finds to be necessary and not a dollar more. There will be pressure in the- communities in which your institutions are situated to have you spend money for every imaginable purpose. If you allow yourself to be influenced in the slightest degree by this pressure, then you will not get much comfort out of having held office, for your better judg- ment will always tell you that you failed to rise to the occasion and thereby failed to render your country the highest service. DUTY OF TRUSTEES. Many of the trustees are doing their duty thoroughly. They devote a great deal of time to the public service and are almost as familiar with it and look after it with almost the same care as their private business, but there are others of whom this is not true, who only go over and audit some accounts and are of very little assistance to the institution. Now, gentlemen, this will not pay you. You are not only frittering away your opportunity, but you are wasting your time. If you do not intend to make yourselves thoroughly masters of all of the details of your institutions and to look after everything, even the minutest matter, with scrupulous care, then you are making a mis- take in holding on to your office, for you will never get any satis- faction out of it. In looking back over your career you derive a pleasure from the things that you have done exquisitely well, and if you are ever to get any pleasure out of the fact that you held these offices, "it must come from the consciousness that you did things better than they had ever been done and that you rendered your country a service that surpassed that of other men. Let me suggest to you that serving the public in that manner is the "highest order of patriotism, for it consists of deeds, of acts; while the speech-making, after-dinner, post-prandial patriotism, now so common, is not only the cheapest thing in the market, but is of no benefit to anyone. It is pharisaical in character and never yet benefited a country. I am aware that you get no pay for the service you render, that is, you get no per diem, but there are things that cannot be settled for across the counter. There are sentiments too lofty for greed to under* stand. There are pleasures that are above anything that money can give, and these sentiments and these pleasures grow out of a disin- terested and patriotic service of your country. Perform a service of that character and your descendants will glory in pointing to it. SECOND ADDRESS TO TRUSTEES. 417 DANGER LINE. Again I believed it advisable to convene you all at this time be- cause I felt that you were approaching the danger line. By this I mean that not only you, but your subordinates, were beginning to feel comfortable in your positions, were beginning to feel at home in them, and with that feeling of comfort there nearly always comes just a slight relaxation of the tension that prevails among new appointees and new attendants for a considerable time after they take hold, and, when that tension or alertness has slightly relaxed, the danger to the institution increases; not that there will be any specific neglect of duty on the part of anyone, but there will be just a little more easy going tone to the management, and this is the condition in which accidents happen. This is the condition in which attendants are not quite so careful as they formerly were — in which cases of brutality arise, in which scandals of one kind or another spring up, and in which now and then a destructive fire occurs. So long as there is a high degree of tension in the management of an institution, just so long is a fire almost an impossibility and just so long are scandals almost impossible. Now, you have reached that point, and unless you make an effort to keep up the firmness of tone in your administra- tion, keep up the vigilance, unless you make a strong effort to keep these up from now on, you will be in a rather dangerous atmosphere. If we should hear of a fire in any of your institutions we might not believe that you or any of your immediate subordinates had been guilty of specific neglect, but we would feel that you were feeling a little bit too comfortable in your positions and had become just a little easy going in your management, and that that easy going spirit had, as it always does, soon pervaded the whole institution, and by reason of that easy going spirit some attendant or employe had been guilty of negligence, and that it would not have happened if there had been a little more firmness of tone. Do not imagine that I am finding fault, for on the contrary I am highly gratified with the ex- cellent work you have done, and I want you to perfect it in order that you may enjoy the full fruition of your labors. In conclusion let me say last fall I requested the superintendents to make an investigation and ascertain what were the most approved theories in vogue in this country and in Europe in similar institu- tions to theirs, and what, if any, new experiments had proved suc- cessful, wherein the manner of treatment differed from that here, and what suggestions, if any, they had to make. I need not say to you 27 4i8" LIVE QUESTIONS. that this was done with a view of appropriating anything that we might find elsewhere that was better than what we already had. I shall endeavor to have the special reports which you have sent in bound in a separate volume. I think they contain many valuable suggestions and we shall expect you to put every new idea of value into practice in your institution. It is not intended that any position in any of the asylums or institutions of this State shall be a position of ease. On the contrary, it is intended that they shall be positions of labor and hard labor at that. You are serving the public, gentle- men. You are rendering a service to your country which can be made even of a higher order and more valuable to mankind than service on the battlefield or in the halls of legislation, and we expect not only constant work of you, but diligent work, and you must go at it with the understanding that the only reward that is worth talk- ing about is the consciousness of having done right and the con- sciousness of having served your country. Most of you are familiar with ancient history. You remember the description which Demos- thenes gives of Phillip of Macedon, the great enemy of Greece. He said that Phillip in fighting for the glory of his country had had an eye knocked out, a shoulder broken and a hand and a leg mangled, and yet such was his ambition that he was willing to give up any other member of his body if he could continue to live to serve his country with honor. It is that kind of spirit, gentlemen, that you must have to serve the State of Illinois — a spirit that keeps in view only the glory of the State and the welfare of the people. INTERVIEW ON JUDGE COOLEY. Judge Cooley, of Michigan, president of the American Bar Association, in addressing that body at Saratoga, criticised Gov. Altgeld for protesting against the action of President Cleveland in sending federal troops to Chicago during the strikes. Upon being interviewed on the judge's criticism the governor re- plied as follows: Judge Cooley's reputation is liable to have an injustice done it unless the people will discriminate between the real Cooley and the later Cooley. In addressing the bar association he was in the position of a fashionable preacher who, if he wished to be popular with his audience, must cater to its tastes. The American Bar Association is a small body of men, most of whom have corporations for clients. They are shrewd and able men who know where fat fees come. from. A lawyer whose clients are poor could not afford to go to Saratoga INTERVIEW ON JUDGE COOLEY. 419 and have a good time and attend a bar meeting. Judge Cooley's ut- terance there must be taken with some others recently made, and the question is, how much importance attaches to them simply because they come from Cooley? Nearly thirty years ago, when Judge Cooley was in his prime, when he was a teacher in the Ann Arbor law school, he wrote a book on constitutional law which was an able work and gave him a reputation. In this work he points out the limitations upon the federal government and calls attention to the constant danger that free institutions are in from the encroachment of a central power through the agency of a standing army. Among other things he says: A standing army is peculiarly obnoxious to any free government and is more dreaded by the people as an instrument of oppression than a tyrannical monarch of any foreign power. The alternative of a standing army is a well regulated militia. But after writing this book, and while a member of the Supreme Court of the State, he established a reputation for being a corporation judge, and made himself so obnoxious that when his term was up the people of Michigan arose and put an end to his career in that State. For some years he was out of a job. Then Congress created the interstate commerce board, and Cleveland during his first term as President, appointed the judge on this board, at a salary of $7,000 a year and expenses, which was princely in comparison with what he had been receiving. He held on to this place until a couple of years ago, when he retired on account of his old age, feeling, as he should, very grateful to Cleveland. Recently, after the President had sent troops to Chicago, the judge's gratitude compelled him to rush into print with a letter great- ly complimenting the President on his act, but among other things in that letter he uses this language: "I am especially gratified that a great and valuable lesson in constitutional construction has been set- tled for all time to come with remarkably little bloodshed," thus ad- mitting that the Constitution did not clearly give the President the power to do what he had done, and that it had been necessary for the President to give a lesson in constitutional construction in order to do it; and the judge was gratified that this lesson in constitutional construction had been given with so little bloodshed. Had the con- stitution clearly given the power, neither a bloodshed construction nor any other construction would have been necessary. The world has heard of constitutional construction by means of the military before. It has happened often. The operations were some- times brilliant, but were always fatal to the patient. When Judge 420 LIVE QUESTIONS. Cooley was in the vigor of manhood he expounded the constitution like a freeman addressing a free people. There was nothing sub- servient in his utterances, and the bright reputation he then made must not be clouded by utterances that are born of a grateful dotage. NECESSITY OF ORGANIZATION AMONG LABORERS. (Answer to Chicago Times, September 3, 1894.) "Standing together is their only salvation. Respect the law and stand shoulder to shoulder. So long as a portion of the laboring classes can be used as a club upon the backs of the remainder, just so long will there be no hope. They cannot get a whole loaf so long as a portion of their number are willing to accept half a loaf and let their children go hungry. Their entire struggle, not only for bread, but for life, will be with organization and great concentrations of capital, for individual employers are fast disappearing. Instead of dealing as they once did with a master who knew their wants and felt at. least that interest in them that grows out of a daily association and living together, they now have to deal with the agent of organized capital. This agent feels that not only his salary, but his position depends upon his securing large returns for the stockholders and is therefore much more severe, more cruel and more heartless than the original master who managed his own affairs. There used to be hun- dreds of employers where there is now one, each employing but a few men, and an individual laborer being able to choose among so many employers, had, at least, some chance to get fair wages and fair treatment. Now in many cases the laborer has no choice. There is but one employer within reach. Combination and concentration has wiped the others all out. The agent of this one employer can dictate both wages and terms to suit himself unless he is met by organization of the other side. Combination and concentration on the side of employers and of capital being already a fixed fact, the laborers have got to pursue the same path or give up all hope for the future of their children. THE PULLMAN CORRESPONDENCE. Early in the summer of 1894 the employes of the Pullman Com- , pany went on a strike on account of insufficient wages. They claimed that they had long been at starvation point and could not live on the wages the company proposed to pay. Finally the organization of the THE PULLMAN CORRESPONDENCE. 421 American Railway Trainmen espoused the cause of the Pullman em- ployes and refused to handle Pullman sleeping cars. This brought on the great railway strike of that year. The Pullman employes were of a superior character. There were very few old men or men of in- ferior grade, the company employing only the best. Yet in a few weeks after leaving the shops, the majority had to apply for bread to a public relief committee which had been organized. But the relief that could be obtained from public charity became exhausted. The Cook county officials did what they could to furnish aid, but the de- mand was too great. _ Finally numerous appeals were made to the Governor, when the following correspondence took place: Kensington, 111.,' August 17, 1894. To His Excellency, the Governor of the State of Illinois: We, the people of Pullman, who, by the greed and oppression of George M. Pullman, have been brought to a condition where starvation stares us in the face, do hereby appeal to you for aid in this our hour of need. We have been refused employment and have no means of leaving this vicinity, and our families are starving. Our places have been filled with workmen from all over the United States, brought here by the Pullman Company, and the surplus were turned away to walk the streets and starve also. There are over 1,600 families here in destitu- tion and want, and their condition is pitiful. We have exhausted all the means at our command to feed them, and we now make this appeal to you as a last resource. Trusting that God will influence you in our behalf and that you will give this your prompt attention, we re- main, Yours in distress, THE STARVING CITIZENS OF PULLMAN. F. E. POLLANS, L. J. NEWELL, THEO. RODHE, Committee. Springfield, August 19, 1894. To George M. Pullman, President Pullman Palace Car Co., Chi- cago: Sir: — I have received numerous reports to the effect that there is great distress at Pullman. To-day I received a formal appeal as Governor from a committee of the Pullman people for aid. They state that sixteen hundred families, including women and children, are starving; that they cannot get work and have not the means to go elsewhere; that your company has brought men from all over the United States to fill their places. Now, these people live in your town and were your employes. Some of them worked for your company for 422 LIVE QUESTIONS. many years. They must be people of industry and character or you would not have kept them. Many of them have practically given their lives to you. It is claimed they struck because after years of toil their loaves were so reduced that their children went hungry. As- suming that they were wrong and foolish, they had yet served you long and well and you must feel some interest in them. They do not stand on the same footing with you, so that much must be over- looked. The State of Illinois has not the least desire to meddle in the affairs of your company, but it cannot allow a whole community within its borders to perish of hunger. The local, overseer of the poor has been appealed to, but there is a limit to What he can do. I cannot help them very much at present. So unless relief comes from some other source I shall either have to call an extra session of the Legis- lature to make special appropriations, or else issue an appeal to the humane people of the State to give bread to your recent employes. It seems to me that you would prefer to relieve the situation yourself, especially as it has just cost the State upwards of fifty thousand dol- lars to protect your property, and both the State and the public have suffered enormous loss and expense on account of disturbances that grew out of the trouble between your company and its workmen. I am going to Chicago to-night to make a personal investigation be- fore taking any official action. I will be at my office in the Unity block at 10 a. m. to-morrow, and shall be glad to hear from you if you care to make any reply. JOHN P. ALTGELD, Governor. (On the morning of the 20th Mr. Wickes, a vice-president of the Pullman Company, called and offered to take me in charge and show me around. I told him that I should be pleased to have him go along with me, but that I did not think it best to go under anybody's wing. I then went to Pullman where two of the company's representatives joined me, and I spent the entire day making an examination, and the next morning sent by messenger the following letter to Mr. Pullman:) Chicago, 111., August 21st, 1894. Mr. George M. Pullman, President Pullman Car Company, Chi- cago, 111. : Sir : — I examined the conditions at Pullman yesterday, visited even the kitchens and bedrooms of many of the people. Two representatives of your company were with me and we found the dis- tress as great as it was represented. The men are hungry and the women and children are actually suffering. They have been living on charity for a number of months and it is exhausted. Men who had worked for your company for more than ten years had to apply to the relief society in two weeks after the work stopped. I learn from your manager that last spring there were 3,260 peo- THE PULLMAN CORRESPONDENCE. 423 pie on the pay roll ; yesterday there were 2,220 at work, but over 600 of these are new men, so that only about 1,600 of the old employes have been taken back, thus leaving over 1,600 of the old employes who have not been taken back, a few hundred have left, the remainder have nearly all applied for work, but were told that they were not needed. These are utterly destitute. The relief committee on last Saturday gave out two pounds of oat meal and two pounds of corn meal to each family. But even the relief committee has exhausted its resources. Something must be done and at once. The case differs from in- stances of destitution found elsewhere, for generally there is some- body in the neighborhood able to give relief; this is not the case at Pullman.. Even those who have gone to work are so exhausted that they cannot help their neighbors if they would. I repeat now that it seems to me your company cannot afford to have me appeal to the charity and humanity of the State to save the lives of your old em- ployes. Four-fifths of those people are women and children. No matter what caused this distress, it must be met. If you will allow me, I will make this suggestion: If you had shut down your works last fall when you say business was poor, you would not have expected to get any rent for your tenements. Now, while a dollar is a large sum to each of these people, all the rent now due you is a comparatively small matter to you. If you would cancel all rent to October 1st, you would be as well off as if you had shut down. This would enable those who are at work to meet their most pressing wants. Then if you cannot give work to all why work some half-time so that all can at least get something to eat for their families. This will give immediate relief to the whole situation. And then by degrees assist as many to go elsewhere as desire to do so, and all to whom you cannot give work. In this way something like a normal condition could be re-established at Pullman before winter and you would not be out any more than you would have been had you shut down a year ago. I will be at the Unity block for several hours and will be glad to see you if you care to make any reply. Yours, respectfully, JOHN P. ALTGELD. It should be noted that the people of Pullman were all tenants of the Pullman Company, and were charged very high rates for rent, water, etc., and when their wages were reduced these charges were not reduced. Mr. Pullman made a short answer to the above letter, but did not 424 LIVE QUESTIONS. offer to do anything toward relieving the situation, and he declined to abate any of the rent due from the tenants. Thereupon the follow- ing final reply was sent to him: Chicago, August 21st, 1894. George M. Pullman, Esq., President Pullman Palace Car Company, City. Sir: — I have your answer to my communication of this morning. I see by it that your company refuses to do anything toward relieving the situation at Pullman. It is true that Mr. Wickes offered to take me to Pullman and show me around. I told him that I had no ob- jections to his going, but that I doubted the wisdom of my going under anybody's wing. I was, however, met at the depot by two of your representatives, both able men, who accompanied me every- where. I took pains to. have them present in each case. I also called at your office and got what information they could give there, so that your company was represented and heard, and no man there ques- tioned either the condition or the extent of the suffering. If you. will make the round I made, go into the houses of these people, meet them face to face and talk 'with them, you will be convinced that none of them had $1,300, or any other sum of money only a few weeks ago. I cannot enter into a discussion with you as to the merits of the controversy between you and your former workmen. It is not my business to fix the moral responsibility in this case. There are nearly six thousand people suffering for the want of food — they were your employes — four-fifths of them are women and chil- dren — some of these people have worked for you for more than twelve years. I assumed that even if they were wrong and had been foolish, you would not be willing to see them perish. I also assumed that as the State had just been to a large expense to protect your property you would not want to have the public shoulder the burden of reliev- ing distress in your town. As you refuse to do anything to relieve the suffering in this case, I am compelled to appeal to the humanity of the people of Illinois to do so. Respectfully yours, JOHN P. ALTGF.LD. Immediately after the above correspondence an appeal was made by the Governor to, the humane people of the State, describing the conditions at Pullman and asking for aid. Relief of all kinds soon came and some of the old employes were enabled to move to other points. THE PULLMAN ASSESSMENT. 42S THE PULLMAN ASSESSMENT. ADDRESS TO THE STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION. (Relating to the assessment of the Pullman Company. Sept. 25th, 1894.) In Illinois the stock of corporations is not assessed by the local assessor, but by the State Board of Equalization, composed of one member from each Congressional district, thus making a board of twenty-two members. As some corporations manage to almost en- tirely escape taxation, this board is often charged with being con- trolled by improper influences, and cases are cited of some members of this board growing wealthy while they had no visible means of sup- port. As the State was obliged to keep a military force for some time to preserve order in the town of Pullman, and was put to a great expense in protecting the property of the Pullman Company, there was much complaint over the fact that the Pullman Company man- aged to escape taxation on most of its property. Thereupon I laid the following facts before the board: Gentlemen: I have received a great many complaints from dif- ferent sections of the State concerning the assessment of the capital stock of the Pullman Palace Car Company, and my attention has been called to some facts which I feel it my duty to lay before you. In doing this I wish expressly to disclaim any desire to interfere in any way with the duties of your board. The law imposes upon you the duty of assessing corporations, and I call your attention to the following facts, in the belief that they may assist you in arriving at a just assess- ment, and putting an end to an injustice. The records in the office of the Secretary of State show that the Pullman Palace Car Com- pany has a capital stock of $36,000,000. Recently Mr. George M. Pull- man, the president of the company, testified under oath before a com- mission in Chicago, among other things as follows : Question : What is the present capital stock of the Pullman Company? Answer: Thir- ty-six million dollars. Q. Is that capital stock paid in cash? Ans. That capital stock is paid in cash. From time to time during the 27 years of its existence the capital stock was enlarged in order to meet the general enlargement of the plant. Q. Are the dividends which you pay based on the whole capital of $36,000,000? Ans. Yes, sir; on the whole capital of $36,000,000. Q. What are your dividends? Ans. Our dividends are 2 per cent, quarterly. Q. For how long? Ans. The company has paid dividends ever since its organization. The dividends for the first two years were at the rate of 3 per cent. 426 LIVE QUESTIONS. quarterly and for a time after that the dividends were paid for two years at 9 1-2 per cent, per annum, and then from that day they have been 8 per cent, per annum without any changes. Q. Has the com- pany any bonded debt? Ans. It has no bonded debt. Q. And in addition to these dividends you have accumulated from $16,000,000 to $18,000,000 of undivided profits? Ans. The undivided profits amount to something like $25,000,000. Q. In addition to these annual divi- dends you have mentioned there has also been accumulated about $25,000,000 of undivided profits? Ans. Yes, sir. This is from Mr. Pullman himself. Adding this $25,000,000 of surplus to the $36,000,000 of stock makes $61,000,000 which the stock of the Pullman Car Company represents. Again the market reports for a considerable time in the past show that the stock of this company has been selling for cash in the market at a figure which would make the market value of all of the stock amount to over $61,000,000. On April 13, of this year, it sold for 174. Further I attach hereto a copy of a report made by this company for the year ending July 31, 1893, to its stockholders and Poor's manual of railroads, and found on page 1,118 of that authority. In this report it is stated that the net earnings of that year were $6,526,448. Out of this they paid 8 per cent, divi- dend, amounting to $2,520,000 and carried $4,006,448 to the surplus which then amounted to $25,700,000. That is they carried nearly twice as much to the surplus as they paid to the dividend, although the dividend was 8 per cent. This was for the year ending July 31, 1893. The heavy world's fair travel came afterward. If the surplus for that year was $4,006,448 the surplus for next year must be very large. The report shows that the surplus has been upwards, of $3,000,000 for many years, consequently the surplus must now be nearly $30,000,- 000. The total assets of the company at that time was $61,791,643; they must now be considerably larger. All this is the company's own showing. So that whether you take this statement of Mr. Pullman or the price at which the stock was selling in the market or the statement of the company made a year ago, there is upwards of $61,700,000 of property represented. Under the law, personal property follows the residence of the owner and pays taxes where he resides. This com- pany has not much real estate outside of Illinois. The sleeping cars are personal property, and as the company is an Illinois corporation and has its main offices in this State, it should pay taxes here on all of its personal property except in cases where it is actually shown that it has been legally taxed elsewhere. The average assessment of other property that is assessed at all in this State is found to be from 20 THE PULLMAN ASSESSMENT. 427 per cent, to 25 per cent, of its cash market value. Therefore, if the stock of this company were assessed in the same proportion of its market value as other property it would make an assessment of $12,360,000 to $15,000,000. Instead of this it is assessed at only $1,695,500 in this State, the company having represented to your board, as I am informed, that its property was assessed in other States. But it failed to show where it was taxed or how much. The auditor of this State has written to the proper officers of every State in the Union and of the Dominion of Canada inquiring how much the Pullman Palace Car Company was assessed, and what taxes it actually paid in each of those States. I attach hereto a tabulated statement showing the sub- stance of the letters and telegrams received in answer to these in- quiries. The letters and telegrams themselves are in the possession of the auditor and can be examined by you. The tabulated statement referred to above showed that in most of the States the Pullman Company paid no taxes at all, in some of the others it simply paid a small license fee; that all of the assess- ments on its property made in the United States, including that in Illinois, would not amount to even a fair assessment on twenty millions of dollars; that consequently the company had over forty millions of dollars that was liable to taxation in Illinois, but was not assessed anywhere and did not pay taxes anywhere; that as the real estate and other property of the State was assessed at from one-fifth to one-fourth of its value, it was apparent that from eight to ten mil- lion dollars should be added to the existing assessment of the Pull- man Company; that as the rate of taxation in Chicago, where the company was located, was about eight per cent, on the assessment, it was apparent that the Pullman Company had for many years been annually defrauding the public out of from six hundred and forty to eight hundred thousand dollars per year, and that consequently it had now in its possession several millions of dollars that in justice belonged to the public. I appealed to the board to right this wrong and compel this com- pany to bear its share of the public burdens. But my appeal was in vain. The board left the assessment practically as it was. I was sub- sequently told that the only effect of my address was to cause some of the members of the board to raise their price and force the Pull- man Company to come and see them. 428 LIVE QUESTIONS. SPEECH AT MATTOON, OCTOBER 30, 1894, ON THE POLITICAL ISSUES THEN PENDING. Mr. Chairman and Ladies and Gentlemen : We have been passing through a period of stagnant trade and paralyzed industry. Our mills have been standing still and the great arteries of commerce have been lifeless. Bankruptcy and financial distress have spread their blight over the continent and millions of our people who are sober and in- dustrious have been not only without work, but without bread, and millions more of our, people who are sober and industrious are to-day in want of the common necessaries of life. As we ,have had neither famine nor pestilence; as nature has yielded her fruits during these - years in as great abundance and varietv as ever before; as our people have lost none of their integrity or enterprise, it is evident that the distress of the country is not due to natural causes, but has been large- ly brought about by the follies and mistakes of men. For centuries the governments of the earth have been interfering directly with both the laws of industry and the laws of trade, and very much of the misery of mankind is due to this cause. In the United States we have had legislation affecting every branch of industry and all the channels of commerce, and the distressing condition of the country which I have just described has grown out of this legislation and these government- al policies. None of the leaders of either of the great political parties attribute the condition to natural causes. All admit that they are due to artificial causes, and the leaders of each party are endeavoring to shift the responsibilities upon the shoulders of the other party. One would suppose that the ties of parentage were so strong that no men would be willing to deny their offspring and that no political party would repudiate its own creation, but there have been people who laid their unhappy children on a neighbor's doorstep, and to-day one- of the great political parties of the country is engaged in this dis- honorable act. It does not even seek the shades of darkness, but with a brazen effrontery, born of long dissipation, it seeks in broad day- light to escape the responsibility of parentage. For more than thirty years prior to the session of the last Congress one political party shaped all the legislation that went upon our statute books. Every bet relating to the tariff; relating to our industries; relating to our shipping; relating to our public lands; relating to our policy with foreign nations; every act that vitally affected the prosperity of this country, was framed by a Republican Congress and had affixed to it the signature of a Republican President. The act which struck down SPEECH AT MATTOON. 429 One of the monetary metals of the world; that act which, without re- ducing the great debts of this country, National, State, municipal and private, the vast indebtedness of the railroads upon which in- terest had to be paid ; that act which, without in any way reducing the fixed charges of the world, did reduce the circulating medium of the world ; that act which reduced the market or selling values of the products of the earth by more than 33 per cent, on the average and thus compelled the debtor classes to practically pay 50 per cent, more in the discharge of their indebtedness than they otherwise would have, which compelled the great producing classes of this country to contribute practically 50 per cent, more of their labor and their efforts to meet the fixed charges of the country than they otherwise would have; that piece of legislation was framed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Republican President. Legislation bears fruit; gov- ernmental policies bear fruit. Whatever is sown in the realm of gov- ernment will produce a harvest as surely as that which is sown upon the earth produces a harvest. This country had almost the greatest merchant marine upon earth; its shipping was next to that of Eng- land. The mast-heads of American vessels were to be found upon all waters of the globe. This country has the greatest natural re- sources, the most extensive, most fertile and most productive fields, and the most desirable climate of any country in the world. This country had a people whose inventive genius, whose industry and whose enterprise surpassed that of all other nations. Having this in- exhaustible wealth and this wonderful people, all this country needed was to be let alone. Yea, it had such a wonderful vitality, such a won- derful recuperative power that it could for a period prosper in spite of unwise and injudicious legislation. Now what has been the his- tory of the last twenty" years? Two of the most severe and destruc- tive panics that this country ever saw. Examine the reports of the Comptroller of the Currency and you will find that almost every year his report says that it had been a year of great financial stringency and disturbance of prices. The great commerce we had with the other nations of the earth has been practically wiped out. We have pursued a policy that has driven the other people away from us, and instead of owning a large proportion of the ships that float upon the seas, we to-day send abroad what little we do ship to other countries in an English bottom. The governmental policy of the last thirty years has practically wiped out not only the foreign commerce of this country, but it has absolutely destroyed the shipping of this country. Some ill-informed people pretend that the course of the Republican party has been inimical to England. Why, ladies and gentlemen, the 430 LIVE QUESTIONS. Republican party has done England a service for which England can never express her gratitude. England got what we lost; got our foreign commerce and got our shipping, and if the English people have a particle ofgratitude in their breasts they will erect a monument to the memory of that American party which made England great and glorious at the expense of American prosperity. Look back over the last twenty years; examine the reports sent out from the large centers as to the number of unemployed and you will notice that that number' grows year by year. Why? Because the industry of the country was being affected by paralysis, Working shorter hours, gradu- ally reducing the forces and frequently shutting down. In 1888 the Republicans elected a President and they controlled both houses of Congress. Was the country then prosperous and did they feel that they could let well enough alone? Not at all. The conditions of the country were then such that that Republican Congress and that Re- publican President felt that something must be done. The army of unemployed was becoming so alarmingly large and the business inter- ests of the country so gradually depressed that they realized that unless they did something to give relief to these conditions, their career in of- fice must be short. They were shrewd men and had the country then been in a prosperous condition they would not have resorted to any radical measures. The fact that they then enacted the McKinley law, one of the most radical measures ever enacted by an American Con- gress, settles all questions in regard to the condition of the country at that time. It is a piece of evidence that can neither be wiped out nor talked around. Although we had a tariff that was high- er than in war times, a tariff that was almost prohibitory already, they passed the McKinley bill and in many cases they more than doubled this tariff. The- theory and the doc- trine of protection ran mad. They were going to give the country prosperity by an act of Congress. Everything which the average citizen has to purchase was taxed. They were going to guard against what they called the pauper labor ofEurQpe. But, mark ye, the McKinley bill contained no provision against bringing the pauper labor of Europe over here and putting it in competition with American labor. What was the result of that legislation? Be- fore that Congress had had time to adjourn, almost before the ink of the President's signature to that act had had time to get dry, more than three hundred of the great manufacturing establishments of this country reduced the wages of their men. The law went into effect and in less than two years after it was expected to cover the country with its blessings there occurred at Homestead, in Pennsylvania, one of the SPEECH At MATTOOtf. 431 most bloody and extensive labor disturbances that we ever witnessed in this country. Labor was in distress all over the land. Why? Be- cause wages were steadily going down; because the number of em- ployed were steadily being reduced; because business was feeling a strain and getting less and less profitable. That was the condition of affairs in 1892. The country saw then that the road which we were traveling led to destruction. The most conservative men called a halt. With a voice that was almos.t unanimous the American people said this policy must be changed. Why did they do this? Because tthey had seen the working of a quarter of a century of it and saw that it meant ruin. They had heard much theorizing, but they had in the meantime looked around themselves. They had looked over the Atlantic into the pauper fields of Europe, and what did they find? They found that in every pauperized country of Europe they had a high protective tariff and had had it for centuries, and they found that, the degradation and misery of the great masses of the people was everywhere in proportion to the height of that protective tariff. They found that the effect of such a policy had been in those countries to concentrate vast wealth into the hands of a few and to impoverish the great masses of the people. They found, in other words, that where this tariff had had time to produce its best fruits it had done just what it was doing in America, enrich a few and impoverish the masses. They noticed another thing: that England had had a high protective tariff down to about forty years ago ; that since then she had been a free trade country. Wages in Germany had advanced a little and wages in most countries where they had a high protective tariff had scarcely changed, but in free trade England they were doubled. They were in advance of the wages in all of the rest of Europe. Yea, they observed another thing and that was that since England had thrown down the barrier which separated her from the rest of the world, since she had thrown open her doors and invited all mankind to trade with her, her commerce had increased five-fold and her in- dustries almost in the same ratio, and that was not all. The intel- lectual and the moral life of the people seemed to have had a new birth, so that some enthusiastic Englishmen claim that the greatness and the grandeur of their country practically dates from the time that she put herself into closer communication with the rest of the world, from the time that she struck down the policies of favoritism and struck the shackles off commerce. So that it was both experience and observation that led the people of America in 1892 to say this policy must be stopped; we must face about. But, while the people elected a new President and members of Congress, the laws which 432 LIVE QUESTIONS. were in force and the policies which were at work still operated, and the drift of the country which had been observed for a number of years and which the McKinley Congress had vainly attempted to stop, went right on. More and more people were out of employment. More wheels were standing still. More business establishments were going into the hands of receivers, until early in 1893, before the new admin- istration had had time to get into the saddle, before it had had time to put its hand on the lever, before it had had time to repeal a single law or change a single policy, the crash came. The string had been stretching and stretching for years, and it finally reached the point where it snapped before relief could be given. Yea, the great fabric built by thirty years of Republican legislation, of Republican policy, came down, roof, rafters, walls and all, and the country was absolute- ly prostrate ; and besides this the McKinley law was causing an annual deficit of over $70,000,000 in the treasury, for by reducing our com- merce it necessarily reduced our revenues. The richest country in the world, with the most enterprising and ingenious people in the world, had been brought to a helpless condition and a bankrupt treasury by unwise governmental policy. This result was brought about not alone by the system of protection which protected the rich and not the poor, which said to the poor man that he must buy his necessaries of an American manufacturer at the latter's price, but which left the manu- facturer free to employ foreign labor, also at the manufacturer's price, but, in my opinion, the great distress of this country was also due to the Republican policy of demonetizing one of the monetary metals of the world. I have nothing to say for silver or for any other kind of money. I am only speaking of the effect upon the industries and the commerce of the world, of reducing the volume of money in the world. Some of the ablest financiers and statesmen of England, who favored a gold standard for England because she was a creditor nation and thus interested in reducing the selling value of the products of the earth, yet pointed out more than fifteen years ago that, inasmuch as the leading nations of the world had, not at the request of commerce, not at the behest of business, but solely under the influence of the creditor class, practically wiped out between 30 and 40 per cent, of the money of the world, the effect must be to reduce the selling values of property that much, must be to reduce the purchasing power of the producing and the debtor classes of the world that much, and, inasmuch as the great debts and fixed charges remain the same, it must follow that the producing nations of the world would be ob- liged to spend nearly all they could make on fixed charges of taxes and interest and would not be able to purchase freely either luxuries SPEECH AT MATTOON. 433 or necessaries of life, and the result must be less consumption, and with less consumption must come less men employed in the factories, in business and in commerce. I do not believe that we can again have great prosperity in this country until some steps are taken to remedy the injustice and wrong that was done the entire debtor and producing classes when the selling values of their products were prac- tically forced down by law, while the burdens to be borne remained the same. That dollar which is the result of this legislation is the most dis- honest dollar that was ever given to man, a dollar that increased the purchasing power of the security-holding classes nearly 50 per cent, and correspondingly increased the burdens of the world. Money performs the same functions in the world that blood does in the hu- man body. Each gives life to the body by its circulation, and death ensues when that circulation stops. Remove a large portion of blood from the body and the remainder goes to the heart, while the extremities grow cold. So, when a large portion of the circulating medium of the world is wiped out the remainder rushes to the centers, while the extremities become cold and industrial enterprises are par- alyzed. Well, the campaign of 1892 was won. The Democracy had prom- ised the country a change of policy on the tariff and that promise has been fulfilled. The McKinley law has been repealed. Many of the necessaries of life have been placed on the free list and a general reduc- tion of over 20 per cent, has been made. This question is now settled for a considerable time. No possible good can come from further agitation. We still have a high protective tariff, a tariff that is much higher than it was in war times, but under existing con- ditions it can not be much further reduced at present and the coun- try needs rest on this subject. Those men are blind to the best in- terests of their country who insist upon keeping up this agitation, and they do not represent the Democratic party. Many of our ablest men urged that Congress be convened in the spring of '93 to at once settle the tariff question, so that the uncertainty incident to agitation might cease and the interests of the country might adjust themselves to the new conditions. The country had just spoken on this ques- tion and there was no doubt about the verdict. Had this been done there would to-day be no tariff discussion. However, it was not done, but Congress did finally convene under the provisions of the Constitution. It performed the pledges of the party, and it did so without the aid of the President. On the question of our finances no relief can come to this country until it is given by the Democratic party. The Republican party has 28 434 LIVE QUESTIONS. become the especial champion of the great bond-holding class and of every policy that builds up the few at the expense of the many, so that no relief can possibly come from that source. The Democratic party will meet the demands of the country, even though it has to do it with- out the aid of the President, and let me here remind you that almost every piece of legislation in this country, favoring the working man or the common people, was a Democratic measure. When the Repub- licans talked about the hard lot of the laborer, they played the act of the weeping crocodile. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to say that another ques- tion, to my mind of still greater importance, has lately been forced upon the attention of this country. The questions I have been dis- cussing relate to the material prosperity of our country. This ques- tion involves the liberty of the American people; involves the ques- tion as to whether or not the institutions of the fathers shall be pre- served and whether our laboring and producing classes shall go on de-' veloping as independent freemen, educating their children and strug- gling to place themselves upon the highest plane of citizenship: whether the republic shall go on developing a race of men, every one ' of whom can stand up in the sun and say with a swelling heart: "I am an American citizen, an American freeman," or whether we shall gradually have in this country great aggregations and concentrations of capital ruled by haughty and supercilious men, who use the federal courts as a kind of convenience, on the one side and an impoverished and degraded mass of common people on the other; a poor class of la- borers unable to educate their children, helpless and powerless in the hands of mighty corporations and whose liberties find no protection at the hands of the law and who can be thrown into prison almost as a matter of sport. We have been taught to believe that the ques- tion of political liberty and of equal rights for this country had been settled by the American Revolution and that we were hereafter at liberty to devote our energies to securing industrial freedom and intel- lectual advancement, but it seems that this is a mistake, and I am sorry for it. It is the business of government to protect life and property .and to see to it that the law is enforced. It is its business to see to it that SPEECH AT MATTOON. 435 when a crime has been committed against person or property, the offender is brought to justice, and a government that does not do this is an abomination. But experience had taught the world that there is a constant tendency for powerful interests to use the government for their own selfish purposes and under pretense of enforcing the law to oppress or wrong some of the people; that the tendency of power was to encroach. Consequently our fathers were particular in adopting a form of government. They not only provided that there should be three departments of government — the legislative, judicial and ex- ecutive — that neither of these should encroach on the domain of the others, but they also established local self-government. History and experience had taught them that a far-away, central power, when per- mitted to meddle with the affairs of the people, was dangerous to lib- erty, so they endeavored to erect safeguards against this. As you are aware, there were then some men who had no confidence in the people, men who wanted a strong, central government bordering on monarchy and that this government should interfere directly in the af- fairs of the people. But, fortunately for mankind, there was another class of men who were greater statesmen, who had higher ideals of government, who not only believed that the people were capable of self- government, but that men would reach a much higher development in- tellectually, morally and industrially when left to govern themselves than was possible under a government in which the iron hand of a central power cowed the individuality of the citizen. The latter theory prevailed, and as a consequence the American republic embarked on a career that astonished the world. For a century the country had a career of greatness and of grandeur that could only grow out of free institutions where every faculty of man is stimulated to the highest activity. The foundation for everything that makes us great and won- derful to-day was laid during that time. But, while the advocates of a strong central power that should directly interfere with the affairs of the people were defeated they were not destroyed. On the contrary, they have of late made great headway. During the last thirty years there have been great fortunes made in~this country, generally at the expense of the public, and often by methods that were criminal. It is a peculiarity of men who make fortunes in this way to clamor for a strong government. Being in possession of great power, they have been able to make an impression on the country, especially through those agencies which influence public opinion, and they have been able to in a great degree control the appointment of federal judges, and have thus succeeded in getting many of their exponents and friends on the federal bench, until they have the country almost within their 436 LIVE QUESTIONS. grasp. A century ago Thomas Jefferson, that far-seeing statesman who believed the people were capable of self-government, said that the federal judiciary of this country were the sappers and the miners that would steadily and stealthily undermine the foundations of the Con- stitution; would gradually extend their own jurisdiction and absorb to themselves functions of government that did not belong to them. This has been steadily going on until we recently woke up and found that instead of having three departments of government, the execu- tive, the legislative and the judicial, and those of the people's own choosing, there was all at once in full operation entirely new ma- chinery, an entirely new form of government never before witnessed anywhere else upon earth, and that is government by injunctions, whereby a judge, not content with deciding disputes that are brought before him; not content with simply rendering decisions upon ques- tions in litigation between man and man and coming within the jur- isdiction of federal courts, at once converts himself into an administfa- > tor and undertakes to administer the affairs of the country, and, not content with the law as he finds it, as the legislative branch of the gov- ernment has given it to him, he proceeds to legislate himself. He issues a ukase against an entire community without notice, practically prohibiting the doing of anything that he sees proper to prohibit, and in case of the disregard of this ukase or this injunction he takes it upon himself to send men to prison, although they may have violated no statute or transgressed no law. Where the law forbids a thing no injunction is necessary, the criminal court is the right tribunal to pun- ish violation. Injunctions were issued in the federal courts this year forbidding the doing of things which the legislative power had not for- bidden, making other things punishable by imprisonment which the legislative power said should be punishable only by fine because they were trifling. Again, they deprived men of the right of trial by jury when the legislative power and the Constitution said they were en- titled to trial by jury. During the last summer we had industrial dis- turbances which were ridiculously exaggerated in the newspapers. They were no greater than similar disturbances had been at Buffalo only about two years before; no greater than riots which occurred in Ohio, and were not as bloody as numerous riots which have occurred in the State of Pennsylvania. It is true some railroad cars were de- stroyed by mobs, but this happened in the outlying switching yards on the edge of the prairies at Chicago. The great city itself, far from being in danger, as was maliciously reported, had no knowledge of any trouble except what it got from the newspapers. The local au- thorities for a time believed themselves able to control the situation, SPEECH AT MATTOON. 437 and when they found they could not, they applied to the State for aid, and in a few hours after this application five regiments of State troops went on duty, and in forty hours after the State troops were put on the ground all attempts at destruction of property ceased and the rioting was practically over. The machinery created by law to deal with occasions of this kind was found to be ample and effective, and I want to say here that there is no government in the world more able to enforce the law and protect life and property than the government of Illinois. Its people are loyal and devoted and half a million of men would go forward in a few days if necessary to protect our institutions. In this case all the men who had violated the law were promptly ar- rested and punished by the proper tribunals. Hundreds of others who had violated no law were arrested merely upon the complaint of a corporation agent and were dragged, sometimes over 100 miles away from their homes and their families, in charge of officers and were thrown into prison like felons, and languished there; for doing what? For having been guilty of a contempt of court in failing to observe some requirement which that judge had made and which the law had not made. Yea, when they were brought to a hearing it was found that scores and scores of them had to be discharged because they were not even found guilty of a contempt of court, and many of them found that when set at liberty they had not the means to take them home. All this growing out of the usurpation of the federal judiciary in attempting to perform functions that the Constitution did not contemplate that they should perform. This country existed for more than a century, during which time no such injunctions were heard of. It grew great and powerful and excited the admiration of the world. It protected property, it protected life, it suppressed rioting and it punished crime. It was during this time that these great cor- porate interests, these great concentrations of wealth grew up. The law was found ample every day during all this time for all purposes, and even this year these injunctions did not protect property; they did not prevent rioting; they did not prevent the burning of a single freight car or the ditching of a single train. They were all issued before there was any disturbance and furnished no protection during the trouble. The Constitutional machinery restored order and en- forced the law, but when the troubles were over, then these injunc- tions filled the prisons with men who had committed no crimes and could not be punished by Constitutional tribunals. And let me add, that in Illinois the regular machinery of justice is all-sufficient to pro- tect life and property. Again, this year has witnessed an encroach- ment of the federal power in the use of the military never before at- 438 LIVE QUESTIONS. tempted. We had been taught that as the doctrines of secession had been stricken to the ground, we had a government based upon the two principles of federal supremacy and local self-government, each fundamental and inviolable. We imagined that in this respect we dif- fered from the despotisms of Europe, but this year we have practical- ly been told that the President of the United States is under no lim- itations, that, under pretense of enforcing some law, he can send federal troops anywhere, into any city or any hamlet of the United States, or into a thousand cities at once if, in his judgment, that means in his desire, it is necessary to do so; that the question as to whether the people are ready to enforce the law and able to enforce it, and to preserve order and protect property has nothing to do with it; that, like the Czar of Russia and the Emperor of Germany, he can send troops when and wherever he pleases, because he sees fit, and that there is no court beyond to which we can appeal. This is a new de- parture. The Constitution gave no such power. A Constitutional writer of some standing who complimented the President upon this act described it as "a great lesson in constitutional construction," thus admitting that a new step had been taken in constitutional con- struction and something had been done which it had been supposed the Constitution did not admit of. If this construction is to stand, then this government has changed character. We have passed a turning point in the road and instead of being headed toward a higher civilization, more general intelligence and the highest political free- dom, we are surely headed toward despotism. Governor Stone, of Missouri, in a profound address recently said that the Civil war had fortunately determined that the States could not destroy the Union, but we were now confronted with the equally vital question, whether the Union shall be permitted to destroy the States. There is one feature about this usurpation by the federal judiciary and the use of the federal troops which must make the heart of every lover of his country sad and must make every patriot feel a serious concern for the future, and that feature consists of the fact which stands out with such distressing bluntness that all these things were done at the behest and under the direction of the great trusts and corporations of the country. The government had all of the machinery necessary to administer justice in all other cases, in Chicago, but this was not relied on. The government appointed a special representative to take charge of these matters. There were several thousand able and disin- terested lawyers, but they were not wanted. There were hundreds of able Democrats capable of filling any office in the government, from that of President down, but they were not trussed. It cfrose a man SPEECH AT MATTOON. 439 who was not only a Republican, but one of the most prominent cor- poration lawyers in the country and, although he was at that very time the hired attorney of one of the railroads involved in the troubles and was thus personally interested in the result and therefore dis- qualified from conducting the administration of justice, he was clothed with all the powers of the government, and he brought to the service of his clients, without any expense to them, United States marshals, United States grand juries, United States courts and the United States army. He had men arrested almost at will. He countenanced the illegal seizure of private papers and he dictated to the Mayor of Chicago the conditions on which the federal troops might be with- drawn from that city. Everything the federal government had was at the disposal of a corporation lawyer and used by him for his clients. Some years ago Congress passed what was known as the Inter- State Commerce Act, intended for the protection of the shipper against excessive charges and against ruinous discriminations. The corpora- tions refused to comply and carried it into the courts, and first one federal judge and then another federal judge proceeded to hold sec- tion after section of it unconstitutional until it was practically de- stroyed, so far as the purpose for which it was created is concerned, and then, after having thus nullified an act of Congress, intended for the protection of the people, these same judges turned around and made of this law a club with which to pound the men who carry dinner-pails. They made of it an instrument of oppression against the men whom Congress had not thought of. It was soon found, upon observation, that for years no man has been appointed to the federal bench who was not satisfactory to these corporations; in fact, most of the appointees were corporation lawyers. In most cases they were men of integrity, always men of ability and learning, but they carried with them that bias and that prejudice which rendered them incapable of being impartial judges, so that many of them simply ceased giving opinions for corporations as lawyers and proceeded to render opinions for corporations as judges, some of them having gone so far as to hold that a man working for a corporation dare not quit when, he wishes and that if two or more quit together they are liable to be thrown into jail. Now, if this policy, this new usurpation on the part of the federal courts and this_ usurpation of the use of the mili- tary on the part of the federal executive is to continue, then the great toiling masses of this country are doomed. These courts will become merely a side-door convenience for concentrations of capital, and American citizenship must degenerate. The important question which you must now consider is, from 44° -LIVE QUESTIONS. which political party can you probably get relief? You say it was a Democratic President who sent the troops into Illinois. That is true, he was elected as a Democrat, but the Democratic party, as a party, always has been and is to-day opposed to that policy, while the Republican party, as a party, is a unit in favor of it, You say that the Attorney General of the United States advised the bringing of the injunctions I have described and that he is called a Democrat. Well, that is true, but here again the Republican party as a unit supports what he did. The Democratic party does not. You must not judge a party by what some man may do who is accidentally lifted into power by it and then sets his heels upon that which it has regarded as sacred. Judas betrayed his master, but the world did not therefore condemn all twelve of the apostles. The world did not reject the examples or the teachings of the other eleven simply because one of the twelve, had accepted thirty pieces of silver. It is true that the Democratic party has apparently been put into a false position in this matter, but I repeat to you the question: Where will you look for relief? Cer- tainly not to the Republican party. It is a unit against you. But, says someone, we will look to a new party. Well, my friends, let us examine the situation. Let us see where we are going to bring up, and let me say that many of the principles advocated by the new parties are fundamentally and eternally right. They have been and are now being advocated by the Democratic, party. You advocate an income tax, and the Democratic party made it a law and did it against the views of its President. If a new party could give the country the relief which it needs; if a new party could check this usurpation upon the part of the federal judges and could forever check the tendency toward military despotism, I should say nothing more. A man who really loves his country, a man who believes that the greatness and grandeur of a country depend upon the condition of the great masses of the people, is not particular where reforms come from so long as they do come. But, my friends, there is an adage that runs something like this: "Divide and conquer." When the jealous Grecians centuries ago wanted to conquer an enemy theyj first managed to foment a division among its people and then they conquered. When Rome wished to conquer a powerful nation it managed to get up a division and then it conquered. Divide and conquer is the watchword of the great corporate and trust influences of to-day. The leaders of the Republican party stand almost as a unit- against the things you wish to accomplish. They are against you on the tariff question, against you on the money question, against you on the question of the federal judiciary and against you on the SPEECH AT MATTOON. 44* question of using the federal troops as a convenience for corporations. The great mass of the Democratic party is with you. The great majority of its leaders is with you. You and they stand on the same platform and are struggling for the same ends in this regard, but you are divided, and so long as you are divided what must be the result? The enemy must win. Facts are stubborn, and, while they may be unpleasant, a wise man will not shut his eyes to 'them. It will re- quire the united efforts of every Democrat and every man who calls himself an Independent to bring about the objects for which both are striving. Now, what is the effect of the new move? It is simply a division of people who, on fundamental questions, think alike. Consequently the effect of a new movement in this State can simply be to insure the success of the enemy. Let me illustrate. The Hon. George Fithian is now running for Congress on the Democratic ticket from this district. He has been in Congress a number of terms. He has been the strong and courageous and bold, open, outspoken de- fender of the principles you advocate. You could not send a man there who would be more conscientious or more able in fighting for those things that you are fighting for. Why should he not have your support? A gentleman is running against him on the Republican ticket who, I understand, is the attorney for a corporation. I will assume that he is honest. What has been his training? In what channel has his mind run? What have been the influences that have surrounded him for the past ten or fifteen years? If he goes to Con- gress, will he be your friend, or against you? Can you count on him voting in your favor on any one of the questions you advocate? He is on the other side. Now, there is running in this district an esti- mable gentleman as a third candidate. What is the effect? He stands for the same things that Mr. Fithian stands for, but there is a division. Divide and conquer, is the watchword of the enemy. You are divided, and unless you consider well you will be conquered. Now, let me ask, when you get a man whom you can rely on; a man who will do right; when you find a man who is your friend at a time when it is not popular to be so; when you find a man who does not smile on you during the campaign and then sell you out at Washington ; why should you not stand by him? Let any man who goes to Washington understand that so long as he is true, you will be true to him, but if you divide and defeat him, then when some measure comes up in Congress and some lobbyist comes around to see the members, he says: "Why, my dear fellow, you vote in the interests of the common people and they will defeat you at the next election. Vote with my clients, the corporations, and they will take care of you." 442 UV& QUESTIONS. I appeal to every »man who toils with his hands in this district. I appeal to every man who is in favor of honest government by the people and for them to see to it that this man is not defeated by reason 'of a division in your ranks. What I have said in regard to Mr. Fithian applies to all other cases. Remember that the basic prin- ciples of the Democratic party are favorable to the great masses of the people, while the basic principles of the Republican party are favorable to that class which lives off the earnings of other people. Let me call your attention to the legislation of this State for a number of years past. There have been more than a dozen measures passed for the protection of the laborer ; laws relating to the screening of coal, the weighing of coal, the ventilation of coal mines ; the pro- tection of coal miners ; laws relating to the weekly payment of wages ; laws for the inspection of factories, so as to put an end to sweat shops ; all laws that were intended for the, benefit of the men who toil with their hands. I ask you to examine the records of the Legislature; see who introduced these- laws, who worked for them and fought for them, and you will find that in nearly every case they were Demo- cratic measures. Some of them received the support of a few Re- publicans, but the great body of the Republicans voted against nearly all of them. Here again I ask you, as men who toil with your hands, why should you not stand by that party which at least tried to do some- thing for you? Possibly you expect me to at least refer to the State administra- tion. Let me say that during the campaign of two years ago we made some specific representations and promises to the people of this State in regard to the policy we would pursue if elected. These representa- tions and promises are being carried out to the letter. We wiped off the statute books an act that struck at the very basis of free govern- ment in connection with compulsory education, and we enacted a law which, while free from these objections, prevents the children of the State from growing up on the streets without the rudiments of an education. A law was passed requiring all custodians of public funds to account for interest they may receive on such funds, and a factory inspection law was passed in order to put an end to the sweat shops that were a disgrace to the State. On the management of the State institutions we are endeavoring to enforce the highest order of civil service. Not a civil service whereby, when a man once gets a place he keeps it as long as he lives without regard to his efficiency, but a civil service in which he has got to do his best every day. I require of the trustees and superintendents the rigid enforcement of the following rules; SPEECH AT MATTOOM. 443 First: There must not be a single man upon the pay-rolls who is not absolutely needed. Second: No higher wages must be paid in the institution than similar ability commands outside. Third: No man must be kept an hour after it is discovered that he is not just the right man for the place, and it makes no difference who recommended him or what his influence is. Fourth: That any attendant found guilty of cruelty to inmates must be promptly discharged. Fifth: Everything needed in the institutions must be purchased, not under the old system of favoritism, but of the lowest and best bidder, everybody being given a fair chance to bid. We have done away entirely with the office of purchasing agent, so that there is not to-day a single purchasing agent in the State of Illinois, and the saving resulting from this new method far exceeds our expectations. The institutions generally are in better condition than they ever were, and the patients are being, if anything, better fed and better cared for, and yet we have already a saving of over $300,000, and I believe that this new policy^ will, during the four years of this administration, save to the State very nearly $1,000,000, for it has been enforced as yet less than eighteen months. It took some time to get it well estab- lished. In our State prisons we are carrying out the policy which we agreed to, that is, that while the prisoners must be worked, they are not being worked under contract, and they are not being bunched into a few trades but are divided up as much as possible among the dif- ferent industries so as to produce the least competition in any one, and, although the times have been hard and business depressed, we are making a success of this system. In brief, we are endeavoring to give the people of this State a thorough business administration and to bring all of our State insti- tutions onto the highest plane of any in the world, so that every man who loves his country, no matter whether he be Republican or Demo- crat, shall feel proud of the State of Illinois and of its institutions. We are endeavoring to place them, not only upon a high business plane, but upon the highest scientific plane. Now, my fellow citizens, do not forget that you have a great country and that the power of governing it is in your hands; that if any policies are carried out that are injurious to you, or if the gov- ernment is used in any way that gives one class of people advantage over another class, you have yourselves to blame. You have the strength to keep these matters all in your own hands, and it is only when you are defeated that you suffer. I ask of you to stand to- 444 LIVE QUESTIONS. gether. Stand shoulder to shoulder. Stand firmly for the principles- established by the fathers, the principle of equal rights to all and special privileges to none. Those principles which have made this republic grand and. glorious and which, if adhered to, will give it a career in the future that will eclipse all of the grandeur of the past. SPEECH AT AURORA TURNER HALL, CHICAGO, NOV. ist, 1894, ON "THE POLITICAL PARTIES. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: I need not say to you that it is gratifying to me to find that I still have your confidence and your good wishes. I have not come here to-night to make you an elaborate address, but I merely want to talk with you. The time has again come when the freemen of America must cast their ballots, when they must decide in what direction the government shall run. It may seem to you that these periods come around very often, and it may seem to you that a campaign is always about the same thing and that politicians have always about the same story to tell you, and that each campaign is most important; but I want to say to you that in a free country, where the people govern, they never get done gov- erning. Managing the affairs of the public is like keeping house or managing a business. It is important and affects you all directly, and it never ceases. It needs attention every day, and whenever the peo- ple lose interest in public affairs then they soon discover that a selfish class of men who do not have the interests of the public at heart get control of affairs, get their hands upon the lever, and the result is that policies are pursued which bear heavily upon the public. Conse- quently I say to you that this business of voting, this business of gov- erning, is one with which the people of a free country never get through; they never get done, and it is always important. Now this fall you are to elect members of Congress, you are to elect members of the Legislature and you are to determine who shall manage your county affairs ; and the first question for every intelligent voter is, what party promises or guarantees the best results for the great mass of the people. Of course, during the campaign each po- litical- party will make any quantity of promises, and any kind of a promise that may insure a vote; but the parties in this country are not so new that you must rely upon the promises of any of them. They all have a history, and they have demonstrated by their careers that they in the main represent certain fundamental principles, and as you glance back over the history of the two great political parties of SPEECH ON POLITICAL PARTIES. 445 this country, you very soon discover that there is a fundamental dif- ference between the policy advocated by the one party and the policy advocated by the other party, a difference that is far-reaching and that seriously affects the public welfare. DIFFERENCE IN THE TWO PARTIES. When you glance back over the history of the parties, gentlemen, you soon discover that one of the parties is the lineal descendant of the old Federalistic party, which stood for strong government, stood for a strong centralized power; a party the leaders* of which did not believe the people were capable of self-government, the leaders of which were in favor of a government that was bordering closely on a monarchy. The leaders of that party believed it was the business of the government to take care of the rich and then let the rich take care of the poor. That was one of the principles of the original Federalistic party of this country. That party went out of existence. It was suc- ceeded by the Whig party, which advocated mainly the same princi- ples, and that was succeeded by the Republican party, which inherits all the sins of its ancestors. [Applause.] The Republican party has now had control of the legislation of the United States, or did have up to the session of the last Congress, for upward of a quarter of a century. While it is true that the Democratic party once had a President and at different times had a majority in one house of Congress, it never controlled both houses; consequently, every law upon the statute books, every law relating to the interests of the laboring classes, every law relating to shipping, every law relating to the American government, was framed by a Republican Congress and had the signature of a Republican President. Now, gov- ernment policies bear fruit just as much as the seed planted in the ground produces the harvest. The policy of this government has borne fruit. Look at it for a moment. This country was the richest country in the world; more natural wealth, the best climate in the world, the most extensive farming district in the world, with every kind of mineral, and with the most energetic, inventive and industrious people to be found in the world, and with more natural resources than any country in the world. That was not all. It had, next to England, the greatest commerce on earth, had almost the largest shipping, and was the largest owner of shipping in the world. That was the condi- tion of this country. You would suppose that all such a country needed was to be let alone; it needed nothing except to be let alone. People with such resources and wealth, people with such energy and enterprise, people with all the markets in the world open to them, 446 __ LIVE QUESTIONS. owning also one of the largest fleets upon earth, needed only to be let alone in order to prosper. RESULTS OF REPUBLICANISM. But what has been the result? Why, you have had in this coun- try two of the most disastrous and ruinous panics the world ever saw. Labor has been disturbed for the last fifteen or more years ; the num- ber of unemployed got larger; every winter the number of unem- ployed in large cities was greater; the great manufacturing establish- ments were beginning to run on half time, and finally shut down. And finally, before the new government came in, before the Democratic administration could get its hand upon the lever, in the spring of 1893, what happened? The entire fabric came down. The most ruin- ous panic the country has yet witnessed took place and the fabric that had been reared by nearly thirty years of Republican legislation, the results of a policy of twenty-five years' endurance, the results of twenty^five years' Republican policy ended in what? Ended in utter collapse of the industries and energies of our country. But that was not all. It was found that the McKinley law left an annual deficit of upward of $70,000,000. Meantime, while the laborer was becoming more and more uncomfortable, what did we behold? We found some of the largest estates being collected in this country that the world had ever seen; some of the largest fortunes being amassed that mankind had ever heard of. In Pennsylvania we found that this high protective tariff was making a few men immensely rich, and the same was true in other sections of the country. But what about the laborers? Powderly told us several years ago that the great manufacturers in Pennsylvania, operating with the steamship com- panies, had flooded Pennsylvania with the cheapest kind of pauper labor brought over from Europe — [applause] — brought over in a week or ten days at any time, so that, as he put it, almost every American born laborer and almost every naturalized laborer had been driven out of the State and their places filled by men brought over from abroad by the employers, brought over under a contract; laborers who did not come to educate their children and support their families. They supplanted the American laborer. What of it? The next thing we heard was that Carnegie was building castles in Scotland. He had amassed so many millions that he could not spend them in America and was building castles in Scotland. But what about his laborers? Pinkerton rifles were taking care of his laborers. [Applause.] SPEECH ON POLITICAL PARTIES. 447 MANY LAWS, BUT NONE FOR THE PEOPLE. Now, gentlemen, I have thus rapidly sketched to you the results of twenty-five years of Republican legislation in the national Legisla- ture, the results of twenty-five years of Republican policy, and I have pointed out to you that it resulted in the utter collapse of our indus- tries and of the" enterprises of this country. I have pointed out to you that it resulted in simply building up enormous wealth, enormous fortunes in the hands of the few, while it resulted in subjecting the laborers of this country to a condition to which they had never before been reduced. It resulted in the intimidation of the laboring classes of this country by the Pinkerton rifles. And that, my fellow citizens, was the result of Republican legislation. During those twenty-five years, if you will examine the statute books of the United States, you will find acts bearing upon almost every question. You will find laws so numerous that you cannot load them into a wagon. You will find stacks of acts of Congress in favor of almost every measure under the sun except a measure in favor of the common people or in favor of the laboring men of this country. Now, why was the Republican legislation of this country framed along that line? Why? Because the Republican party was true to its prin- ciples, those principles being that it is the business of the government to assist the rich and then take the chances of having the rich take care of the poor. [Applause.] When you look at State legislation you discover the same policy. During the last twelve years there have been quite a number of acts passed by the Legislature of the State of Illinois bearing directly upon the condition of labor in this State — bearing directly upon the condition of those men who toil with their hands. There have been half a dozen laws passed bearing directly upon the condition of the men who mine coal. There have been a number of acts passed bearing upon the condition of other laborers in the State, and notably an act passed by the last Legislature, known as the sweat shop bill, that bill which sought to root out of this great and glorious city of ours that infamous and accursed system of sweat shops. RECORD OF DEMOCRACY. Now, if you will examine the journals of the Legislature of Illinois, the record kept from day to day, you will find that almost every meas- ure ever passed by that Legislature in favor of the laboring classes of this State was a Democratic measure. [Applause.] You will find that every one of them was framed by a Democrat, introduced by a Demo- 44§ LIVE QUESTIONS. crat and carried through by a Democrat. [Cheers.] When you come to look at the. ayes and hoes as they are recorded in black and white upon the journals of the Legislature, you will find that while there were a few Republicans who voted for some of these measures the great body of the Republican legislators voted against every one of them. Why? Because it was not the policy of that party to legislate for common people. It could not see them; they were too low down. Its policy was aimed' at the higher class. So when you look around and glance back over the history of the two parties you find very soon that they stand for opposite principles. I will not impugn the honesty of the Republicans. I think they have been true to their principles, true to that principle at least which favors governmental protection for the rich, governmental protection for class. They carried that out. That being so, if you stop there, what is the duty of every man who toils with his hands; of every man who has an interest in his own welfare and in the welfare of his children; for let me say to you, governmental policies are far reaching. Very often what government regulates and plants the seeds of to-day will in the harvest of after years produce surprising results, and the policy that may be shaped by the next Congress and the next Legislature may affect not only your welfare but the welfare of your children. Now, in what direction are you desirous of having the govern- ment move? Do you- want a continuation of what you have had for the last twenty-five years? [Cries of "No."] Do you want to see a few more Pinkertons sent to Pennsylvania? Do you want to see more panics? Do you want to see higher tariffs? Do you want to see more McKinley laws? If you do, there is a way open to get it. If you do not, then what? Why vote for the men, vote for the party that stands for the opposite principle. That is the duty of every man that believes that way. Now, another question has been sprung upon the people of this State this summer that I regret, and I regret very much, but I regard it as being vital. I regard it as being more far-reaching than any other that is to-day before the American people. RESULT OF JEFFERSON'S IDEA. You remember that early in the history of this republic there were two parties, one, as I have said, that favored the formation of a strong government, of a great central power whose iron hand could come down upon a community of people at any time; a party that did not believe in local self-government and did not believe the people had the capacity to govern themselves. The other party, represented by SPEECH ON POLITICAL PARTIES. 449 that far-seeing statesman and lover of mankind, Thomas Jefferson — [prolonged cheers] — believed that the world had been governed too much ; believed that men were capable of producing and reaching the highest results when given more freedom; believed that the iron hand of the government held down upon the people but tended to destroy their energies and enterprise; believed the people were capa- ble of self-government, and advocated the trial of a policy that had never been tried; advocated local self-government — [applause] — a party that had seen that wherever there was a great central power, far away, difficult of access, difficult to reach, it was nearly always con- trolled by class interests, and the great mass of the people suffered by it. History had taught them, that power was aggressive and it must be curbed or the people would be reduced to slavery. So they determined that this government should be based upon the best prin- ciples. They determined that not only should the American people govern themselves and that they should have three branches of gov- ernment — the legislative, the judicial and the executive — and that neither branch should encroach upon the domain of the other, but, more than that, they provided that the central government should have no power except what was expressly granted to it, and any power not expressly granted should be reserved to the people. Now that theory prevailed, the theory of administration advocated by Jef- ferson prevailed, and the American Republic thus governed gave free- dom to everyone, gave free, scope to the inventive genius, to the in- tellect and enterprise and energy of the people, and the new republic launched out upon a career such as the world had never seen. The development of this great country would have been an impossibility upon any other theory of government. Had the opposite theory of government of the great federalistic power prevailed the American people would simply have changed masters; they simply would have thrown off the English yoke and put on the American yoke, and the American Republic to-day would exist only east of the Allegheny Mountains. But, launched as it was in an atmosphere of freedom, the genius of the people leaped forth, and the result was a career of invention, of progress, of advancement, and of development of every kind that brought to us the industries and the genius of every nation, until in the short space of a century an entirely new nation has been created. [Applause.] That was the result of free government, the result of free institutions. 29 45° LIVE QUESTIONS. ADDRESS TO THE NATIONAL GRANGE, DELIVERED AT SPRINGFIELD, NOV. 15, 1894. Gentlemen: As the executive of one of the greatest agricultural States in the world, I welcome you into the State of Illinois, and I trust you wHl find our people as hospitable and as cordial as our fields are broad and our prairies are fertile. It is fitting that the rep- resentatives of agriculture should hold a convention in a State that stretches from the great lakes to the two great rivers of the continent, stretches through 400 miles of latitude, and that produces almost everything that is grown in the temperate zone. " I trust that your meeting here may be a profitable one, that the great interests you represent may be advanced and that the millions of our people who cultivate the earth may be helped onto a happier plane by your deliberations. The condition of the men who till the soil has always determined the condition of the nation. When the farmers prosper the nation is happy. When the farming classes suffer, then there is distress in both city and country. You represent the oldest industry known to civilized man, an industry upon which rests to-day the entire fabric of human institutions. Not only does the world depend on your industry in a physical sense, but men have always regarded the husbandman as a most important pillar in the structure of all governments. As a rule he stands for industry, sobriety and patriotism. Certainly, in our country, have the agricultural classes been the main stay of the republic. Cities may breed riots and manu- facturing centers may breed disturbances, but love of order and devotion to the flag is characteristic of farming communities. The most powerful citizens of Rome were landed proprietors. In England it was the land barons who extorted from King John the Magna Charta which is to-day the foundation of England's liberties. In the great countries of the European continent the land proprietors are powerful and influential. In our own great country the farmers shaped almost every policy of the government for three-quarters of a cen- tury. During our Civil war the southern armies came entirely from the country, while in the north it was the agricultural States that fur- nished most of those great armies that put down the rebellion. Being used to the hardships of the country life of that day, these men brought the highest physical development, great powers of endurance, and, what was still more important, they brought a lofty patriotism and love of country. But, during the last twenty-five years the influence of the farmer has waned in this country. Other interests have grown up which, by reason of their being more concentrated, have been able ADDRESS TO NATIONAL GRANGE. 451 not only to control legislation, but have been able in many cases to control the construction of the law in their interest ; and the power of construing the law is more important than that of making the laws. Selfishness is a rule of human action, and moving in harmony with a law that is universal and eternal the powerful corporations and other interests have steadily sought to gain the advantage, both in legisla- tion and in the courts. In all ages government has been a kind of compromise between selfish and conflicting interests. The point at which these neutralize or check each other marks the level of the law. The Darwinian theory of the survival of the fittest, that is of the strongest, is found to prevail in governmental affairs as well as in the realm of nature. Those interests which take care of them- selves survive and those which can not do so soon go to the wall. To be sure, the theory of government in our day and country is that it shall do exact justice in all cases, and that no one interest shall have any advantage over another. But bear in mind, that is the ideal gov- ernment and has never yet been found among men. Government must be administered through human agencies and men carry with them into the Legislature and on to the bench and into other offices whatever bias or prejudice they have as private individuals. Per- sonal interest affects the judgment, while environment and surround- ing influences shape the convictions. Consequently, men of equal ability and integrity, but who have been subject to different influences, will hold opposite views on many questions. A man who has been a corporation lawyer for years, or who is constantly surrounded by that influence, socially, or in business, will pursue a different course when sent to the Legislature, or elevated to the bench, than will the man who did not have these surroundings, though both may be equally honest. The great concentrations of capital long ago recog- nized this fact and have taken advantage of it and greatly profited thereby. They have been able in many cases to use the government as a convenience or as an instrument with which to get an advantage over "others. For this purpose, they not only contributed money to elect some men and to defeat others, but they keep their hired agents in attendance on Legislatures, lobbying to secure the passage of such measures as they desire and to defeat such as they do not like. These lobbyists very often get the votes of the country members by using arguments that have length, breadth and thickness, consequently when you glance over the legislation for a number of years you find that special interests have gained great advantage, and where one interest gains an advantage through legislation others must suffer. Again, they know how to escape paying their full share of taxes — they know 452 LIVE QUESTIONS. how to fix the assessor where they have to deal with him, and' they know what kind of arguments will control a board of equalization, where they have to deal with it. In Illinois the state board of equali- zation assesses corporations and we find that, while most of the cor- porations of the State may pay their share of taxes, there are $200,- 000,000 worth of property belonging to a few corporations that es- capes all taxation of every kind. This necessarily increases the burden of those who do pay taxes, and I have yet to learn of a single farm in the State that is not taxed. But, more important than all this: The representatives of special interests long ago learned the importance of selecting their friends to construe the law. They saw that every important question has two sides and that generally a strong argu- ment can be made on either side. They saw that simply elevating a man to the bench does not make him over, does not make him any broader or wiser or stronger, that he will have the same prejudices and the same leanings on the bench that he had before, that his mind will run in the same channel that it did before and be influenced by the same arguments that it was before, and that one man would be perfectly honest in deciding one way, while another would be equally honest in deciding the opposite way; that it all depended on mental organization, on education, on interest, and on social, political and business environment. They therefore looked after both the elec- tion and the appointment of judges. They made themselves felt in the election of judges for the higher courts, and in the appointment of federal judges they wielded such an influence that no man was ap- pointed who was unsatisfactory to them. As a consequence, the federal courts for a quarter of a century have been almost the guard- ians of corporations. Their decisions paved the way for the formation of the great trusts and combinations of the country. Wherever a corporation was sued in a State court it at once tried to remove the case to the federal court, because it expected to fare better there. Years ago hundreds of the counties and cities of the west issued bonds to assist in building railroads. In many cases the roads were not built, there was not even a shovel stuck into the earth toward building them, yet the people were asked to pay the bonds. It was a glaring fraud and the State courts held the bonds to be void, but they were carried into the federal courts and these courts compelled the people to pay these bonds in spite of the fraud, and the farmers of many a county for years found their burdens increased in consequence of these decisions. Some years ago Congress passed the Inter-State Commerce Law. Its purpose was to protect the public and especially the shippers against unjust charges and against ruinous discrimiua- ADDRESS TO NATIONAL GRANGE. 453 tions. The corporations refused to comply with its provisions. They carried it into the federal courts and first one federal judge and then another proceeded to hold section after section of this law to be uncon- stitutional until they had rendered it harmless for the corporations. Then, after having thus destroyed an act of Congress that was in- tended for the protection of the people, these same judges turned around and made of this law an instrument of oppression against the men who toil with their hands, they made of it a club with which to pound the back of labor. According to reports in financial cir- cles, the officers of the Northern Pacific Railroad defrauded that road out of nearly sixty millions of dollars. Knowing that this would bankrupt the road they then went into the federal court of Milwaukee and had three of their personal friends appointed receivers, and these receivers at once proceeded to reduce the wages of the men who worked on and operated the road. And that federal judge did noth- ing towards bringing the scoundrels who had robbed the road to jus- tice. He not only refused to remove their friendly receivers, but he issued an injunction restraining the men who worked on the road from stopping work because of the reduction in wages and threatened them with imprisonment if they did so. I do not refer to these things for the purpose of oriticism, that is not my province. I refer to them simply to show the results that follow when a few special interests are on the alert to gain an ad- vantage, while the great producing classes are napping. Do not condemn corporations for reaching out after everything in sight. They are acting in accordance with a law that is eternal, and if they get more than they are entitled to you have yourselves to blame. The people who toil with their hands constitute the overwhelming ma- jority in this country. They have the power in their own hands, and if they will not protect themselves, they should not complain when they suffer at the hands of others. Do not forget that there are two great laws constantly at work throughout all human affairs, one draw- ing together and the other tearing to pieces. Competition between the various interests is fierce and only those interests survive which can maintain themselves. The others go down. Everywhere there is concentration and combination and the exercise of that power which comes from combining and concentrating. The men who till the soil and the men who toil with their hands have to face combined forces everywhere, and I can see only one way open for them; they must either meet combined force with combined force, or else they and their children must consent to permanently be the under dogs in the fight. We may tajk against combinations as much as we will, 454 LIVE QUESTIONS. they have become established facts in this country. All of the great manufacturing, railroads and commercial interests of this country are controlled by combinations. A corporation is in itself a combi- nation. There is no power under the heavens that can change these conditions. They are the peculiarity of the age and the only way to prevent these great combinations of capital from oppressing the peo- ple is to meet them with a force strong enough to check them. Be as wide-awake as they are. If they try to shape legislation, be on the ground and prevent it. If they try to name the federal judges, be on hand and recommend your man. I will venture that during our en- tire history no farmers' organization has tried to secure the appoint- ment of a single federal judge, and no farmer ever visited the White House for such a purpose, and yet, the interests of the farming classes were greater than those of all the corporations combined. Again, when concentrated capital sends a man to the Legislature or to Congress, it keeps an eye on him, and when he ceases to obey its wishes, it re-- tires him. The farmers have not yet learned to do that. If they ever learn a lesson in this regard there, will not be so many men who smile on the farmer at home, and then sell him out at Washington or at his State capital. Let me say in conclusion that, our country is young yet; it is already the richest and grandest on earth. All we need to do is to keep our face towards the sun and everything will be well. The con- dition of the farmers of this country will be just what they make it themselves. They can have a voice in all of the affairs of govern- ment and see to it that they are not made the victims of injustice, or they can allow others to sit on the seat of power and dole out such crumbs as they please. The great toiling masses of this country made it; they saved it from destruction; they built our cities and developed the continent. They have made it great and glorious in the eyes of the world and they can rule it if they will but stand together. THE CAUSE OF DEMOCRATIC DEFEAT IN NOVEMBER, 1894. » Springfield, 111., Nov. 8. In reply. to the question: "Governor, to what do you attribute the great Democratic reverse at the late election?" Governor Altgeld to- day replied as follows : It was not due to local causes. The causes that produced it oper- ated all over the country and, I think, were largely due to the wide- CAUSE OF DEMOCRATIC DEFEAT. 455 spread dissatisfaction with the course pursued by the federal admin- istration. It first wore out the 'patience and destroyed the confidence of business interests, and then it turned around and literally drove away those men who toil with their hands. In the spring of 1893 Cleveland was urged to convene Congress at once, for the purpose of considering the tariff question. At that time a fair tariff reform bill could have been passed in six weeks. The country had spoken upon the subject, the sentiment of the American people was nearly unanimous, and even the corrupt and corrupting agents of the protected monopo- lies were ready to surrender. Had this course been taken the great business and manufacturing interests of the country would have adjusted themselves to the new conditions and gone to work, and the country would have again set- tled down and there would have been no tariff discussion in this last campaign. No man in the country would have cared to hear Mc- Kinley talk. But, instead of listening to the voice of the American people, Cleveland was accessible only to the foreign and eastern money manipulators. He refused to act upon the subject upon which the country had spoken and proceeded to act on a subject upon which the country had not spoken and on which there was a divided senti- ment. The result was that the conditions growing out of the panic were intensified, and the business and manufacturing interests of the country were practically kept at a standstill for eighteen months, dur- ing which time thousands of laborers were compelled to beg bread. The result was not only dissatisfaction but disgust. Never before in the history of this republic has such a gigantic blunder been com- mitted by a President. THE GREAT STRIKES. Second, while the causes which I have enumerated did not produce the conditions which gave rise to the great coal strike and the great railroad strike of last summer, they did intensify these conditions. In fact, .there is a doubt whether we would have had either strike if the tariff question had been settled in the spring of 1893, and after having thus helped to produce these great disturbances, the federal adminis- tration then turned its face against the great laboring classes of the country and placed all the powers of the government under the control of the corporations. In Chicago during the railroad strike, before there had been any rioting, before there had been any destruction of property and before anything had happened to indicate that the local authorities could not maintain law and order, and before the State authorities were called 456 LIVE QUESTIONS. on for assistance, the federal government, in violation of the constitu- tion and in violation of those principles .of local self-government which the Democratic party had advocated for a hundred years, interfered, both through the federal judiciary and by the use of federal troops. This was done by the direction of the attorney general and of the President. The country then discovered that we had a corporation lawyer, a corporation manipulator, for attorney general, and, although there was in Chicago the complete machinery for the administration of jus- tice, yet so eager was the federal administration to serve the corpora- tions the usual machinery for administering justice in Chicago was not trusted. A man was appointed to directly represent the govern- ment as prosecutor, and the country was amused at the selection that was made. There were then in Chicago several thousand able and conscientious lawyers who were not directly or personally interested in the troubles, but they were not wanted. There were in Chicago hundreds of able Democrats who were capable of filling any position, from that of President down, but they were not trusted. PROSECUTOR WHO WAS NAMED. The administration selected a man who was not only a Republican, but who was one of the most prominent corporation lawyers in the country, and who was at that time the attorney for some of the rail- roads involved in this trouble, and had therefore a direct personal in- terest in the outcome. Yet he was put in charge of the machinery of jus- tice, and he brought to the service of his clients, without any expense to them, United States marshals, United States grand juries and United States courts, and the United States army. All the powers of the United States government were placed at the disposal of a corpora- tion lawyer and used by him for the benefit of his clients against the men who toil with their hands. And all this under an administration that had been placed in power by the Democratic party. Hundreds of honest and industrious men who had violated no statute and transgressed no law were thrown into prison on the mere charge of being guilty of contempt of court, and the toiling masses became alarmed, not simply for their material welfare, but for the liberty of themselves and their children, and they seized the first op- portunity to deliver a body blow to that administration which was fraudulently claiming to be Democratic while violating every known principle of Democracy. They joined hands with the dissatisfied busi- ness men of the country and the result is universal disaster to that party which has been twice deceived and twice betrayed by one man. STATE INSTITUTIONS. 457 It has had the misfortune to be stricken down by the man to whom it had handed a sword. ON CHANGE OF MANAGEMENT IN STATE INSTITU- TIONS. Executive Office, Springfield, Nov. 20, 1894. J. W. Babcock, Esq., Columbia, S. C: Dear Sir: Answering your letter of inquiry of the 2d inst., I will say that I was once imbued with the idea that the management of an insane, or any other asylum, should be subject to as few changes as possible and that it should be divorced from all outside influence, but since I have been brought into closer relations with the management of these institutions and have studied the character and watched the tendency of them I have entirely changed my mind on this subject. I now feel that a complete change of management at reasonable inter- vals is an absolute necessity to the welfare of an asylum. There seems to be everywhere an irresistible tendency to get into a rut. For a time after their appointment new officers are vigilant, wide-awake and thorough, and, even if they are inexperienced, the institution fares reasonably well during this time, for the attendants and underlings of an institution are apt unconsciously to catch the spirit of the head, especially if they wish to retain their places. But, after a time, officers begin to feel comfortable in their positions, and then easy, and next lazy, and soon a kind of easy-going spirit pervades the whole estab- lishment, and out of this condition grows brutality on the part of some attendants, inattention and negligence on the part of others, and looseness of the business management. The head may still pre- pare learned papers to read before a congress, but the patients in the institution suffer. I am convinced that a new broom is needed every now and then, not only in a kitchen, but in every public position. Nearly all the scandals connected with the institutions of this coun- try were found- when the management was old, and rarely have we heard of any trouble when the management was new. I am aware that men who make it a profession to serve in institutions will de- nounce this view and will cite the fact that in the management of a private business a man finds out who are the best servants and keeps them. This illustration is entirely misleading and has absolutely no application to the public service. In the management of a private business the head, being obliged to supply ways and means, is forced to be constantly on the alert to keep an eye on everything. He is never permitted to sink into an easy and comfortable frame of mind, 4S§ 'UVZ QUESTIONS: or if he does do so, he soon finds that his business is hot prospering. Consequently, in private affairs the employes are constantly in the situation that attendants are for a while under a new management. The very atmosphere watches them, but in the public service the head of an institution is not required to be eternally vigilant in order to get ways and means. These are furnished him, and, not having this necessary spur to keep him on the alert, he in time feels comfortable and then easy, and that spirit soon gets through the entire institu- tion. As to the influence of politics; it should never have anything tp do with the management of an institution; that is, if the appointing power is influenced by political considerations, a set of men will be appointed who will not have the necessary high aspirations and there will not be the effort to bring the institution on the highest plane possible. Men should be selected for their fitness and given a reason- able time in which to work, but should not be allowed to remain in an institution long enough for dry-rot to set in, and nowhere are the conditions so conducive to dry-rot as in a public institution. My idea of the public service is : First: Select men solely with reference to their fitness. Second : Do not put a man on the pay-roll who is not absolutely needed. Third: Do not pay more money in the institution than similar ability or service would command outside. Fourth : Do not keep a man an hour after it is found that he is not just the right man for the place, and let it make no difference who recommended him or what influence is back of him. Fifth: Keep the standard of living of the inmates on the plane of that of the average self-supporting citizen, except where special diet is prescribed by physician. Sixth: Make out requisitions for everything needed in the institu- tion; have the clerk make a dozen copies and send these for bids to that many different houses dealing in the line of goods needed, and buy all supplies of the lowest and best bidder. Seventh: Keep the institution on the highest scientific plane pos- sible. Eighfli: Do not keep any man in an institution after he ceases to show high aspiration and that constant vigilance which holds the spirit of an institution firm and on a very high plane. I have the honor to be, Very respectfully, JOHN P. ALTGELD. The debs case. 459 UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT .IN DEBS CASE, JUNE 2, 1895. Governor, what have you to say on the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in the Debs case? The remanding of Debs to jail is in itself a matter of small conse- quence compared with the principle established, which is of transcend- ent importance. This decision marks a turning point in our history, for it establishes a new form of government never before heard of among men, that is government by injunction. Under this procedure a federal judge sitting in a rear room can on motion of some corpora- tion lawyer issue a ukase which he calls an injunction forbidding any- thing he chooses to and which the law does not forbid. Where the law forbids a thing no injunction is necessary. In other words he can legislate for himself, and having done so can then turn around and arrest and imprison as many people as he pleases; not for violating any law but on the mere pretext that they had disregarded his injunc- tion, and, mark you, they are not tried by a jury according to the forms of law, but the same judge who issued the ukase and who claims that his dignity was offended himself tries the case, and whether anything is proven or nothing is proven he can send men to prison at pleasure and there is no remedy. The provision of the constitution "That no man shall be deprived of his liberty without a trial by an impartial jury" is practically wiped out by this decision of the United States Supreme Court and the theory that ours was exclusively a government of law is now at an end, for every community is now subject to obey any whim or caprice which any federal judge may promulgate. And if federal judges can do this then it will not be long until State judges will follow this example. The Constitution declares that our government has three departments, the legislative, judicial and executive, and that no one shall trench on the other, but under this new order of things a federal judge becomes at once a legislator, court and executioner. For over a century our government moved along the lines of the Constitution and we became great and powerful. Life and prop- erty were protected and the law was enforced. Now we have made a departure, the bulwark of liberty has been undermined, trial by jury has been stricken down. You know there were two separate proceedings against Debs. One was according to the established forms of law; he was indicted by a grand jury for acts alleged to have been committed during the strike, and he was regularly tried by a jury and it turned out there was abso- 460 LIVE QUESTIONS. lutely no case against him. Nothing was proven. It is true the jury were not allowed to bring in a verdict because near the end of the trial one of the jurors became ill and the prosecution refused to go on. Debs' attorneys offered to proceed with the remaining eleven or to add a new man and proceed, but the railroad lawyer, who also repre- sented the government, feeling that he had no case at all, would not consent, and he thereby prevented a verdict of acquittal and had the case postponed. The other proceeding was by injunction. A federal judge on mo- tion of some railroad attorneys issued a ukase against the people of all the States in that judicial circuit, in which' he forbade nearly every- thing that the ingenuity of man could think of and which the law did not forbid, and having thus legislated he then turned around and had Debs and others arrested, not for violating any law but for failing to respect his ukase or injunction. And then this judge not only refused to give a jury trial but he himself proceeded to determine whether his own dignity had been offended, and he promptly sent the defendants to prison, the judge being legislator, court and execu- tioner. Had there been a jury trial the defendants would have been dis- charged, because it was not proved that they had violated any law. This would have been in harmony with the Constitution, with the law of the land and with eternal justice. But the corporations wanted the Constitution brushed aside, and the federal judge kindly obliged them, and the Supreme Court has now approved his acts. For a number of years it has been marked that the decisions of the United States courts were nearly always in favor of corporations. Then it was noticed that no man could be appointed to a federal judge- ship unless he was satisfactory to those interests. Over a year ago the New York World talked about a packed Supreme Court, and that court has within a few days rendered two decisions which unfortu- nately tend to confirm this charge. A week ago it did violence to the Constitution and laws of the land by holding that the government had no power to tax the rich of this country. Now it has stricken down trial by jury and has established government by injunction. Forty years ago the slave power predominated; to-day it is capi- talism. George William Curtis described the slave power of forty years ago as follows: "Slavery sat in the White House and made laws in the capitol; courts of justice were its ministers and legislatures were its lackeys. It silenced the preacher in the pulpit; it muzzled the editor at his desk and the professor in his lecture-room. It set the price upon MEDICAL PRACTICE ACT. 461 the heads of peaceful citizens; it robbed the mails and denounced the vital principles of the Declaration of Independence as treason. Even in States whose laws did not tolerate slavery it ruled the club and the drawing-room, the factory and the office. It swaggered at the dinner table and scourged with scorn a cowardly society. It tore the golden rule from school books and the pictured benignity of Christ from the prayer book." Now substitute the word "capitalism" for the word "slavery" and the above is an exact picture of our condition to-day. The American people crushed the slave power, they washed its stain off our flag and saved our institutions. Can they rescue them again? Many say yes, but they have not reflected that the crushing force which now con- fronts them is greater than was ever the slave power. Besides, slavery itself was sectional and in the end it was possible to unite the rest of the country against it. But the corrupt money power has its withering finger on every pulse in the land and is destroying the rugged man- hood and love of liberty which alone can carry a people through a great crisis. What, then, is the situation to-day? for over twenty years foreign and domestic capitalism has dominated. "It sits in the White House and legislates in the capitol. Courts of justice are its ministers and legislatures are its lackeys." And the whole machinery of fashionable society is its handmaid. Just see what a brood of evils has sprung from the power of capitalism since 1870. 1. The striking down of over one-third of the money of the world, thus crushing the debtor class and paralyzing industry. 2. The growing of that corrupt use of wealth which is under- mining our institutions, debauching public officials, shaping legislation and creating judges who do its bidding. 3. Exemption of the rich from taxation. 4. The substitution of government by injunction for government by the Constitution and laws. 5. The striking down of trial by jury. Never has there been so much patriotic talk as in the last twenty five years and never were there so many influences at work strangling Republican institutions. JOHN P. ALTGELD. 462 LIVE QUESTIONS. THE MEDICAL PRACTICE ACT OF ILLINOIS. December 28, 1894. J. R. Price, M. D., 927 Polk street, Chicago: Dear Sir: — I have your favor and tharik you for the friendly senti- ments you express. I have read the articles you referred to and it seems to me that you labor under some misapprehension as to the ob- ject of the laws of Illinois governing the practice of medicine in this State. As I understand the law, it does not prescribe any school or any method or any system, but permits every man who is once author- ized to practice at all to practice anything he pleases and to deal with disease in any manner he sees fit, whether with or without medicine. The object of the law was to compel everybody to get a certain degree of education before attempting the art of healing, and among other things everyone was required to understand some system of medicine, but when he has once met those requirements then he can disregard it all and adopt other methods that in his judgment are better. Until a man once understands some system of medicine he is not in a position to say whether there is anything better or not, and if the law were to make no requirement in this regard and anybody could go to practic- ing without having a knowledge of either the human system or of even the most common remedies used, it would hardly be a good thing for the public, for thousands and thousands of our people know noth- ing about the abilities of a doctor and are forced to rely on the mere fact that he has his shingle out and calls himself a doctor, and upon the strength of this they employ him. Further, under such a system the profession as a body could not attain any high degree of excel- lence. The law in reality aims simply to fix a standard of education and then let everyone who has once met this standard exercise his own judgment and the greatest liberty. I am fully aware that even this will not make good doctors of all who do meet the standard and I am also fully aware that there are thousands of men who by reason of their ambition would reach a high degree of excellence and become successful healers if there were no law at all. I am also aware of the fact that some very able statesmen of both this country and of Europe have questioned the wisdom of laws of this character and I must con- fess there is a great deal of force in their arguments. Still, when the whole subject is considered I am inclined to the opinion that the pub- lic in the end will be best served by requiring a certain degree of edu- cation on the part of those who want to practice the art of healing, and that so long as this legislation does not attempt to compel the adoption of any particular school or system, it cannot do much harm. STATE UNIVERSITY. 463 Certainly the raising of the standard of intelligence and requiring greater effort in this regard than would otherwise be necessary can- not hurt us. I am, however, very much in doubt about the wisdom of giving license to practice to young men merely because they have graduated at certain colleges, for there can be, no. doubt but that some of the graduates of our best colleges will not know much, while some of the graduates of colleges that are not recognized may possess great ability. My own impression is that all should be put on the same footing and everybody should be examined before being given a li- cense to engage in the art of healing. I have the honor to be, Very respectfully yours, JOHN P. ALTGELD. • ON NEED OF GREAT STATE UNIVERSITY. January 28, 1895. Hon. M. W. Robinson, Attorney-at-Law, 161 La Salle street, Chicago: My Dear Robinson: — It is not the intention to give instruction free in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in case it should be- come a part of the university. On the contrary, the tuition will prob- ably remain about as it has been. Of late years everything is tending to consolidation. This is true in the case of institutions of learning and as a consequence only the larger and stronger survive. I agree with you in that the government should not furnish instruction free when it comes to teaching professions. On the other hand, however, it is the duty of our State to place the appliances and facilities for ac- quiring this instruction within the reach of our young men and women so that they can get it at home as cheaply at least as they could get it by going abroad. At present a great many thousands of your young men and young women go to the eastern States every year to get that which we should at least give them an op- portunity to procure at home. In order to do this we must have here in our own State one of the greatest educational institutions in the world. This requires so much of an outlay that the smaller private colleges cannot afford it. It is true there are already two universities in and near Chicago that are doing, I suppose, very good work, still, they are both sectarian and are moving along sec- tarian lines. I have looked the ground over very carefully and do not see any way open to get the kind of a great educational institution necessary unless we can make it out of the university at Champaign. This is already a great in- stitution. It has already eight hundred students, and our 4^4 LIVE QUESTIONS. people as yet know scarcely anything about it. It is regarded as one of the best equipped engineering schools in this country and some of its professors have a reputation on both sides of the Atlantic for being great scientists. To make a complete university of it, it is necessary that it should have both a law school and a medical school. The law school can be carried on at Champaign. The medical school can not. It must be located in Chicago on account of the hospital advantages, etc. To start a new medical school in Chicago would be an up-hill business. There is therefore nothing left except to take one of the old schools, and the only one that is of a high character and not already absorbed by other universities is the College of Physicians and Sur- geons. I am informed that it is one of the best equipped medical schools and one of the highest standing in America. It owns real estate and other property worth fully the sum asked for it and it has for several years been a little more than- self-sustaining, but it also finds that, as the other medical schools have connected themselves with some university, they have somewhat the advantage of it and that it is going to become necessary for it to take a similar step. It is be- lieved by all who have considered the matter that to unite this medical college with the State University would be greatly for the benefit of both. For the reasons above given I am at present favorable to this move, for I am exceedingly anxious to give this State, before my administration ends, an institution of learning of which all our people will feel proud. I have already suggested to the board the advisabil- ity of charging a moderate tuition in all the departments of the univer- sity, so that the charge that the State is furnishing free education in the higher branches will no longer stand against the institution, at least, not in the sense in which it now does. While it will require some money from the State to keep it up, it will be only for the purpose of furnishing facilities, opportunities, etc., etc., which our young people are now obliged to procure elsewhere, as heretofore explained. We must have a university that shall not stand on such a narrow basis as to be called sectarian but shall be in truth and in fact a university of Illinois, and shall be second to none on earth. With my kind regards, I am, very truly yours, JOHN P. ALTGELD. THE SUPREME COURT AND THE INCOME TAX. "Governor, what do you think of the income tax decision?" For more than a century the Supreme Court in numerous decisions held such a law to be constitutional and valid. But this time all con- centrated wealth opposed the law and the court has declared it void. SUPREME COURT AND INCOME TAX. 465 It is all a question of constitutional construction, and, as this depends on opinion or prejudice, one is reminded of the distinguished English- man who, in speaking of the Court of Chancery, said that the pro- ceedings were all a matter of conscience and, as the consciences of the different chancellors varied as much as did the size of their feet, so did their decisions on any question. Now, the Constitution of the United States has been construed in more different ways than all of the judges together had feet, but always in harmony with what was the controlling influence or power of the times. Before the war the slave power and the South dominated the court. Since the war concentrated wealth and the East have dominated the court, and the time will come when justice attd the great Mississippi Valley will dominate the court. This particular decision recognizes the divinity of wealth by ex- empting it from taxation, and it breathes a curse against enterprise by making it bear all the burdens of government. But it is in perfect accord with the Republican and mugwump theory of government now being applied in this country. It also shows that at least two of the co-ordinate branches of our government receive their inspiration at the same altar. You remember that the President opposed the income tax and would not sign the tariff bill, and Mr. Wilson, who represented him in Congress, opposed the income tax. Congress, however, know- ing that almost every civilized country had an income tax, that our Supreme Court had sustained it for a century, and believing it to be the most just form of taxation passed the measure, both Republicans and Democrats supporting it. For a time there was bitterness in the camp of Mammon, but the Supreme Court has come to the rescue and now the Standard Oil kings, the Wall Street people, as well as the rich mugwumps, are again happy. To be sure, the great business and producing classes are not relieved ; their burden is made a little heavier and the whip has made a new welt on their backs, but what of it? In fact, what are they for, if not to bear burdens and to be lashed ? This decision is radically defective in a number of particulars. First, it should contain a panegyric on the majesty of the law and the exalted character of eternal justice. Second, it should, have contained a stinging rebuke to the growing discontent of the times. But it would be unreasonable to expect the court to think of every- thing. Besides, it will have other opportunities from time to time to solidify our institutions and to teach patriotism by coming down with terrific force on some wretch whose vulgarity and unpatriotic char- acter will be proven by the fact that he. is poor. This decision, however, suggests a most important question to the 30 466 LIVE QUESTIONS. American people. You know that the judges of the Supreme Court, when in session, wear large black gowns, such as were worn in the middle ages. In other countries and in other times this was done to make little men seem great. In this country it is done to impress the populace with the infallibility of the court. Now, as these gowns are not very thick, and as some people might be able to see through them and be unpatriotic enough to question the justice of having to bear the burdens of government while the rich, escape, and as there is danger that some of these men may doubt the infallibility of the court, would it not be well to have each judge wear two gowns for a while, until the storm blows over? LETTER ON GENERAL GRANT. (On February 8, 1895, Gen. G. M. Dodge, chairman of the Grant Banquet Association,, asked each of the Governors of the United States to give their views of General Grant's worth and of the lessons taught by his career. The following letter was an answer to this request:) General George M. Dodge, Chairman Grant Banquet Association, N. Y., Dear Sir : — Here in Illinois we admire the personal career of General Grant because of his sturdy manhood, his strong common sense and the utter absence in his character of all pretense. He never claimed glory where there was none. General Grant never strutted, he never posed, he never tried to make an impression by lofty bearing or overwhelming dignity. He left all these things where they belonged — to parlor generals, club-room heroes and weak men. While he was silent he made no effort to look wise. He disliked cant, hypocrisy and sham, and had little regard for that ever increasing army of men who during the war smelled the battle afar off, but have been invincible (and insatiable) ever since. With him patriotism meant something, and he felt that a good citizen should bring something more substantial to the altar of his country than fine talk. While Illinois glories in his public career and the great services he rendered his country, she is especially proud of having given to the world such a splendid example of American manhood. I have the honor to be, Very respectfully yours, JOHN P. ALTGELD. March 16, 1895. LETTER ON GROVER CLEVELAND. 467 LETTER TO ELA ON GROVER CLEVELAND. Chicago, March 27, 1895. Dear Ela : — I am in receipt of a letter purporting to be signed by you as chairman of a committee of the Iroquois Club, stating that the annual banquet of this club, to commemorate the birth of Thomas Jefferson, will be, given April 226., and requesting me to be present and deliver an address of welcome. I also learn that a program has been prepared which will make the entire exercises simply a laudation of the financial policy and of the general course of the present federal administration. In other words, that the program has been so ar- ranged as to convert the whole proceeding into a kind of Cleveland love-feast. As this is simply a repetition of what has been done several times, I take it that you did not prepare this program, but that it was prepared by a few gentlemen who for a number of years have talked reform and then pursued office with the appetite of a wolf. In making this program they remembered the hand that had given the spoils and at the same time they cast a hopeful anchor toward the future. Last summer one of the great newspapers gave an account of the greatest timber stealing and homestead robbing operations ever car- ried on in the Northwest/ involving even the prostitution of high office. Recently the country, was alarmed at seeing in Washington the most powerful and the most corrupt lobby ever known engaged in trying to force the railroad pooling bill through Congress. I notice that two of the men whose names were prominent in connection with one or the other of these scandals have been selected to point out the beauties of Clevelandism, and I will admit that they are the right men for the purpose. Coupled with these is at least one other whose fame in the East is co-extensive only with his ability to injure his party. These three are to discuss the great questions now before the country. All three stand for Clevelandism, but not for the Democracy of the country. They stand in practice for the theory that government is a convenience for the strong, and were it Hamilton's birthday you wished to celebrate this would all be in accordance with the eternal fitness of things. But not even a resolution of Congress, supported by a speech from a Sen- ator and an opinion of the Attorney-General and backed by the federal army, can keep Thomas Jefferson's bones still while you attempt to dump this program into his cradle. These men represent a class which in his day called Jefferson a demagogue, derided his statesmanship and sneered at his patriotism. Jeffersonism was the first-born of the new age of liberty and human progress, while Clevelandism is the slimy off-spring of that unhallowed 468 LIVE QUESTIONS. marriage between Standard Oil and Wall Street. Jeffersonism brought liberty, prosperity and greatness to our country because it gave its benediction to the great toiling and producing masses, while Clevelandism has put its heel upon the neck of our people, has in- creased the burdens and the sorrows of the men who toil, and has fattened a horde of vultures that are eating the vitals of the nation. To make a dollar out of paper by a fiat of government may not be wisdom, but to double the purchasing power of a gold dollar by the fiat of a number of governments in striking down the competitor of gold is ruin. To paralyze the energies of a nation by doubling the burden of the debtor is statesmanship under Clevelandism, but a crime under Jeffersonism. The Republican papers praise Clevelandism, but they honor Jefferson by abusing him. Jefferson's eye took in the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Cleveland is to-day ignorant of the fact that there is a country west of the Alleghenies. Jefferson belonged to the American people ; Cleveland to the men who devour widows' houses. Jeffersonism is an illumination in the American firmament; Clevelandism merely a swamp-light floating around in the Standard Oil marsh. To laud Clevelandism on Jefferson's birthday is to sing a Te Deum in honor of Judas Iscariot on a Christmas morning. You will excuse me, Ela, if I decline to have anything to do with it, and you will also allow me to say that, as I am not conscious of having done you a wrong, I do not understand why you should have asked me to come and bid a welcome after the program had been practically "packed," as to important issues, so as to stand for hostility to all that is Jeffersonian or Democratic, and to favor those measures and acts which tend toward the choking of liberty, the impoverishment of our people and the ultimate destruction of our institutions. Respectfully, JOHN P. ALTGELD. THE SILVER CONVENTION OF JUNE, 1895. Springfield, April 16th, 1895. Albert, G. Webber, Attorney at Law, Decatur, 111. Dear Mr. Webber : — I have read your letter several times with care and am inclined to think that on careful examination you and I would not be so very far apart in our views on the money question. But it is not necessary at this time to go into the detail of the subject very far, because the first question we are confronted with is whether or THE SILVER CONVENTION. 469 not the country shall submit to the absolute dictation of the Eastern manipulators who control the President and whether the country shall, without a protest, accept the single gold standard and protract indefinitely the universal depression and business paralysis prevailing throughout the world. As I understand it, the State Committee called a convention of Democrats to meet in June for the purpose of ascer- taining the sentiment of the party in the State and, if that sentiment should be overwhelmingly against the single gold standard, to issue a protest against it. The gold people seem to be very angry over this step. They wanted both the Republican and the Democratic parties to go on straddling this question as they have been doing, feel- ing confident that in that case, no matter which party elected a Presi- dent, the Eastern bondholders could control the situation, and from advices which we get from Washington and other points East it seems that they have determined to make a desperate fight to prevent Illinois from taking a decided stand on this question, for they recognize the fact that this might in the end result in their overthrow. They have resolved on making a hard fight and by means of various federal officers and by means of numerous national banks over the country expect to be able to accomplish something. It has already assumed the nature of a fight between the President and his friends on the one hand and the Democratic party of Illinois on the other. This being the case, I feel that it is important that all good citizens who feel that this country has suffered enough at the hands of the Eastern manip- ulators should do their utmost to assist the Democracy of Illinois at this crisis. For, so long as these Eastern people can hold the govern- ment by the throat, just so long it will be utterly impossible to adopt any financial policy which will again give health and vigor to our country and put an end to the misery and ruin now so widely prevalent. Since I have been Governor I have taken no active part in politics, but have devoted all of my energies to the affairs of the State and have endeavored to place its institutions on the highest plane possible. I feel, however, that this money question affects the very life of our people and consequently feel greatly concerned about it, and, while not interfering in politics, I do hope that our friends everywhere will do what they can to make the June convention a thorough success, and see to it that its declarations shall have no uncertain meaning. If you feel that you can consistenly help in this matter, it would greatly please me, as well as your friends over in this section. Assuring you of my high regard, I am, Very truly yours, JOHN P. ALTGELD, 470 LIVE QUESTIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR NEW BUILDINGS. (Sent to all the trustees of public institutions.) We have in this State upwards of one hundred and sixty large and expensive public buildings, but scarcely any of them have any character. Nearly all of them look like warehouses or shops % The time has come in this State when we must insist on two things : First, all buildings hereafter built must be absolutely fireproof. Second, they must have more character, that is, they must have stronger ex- terior architectural effects. As we are always pressed for room, and as our appropriations are always small, we cannot indulge in expensive ornamentation. As a rule we cannot employ granite columns, carved capitals or expensive arches. A thorough and careful examination of the subject, as well as an examination of the pictures of some of the most striking buildings in the world, has satisfied me that the cheapest and by all odds the most effective method of ornamentation for buildings that are to_stand alone, is a kind of Tudor Gothic architecture, generally called the "English Castle style." It consists chiefly in carrying the wall above the cornice and then breaking the lines in such a manner as to produce open towers, battlements and so on. Being plain masonry, it is compara- tively inexpensive and when properly treated it produces the very strongest effects. For the ordinary public buildings it should be treated in a manner as not to make it look too heavy. As there is no other style of effective ornamentation that is within our means we must insist that this style be adopted. We have no desire whatever to interfere with the arrangement of the floor plans nor with the details in other respects, but we desire to co-operate with the trustees in each case so as to erect, at the lowest expense possible, buildings that the people of the State will be proud of. In arranging a floor plan it is important to avoid curves and many angles, because of the expense involved in framing the steel work in such cases. Straight lines should be employed as much as possible and the plan for the steel work should be made as simple as it can possibly be made. Any complicated work of that sort or any work that requires special patterns or designs to be made at the mills not only greatly swells the expense, but is certain to produce delays and vexations. COMMENTS ON PRESIDENT'S LETTER. 471 SUGGESTIONS TO INSERT IN CONTRACTS WITH CON- TRACTORS OR BUILDERS. First. That only union labor shall be employed on the buildings. (Note. — I make this suggestion for several reasons. I have found that in my private affairs it was advisable to do it and the same will hold good with the State, because as a rule, union labor is of a higher grade than the non- union labor. It is true that sometimes an able mechanic is found in a large city who does not belong to a union, but experience has demonstrated that the average is very much higher among organized than it is among unor- ganized laborers. Further, sometimes a contractor will sublet his work and the sub-contractor will pick up what is called "scab labor;" that is, a cheap grade of labor, and set it to work on the building. This enables him to pocket the difference between what he gets that labor for and what he would have to pay to organized labor, while the State not only derives no benefit from it, but gets an inferior grade of work. And again, it frequently happens that four or five different lines of work are carried on simultaneously. If some is being done by union labor and an attempt is made to introduce scab labor, it gener- ally results in a strike on the part of the union laborers, and this produces delay and occasionally bloodshed, and as it in no instance does the State any good, I suggest that it be avoided, and by having such a clause in the contract the board can always control it. It will happen in small cities that there is no organization among mechanics. Where this is the case there will be no trouble in setting the better class of them to work, but the whole subject should be kept in a position in which the board can control it.) Second. Insert in contract that the Governor can at any time send an inspector to inspect the work, and that in points where the inspector may differ with the architect the decision of the inspector, when approved by the board, shall govern. Third. I regard time as important in all buildings. If a building is pushed right along the men keep wide-awake and they do a higher grade of work than they do when a spirit of delay and languor per- vades the whole force. Some of the poorest buildings in this country are those that dragged their weary length through years in being constructed. With the modern methods, the exterior walls and roof of the largest kind of a building can be erected in a few months. COMMENTS ON THE PRESIDENT'S LETTER ON SILVER. (After the calling of the convention for June, 1895, the President wrote a letter on honest money, to which the following was a reply, April 15, 1895.) "Governor, what do you think of the President's letter?" "If it had any other name than that of the President signed to it, nobody would give it any attention. In fact, if I had signed such 472 LIVE QUESTIONS. a document, it would be ridiculed all over the country, for its weakness almost excites pity. But, the letter is remarkable in this, that it is the first instance in the history of the republic in which a President of the United States, after using all the powers of the government, has, in addition, condescended to write for the newspapers in order to serve his masters. For this letter was not only written expressly for pub- lication, but was intended to start a boom and has been advertised for a week in order to give it an audience. Other Presidents have been used as a convenience by class interests, but this is the first time in which a President's name has been dragged eight hundred miles outside of Washington City for that purpose. After nominating Cleveland three times and electing him twice to the Presidency, the Standard Oil and Wall Street people get him to use all the powers of government to further their schemes. The country has been astounded to see postoffices and patronage used to coerce Congress into doing the bidding of the East from striking down of silver to packing of a Supreme Court. In the meantime the country has been going from bad to worse. With abundant crops and with the most industrious, intelligent and enterprising people to be found on earth, we are in a paralyzed condition, brought on by no natural catise, but. by the arbitrary acts of a number of the governments of the world controlled by the influence of the official salaried classes and of the bond-holding classes of Europe and America. These wanted to make all property and commodities cheap and money dear, and they have succeeded. The result is that the purchasing power of the produc- ing classes has been destroyed, while all the debts, taxes and other fixed charges remain the same. It takes all that the people can get together to meet the fixed charges ; consequently labor is idle and the great producing classes are in distress, and they are finding out the cause. They have learned that the so-called 'honest dollar* is the most dishonest dollar ever given to man, for it compels the debtor to give twice as much property to pay his debt as would have been neces- sary at the time that the debt was created. Now, does the President's letter offer a remedy to these people? None. They have been bled until they can't stand up and he simply tells them to be content. They know that until they get more blood they cannot do business. They have submitted to this ruinous policy long enough, and demand a change. The Eastern manipulators saw this and, in order to keep their grip on the government, were arranging to again delude the people. For this purpose they were going to start a boom and, as it was the Western people who were to be duped, it was decided to start the boom in Chicago, and in order to draw the crowd they concluded to take the UNVEILING OF STATUE. 473 President out, and they got some Chicago men to invite him, but be- fore they got him there the atmosphere became chilly and they had to give this up. Then they did the next best thing ; they got him to write a letter for publication. It has come, and the boomlet that will be born of this will be 'such a little one' that it will not reflect on the virtue of its mother." UNVEILING STATUE OF ILLINOIS. (Note. — The Legislature of Illinois had by law created a Woman's Expo- sition Board to make an exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition of the results of woman's work in Illinois. This Board caused to be cast in bronze a beautiful statue of a woman extending her hands as if in friendly greeting. They "called it "Illinois welcoming the world." Both the designing and modeling were done by a' woman, so that women were entitled to all the credit for it. On account of both its beauty and its sentiment it was much admired at the Exposition and afterward was presented by the ladies to the State of Illinois. It was removed to the rotunda of the capitol at Springfield, and there unveiled May 16, 1895. Mrs. Martia Louise Gould, the President of the Board, presented the statue to the State in an eloquent address, and the follow- ing speech was made accepting it:) Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen : Our action here to-day may not seem of much importance to us, and yet its voice will reach further into the future and will tell more to the generations that are to come than will many things to which we give more time and effort. As a rule those matters which arouse the greatest interest of a people relate to their material welfare, and are soon forgotten. Only those acts which denote the birth of a new principle or which commemorate an important event are noticed by the pencil of time or are permitted to linger in the realm of tradition. That entire world of practical affairs which absorbs our thoughts and ex- hausts our strength, which harnesses us in the morning and drives us until night-fall, changes from day to day and then disappears not only from sight but from memory. As we glance back over the past it is not the everyday work and worry of men, not the fashion and gossip of the women, not the absorbing cares of life that greet the eye. These have all faded into the unknown. We see only headlands — we see only a succession of eras — we see mankind slowly struggling up onto higher ground, catching more and more of the rays of justice as they progress and, wherever a new ascent was made, there we find a landmark, and in many cases the landmark is all there is left to tell the story. Some one has said that "the clock strikes the changes from hour to hour, but no hammer in the horologe of time peals through the universe the 474 LIVE QUESTIONS. changes from era to era." This may be true, but there are all over the world silent sentinels that do proclaim to the universe the changes from age to age. All along the highway of humanity there are mile- stones, big and little, planted by nations that left no other trace of their existence, and we try to determine the progress of civilization by studying these monuments. Men gaze at the ruins of mighty cities ■ and speculate as to the character of their inhabitants. Men look with awe at the pyramids of Egypt, built before the beginning of history, and say that the people who built them must have been familiar with both the sciences and the mechanical arts ; men examine the statues of Greece and wonder from what altar Phidias drew his inspiration. The traveler in a strange land searches for monuments and statues because they tell him in a silent but eternal language the great events of the country, and frequently he finds that these silent historians tell of centuries that have gone and have left no other trace of their exist- ence. Now, my fellow citizens of Illinois, all of our affairs, our politics, our business, all that makes up our life will pass away and will leave but little trace behind it, and in the centuries to come, when not even our burial place can be found, philosophers and historians will examine the statue which we unveil here to-day and will try to interpret its meaning. They will admire its graceful form and its artistic de- sign, and they will say that the people who erected it possessed taste and cultivation and had a knowledge of the arts. But they will do more. They will see that its face is turned toward the morning ; that it looks toward the rising sun. They will see that its arms are out- stretched as though in the act of cordial greeting. They will read the inscription, "Illinois Welcoming The World," and I fancy I can hear them say: "What a beautiful idea; what a lofty sentiment. The State of Illinois welcoming the nations of the earth. Surely this is grand. But why does Illinois welcome the world? Has she invited the nations of the earth to come within her borders ? If yea, then for what purpose?" I fancy now that I can hear these questions asked and that I see the inquirers looking again and reading an inscription about a World's Columbian Exposition, and on inquiring they learn that toward the close of the nineteenth century there was held in our State, on the shores of the great lake, the most wonderful exposition ever seen by man; that representatives of all nations came into our midst and brought with them the finest and best productions of the in- dustry, the enterprise, the learning and the genius of their people ; they will learn that at this exposition there were shown the various stages in the development of the human race, from the beings who dwelt in UNVEILING OF STATUE. 475 caves to the men who study the universe and lay the foundations of empires. Never before was a State so honored, and it seems to me that coming generations will gaze with ever increasing interest on this statue which we to-day unveil and dedicate to the future when they re- member that it stood, as it were, at the threshold of this great assem- blage of nations, and with its graceful figure and outstretched hands personified the people of Illinois in bidding our guests a welcome. My fellow citizens, these facts alone would make this statue worthy of everlasting preservation, not only as a memento of the grandest occasion of all history, but also as representing the attitude of our people at that time. But the future historian and philosopher will discover that this statue is not only a memento of a past event, but that it stands for a living principle ; that, if it does not mark the beginning of a new era, it does stand for a' higher justice as applied to women; and that it does commemorate one of the most important steps ever taken in the whole history of her emancipation. They will notice from the inscription that it was erected by a woman's board and that it was shaped by the hand and modeled by the genius of a woman, and they will further learn that there was an Illinois woman's board which gave an exhibi- tion of woman's work in this State which was highly successful and re- flected honor on the board and on the women of Illinois, and, what is much more significant, that this board was absolutely independent in its work and possessed the same powers and privileges that were possessed in their respective spheres by the boards composed of men. They will further learn that there was a national woman's exposition board which erected one of the finest buildings on the ground, designed and superintended by a woman, and that this board gave an exhibition of the work of women of all nations, and that it was likewise independ- ent and possessed the same powers within its domain as did boards composed of men. The future philosopher and historian will see that here for the first time in the history of the race the principle was recognized that, no matter what her ability or experience may be, woman possesses the same inherent rights that man does. During her whole history she had been a dependent. First, as a chattel, scarcely noticed by the law. Then came a period in which she was treated much like a beast of burden. Later the law gave her more recognition and began to define her status, but always as a dependent. She had to beg of man and accept what was given. She had no voice in affairs and it was ' an evidence of weakness to talk of her having inalienable rights. By degrees the chains which bound the world to the wrongs of the past 47'6 LIVE QUESTIONS. were broken. The torch of civilization gave the world a higher sense of right until, finally, towards the end of the nineteenth century, and in connection with this great exposition, the principle was recognized that in the sight of the Almighty and at the bar of eternal justice woman has the same inherent rights that man has. And this statue will proclaim this principle to the world just as long as this granite and this bronze shall endure. Madam President, I thank you and your board for the work you have done for the State, and especially for conceiving and carrying out the grand idea of erecting and dedicating to the future this beautiful statue, and, as the chief executive of this mighty commonwealth, I am proud to accept it and add it to the glories of Illinois. HOW TO MAKE A MILLION. Springfield, March 17, 1895. C. R. Macloon, The Tribune, Chicago : Dear Sir : — You ask what would be my advice to the young man of to-day who is ambitious to become a millionaire. While I am not the right man to answer your question, I should say to the young man, "Go it alone and hustle." That is, rely on yourself — keep your word — keep your manhood — keep your own coun- sel — do your own errands and look ahead. No matter how often you fail, keep on. But if you wish to get very rich quickly, then bleed the public and talk patriotism. This may involve bribing public officials and dodging public burdens, the losing of your manhood and the soiling of your fingers, but that is the way most of the great fortunes are made in this country now. Respectfully, JOHN P. ALTGELD. SPEECH AT GALESBURG TO THE AMERICAN RAILWAY TRAINMEN, MAY 20, 1895. Mr. President: It was once said that genii travel in squads, and it has more re- cently been observed that the creations of men go in groups. The institutions that have grown out of modern development have a teh- , dency to bunch together as if they courted or needed each other's society. Nature may scatter her gifts and give to one state this and to another state that advantage, but this rarely holds good in the realm SPEECH AT GALESBURG. 477 of human activity. At the point where one man locates his shop another will want to locate his store. Where one man locates his factory another will bring in his railroad, and thus by degrees there grows up a center which constitutes a commercial and industrial heart for a large territory. The State of Illinois is a most conspicuous illus- tration of this fact. It is true, nature made her the greatest agricul- tural State in the world and gave her one of the largest coal deposits on earth and gave her a most unique geographical location, but the hand of man made her acreage of orchards greater than that of any other State in the Union ; made her bee industries great, her dairy in- dustries great, her quarrying and clay industries great, built her wonderful cities, reared her wonderful institutions, and gave her a greater diversity of factories and of industries than are found any- where else in America; and made her the great railroad center of our country. The heart of the American railway system is in Illinois. Here the various lines begin that go to the Atlantic, to the Gulf, to the Pacific, to the far North, that go toward every point of the compass. Here in our State can be felt the heartbeats of the railroad world and the quiver of every nerve in the system. We have more miles of rail- road than any other State, more money invested in railroad properties of various kinds, more men employed in the service, and more families depending on the railroads for bread than has any other State. Our people, like those of other States, have so adjusted both their domestic and business affairs that they are absolutely dependent upon the rail- roads, so that the continued and regular operation of the railroads is not only important to their convenience and their prosperity, but is vital to their existence. Being thus situated, feeling that the railroads with all that belongs to them constitute one of the most important in- stitutions in our State and that our very existence is tied up with them, I need not say to you that our people feel the deepest interest in the men who operate these railroads, the men who by day and by night, in sunshine and in storm keep in motion the mighty lines of com- merce. We are glad to see you here ; we are glad to have you among us ; we feel that we can perhaps better than others appreciate the true character of the work you are doing and its importance to the world, and we therefore feel that in some way you are kith and kin with us and belong to our family, and that those of you who have come in from other States have, as it were, gathered at a family reunion. You have come from different States of the Union and you represent a following there. You are trying to formulate measures that shall be to the interest of your order and of your families, and the people of Illinois wish you well, and knowing the inhabitants of this lively and progress- 47§ LIVE QUESTIONS. ive city of Galesburg as well as I do, I am safe in saying to you that you will be royally treated here, and that everything will be done to make your meeting not only a pleasant one, but a successful one. Again, gentlemen, feeling as I do that not only the success, but the very existence of republican institutions in this country depends upon the men who have to struggle for a living, who have to struggle to maintain their families, and not upon the men whose souls are shrivel- ing while they are hoarding riches, I want to say a word about some of the important questions that we must meet in the immediate future and which will vitally affect not only yourselves, but your descendants for generations, and which therefore call for the most thorough and patriotic consideration. During the last twenty-five years a spirit of combination and concentration has been at work all over the world and in all lines of human activity. Small governments give way to great ones; small stores to large ones; little factories to enormous establishments ; small railroads to great consolidated lines ; everywhere there is going on the process of annihilat- ing the small and combining the great. So universal is this spirit and with such irresistible power is this force run- ning that no human hand or agency has been able to stay it. Laws have forbidden it and courts have condemned it, but it did not even stop to notice the law or listen to the courts. It is the distinguishing feature of this century and it is not only changing all economic and commercial conditions, but it is going to force a change in some of our theories of government. For centuries the world depended on competition to regulate wages on the one hand and to regulate prices of commodities on the other. As no one employer employed many men, there were hundreds of employers, and if one did not pay reason- able wages, the mechanic might at least expect to find some other one who would. So in the selling of goods, the public was protected against unreasonable prices by the fact that there were scores of dealers competing with each other. Now, owing to the great concentrations of capital, nearly all lines of industry and of commerce are passing into the control of a few hands in each line. In very many lines competi- tion has already been entirely wiped out, especially in so far as relates to the manufacturing and to the handling in large quantities. There is scarcely a great industry in this country but what is now controlled by what they call a trust, which, while controlling practically all of the establishments in its line, is able to regulate the output arbitrarily and is able arbitrarily to fix wages on the one hand and the selling price of its commodities on the other. It is idle in these cases to say to a laboring man that if he is dissatisfied he can quit and go to some other SPEECH AT GALESBURG. 479 employer, because there is no other employer to go to. This process of combination is still going on. It looks now as if the era of universal competition was drawing to a close and as though it would be neces- sary to make new adjustments, and the question will arise, if every- thing that the public needs is in the end to be controlled by gigantic combinations of capital, handled by a few individuals, how can labor be protected on the one hand, and how can the public be protected on the other? In other words, what can be substituted for competi- tion? If we cannot prevent combination and monopoly, then it is idle to rant about it, and it becomes our duty to meet it as an existing fact and to restrain its power for evil. And to do this will require a strong force. It is a universal law in nature, in religion, in politics, in society, that the stronger force will destroy the weaker, and only those individuals, those agencies, and those combinations will survive that are able to maintain themselves. The government of the world is not a philanthropic affair. It is based on force, although rarely brute force as was once the case. It has become more refined in its method, but nevertheless the underlying principle is force, legal force ; and this legal force is often shaped and directed by social, financial and political force. Enormous wealth when controlled by a few individuals is some- times a very powerful factor in shaping the policy of government, be- cause it can frequently control the press and the agencies which form public opinion ; it can control fashionable society and the sentiments of many men who, although occupying high positions, are often influ- enced through that agency. Frequently by looking after the matter of selecting candidates it can control not only the construction of the laws. but the making and the execution of the laws. If our institutions are to undergo great change, it is vital that the men of America, and not the money, should direct the change. Money may be a blessing as a servant, but it is a curse as a master. Money never established repub- lican institutions in the world. It has no natural affinity with them, and does not understand them. Money has neither soul nor senti- ment. It does not know the meaning of liberty, and it sneers at the rights of man. It never bled on the battlefield in time of war, and it never voluntarily sought the public treasury in time of peace. To safely guide our country through important changes requires the same characteristics which were possessed by the men who founded it. There must be lofty sentiment, honesty of purpose, love of country, love of fellowman, and, above all, love of justice. Money possesses none of these virtues. Men in time acquire the nature of those things which absorb their lives. Unconsciously and invisiblv they undergo a change until those things which occupy their daily thoughts seem 4§o LIVE QUESTIONS. actually to circulate in their veins. Consequently in all countries, in all ages, and among all peoples, it has been found that as a rule the possessors of great wealth were not the patriots. On the contrary, they seemed to care little what flag floated over them, provided it was a flag that would give them a bayonet with which to protect their gold. The men who in the late war left their millions of hoarded treasure and shouldered a musket to fight for the Union were as scarce as the camels that have passed through the eye of the needle. The soldiers' cemeteries of patriotic dead are filled with men who when alive had to struggle for a living. It is the great masses of the people who defend the government in time of war, and who bear its burdens in time of peace, and these alone know the full value of free institutions. It is therefore important that the destinies of our government should be shaped by this class, and they can be relied upon to do justice to capital. They appreciate the fact that capital is not only a conven- ience, but may be of the greatest possible use to man when properly directed. While money may have done a great injustice to the masses, the masses have never done an injustice to money. Now, how will you meet these problems ? Standing as individuals in the presence of mighty combinations you will be crushed and there will be no hope for you or your children. I can see no other course for you than to stand together, shoulder to shoulder, intelligently and patriotically. A great force never holds itself in check, whether in the phenomena of nature, in politics, in government, or in religion. Only a counter or resisting force will check it. If concentrated capital shall meet with no checking influence, or force, then republican institutions must come to an end, and we will have but two classes in this country, an exceedingly wealthy class on one hand, and a spiritless, crushed, poverty-stricken laboring class on the other. The hope of the country depends upon having a number of forces that will counterbalance or check each other. And in this connection let me suggest to you that the world has progressed to a point where intelligence will always defeat brute force, and any method of contest that involves violence belongs to a bygone age. The modern methods of warfare in society are of an entirely different character. You complain sometimes that you do not get a fair show, that capital controls legislation, that by selecting the candidates for the judicial offices it in many cases con- trols the courts and that the same is true in the execution of the laws. But you have yourselves largely to blame. You have neglected all these things, while the corporations have looked after them. They have attended to business and reaped an advantage by it. You have neglected your interests and have suffered by it. It has happened fre- SPEECH AT GALESBURG. 481 quently in the past in this State and in other States that you wanted legislation which you thought was necessary and just, and you sup- ported men for the legislature whom you believed were honest, but who as soon as they received their certificate of election crept up the rear stairway to the office of some corporation and tendered their services in the hope of obtaining some financial or other advantage. Did you afterwards spot those men as being unworthy of your con- fidence? Not at all. Their chances for public preferment were just as good thereafter as they were before. Again, corporations have for many years looked after the matter of selecting judges, especially of the federal courts. They realized the fact that the construction of the laws is even more important than the making of laws, and to have a friend on the bench is much more important than to have a law- maker at the capitol. It is asserted that for a quarter of a century no man has been appointed to the federal bench unless he was either a corporation lawyer or was known to hold views which made him satisfactory to those interests, and when these judges afterwards distorted the law and usurped powers to assist corporations and smite you they were not necessarily corrupt. They were simply giving force to prejudices which they had imbibed during their former association with corporate influences. It has never happened in this country that you or any other organization of labor men or of farmers sent a dele- gation to wait upon the President in reference to the appointment or re- jection of any particular man to any judicial office. You have not looked after your interests and you have no right to complain if you are dis- criminated against under these circumstances. Every man who seeks office in this country will need your support, and once let him under- stand that you are capable of acting intelligently and standing together, and that you insist on being honestly dealt with, and you will see a great change. Fall in with what is the spirit of the times. Practice intelli- gent combination. Move along the lines of law and of justice and practice foresight and you will be able to right almost any grievance. In conclusion let me say that you and the laboring men of this country are more interested in maintaining republican institutions than any other of our people. You are more interested in making the stripes and stars stand for free institutions than any other people in this country. Wealth has always courted aristocracy and bowed to mon- archy. It is manhood alone that is interested in liberty and in main- taining those conditions under which the greatest possible opportuni- ties are opened to every citizen of the commonwealth. You cannot leave your children millions to squander. It is therefore important for you to endeavor to leave them a country in which intelligent and 31 482 LIVE QUESTIONS. honest effort will be properly rewarded and in which the laborer will not only be worthy of his hire, but will have open to him and to his posterity all of the fields of honor and the paths of glory. CHAUNCEY DEPEW. Springfield, 111., April 7, 1895. — Governor Altgeld this afternoon gave free expression to his opinion of Chauncey M. Depew. The occa- sion for the criticism was the speech recently delivered by Mr. Depew at the Auditorium in Chicago, when he took occasion to find fault not only with the mayor of Chicago, but with Governor Altgeld as well. In conversation with a reporter this afternoon the governor spoke of Mr. Depew, and he was asked if he had read the speech. "No, I have not," replied the governor. "Some years ago I listened to Mr. Depew for two hours and came to the conclusion that so long as the Lord insisted on limiting human life to about three score and ten years two hours was all the time that the average man could afford to spend out of the foregoing allotment on Depew." "Well, he said in substance that you as governor surrendered to the railroad strikers last summer, and that the mayor of Chicago took his instructions from the leader of the strike. Do you care to say anything in reply?" "Oh, that is not necessary. A deliberate falsehood of that kind does no harm, but has a certain dash about it which challenges ad- miration. He claims to keep informed on current events. Hence he knew that, although the federal troops were on the ground three days in advance of any serious rioting, and during the whole of the trouble, they not only failed to prevent disorder but proved to be an irritant, and did not prevent the ditching' of a train or the throwing of a brick. Had they done the one-hundredth part of what is claimed for them it would not have been necessary to order out the State troops. Yet the mayor found that the federal troops were useless to him in enforc- ing the law and he was obliged to ask for assistance from the State. Mr. Depew knows that in a few hours after the State was asked the State troops were on the ground, although many of them had to travel over 150 miles to get there. He also knows that inside of a few hours after arriving on the ground they, together with the Chicago police, stopped the rioting and restored order. The State troops and the Chi- cago police did more in a few hours than all the federal troops did during all the time they were in Chicago. "Had he been ignorant of the facts and then made such a state- CHAUNCEY DEPEW. 483 ment, it would have been a blunder which, for him, would be worse than a crime. But the knowledge of the fact that every syllable he uttered was a fabrication not only changed the character of the per- formance by lifting it above the commonplace, but brought it into har- mony with what has apparently been the philosophy of his life." "How is that, governor?" was asked. STARTED THE FLOOD OF CORRUPTION. "Well, he is the most conspicuous product of the doctrine, 'do evil that good may come of it' that this country has ever seen. He first at- tracted attention many years ago as a lobbyist at Albany, where he for a long time was engaged in the highly honorable business of put- ting metaphorical collars on' the New York legislators, so that to the public they appeared to belong to the Vanderbilts and the New York Central railroad. According to reports this business was reduced to such a science that whenever the New York Central railroad wished to buy a legislator they did not even stop to negotiate with him, but simply put him on the scales and weighed him. A train of slime and corruption was stretched across the State from New York city by way of Albany to Buffalo, and from there it spread over the whole country, corrupting public officers, polluting legislative halls and even filling courts of justice with its odor. This was the beginning of that flood of cor- ruption which is to-day washing the foundations from under our whole governmental fabric. "No man could be a dealer in this leprosy without soiling his fin- gers, and I am told that since that time Mr. Depew has never been seen without gloves." "If all this is true why was not Mr. Depew sent to prison?" was asked. SET OUT FOR THE WHITE HOUSE. "Oh, that would have been vulgar and Mr. Depew would not do so vulgar a thing as go to prison. On the contrary he made of all this a stepping-stone to greatness. He wrapped the stars and stripes about him. He became a red, white and blue orator — he changed his calendar so as to make the Fourth of July embrace 365 days, leaving but six hours for the remainder of the year, and then he started for the white house. "Subsequently the Vanderbilts, finding him to be a great conven- ience, made him president of the New York Central railroad and paid him a salary of $50,000 a year. The old railroad men smiled at the idea, but they had not yet learned that one of the most important features of modern railroading is to construct a railroad near court 484 LIVE QUESTIONS. houses and operate a line through State capitals. Soon thereafter the Union Stock Yards of Chicago made Mr. Depew an official and gave him $25,000 a year ; this in addition to the other salary. It was claimed that he had never seen the stock yards and did not know on which end of a steer the horns belonged, But all this was of no consequence, as, instead of slaughtering cattle, he was expected to earn his salary by slaughtering the innocents who talk about protecting the public. "I understand he gets still other salaries, and have no doubt he earns them all, for in the art of engineering money out of the public and into the pockets of private individuals he has no superior. And it looks as if his career will compel the American people to adopt an eleventh commandment reading as follows : 'Go thou and do evil that thou mayest live on the fat of the land, and that thy sleekness may be the wonder of men.' " INSTALLATION OF DR. DRAPER AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, MAY, 1895. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : The growth of an educational institution is like that of a man and cannot be accomplished in a day or in a year. There must be a period of infancy, of childhood and of boyhood before the vigor of manhood is reached. So with an institution of learning. There is the weak begin- ning, the early struggle, the later growth, and then the fullgrown uni- versity, and as the ultimate greatness of the man is often in proportion to his early struggles, so the final career and usefulness of an institution is frequently determined by the difficulties it surmounts in its infancy. A college or university is not simply a machine. It is not negative, but positive in character. It does more than teach algebra and Latin. It has an independent existence and makes its impression on all who come in contact with it. Its character is a force that creeps silently over the land, and by day and by night molds the sentiments of men. It is this character by which an institution is judged. The world does not care so much for the number of students but it asks what is the character of the institution ? What does it stand for ? Does it stand for a sturdy, stalwart, patriotic manhood, and the earnest, serious, hard work that goes with it ? If yea, then great will be its influence. But if it represents only the easy-going standards of mediocrity or a dudish dilettanteism, then it will not shape 4he destinies of the nation. There have been colleges that were small and financially poor and were attended mostly by the sons of the poor, but they gave to their coun- try whole constellations of great men, while others that were both INSTALLATION OF DR. DRAPER. 485 large and rich did little more than furnish amusement for inherited wealth. The University of Illinois has passed through the stages of infancy and youth, and has arrived at a point where it should em- bark on a career of fullgrown and vigorous manhood. Much conscien- tious work has been done. The men who builded it toiled hard and laid the foundations broad and deep, and I believe that the structure which has been reared on these foundations is an enduring one, but we must broaden its influence and enlarge its work ; we must bring it to the attention of our people. Few of them know of its great advan- tages. Few of them know that the agricultural experiment station does not constitute all that there is, but is only incidental and gives so much of an additional advantage. Few of them know that the students, without extra expense and without loss of time, have the advantage of being trained in the military art by a United States mili- tary officer. And very few of them know that we have here one of the best equipped engineering schools, particularly in the department of electrical engineering, that there is in the whole country. As the executive of the State I feel a deep interest in all of its in- stitutions, and I feel an especial interest in this university. The State of Illinois leads all others in point of material grandeur, in point of natural wealth. It leads all others in the energy and enterprise of its people, and it leads all others in having a most romantic and wonderful history. Illinois already stands foremost among the great States of the earth. The achievements of its people have already won the ad- miration of the civilized world, and we must have an educational insti- tution that will be on the same plane of greatness and of the same high character. We have over this State numerous colleges and sem- inaries that are doing excellent work and we should have here a university which could offer to the graduates of those institutions higher advantages. We should have here all of the machinery, the instruments, the models, and the specimens that are necessary in mod- ern education. I am anxious to have a university here to which our people can send their young men and their young women, instead of sending them East; a university that shall perpetuate the rugged strength and stalwart manhood which characterizes the people of the Mississippi Valley. We want an institution which shall be free from the dilettanteism that is weakening the East, and that shall inculcate those fundamental principles of liberty, of national union and suprem- acy, and of local self-government that have given our country its marvelous career of progress and development. We want an institu- tion that shall be thoroughly modern in spirit and effort, and from whose halls shall go forth men and women of such strong moral fiber, 486 LIVE QUESTIONS. such industry and such fervor of soul, that they will lead our people on to loftier planes and to greater glory. We must have in this State a university that will hold aloft the flame of American civilization so that all the people in the world may be blessed by its light. We must have a university whose fame shall be co-extehsive with civilization. I trust that this occasion may prove to be more than merely an entertainment, more than a passing event that leaves only a pleasant recollection. I trust that there may go forth from this meeting a spirit that will arouse all of our people, and that all of us who are in any way connected with this institution may have renewed inspiration and may go forth with higher and nobler resolves in our efforts to make this university represent the great common people of this country; make it the friend and the helper of the toiling masses, of those people who do the work of the world, the people who lay the foundation of empires, who subdue rebellions, who fight for liberty, who build cities, railroads, churches and schools, the people who make our civilization. We have met to install a new chief. I have told you what we want to make of this institution. We needed a man to put in charge of this work who was more than a scholar, more than an educator, more even than a general ; a man who, while possessing all of these qualifications, was also thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the age, with a sense of the needs of our people; a man who was not only progressive, but aggressive. We believe we have found that man. LETTER TO GOVERNOR STONE ON POSITION OF DEMO- CRATIC PARTY ON MONEY QUESTION, JUNE 20, 1895. Hon. Wm. J. Stone, Governor of Missouri, Jefferson City, Mo. Dear Governor: — Great pressure of business is the only excuse I can offer for not answering your favor of June 2d earlier. I felt that there was much force in the objections you made to having the Silver Convention here take steps toward calling a national convention or conference and yet I also felt that that step was a necessity. Of course we do not want to split the Democratic party and I am convinced that so far as this State is concerned there are not 5 per cent of the members of the party who would leave it on account of the position the party has taken on the money question ; in fact, they are almost united for silver here. A very few men who have absolutely no fol- lowing, but who for some reason or other have access to newspaper LETTER TO GOVERNOR STONE. .487 columns, do all the talking on the other side and have succeeded in creating an impression abroad that there is serious division in the party here. The question is, how can we prevent the delegates who are to be selected to attend next year's Democratic convention from being controlled by the Eastern manipulators who use the Democratic party only as a convenience. Men who are not Democrats and who in reality have no business in the Democratic party, and who have done everything in their power to rob it of its mission and make it stand for absolutely nothing. You have noticed that the party ma- chinery in many States is controlled by these men. So much so that taking your State as an example, while a great many Democrats in- sisted on having a convention called to consider the money question, the leaders have been able to prevent it. In order for these leaders to control the situation next year it is necessary that there should be as little agitation as possible, so that everything can be quietly manipu- lated. If things are left in status quo, if this whole agitation shall now end, then with the aid of unlimited money which will be furnished next year the conventions in nearly all of the Southern and even Western States can be manipulated and the national convention will be made up of merely time-serving politicians, who will straddle every issue and who will nominate a man for the Presidency whom the great masses of the party will not support and who will lead us to the worst defeat that the Democratic party has ever encountered. The only possible way that I can see to prevent this condition of affairs is to keep up an active agitation, so that the Democrats will be thoroughly aroused and it will be impossible for a few men to con- trol the situation. To my mind it seems absolutely necessary to build a fire, and a big one, in the rear of those committeemen and of those individuals who are willing to do the bidding of Eastern manipulators and who can see in the Democratic party nothing except an organiza- tion through which some spoils may now and then be distributed. Those men who talk of leaving the party on account of its position on the money question are not the strong, stalwart, everyday Demo- crats. With scarcely an exception they belong to the "dilettante," the ones whom Roscoe Conkling described as "the man-milliners and the carpet-knights of politics," who are never of much use to the party and are always on hand when some offices are to be distributed, and in my judgment if every one of these men would leave us we would get twenty strong, active, honest men in return for every man who left us. More than one-half of the Republicans of our State are outspoken and active free-silver men, and if our party takes a firm position on 488 LIVE QUESTIONS. this subject and the Republican party straddles this question, as it will be obliged to do, we will sweep the country and achieve a greater vic- tory than we ever have. On the other hand, if this agitation dies out and our convention next year straddles the money question and leaves us in a position where we stand for nothing, then I can see no object in the world in even making a campaign, for there will not be enough left of us to bury the dead when the fight is over. Let me say further, in conclusion, that the silver movement in this State has stirred up our people and has put new life into the Demo- cratic party here, so that I am convinced that we could make as good a fight here to-morrow as was ever made by the party in this State. With assurances of my high regard,^ I am, Yours very truly, JOHN P. ALTGELD. SPEECH AT MILWAUKEE IN AUGUST, 1895, (Celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the organization of the city.) Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen : The different forces of this world nearly always go in groups. Scholars are found in companies, each profiting by the association with the other. Strong men rarely come singly, but in numbers, and each grows stronger by constant contact with his fellows. Even bright stars go in clusters, each being made more lustrous by the light of the other. There is in human affairs a law of competition, which, in its best form, is known as a friendly rivalry. This law which gives the im- petus to all progress affects individuals, affects societies, affects cities, affects State, and affects nations. When this spirit of friendly rivalry ceases, retrogression sets in and growth is at an end. Every progres- sive city needs to have progressive cities around it. A powerful State needs to have powerful States around it and every great nation needs the influence of other great nations. Down in Illinois we recognize this principle, and we glory in being surrounded not only by progressive cities, but by powerful and aggres- sive States. We feel the keenest interest in the growth and develop- ment of the wonderful State to the north of us. We watch your progress day by day and rejoice in all of your successes. For years our people have spoken of your city as "that beautiful city of Mil- waukee," and every time that you launch a new vessel, build a new building, or take a forward step you receive the hearty applause of our people. Your career is wonderful. It is proper that you should SPEECH AT MILWAUKEE. 4% rejoice over it. We rejoice with you. It is proper that you should glance back over the fifty years in order to see what was the ruling principle which produced this marvelous growth in the past and which, if followed, will lead to yet far greater achievements in the future. In your case, as in nearly every other similar case known to man, it was the spirit of democracy, it was the recognition of republican institutions that set in motion the limitless forces that have made you great. It was the recognition of the fact that wisdom and justice alone are eternal which has kept you on the high road to glory. It is a strik- ing fact that all of those nations and cities of the world which recog- nized only brute force, which held the dollar so close to the eye as to shut out the sun, and which trampled on the rights of man and crushed the noblest aspirations of humanity, soon failed. They rotted to the ground and their very abiding places seem to have disappeared from the earth. And those cities of the world which have written their names in history prospered only in proportion to the extent which they recognized the principle of the equality of man ; and it is notice- able that every one of these cities and these nations ceased their de- velopment and moved rapidly toward extinction the moment they reached the point where government became only a vast machine wielded by the few to crush the many and where courts of justice became only a side door convenience for rapacity and greed. The mind and the energies of men when oppressed by superstition or cowed by the iron hand of government become dwarfed, while when left free they leap into activity in every field of knowledge and give to the world the creations of genius. You have all the elements to make a glorious career. You have in- dustry, enterprise, perseverance. You have sturdy character, lofty purpose and high aim and if you will keep out upon the broad field of equal rights and fair play — if you will bear in mind that injustice done to the weakest member of your society is like a leprous touch upon your body ; if you will bear in mind that the cause of human- ity reaches nearer to the throne of Omnipotence than all the struggle and strife for pelf, then these fifty years which you celebrate to-day will constitute but the early morning hour of your existence. Your sun has scarcely passed its horizon. Your career is before you. Your noon-tide is yet afar in the future, and your field of action stretches far down the centuries. Keep your face toward truth and only time can limit your achievements. From over the border line on the south the people of our State will watch your every step with interest, and as you grow in riches, as you advance in learning, as you elevate the 4$6 LIVE QUESTIONS. standard of justice, as you move up onto the high plane of the equality of man, you will be applauded by the nations of the earth. SPEECH ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF CHICKAMAUGA, SEPTEMBER 18, 1895. (Dedicating the monuments erected by the State to mark the positions held by Illinois troops in that battle.) Fellow Citizens : We are here under one flag, all lovers of one common country, all citizens of this mighty republic, and we have come to perform an act of unusual significance. A great battlefield is to be dedicated — is to be made sacred ground. Upon that field are the foot-prints of the sons of Illinois, and we have journeyed from afar to place enduring monuments on the spots where they stood, where they fought, where they bled and where hundreds of them died. And we to-day put them in the keeping of the federal government. But why consecrate a battlefield? Battlefields cover the earth. From the time man devoured his fellow-man in the forests down to the present, when he seeks to devour his substance, there has been a continuous conflict. The method is becoming more refined, but the conflict goes on. Is, then, every spot that has witnessed a fatal struggle sacred ? If not, then why erect monuments on any ? Ah, it is not the fact that a struggle took place, but it "is the char- acter of the struggle — the principles involved, and the deeds done there, that move us to action. Monuments are erected to give perpetual expression to a senti- ment which language is too limited to portray and too ephemeral to preserve. The world erects monuments in honor of heroic deeds — of patri- otic sacrifice, and of great achievements. It does this, not as a solace for the dead, but as an inspiration for the living. Again, monuments are erected to mark the successive upward movements of the human race. They are milestones, not of space, but of time. They are index fingers upon the great dial of civilization. These monuments which we dedicate are to be an inspiration to the youth of America for all time, and are to tell their eloquent story to all coming generations. What, then, is that story? Over a third of a century ago there raged across this continent the greatest conflict the world had ever seen. Never had war been waged on so gigantic a scale. There was almost a continuous line of SPEECH AT CHlCKAMAUGA. 49* hostile armies from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains, and there was a navy stretching from New York around to the shores of Mexico. The primary question involved was, "Shall this government be destroyed or preserved?" But this question itself grew out of the more fundamental question of slavery. Through dark centuries the cry of the oppressed had gone up toward heaven, filling the air with thunderbolts, which finally exploded in one prolonged and bloody drama. More than a million of men in all came down from the North, shouting as they marched, "This Union forever and equal rights for all." The world had never seen such a spectacle. Here were great armies fighting, not for aggrandizement, not for conquest, but for the integrity of the flag and the principle of universal freedom. Over two hundred thousand men came down from our great prairie State of Illinois. They were not the children of effeminate luxury — they did not come from the paths of ease — they came from the varied fields of industry. They represented the best type of American manhood ; they had character, intelligence and grit ; they knew the value of the Union, and of freedom for mankind, and were prepared to die for them. They met one of the bravest foes that ever drew steel, men who rushed into battle with a yell even when they saw destruction written in the sky. Men who were honest ; men who believed they were right, and who rode forth to death without a quiver. But the principle these men fought for meant the perpetuation of human slavery. They were fight- ing for a condition against which the humanity of the age protested. They were fighting for the prolongation of an era which on the calen- dar of the Almighty was marked to close — and they failed. In the fall of 1863 one of the great acts of that awful drama of war took place here. On September 19th and 20th of that year there was fought in these valleys, over these fields and on yonder hillsides one of the most" bloody battles of which history makes any mention. You are familiar with its details and I will not dwell on them. The sons of Illinois fought here. There are men here to-day, there are thousands in the walks of civil life at home, and thousands more are dead, who were actors in this immortal and bloody drama. We are here to mark the positions they occupied. We are placing monuments of solid granite where they stood. We are doing this for the benefit of our- selves and of posterity, for nothing that we can do can add to their glory. Their fame is fixed and their reward is immortality. There have been thousands of battles of which the actors were for- gotten almost as soon as the groans of the dying had ceased, because there was no principle involved ; it was simply human butchery. But not so with the battles of this war. Here was hanging in the balance 492 LIVE QUESTIONS, the very existence of republican institutions among men, and the lib- erty of millions of human beings yet unborn. Never before was there such an issue; and when the smoke of war had cleared away, when the sun again rose over a peaceful land, the world beheld not only a'- united country, not only the triumph of republican institutions, but it saw that the human race had made a long march upward, and had camped on a higher plane; that it had gotten nearer the fountain of justice, and that the principle that had long strutted in the garb of law, namely, that one man can hold a property right in his fellow- man, was expurged from the books forever. The world then saw that the battles and horrors of the war had been the birth pains of a new era with which time had been pregnant; that they were hammers in the great clock of Omnipotence pealing through the Universe the dawn of a new day for millions of the human race. That in brief is the sublime, the imperishable story which these monuments tell. My friends, you and I will soon pass away and be forgotten. These granite monuments may dissolve, and these hills may disappear, but Chickamauga will shine forever in the firmament. No matter whether there was an immediate victory or not, those men who here faced death, and struck a staggering blow for country and for equal rights, belong to the immortal. You observe we are marking positions, we are celebrating actions, we are pointing to what the living did ; we are not building tombs, we are not decorating graves, for not many of our heroes are buried here. Go to the lonely places in deserted fields, go to the sunken spots in Southern woods, go to the decaying bones in dismal swamps, and go to those hilltops where thousands of little marble slabs, all of the same size, are standing in rows, modestly facing the morning, modestly tell- ing a story of patriotism and of honor, and you will find the graves of many of our dead. 'Tis not their graves, 'tis their deeds that live. Men look toward the firmament for the names of heroes and rarely ask where their bones are buried. Standing on the shores of the Mediterranean more than two thous- and years ago, the great Pericles, while pronouncing a funeral oration over the Greeks who had fallen in defense of their country, said : "The world is their sepulcher, and wherever there is speech of noble deeds, there they will be remembered." So with our heroes. They rest in the hearts of their countrymen, and all time is the custodian of their glory. To us, and to all that believe in republican institutions, there is a peculiar pleasure in dedicating these monuments, because they SPEECH AT CHICKAMAUGA. 493 commemorate the deeds of the volunteer soldiers, the citizen soldiers who came from the walks of every-day life, and who represented the common sense, the rugged character, the love of country and the earnestness of the great American people. For on this continent, as elsewhere, the great battles that gave liberty to a nation were fought by men who came directly from the great mass of the people, and added the superior patriotism and character of a citizen to the stern qualities of a soldier. Toward the end of the last century the raw levies coming from the citizens of France defeated all Europe, and overthrew a despotism of centuries. Frederick the Great did say that officers ought to be chosen from the nobility because a higher sense of honor prevailed there; but in 1806, only twenty years after his death, a Prussian army of a quarter of a million of men, the best equipped in Europe, and officered en- tirely by so-called noblemen, who were professional soldiers, was routed and destroyed by a greatly inferior force of republican soldiers, because its officers lacked honor, capacity and patriotism. The record of their blunders and surrenders is one unparalleled tale of shame, dis- honor and disgrace. In less than ten years thereafter a new army was formed, not of professional soldiers, boasting of their lineage, but of the citizens of Prussia. This army, these citizen soldiers, not only restored the in- dependence of their country and wiped out the disgrace put on it by the cowardice and treachery of the nobility, but they laid the founda- tion of the German empire, and of constitutional government. In our country the Revolutionary armies were made up of citizens, commanded by men from the varied walks of life. They met and in the end routed the armies that were composed of professional soldiers, and officered by men whose chief boast was that they had noble ancestors. Armed citizens, with the love of freedom burning in their souls, laid the foundations of liberty in our country and the same class of men afterwards came to its rescue and saved it from destruction. The American people had spent millions in maintaining West Point for the purpose of protecting the country, but at the beginning of the war the armies that fired on our flag were mostly led by graduates of that institution. There were men in the North who had a military education, but they did not form a leisure class, making arms a profession. Grant was a tanner and Sherman a school teacher, and all had to develop to meet the situation. 494 LIVE QUESTION S. Patriotism does not take root in the soil of leisure and dissipation. The hot air of the drawing room is not conducive to its growth, it finds no nourishment in either pride or pretense and it famishes and withers in the hollow glare of fashion. Patriotism thrives among the hard lines of care and vigilance, it becomes robust on a diet of justice and fair play and is always found in its most vigorous form among the intelligent, upright and industri- ous masses of the people. A leisure class making arms a profession may fight for glory or selfish advantage, caring little for the principle involved, but the citizen soldier fights for country and for liberty. Now, my friends, we owe our country more than talk, we can not discharge our duty by simply celebrating the glorious deeds of the past. The men who only do this proclaim to the world their im- becility and the humiliating fact that they are not capable of directing the great institutions which the fathers founded. And those nations which stand with their face toward the past are rotten at heart and are on the road to extinction. The law of disintegration and destruction never sleeps and only eternal vigilance can check it. Every age brings its own dangers, and those that come stealthily are frequently more fatal than those that come with a mighty noise. The war has settled that we have nothing to fear from armed foes, we have nothing to fear from powder and bullet. But to destroy liberty by poison and slow strangulation is just as fatal to a nation as to strike it down by the sword. Instead of an armed foe that we can meet on the field, there is to- day an enemy that is invisible, but everywhere at work destroying our institutions ; that enemy is corruption. Born of vast concentration of capital in unscrupulous hands, cor- ruption is washing the foundations from under us, and is tainting everything it touches with a moral leprosy. It seeks to direct official action, it dictates legislation, and en- deavors to control the construction of laws. Wealth is necessary, let us not declaim against it, every nation needs it to attain the highest achievements in civilization. But- it is a blessing only as a servant and is destructive as a master. This spirit of corruption seeks to control the press, to set the fashions and to shape public sentiment. It has emasculated American politics, and placed it on the low plane of jugglery. Once political parties stood for definite principles, and their platforms proclaimed these boldly to the world. The tendency now is for political parties to shirk principle and follow expediency, and their platforms are often drawn to evade or straddle every live issue. SPBECH At CtiiCKAMAUGA. 495 The idea now is to cajole rather than convince, to ignore great wrongs and wink at abuses, to court the support of conflicting inter- ests, though it involves the deception of one or both. We are sub- stituting office-seeking and office-holding in place of real achievement and instead of great careers in public life, we are facing a harvest of slippery, blear-eyed and empty mediocrity, which glides into oblivion without even the assistance of death and leaves almost the entire field of honor to the successful private individual. To be an eligible candidate now often means to stand for nothing in particular, and to represent no definite principle, but be all things to all men, and in the end be contemptible. Thirty-five years ago the call was for men to fight an open enemy in the field, to-day our coun- try is calling for men who will be true to republican institutions at home. Never before did this republic call so loudly as it does to-day for a strong, sturdy manhood that will stand up defiantly and dare to do right. For more than a decade the tendency in this country has been toward a colorless and negative dilettanteism, having the countenance of the Pharisee, with the greed of the wolf, and drawing all its in- spirations from the altar of concentrated and corrupting wealth. The flag has been praised at champagne dinners, while the very pole from which it floated was being eaten off by corruption, and re- publican institutions were being stabbed to the vitals. A new gospel has come among us, according to which "It is mean to rob a hen- roost or a hen, but plundering thousands makes us gentlemen." My friends, the men of the past did their duty. Shall we do ours ? They were asked to face death, you may have to face calumny and obloquy. No man ever served his country without being vilified, for all who make a profit out of injustice will be your enemies, but as sure as the heavens are high and justice is eternal, will you triumph in the end. Let me say to the young men, the age is weary of the polite and weak camp followers, weary of servility, weary of cringed necks and knees bent to corruption. This age is calling for soldiers, calling for strong character, calling for men of high purpose, calling for men who have convictions of their own and who have the courage to act on them. And the doors of fame's bright temple never opened so widely and beckoned so earnestly as they do to-day. Rise to the oc- casion, steer our country away from the shoals toward which it is drifting, keep it on the great ocean of justice and of liberty, and monu- ments of granite will tell the story of your lives and you will taste the nectar of the gods. 496 LIVE QUESTIONS. DRIFT OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. (August, 1895.) "Governor, what effect will the conduct of the Legislature have on the Republican party ?" Political parties sometimes begin their career at one pole and then move towards the opposite" pole. The Republican party, when founded, stood for humanity, stood for broad principles, stood for honesty and the highest and best interests of the masses of the common people. While it was guided by Lincoln and his associates its needle always pointed to the pole of justice, but in the rapid concentration of wealth and the accumulation of great fortunes by means of legislation it has moved so far away from its starting point that its needle now points almost without variation to the opposite pole. To-day the great cur- rents in the Republican party all run toward the aggrandizement of the few at the expense of the many — toward trusts and universal corrup- tion. No matter what the great majority of the party may believe or may advocate, or may desire, the party has passed into the control of influences that absolutely unfit it and disqualify it to deal with the problems of the State. There are a number of burning questions in this State that demand legislation. In connection with our revenue system, with our police court system in large cities, with our child labor system, with our sys- tem for administering justice, and in connection with a number of other subjects there are conditions of such great injustice as reflect seriously upon our capacity for self-government. The people elected a Legislature to deal with these problems and to right these wrongs. The Republicans had an overwhelming ma- jority in both Houses and were absolutely masters of the situation, yet when called upon to act, they demonstrated either an incapacity or an unwillingness to do anything. Some of them treated the serious questions flippantly by contemptuously speaking of them as "chest- nuts," "old timers," etc. Thus showing not only an incapacity to deal with them, but an utter incapacity to understand their importance, and the majority seemed to be unwilling to give any serious attention to the business of the State, but appeared to devote all of their energies to further their own selfish interests. The lobbyists and the rotten and slimy "go-betweens" who rep- resented the corruptionists of the State seemed to be able to defeat any measure which they disliked. Now the same machinery which sent the Republican delegation to DRIFT OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 497 the last Legislature will probably determine who shall go to the next, and as the influences which I have spoken of seem to be in absolute control of the Republican party and will probably continue to control it, and as the last Legislature is a fair specimen of what may be ex- pected from these influences, it is apparent that the State of Illinois has little to hope from the Republican party. LAYING THE CORNER-STONE OF THE NEW NORMAL UNIVERSITY AT DE KALB, ILL., OCTOBER 1, 1895. Mr. Chairman : Ten days ago I stood on one of the world's great- est battlefields, a field which will be remembered as long as the chil- dren of men love liberty and cherish free institutions. Scores of monu- ments now mark the positions held by different troops, and you can trace the line of battle for miles, over fields and through woods, and as you do so you are struck with the fact that wherever the struggle was the hardest and the slaughter the greatest, there were the soldiers of Illinois. As I stood there overwhelmed by the spirit that hovers over those grounds, I exclaimed, "Great was Illinois on this field, and immortal are her sons who here fought for freedom." To-day as I gaze over this vast multitude of our citizens represent- ing all classes and conditions of our people, and drawn together, not by lucre, not by passion, not by prejudice, but by the most lofty impulse that can move men to action — drawn together by a common desire to elevate the standard of education — I am forced to exclaim, great are the people of Illinois wherever found, and glorious will be their career. Your presence here tells the world that there is something superior to houses and lands, greater than office, or honor, something that can- not be purchased across the counter, and does not depend upon the market ; something that does not grow in a night, but must be nurtured by truth and illumined by wisdom ; and that is true manhood, true womanhood, lofty character and high purpose. By your presence here you tell the world that material achieve- ment is not the highest destiny of man, but that in order to grasp the imperishable he must move upward toward the sunlit peaks of in- telligence. All of the creations of man that rested only upon a foundation of matter have crumbled to dust. There were mighty people possessing power and wealth of whom the recording angel took no note, for they possessed nothing that was worth preserving. Egypt was one of the greatest nations of ancient times, but her memory is preserved largely 33 498 LIVE QUESTIONS. by the fact that she once held in slavery a people whose history, liter- ature and laws glow with immortality. For centuries the Greeks were a powerful people, yet their fleets, their houses, and their vast wealth all have disappeared. But the grove in which Plato taught philosophy has given its name to institutions of learning for more than two thousand years. The world still admires the sculpture and the architecture of Phidias and his colleagues, it is still thrilled with her oratory, and reads the creations of her poets and dramatists with delight. Rome possessed a material splendor and power such as had never before been seen, but her armies, her granaries, her slaves and her office-holders all have passed away ; yet we still listen to the orations of Cicero, and the songs of her poets, while her iaws formed the foundation for the systems of jurisprudence of all of the great empires of modern Europe. We grow weary of hearing about the workshops, and counting- rooms of England; we lose interest in the story of her factories, her fleets, her commerce and her banks, for there is nothing in all this to satisfy the soul. We grow weary even of hearing it said that the sun never sets upon her empire, and that her morning drum-beat is heard around the world, for while this is a splendid figure of speech, it sug- gests physical force, it suggests the tax-gatherer, it suggests the hand of the oppressor, it suggests a despoiled and weary people, who eat their bread in sadness and for whom this drum-beat has no music. We turn rather to the England of Shakespeare, of Milton and of Gold- smith ; the England of literature, and philosophy, and of oratory ; and long after all of her material grandeur shall have been forgotten the creations of her intellectual genius will live. In this country we have had a career that is without parallel in all history ; but while the extraordinary growth and splendor of our coun- try are due to the superior intelligence and patriotism of our people, the future will not ask about our railroads and our factories ; it will not ask about our warehouses and our fields, it will not inquire about our factions, nor our men of authority. The future will ask : What did these people of America do for humanity ? What was the high-water mark of intelligence which they reached? Fortunate shall we be if when measured from that standpoint we shall surpass the nations that have preceded us. The Almighty uses the centuries as a yard stick with which to measure the achievements of nations, and unless we can offer works which, when measured by his great rule, shall surpass the people who have gone before us, little will be set down to our credit. Fortunately we are moving along great highways that were closed SPEECH AT DE KALB. 499 to the ancients, we are tilling fields that were unknown to the past, and we are producing a harvest that only poets had dreamed of. In the centuries that have gone, few were counted worthy of notice ; we are helping the many. Once the children of the few only were led up the hill of knowledge ; now we labor to bring the whole human family into the regions of light. As a result of this democratic spirit, guided by sturdy character, both the physical, the moral and the intellectual conditions of all classes of men have been greatly advanced. Learning is no longer confined to the three professions, but every line of industry has its educated and distinguished men, who often overshadow their brethren in the profession, and we have a variety of beneficent insti- tutions that are the children of this century. This spirit and this character are especially seen in the growth of the State of Illinois. We are but three-quarters of a century old, but we have one of the most romantic and thrilling histories to be found in song or story, and our advancement in every line of human activity has astonished the world. Without being conscious of it themselves, our people pushed ahead until they surpassed all the States of the earth in agri- culture, in mining, in manufacturing, in railroading, in merchandising, in the founding of institutions, in the building of cities and in the cease- less struggle for human advancement. Moved by a lofty impulse we invited the nations to come within our borders to exhibit the high- est and best productions of the genius and industry of their people ; and although our expectations were high, we were amazed at the re- sult. We had called into being the great Columbian Exposition, the crowning wonder and glory of all the centuries. The nations came and gazed with rapture, while we unconsciously took a position at the head of the mighty States of the earth. We were so overwhelmed with emotion as we beheld the indescribable grandeur of the White City that we took no note of the responsibility we were assuming. Now we must go ahead, there is no retreat. The same energy, the same industry and the same high purpose which has distinguished our people in the past must guide us in the future. Look at a map of America a moment and you will see that our State was designed to be the heart of this continent. It stretches from the Great Lakes to the two, yea, three great rivers through nearly four hundred miles of latitude, and possesses the best climate and the most wonderful resources that Providence could give. Man has en- deavored to follow in the wake of the Almighty and has placed Illinois at the head of the column of mighty States, and the time is near at hand when from her will go out to the other States and to all countries that Yivifying and elevating spirit that moves the world, The intellectual Soo LIVE QUESTIONS. and literary activity is already being shifted from the hills of New England to the prairies of Illinois, and the time is near at hand when from this State will go out the most advanced ideas in all the fields of human knowledge. The time is near at hand when the young men and young women of this State will no longer go beyond our borders to be educated, but the sons and daughters, of other States and of other countries will come here to perfect their education, for they will find here the vigor and strength of youth instead of the paralysis of age now seen elsewhere. In education we have laid the foundations for institutions that will grow stronger with the centuries. Aside from the numerous small colleges over the State that have given great men to their country in all fields of activity, we have a Presbyterian uni- versity at Lake Bluff that is an excellent institution. We have the Northwestern Methodist University at Evanston that is doing splendid work. We have the Baptist University of Chicago that is famous for the distinction of its instructors, and we have the University of Illinois at Champaign, an institution which, in many respects, is al- ready one of the best in the world, especially in all matters relating to modern engineering and the sciences. We have met to lay the corner-stone of an institution that is de- signed to produce the perfect teacher, who shall in the school-room make of the young, as near as human effort can, perfect men and wo- men. If this institution shall instill the right spirit, if it shall teach the diversity of toil, if it shall make of the youth of the land strong, inde- pendent and liberty-loving men and women, then only the centuries can measure the good that will flow from it. Institutions frequently partake of the character of the people whose influence surrounds them. When the question arose last winter of founding a new institution of learning in the northwestern part of the State we favored the measure, not simply because it was just to this great section of the State, but for the higher reason that here was found, in as great a degree as anywhere, the industry, the intelligence, the sturdy character and the high aim which would make an institu- tion a success. Above all things, we want this institution to stand on the basic principle that all men are born equal, and that only industry, intelligence and effort shall lead to preferment. If I had not believed that here a university would be free from a weakening dilettanteism, that here industry and character would rank above all other things, then the bill would have been vetoed or we would have told the gentlemen who were pushing the measure not to revive it after it had been defeated. For there was serious opposition to it; and but for the persistent, able and determined efforts, through an en- CARE OF DEPENDENT CHILDREN. 501 tire winter, of a distinguished gentleman of this town, the bill never would have passed. To him you are indebted at this time, and if this institution is properly managed, then all coming generations in this section of the State will appreciate his efforts. Let me say to you now that should it at any time in the future be used as a convenience by the trustees to furnish places or a living for relatives and favorites so that the standing of the university would be lowered, then go to the Executive at Springfield, no matter who he may be, and demand a change, and if you do it in earnest, you will succeed. Aside from private institutions we have already two great Normal universities in this State, and they are doing a grand work. We are founding two more, not because we are behind our neighbors, for we are far in the lead, but we shall not rise to the occasion unless we put all four on a plane that shall surpass everything in this country. The Illinoisan never has been and dare not in the future be content to rest where his neighbor does. He can recognize only time and space as limitations to his efforts ; he must draw his inspiration from the stars, and so long as there are highlands ahead that have hanging over them the enchantment of unsolved mysteries, so long must he push forward. Now, my fellow-citizens, this is the position, this is the mission, this is the grand destiny of Illinois. I care not for your politics, I care not what you think of this or that public man, I care not to what sect you belong, or at what shrine you kneel, but I do ask that you bring your best offerings to the altar of our State, whose spirit will surely shape the future of this country. Let this new institution and all existing ones be guided by the high character, the steady industry and the love of freedom for which our people are noted and only the eye of Omniscience can survey the future grandeur and glory of our State. CARE OF DEPENDENT CHILDREN. "State of Illinois, Executive Office, Springfield, Oct. 10, 1895. — The Hon. Harvey B. Hurd, President Children's Aid Society, 15 Washington Street, Chicago, 111. — Dear Mr. Hurd: Answering your favor I will say, a somewhat extended observation has forced the con- viction into my mind that our whole system of caring for dependent children in public institutions is to a great extent a failure and should be changed. As you are aware, the entire institutions system is of re- cent origin and there are serious objections to it in all of its branches. 502 LIVE QUESTIONS. But in most cases we have nothing better to substitute and therefore are obliged to continue it. "For example, we have as yet no satisfactory substitute for insane asylums. We must have prisons, and we take care of the feeble- minded and the physically helpless, as well as of the aged who have no means of support. For all these the institutions system will have to be continued, and as to these it is only a question of bringing the in- stitutions onto the highest plane possible. GREAT WRONG TO THE YOUNG. "But when it comes to the young the case is different. They soon become institutionized, which means that they are forever disqualified from making their own living. During the impressionable part of their lives their character is shaped, their habits become fixed and the spirit of self-reliance is either destroyed or dwarfed, so that when they leave the institution they are helpless. "In all conditions life is in a sense competitive, and the boys and girls who have grown up in private homes possess a degree of self- confidence and self-reliance, to say nothing of a knowledge of the world and of affairs, which places them far' in advance of the institu- tion girl or boy in the struggle for existence. It is a common thing to see in institutions both girls and boys who are bright and industrious and spirited, and possess excellent principles, but who are absolutely helpless when they leave the institution. They become accustomed to work with a large number and become accustomed to being provided for and to being guided in all particulars, so that as a rule they are weakened for life, while the children coming from even the poorest private homes are found to be self-reliant, and often become the most successful men and women. SHOULD BE PLACED IN PRIVATE FAMILIES. "I am convinced that the best method yet devised for dealing with homeless children is to place them at once in private homes where they may be treated as members of the family and begin early to learn the hard realities of life and the best ways of meeting them, and for this purpose they should be detained in an institution only until it is possible to find some place for them. "If there are any legal difficulties in the way of having those public officials who deal with the poor carry out this policy, then the law should be changed as speedily as possible so as to permit it and put an $nd to the herding of children together in institutions where they are LINCOLN PARK EXTENSION. 503 prisoners without being guilty of any offense except that of being friendless and poor. Very respectfully yours, "JOHN P. ALTGELD." LINCOLN PARK EXTENSION. (Note. — On the recommendation of the Governor an act was passed by the Legislature in 1893 to extend Lincoln Park northward by utilizing the ground under the shallow waters of the lake. This act was found to be de- fective and a new act was passed in 1895.) October 21, 1895. Hon. Egbert Jamieson, Cor. Clark and Division Streets, Chicago, 111. Dear Judge : I feel that the time is fast slipping round and that we are not getting the Lincoln Park extension under headway, and as our term of official life is short, a very little delay through litigation or from some other cause will defeat the whole measure so far as we are concerned, and possibly delay the improvement so long that it can never be made. For, even if after the end of this administration you were to remain on the Board the Board will be so radically reorganized that it will refuse to carry out any policy which we have favored. It is imperative that we take steps at once to get the riparian rights and , also to begin the driving of piles for the purpose of making the outer drive and breakwater in the lake. You know the theory is to build the drive parallel with the shore from fifteen hundred to two thousand feet out in the lake and thus get the land which is covered by the shal- low waters between that line and the shore. If the piles were once driven and the work started, then it will be completed, for public senti- ment would then compel succeeding boards to go on with the work. But in order to get the piles driven and the work done there dare not be a delay of an hour, and I wish to say that the entire job of ex- tending the drive and thus laying the foundation for a park should be carried up to the line of the town of Evanston. It will take but little more work to carry on the whole than it will to proceed with a part, and I desire that your Board lay the foundation for the whole fabric and not simply for a small part of it. I want this improvement to be the creation of your Board. Mr. Crawford has given the Park so much time and has so many other details to look after that he cannot concentrate so much of his attention to the preliminary steps which are necessary to go on with this improvement, and I consequently hesitate to press him very much. In my judgment, if this drive out into the lake is extended to 5°4 LIVE QUESTIONS. Evanston and the Park ultimately carried there, it will be one of the grandest things ever done about Chicago and will alone make the city famous, and must cover with honors those who will devote a part of their lives and their energies to creating it. Opportunities of this kind do not come to a man every day. You are young and ambitious and I want you to make the most of it. Let your twelve or fifteen or twenty great corporations go out to pasture awhile, and devote your- self to achieving glory and doing something for your city and for the great masses of the people — for this park must in the end be for them. I have not examined the subject sufficiently to say just what steps should be taken first, but it is necessary to get the riparian rights im- mediately and to have an assessment made that will enable you to start the work at once. I understand very many of the owners along the shore are willing to deed the riparian rights and as to all those who are not willing to do so condemnation proceedings should be begun immediately and if possible be set for immediate hearing, and I think it would be well to embrace in the proceedings every piece of land up to the Evanston line. Likewise the assessment should be made to cover the whole ground and pushed to a judgment. Now, unless somebody will make this his immediate and particular business weeks and months will slip around without accomplishing anything. In my judgment your Board should employ all the help necessary of every kind and character. Do not hesitate a moment, but drive ahead. Do not be alarmed about the expense or the taxation, for the people of Chicago are always willing to pay if they get an ade- quate return for their money. There will, of course, be opposition, for there are people who will fight the best move on earth. And there will be people who will try to rob you, for sharks are numerous in the world. But all of these features must be met in the end, and therefore had better be met at once. Ascertain at once what the riparian rights are to cost and be done with it. Ascertain at once what it will cost to build the breakwater and drive up to Evanston. The filling is some- thing that will take care of itself later, besides much of the water be- tween the proposed drive and the shore should be left open. Your long career at the bar and on the bench has made you fa- miliar with this kind of proceeding. Ascertain what is the very earliest moment at which you can let contracts and proceed with the work. I will endeavor to have a conference with you and the other mem- bers of the Board as soon as possible, but in the meantime allow me to repeat, I hope you will push ahead. With my best regards, I am Truly yours, JOHN P. ALTGELD, 'COAL MltfE INSPECTORS. 505 INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN TO COAL MINE INSPECTORS ON OCTOBER 24, 1895. Gentlemen : I have invited you to meet me to-day in order to more forcibly impress upon you certain matters relating to your duties. The law providing for coal mine inspectors was passed for the purpose of protecting the miners, of protecting the lives and health of the men who toil in the earth and of preventing accidents. As a rule, the mine owners and wealthy property owners are able to take care of themselves. We feel that there have been too many accidents in the coal mines _of this State during the last two years and that some of them could have been avoided. Not that there have been any more than formerly, in fact, there were not as many, but still we are con- vinced that they have not yet been reduced to the minimum. We find it is common for the mine owner or his agent to meet the inspector when he comes, and accompany him on his tour of inspec- tion. This makes it embarrassing for the miners, who fear that they might lose their jobs if they were to call the inspector's attention to anything, and as the miners are very poor, many of them in almost desperate condition, and as the losing of the job means that there will be no bread for their children, they refrain from saying anything un- der these circumstances. Now, in the future we wish you to be guided by these specific instructions : Make an entire inspection alone and say to the mine owner and his agent that you are not permitted to have him present on your tour, and during this tour, as you go along, ask the miners whether they have anything they desire to suggest to you. It will not take much of your time and will give the miners courage. At the same time give them to understand that you do not care to know their names and that they will not be reported. And when they call your attention to any- thing, examine into it at once. After having made this tour, then if the mine owner or his agent desire to call your attention to anything, you will, of course, be with them. Your demeanor toward the owner and his people should be re- spectful and free from all bluster. When there is anything that needs attention, call the attention of the owner to it in writing, so that no question may arise as to whether you did notify them or not. Always give your notice in writing. Do it in respectful language and then see to it that the law is complied with. As an example of the accidents that we think can be prevented there was one mine where they had been lowering the cage, in which $o6 'LIVE QUESTIONS. the men rode up and down, so rapidly as to make ic exceedingly un- comfortable. The mine inspector came there and was lowered down with great care, and as he was accompanied by the mine manager no miner complained. Soon thereafter the cage was lowered with such rapidity and struck the bottom with such force that it broke the legs of two of the occupants. Now, if the mine inspector had gone down the cage alone, and in passing through the mine had asked the miners whether there was anything to complain of, some one would, in all probability, have told him about the manner of lowering the elevator. He could then have spoken to the manager about it and prevented the accident. We want you to be thorough in your work. See that everything which the law requires is attended to properly. It is also your duty to do what you can to prevent the miners being cheated in weighing. As to the best method of testing scales, that is a matter which will be considered later, but it has been found in the past that miners are swindled, not so much by the scales as they are ■ by the figures, that is, the check weighmaji has sometimes been found to put down reduced figures. In order to ascertain whether this has been going on or not, it would be well for you to take a stand at the mine for several hours and weigh every car yourself until you have weighed some hundred cars. Ascertain what they average, then in- quire and see what the cars averaged for several weeks prior under the same conditions and in that way you can tell whether there has been any false reporting. Let me say in conclusion that every time an accident happens in a mine hereafter we shall feel a little suspicious about our inspector, and if it is found that the accident is one which could have been pre- vented by closer attention, he will be liable to lose his job. WHAT SHALL WE SUBSTITUTE FOR COMPETITION? (Speech at the St. Andrew's Society banquet, November '30, 1895.) Mr. President : Is competition dying out ? If so, what shall we substitute for it? This question is now confronting the American people and particularly the people of this State, and as I will not have to deal with it in an official capacity I may discuss it from the same standpoint and with the same freedom that any other citizen could. For centuries competition has been regarded as the regulator of wages and especially as the protection of the public against the ex- tortions of monopoly. In all civilized countries, particularly in Eng- SUBSTITUTE FOR COMPETITION. 507 land and the United States, it has been the aim of government to pre- vent combinations that would in any way affect prices. In England, as well as in this country, the legislation and the decisions of the courts, excepting our Federal courts, has been most strongly against trusts and other forms of combination that were thought to prevent free competition. But about the middle of this century, with the extended use of steam and machinery, there appeared in Europe, as well as here, a tendency toward concentration, enlargement, and consolidation in civil affairs. Numerous little independent governments were united into great ones, and in the financial, commercial and manufacturing world small establishments gave way to great ones, and little railroads to great trunk lines. Everywhere individual effort is giving way to com- bined effort. Notwithstanding the laws against trusts, the most of the States have passed laws under which corporations can be formed with ease, and this fact, making concentration of capital possible, gave a tre- mendous impetus to the new movement, and brought about conditions which would have been impossible under individual or mere partnership effort, so that now there is scarcely a field of enterprise but what is controlled by combinations. Lists have been published giving the names of several hundred great trusts and combinations that arbitrarily fix prices, control out- put, and regulate wages. Especially has competition ceased in those lines in which the public is served directly. For instance in the mat- ter of gas, electric lighting and street railway service. In nearly all of the large American cities consolidations have gone on until there is absolutely no competition. Take Chicago as an example: Years ago gas was selling in the central part of the city at a dollar a thous- and, then the trust was formed by which all of the gas companies in the city were put under one control and gas was marked up to a dol- lar and a quarter, and no competition has existed since that time. In the street railway service there is absolutely no competition possible now, and as the elevated roads are passing into the control of the same people who own the surface roads, there can be no competition from that source. Everywhere there are signs that indicate that the era of competition which has existed for several centuries is drawing to a close, that we are entering upon new conditions. We may deplore the tendency, but cannot stop it. The forces of concentration, of consoli- dation and enlargement are so powerful and their sweep is so broad and universal, that they constitute perhaps the most important feature of this marvelous century, and no counter force has in any way been 3o8 r tlVE "QUESTIONS. able to check their progress. Legislatures, both national and State, have passed most stringent laws against trusts and consolidations, and the State courts have rendered decisions sustaining these laws and holding combinations to be illegal, but without avail. The movement has gone right on like a mighty river that is unconscious of what is said and done upon its banks. The State courts of New York declared the Sugar Trust to be illegal, but instead of subsiding it went ahead and held the national government by the throat until it secured its de- mands. The courts of Ohio held the Standard Oil Trust to be illegal, but the trust is mightier than ever. The courts of Illinois held the Gas Trust, in the city of Chicago, to be illegal, but its power is un- diminished. These new conditions are not ephemeral, they are permanent in their character. First, because it will not be possible to dissolve the corporations and concentrations of this country and reduce matters to their former condition ; and second because these great combinations and concentrations in themselves are beneficial. They can cheapen production and in many ways give to the. world a degree of comfort and pleasure that would not be possible under former conditions. This is especially true as relates to transportation, telegraphing, etc. The question is how to give the public its share of this benefit, or if this cannot be done, then how to protect the public against extortion. If it is true that the era of competition is drawing to a close, and that we have entered upon new conditions, and that these are perma- nent, then it is the business of government to recognize these condi- tions and legalize them, seeing to it at the same time that the public is pfotected. A government that stands with its face toward the past and cannot adjust itself to the new conditions that are constantly being evolved is not suited to this age. What, then, shall we substitute for competition? We have tried by means of legislation and by means of the courts to stem this tide, to arrest this mighty tendency, and it has been in vain. We have been trying to kick back the waters with our feet and they have surrounded us and are rolling on apparently unconscious of our effort, and so far as can be seen these trusts and combinations do not bring with them, nor are they followed by any natural check or regulation. The process of combining simply goes on until a few men absolutely control a whole situation, and the public is at their mercy, while labor is helpless. There being no natural regulator to which the public can look, it is obliged to look in the end toward government, and the question is : What can government do in the premises? It is the business of gov- ernment to conserve and protect all interests ; to conserve and protect SUBSTITUTE FOR COMPETITION. 509 the producer on the one hand, and the consumer on the. other ; to see to it that each gets his rights and that neither is subjected to an in- justice by the other. There is here presented for solution one of the most serious problems that has confronted civilized government for a -long time, and no complete remedy is as yet in sight. We are still in a transition state and do not know exactly what the ultimate con- ditions will be, but the situation has developed far enough to indicate that for a considerable time at least there will be no remedy except what government may furnish and it must be a remedy applicable to all cases of monopoly. In some of the best governed cities of Europe and in a few of this country there exists municipal ownership of water service, gas service, electric light service, and street railway service. This is being tried in Europe with great success ; in this country the experiment has not been on a scale sufficiently broad to effectually test it, except in so far as relates to furnishing water by large cities to their inhabitants. This is a complete and pronounced success. But municipal ownership could apply only to a few cases of monopoly and would not apply to the great number of trusts and combinations which do not deal so directly with municipalities and against which the public must be protected. And no matter what may be said in favor of a municipal ownership of gas and street railways, our people, in most cases, are not ready to make the experiment, although public sentiment moves rapidly in this country and one cannot tell what will take place in the near future. Lately I heard a very wealthy man of wide experience in municipal and in railroad affairs declare himself strongly in favor of governmental ownership of railroads, not because it could operate them more eco- nomically than private individuals could, but he favored it because it would stop the dishonest management and the favoritism now so com- mon ; and second, he thought if the government owned the railroads and the municipalities themselves furnished gas and owned the street railways, it would take away from the State and national legislatures the powerful lobbies which now corrupt legislation in every direc- tion, and would take away from our city councils the corrupting in- fluence which seems to be destroying our government. But while governmental ownership is being discussed by thoughtful men, gov- ernmental control or regulation is being tried. For example, we have in the State of Illinois a commission which has the power to determine what shall constitute reasonable freight and passenger rates and charges for storing grain in public elevators ; and what shall constitute reasonable accommodations to be furnished by the railroads to the 5io LIVE QUESTIONS. public. This commission stands between the public and the great carrying interests of this State, so that if all of the railroads of the State were under one management it could determine what shall con- stitute fair rates and in that way prevent extortion. It is true that its actions can be reviewed in the courts for the purpose of ascertaining whether it has acted reasonably or not and it may be that in many cases this Board would be under the control of the railroads. But assuming that it were, whenever the public was aroused and de- manded a revision it would in most cases get a fair hearing. It would be entirely feasible to put the street railways and the elevated railways of our State under the control of this same Board, so that the public would have a tribunal to go to for the purpose of having any com- plaint relating to the accommodations furnished, or to excessive charges, considered and adjusted. In Massachusetts they have a State board, which has the power to fix the price of gas in every city in the State. It is required to make an examination of the value of the plant, the cost of making gas and the various facts that should be considered, and it then fixes a price for gas which shall produce simply a fair income on the investment and conduct of the business. This is intended as a protection of the public. On the other hand the law aims to protect the company against black- mail by city councils, and provides that no new company shall be chartered to go into the gas business unless, in the judgment of the Board, the public interests require it. ■ Here again it may be said that the gas companies would soon control the Board and there is much force in the suggestion. So far but few complaints of this character have been made in Massachu- setts. It is claimed that the Board appointed was of so high a char- acter that it was free from suspicion of this kind. I cite these examples only as illustrating just how far governmental regulation has gone in some cases of monopoly that now exist and I ask can the same remedy be applied in all cases ? I will not discuss, I do not even offer governmental regulation as an absolute remedy, I am simply calling attention to the fact that the era of competition seems to be drawing to a close in our country and that governmental regulation, weak as it may be, seems to be the only practicable remedy or protector of the public that is yet visible. It is true that many ef- forts at governmental regulation have been farcical and almost added insult to injury. At present we have only political organizations, which divide the people almost equally. They stand for little or noth- ing and leave the trusts a clear field in which to plunder the public. But whether governmental regulation succeeds or not, this question THE tfEW SOUTH. 51! must receive the serious attention and consideration of all patriotic men, for it is vital to the country that it should be decided right; a wrong decision of it will in the end injure all concerned. It will come up in some form in every session of the Legislature. It arose in different forms during the last session. Some bills were passed to legalize the present gas monopoly of Chicago. I was fully a r ware of the fact that there was not and had not been for many years any competition, therefore the attempted consolidation of all the companies here might as well be legalized, and had the bills created any substitute for competition, had they had any provision for the protection of the public, they would have met with my approval ; but as they simply attempted to place this great city at the mercy of a gigantic corporation for all time to come, with respect to gas and street railway service, I was obliged to withhold my approval. These questions will come up again and unless the public sees to it that any new legislation on this subject shall adequately protect all interests, some measure will be passed in the interest of one side or the other out of which will grow injustice and wrong. The American people have met all the great problems of the past and they must meet this one. By their industry, their intelligence, their enterprise and their love of freedom they have made this land the wonder and the hope of man. To-day we stand at the entrance of a new field. A new condition faces us, and if we are true to ourselves, true to the great principles of popular government we shall enter upon a new career of glory and brighten the light which our republic is shedding over the nations of the earth. (Note. — More recent developments have satisfied me that the attempt to regulate is futile, and will not solve the problem.) ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE NEW SOUTH. (Speech at the Atlanta Exposition, November 18, 1895.) Mr. President and People of the South : If our great State were making an exhibit here, if we had come to promote our material ad- vancement and display our products, then I should talk to you about the brilliant career, the limitless resources, the great riches, and the high development of the State of Illinois. I should tell you about the progress of her people, the glory of her institutions and the wonder of her cities. But such is not the case. We have come upon a differ- ent and a nobler mission — a mission that rises above profit, and all pecuniary considerations — indeed, most of those gentlemen who by Si2 LIVE QUESTIONS. their great liberality have made this journey from the North possible, are so situated that they can get no pecuniary profit from it. Our peo- ple have come upon a mission of good-fellowship. The people of the South have invited us within their gates and we have accepted the in- vitation. The people of the South have held out a friendly hand and we have come down to grasp it. In a sense, we are the guests, in- vited to see the creations and treasures of a host, and in judging of their merit it is necessary to consider the conditions out of which they grew and the difficulties which had to be overcome; for this determines the character of the genius and the effort that was required. This magnificent exposition becomes clothed with a mighty im- portance when we consider that thirty years ago the Southern States lay prostrate. They had just emerged from the most gigantic war the world had ever seen. A war carried on within their borders. To the west the great Father of Waters flowed for hundreds of miles by fields that lay waste, and, by villages whose inhabitants were ruined; and toward the east, the morning, the noon and the evening rays of the sun fell upon land that was desolate. .For four years the pas- sions had been unchained and the waters of bitterness and hatred had been lashed into a fury. Industry was dead and agriculture lay helpless. Farmers were without stock, without food, without money and without seed. The institutions of society had been de- stroyed. The 'only class that possessed intelligence, and which had once ruled the land, was dethroned as well as impoverished. More than this, nearly one-third of the population that had existed in a condition of slavery and of ignorance, was at once freed from re- straint and clothed with all the powers of citizenship. Some of these poor people thought freedom meant not simply the possession of lib- erty, but the release from toil. They had yet to learn the hard fact that life is everywhere a struggle. Formerly they had done the work of the South ; under the new conditions this could not be expected of them. This was not all ; after a great battle, the vultures swoop down upon the field and tear the flesh off of the bones of the prostrate — so after the close of this struggle there came to the South from different parts of the country many good men, indeed, bringing industry, char- acter and capital with them and bent upon an honorable career ; but there also came a cloud of vultures swooping down upon the un- fortunate land and, taking advantage of the ignorance and the credulity of some of the people, they proceeded to still farther lacerate this great country. They developed methods of plunder that the ancients knew not of. The Goths and the Vandals took what there was in sight. Cromwell in Ireland took only what his soldiers could carry, but these THE NEW SOUTH. 513 men operated not only laterally, but by means of issuing bonds and mortgaging the future they projected their slimy fingers a century ahead, and ate of the inheritance of coming generations. They loaded the country with a burden of taxation under which a more prosperous people would have groaned. In addition to these there was yet another evil, and that was an at- tempt by the Federal government to interfere in the local affairs of the South in times of peace, with the usual result of making matters worse instead of better. It simply intensified the bitterness and increased the difficulties. Only one thing has been clearly established by the vari- ous acts of Federal interference in local affairs in this country, and that is the fact that while such interference is always ordered osten- sibly for the purpose of upholding and enforcing the law, it is never done at the request of a community, but is always due to the schemings and solicitations of selfish private interests that seek to derive a per- sonal advantage from such a step — interests that would sacrifice re- publican institutions at any time for personal aggrandizement or profit. This was the condition of the South at the close of the war. Never before in the history of government was so difficult a problem pre- sented as the re-establishment of civil institutions in the Southern States. But fortunately for the South, amid all this turmoil and wrong, she had some men who stood upon a plane sufficiently high to discern the grand principle that there can be no prosperity or greatness unless it rests upon a basis of universal intelligence — that there can be no growth or development without universal industry. Fortunately for the South, she had men whose vision was not dimmed, and whose spirit was not broken by the din of daily happenings, but who recog- nized the great fact that fair play and equal rights are necessary to the healthy circulation of the blood in the arteries and the veins of a great State. They recognized the fact that the Goddess of Liberty will not smile upon a people so long as the least of God's creatures is denied the privilege of gazing upon her countenance. They per- ceived the grand truth that the Goddess of Justice dare not recognize either color or sex or condition — that her needle must point to the great pole star of eternal right, and that whenever it varies from that high point then the germs of disease, the germs of dissolution and de- struction begin their work. While these men could not at once calm the troubled waters, draw order out of chaos, breathe new life into prostrate industries, nor re- store agriculture, yet they made their influence felt. Silently and with- out noise, they began to lay the foundations of new institutions. While 33 514 LIVE QUESTIONS. the outside world censured, they went on calmly doing the best they could. By slow degrees they established order, school houses began to appear all over the South, courts of justice resumed their functions, and the industries again became active; old cities renewed their life, new ones were founded, and in time the God of nations again smiled upon the South. This, in brief, is her history. She is not yet perfect ; wrongs both great and dark are still committed upon her soil, wrongs done in viola- tion of law and wrongs done in the name of the law. But this can also be charged against the North. Our safety lies in the fact that the great masses of our people" are becoming imbued with a sense of jus- tice, and even when at times wrong or misinformed they endeavor to right themselves; and this same sense of justice is permeating the mind of the South. Now, my fellow-citizens, considering the conditions out of which this exposition has grown, the difficulties that had to be met, the almost insurmountable obstacles that have been overcome, it is one of the most remarkable creations of civilization. It is proper the people of the South should rejoice over it. We rejoice with them. They are proud of it and we share their pride with them. Considering the conditions out of which it grew, this exposition has demonstrated to the world, as never was demonstrated before, the vitality, the life-giv- ing principle of republican institutions. No other form of govern- ment could have dealt successfully with this problem. If we had had a monarchy and the iron hand of brute force had reached over to gov- ern these States, instead of this magnificent exposition, instead of this product of high civilization, we should find here another edition of Poland, or another chapter of Armenian horrors. Only a few hundred miles to the south of us lies the richest island of the globe, blest with all that nature could give it. For over a cen- tury a foreign military force has ruled and robbed this island until to-day instead of standing with civilized nations and giving the world an exhibition of its products as the South has done, it can only show to the world its bleeding heart and cry in anguish for assistance. My fellow-citizens, the friends of justice have a right to hope that there will come a time when our government will have enough regard for the principles of home rule— enough respect for republican institu- tions, enough concern for our own safety and enough Americanism in its blood to rest from its solicitude for corporate interests just long enough to proclaim to all the world that noon-day robbery, noon-day outrage, and noon-day butchery of a helpless people, even though THE NEW SOUTH. 515 done in the name of the law, must cease upon the American continent and in American waters. But this brief backward glance tells us something more. It tells us that a people who could overcome these great obstacles and could lay the foundation of prosperity under these adverse conditions, have a capacity for a great career. Yea, this exposition tells us that the war was but a storm in the night for these people — terrible and de- structive it is true, but having in its wake a day that is pregnant with a grandeur and a glory such as would have been impossible under former conditions. People of the South, we have watched your career, we have watched your struggle, and we rejoice' in your successes, and these gentlemen and ladies who have come down from our great State have come on a mission of friendship. They want to know you better, and want you to understand them better. They do not ask whether (as you develop) your trade will go to the north, to the east, to the south or to the west. They do not ask where you sell your cotton, or where you buy your supplies. They know that the great laws of commerce will determine these questions. They know that the great rivers of the world were once not only highways of com- merce but were the dividing lines, not simply between States but be- tween different civilizations, and they have noticed in the progress of time that the new agencies given to the world by science and by civilization have almost wiped the rivers off of the map so far as commerce is concerned, the railroads leaping over them with such ease as to almost ignore them. And our people feel that the time is come when rivers should no longer be dividing lines between civiliza- tions or between different people in this country ; that whether a man stands upon the north bank or the south bank of the Ohio, he should be surrounded by the same institutions, the same civilization and the- same spirit. " That not only should the citizens of this entire Republic stand under one flag, but that they should be actuated by the same motives and the same high aim and struggle toward the same end. Our people are imbued with the idea that this great continent, from the Aurora tinted skies of the north to the warm waters of the south, from the morning to the evening ocean, should be inhabited by a great, intelligent, liberty loving, justice loving, law abiding brother- hood of men. That is the spirit that has brought our people into your midst and they will more than reciprocate your every act of friendship, and your every expression of fraternal sentiment. And as opportunity offers in the future they will make every Southern man feel that there is a welcome for him in the country by the great lakes. 516 LIVE QUESTIONS. LETTER TO MR. GILES ON THE PARDONING OF Mc- NULTA AND CHAPMAN. (Note. — McNulta and Chapman had been sentenced to the penitentiary for obstructing and delaying voters at an election. Subsequently there was an application for ,a pardon, and such a strong showing of facts was made that the State's Attorney wrote to the Governor that farther imprisonment would be an outrage. After careful examination the pardon was granted. There- upon Mr. William A. Giles — a prominent citizen of Chicago and a member of THE CIVIC FEDERATION, a voluntary association which had raised a large sum of money to carry on certain reforms, and particularly to prosecute certain cases — addressed an open letter to the Executive, severely criticising his action in granting the pardon. The following letter was written in reply:) December n. — William A. Giles, Esq., University Club, Chicago, 111. — Dear Sir: — Your letter of Saturday, published in Sunday's papers, reached me on Monday. You complain of the pardoning of McNulty and Chapman. I have never yet taken any notice of per- sonal attacks upon me on account of any official action, and I do not care to do so now, but you say that from the course pursued by me in regard to legislation, from our pleasant personal intercourse and from some of my utterances upon reform you had confidently hoped for better things from me. In a sense your letter has the air of a friend who is aggrieved, and it may be that upon this ground com- mon civility requires me to notice it. Let me say, first, these men were pardoned because in my judg- ment justice required it, and my course in this case is based upon the same principles that have guided me in everything else that I have done, and that is to do what I believe to be absolutely right, and never for a moment ask whether my act will meet with the approval or dis- approval of any man or organization of men. A moment's reflection will satisfy you that I had nothing in the world to gain by granting these pardons. If it pleased any Demo- crats it is sufficient to say they were already my friends. On the other hand I knew full well that the facts would be misrepresented to the public, so that many good men like yourself, who may have had a kindly feeling toward me, would be more than grieved. I knew full well that it would be used for partisan capital, for nearly every- thing that I do is for a time at least misrepresented. For example, the records show that in proportion to the number of convicts in our prisons the pardons and commutations granted by me each year are only a little more than half of what they have been on an average for twenty years before the beginning of this admin- istration. The records show that I have been more strict in this re- LETTER TO MR. GILES. 517 gard than had been the practice for twenty years preceding me, yet the partisan press, by deliberate and willful misrepresentation and by dishonest insinuations, have made the impression upon the public mind that I have run riot in the matter of pardoning prisoners. This particular application for pardon came up in the usual way. I could have shirked it, but I have thus far shirked nothing since I have been in office, and I could see no good reason for beginning at present. M'NULTY'S CASE DIAGNOSED. Now, take the case of McNulty, charged with assault and interfer- ing with voters. The undisputed facts as stated by all sides, and even by the judge, were that he had been induced to enter a plea of guilty on the express assurance by the attorneys for the Civic Federation, who were prosecuting the case, that he should only be fined and could then go home, but instead of being fined he was sent to the penitentiary. There were two lawyers getting $100 a day each for conducting the prosecution. They were assisted by a num- ber of detectives to hunt up the evidence, and they were backed by ample money to supply everything needed. Had they believed that they could convict McNulty of any serious offense they would have put him on trial. The very fact that they went to him and made the offer shows that they did not believe they could convict him of any serious crime. McNulty protested his innocence and emphatically denied every charge against him, but he was poor. He had already lost many weeks' time in this matter, and it was necessary for him to get to doing something, and when he was told that if he would enter a plea of guilty he would simply be fined and then he could go home, he agreed to do it, and he withdrew his plea of not guilty and put in a plea of guilty upon that express condition. Some of the lawyers state positively that all this was done with the knowledge and consent of the judge. The judge himself says that he had heard about.the agreement outside of court, and had told Mr. Miller that he (the judge) would not agree to be bound by outside arrangements. No matter where the exact blame may lie, after Mc- Nulty had been induced to put in this plea, then the judge did sentence him to the penitentiary and refused to allow the plea to be withdrawn and to give McNulty a trial, so that we have the spectacle, in a court of justice, of a man being tricked out of a trial and being entrapped into the penitentiary. At least one of the attorneys for the Civic Federation condemned this, and the State's attorney calls it an out- rage. It is easy to call McNulty hard names, but remember he was Si8 LIVE QUESTIONS. never tried or convicted of anything. But even if he were guilty the law would still require that he must have a fair trial before he is sentenced to the penitentiary. Now, Mr. Giles, I have too much respect for you to believe that you in your heart approve of this proceeding. CHAPMAN OF GOOD CHARACTER. As to Chapman, he was shown to be a man of good character, and he was charged with obstructing or delaying votes by means of un- reasonable challenging. It appeared that nearly all of the voters in that precinct were foreigners, whose names did not appear correctly upon the register lists, and whenever a voter appeared who gave his name differently from what it appeared on the list, Chapman chal- lenged him and required him to show his identity. NatUfaily this would produce some delay, yet notwithstanding that there were nearly 400 votes polled in that precinct. His offense, if there was any, con- sisted in carrying his challenges too far. If, for the moment, we as- sume that this was so, then, according to Judge Tuley, this was an offense punishable only by a fine of $50 if committed outside of Chi- cago, and an offense which had been committed at every election by both parties for many years, and which had never been consid- ered a criminal offense and no one had ever been prosecuted for it. Now, let us further assume that the prosecution in this case was prompted by honest motives; then, under all the circumstances, the question would be whether he should in the first instance have been sent to the penitentiary at all or not, and, having been sent there, then whether any possible good can come to the State by his further detention. I say that would have been the question under the as- sumed circumstances. Now, let us look at the facts. There were hundreds of Republican challengers over the city at the same election, all of them challenged to the full extent of their inclination, scores of them went as far as Chapman did, yet not one of them was indicted. Two policemen were indicted for interfering with voters at that election, and the evidence against them was so strong that the jury found them guilty and sentenced them to the penitentiary, but it was then discovered that they were Republicans, and the records of the court show that the verdict has been set aside and they are at large. Instead of an attempt to prosecute violators of the law, the whole proceeding seemed to take the form of a partisan prosecution, of one political party using the machinery of justice in an effort to get an advantage over the other political party. LETTER TO MR. GILES. 519 I shall not enumerate all of the facts in the case, but allow me to quote to you what Judge Tuley, who presided over the trial, says of it : "The trial of this case has been the most disagreeable that I have been called upon to preside over. Disagreeable because of the extreme partisanship which the case has developed on both sides. It is like a private litigation or a case of slander for damages. It is the last case in which I will ever permit a special state's attorney or attorneys to appear alone in a prosecution. The speech of the opening counsel for the prosecution was certainly of a very objectionable nature, and I am not prepared to say that had it been the concluding speech I would not have felt compelled on that account to have overturned the verdict. Mr. Forrest did overstep the limit entirely, and I think he would not have done so had he been in the position of the regular state's attorney. For that reason I think hereafter I shall not permit any specially retained attorney to act as state's attorney." This statement of the judge alone shows that instead of the trial being a public prosecution, it was in the nature of a private, partisan persecution, backed up by large funds of money, worked up by hired detectives, and conducted by specially employed lawyers. Certainly, Mr. Giles, you do not believe that this kind of proceeding is calculated to create respect in the public mind for the law and for its tribunals, and when this is considered in connection with the fact that hundreds of Republicans had done exactly what Chapman did, and that only Democrats were prosecuted, the whole proceeding becomes still more repugnant to every sense of justice. You say that the mere fact that some Republican scoundrels were not punished is no reason for turning out Democratic scoundrels who were fairly tried and convicted. This is certainly correct. It is the want of fairness that is complained of here. The very essence of justice is fairness. Robbed of this, none will respect it, it must affect all alike, and its method must be alike toward all, and whenever this is not the case then it ceases to be justice, and I believe you will admit that when a practice is once established of indicting several hundred men of one political party and shielding those of the other party, and doing this with the regularity with which the seasons come, as has been the case in Chicago for four or five years, that then the element of fairness is wanting and the machinery of the courts is prostituted, especially when it turns out, as it has in nearly every case in the past, that the indicted men have been discharged because there is no evidence against them. You ask sarcastically in what month of the year prosecutions of this character might be conducted in order to be free from the charge 520 LIVE QUESTIONS. of influencing elections. I will say that both the law and the Almighty contemplate that a wrongdoer can be, punished any week or even any day of the year, but that no calendar has yet been made by man which has upon it a time in which the machinery of justice can be safely robbed of its high functions and prostituted to partisan pur- poses. I do not wish in the least to reflect upon you nor upon any of the honorable men and women connected with your association who had no other ambition than to serve their country and fondly imagined they were doing so, but the outside world noticed that in the rear of these respectable people there were a few unseen hands which were directing detectives and manipulating the whole situation, and which presented such evidence only as they saw fit, to your body, to the committees, to the lawyers and to the court, and these hands would have been powerless if so respectable a body of men and women had not unconsciously lent them their influence. CAUSE OF CHICAGO'S CONDITION. You say the conditions in our great city of Chicago are deplorable, that there is rottenness, plundering, corruption everywhere. I agree with you. This is foreign to the subject, but as you have introduced it, let me ask, Who caused this rottenness and this corruption? Not the poor, not the great masses of the people. It was the corrupting hand of unscrupulous wealth which, no matter how infamous its work, always wore the glove of respectability. That is to a great extent the source of the corruption which is destroying us. In recent years we have witnessed the remarkable spectacle of seeing men who- made great pretensions to respectability bribing the assessors, bribing city councils, corrupting public officers, debauching legislatures, all for personal advantage, and then turning around and contributing money for the prosecution of small offenders; and if you will look over the list of subscribers to the large sum your association raised you will find there the names of some men who are stockholders in various corporations which spent money in Chicago and at Springfield to secure legislation, to defeat legislation, which spent money to cor- rupt public officials in order to gain an unjust advantage, and which then paid to its stockholders the fruits that were obtained by bribery and corruption. If your association desires to right some of the great wrongs of the age and to rescue our institutions from destruction, why do you not look occasionally toward the source of the evil? Let me say in conclusion that it is not the small offenders, and it is LACK OF PATRIOTISM. $21 not the common people who destroy the institutions of government anywhere, but in all countries, in all times, and in all nations it has been the unscrupulous and dishonest rich, and the professional and semi-professional class that courts this favor, who destroyed the in- stitutions of their country. It is the class that clothe robbery with respectability, bribery with pretense, and corruption with patriotism. Very respectfully, JOHN P. ALTGELD. LACK OF PATRIOTISM AMONG BUSINESS INTERESTS. December 18, 1895. Horatio W. Seymour, Esq., Editor "Chicago Chronicle," Chicago, 111. Dear Mr. Seymour : — I have found time to read but few of the books which have been sent me since I have been in Springfield. Dur- ing the summer I received a book entitled "Government & Co., Lim- ited," wjiich was from your pen. Owing to the pressure of other matters I was not able to read it through until recently, and I am so strongly impressed with your masterly treatment of the subject of protection and with the eloquent and fearless expression of your views, that I want to congratulate you. I recognized in a few of the chapters the essence of some of those remarkable editorials that appeared in the "Chicago Herald" several years ago, but every sentence glows with as much fire now as it did then. What especially pleases me is the fact that you do not seem to stand in awe of that false god misnamed "business interests," or you never would have written the following sentence : "Every surrender of principle is applauded in business circles, every standard that comes down, every flag that is struck for the sake of peace, brings security and confidence to business interests. Consult business interests, and there is no wrong too offensive to be borne in behalf of peace, — left to the sagacious men who speak for business interests, every great evil would be permitted to cover the land with infamy and to involve a nation in ruin before they would risk a dollar of trade in an attack upon it." There is a ring in this that should be heard down the centuries. Allow me to suggest that you will do both yourself and your country an injustice if you lay down your pen. Assuring you of my high regard, I am, Very truly yours, JOHN P. ALTGELD. §22 LIVE QUESTIONS. THE CALL OF THE AGE. A LETTER TO THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVORITES, JANUARY 3, 1896. "Springfield, 111., January 4. S. L. Mershon, Room 214, 185 Dear- born street, Chicago. Dear Sir : — You ask what the 2,000,000 Chris- tian Endeavorers can do to advance the welfare of the country. As you look to other sources for light from a religious standpoint, you naturally expect me to answer from a purely secular point of view. "Your country, like your God, demands reality, demands earnest purpose. It demand absolute honesty and candor. "This country never .before called so loudly and so earnestly as it does to-day for character, for real manhood and womanhood, not of the dazzling, showy kind that depends on wealth and fashion, but that quiet, self-reliant manhood and womanhood that seeks only the right and dares to do it. This country is calling loudly for strong public men who shall stand for principle and be leaders of thought instead of being only torchlight heroes. "In some portions of the world governments seem to "be only gigantic machines which serve as a convenience for despoiling the people, and these governments do all in their power to prevent the enlightenment of the masses. "In this country, government, being in the hands of the people, has been conducted for a century on the theory that it should be their protector and not despoiler. GOVERNMENT AS IT IS CREATED. "I will not discuss the question as to what effect the recent great concentrations of capital and consequent corruptions are going to have. They will, however, produce the same results here that they have pro- duced in all countries and in all times where they abounded, unless we can find some different method of dealing with them. The result has been summed up in the lines : "111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay. "Everything, therefore, depends on character, on manhood and womanhood — if these shall decay there will be little left worth pre- serving. The government will be what the people make it. If they possess earnestness and high principle, so will the government! If they are rotten at heart, it will be also. "Among all people and in all countries wealth, power and fashion go together; they arrange themselves at the top, and, impelled by the THE CALL OF THE AGE. 523 eternal law of selfishness, they assume to control everything in their own interest, without considering how others may be affected. As the press is controlled by wealth, it is on that side, and the elements at the top, whether in society or nature, tend to form a crust which bears more or less heavily on the elements beneath, and naturally tends to resist any upward movement of what there is below. On the other hand, the Almighty seems to have decreed that for a healthy existence of society there must be a constant development, a constant growth from the bottom upward. "All great reform movements have emanated from the bottom. Even the Christian religion came not through the splendor at the top, but through the suffering at the bottom. "Under the fierce law of competition any upward struggle en- counters resistance from the elements above. In some cases the crust had become so hard and formidable that it could only be broken with human blood. But under republican institutions there should be such a constant upward movement from the people and such a devel- opment that no formidable crust could be formed to resist farther growth. OPPOSITION FROM CULTURE. "As the elements at the top are the most attractive and possess those things that are sought after by men, theirs is always the fashionable and even popular side, and those people who constitute what is some- times called the 'hanging on class' are always arrayed on that side, and are generally the most loud in denouncing any innovation. "At the time of the revolution the fashionable people were tories. During the slavery agitation most of the wealthy sympathized with the slaveholders — even cultured Boston closed its doors to such a splendid specimen of noble and cultured manhood as Wendell Phillips. "The early temperance workers were not only denounced, but were egged. In fact, every movement that has benefited humanity has met the fierce hostility of those people who Claimed to possess the intelligence and culture of the time, and who should have been friendly. "What is still more remarkable is the fact that this hostility as- sumes to speak for patriotism. The tories talked patriotism. The abolitionists were denounced as agitators who disturbed the peace of the country. The temperance advocates were condemned as fan- atics who disturbed the good order of the community. The legisla- tion to take women and children out of the mines in England and the subsequent movement to shortert the hours of labor from fourteen and fifteen to ten was bitterly opposed even by the bishops in Parliament on the ground that it threatened the supremacy of England. SH LIVE QUESTIONS. "In this country every effort to bring about a permanent improve- ment in the conditions which surround the men who toil with their hands is denounced as dangerous agitation. No matter what wrong you attempt to right there will be people to denounce you, and gen- erally they will be people who are in some ways good people and whtt make much pretension to respectability. You will find that the side of the strong will always be the most ably and the most forcibly pre- sented through the press and otherwise, while from the very nature of the case the side of the weak, even when right, will be imperfectly presented. Consequently the public is often misinformed, so that public sentiment, for a while, will often run against the right. It was so even in Christ's time. Yet, if you would serve your country you must do justice — justice to the weak as well as the strong — and you must not stop to inquire what will be popular. WAY OF THE GREAT MAJORITY. "Therefore, unless you are prepared to stand alone and be utterly independent and indifferent as to who approves or who disapproves, it will not be worth your while to think about doing much for your country. In that case it will not be worth while to get accurate in- formation on any public question nor to have convictions on any sub- ject, for it might be inconvenient to suppress them. Just accept newspaper statements and misstatements and go with the crowd. That is the course usually pursued by the people who seek popularity, and although it is a sign of weakness, yet it is the easy way. "On the other hand, if you are prepared to serve your country in the same manner as you must serve your God to be heard by Him at all, that is, be deeply in earnest, ask only what is the right ; seek for facts ; have convictions and act on them and care not who approves or disapproves. If you believe that public men should be positive leaders instead of weak followers, then I repeat that your country is calling for you, and I will remind you that the despised teachers of one age often become the heroes of the next, and that those meas- ures which have to be nursed through great tribulation in one age frequently become the controlling forces of the next, in fact, become, in turn, themselves a part of the crust and- have, in time, to give way to new forces. I will further remind you that the great men and women of the past who led the human race onward were not reared, as a rule, in the lap of luxury. They came, as a rule, from the bot- tom, and not from the top ; they were familiar with hardships and were .acquainted with sorrow. "The lesson of their careers is that one hour spent in contemplat- THE PRESIDENTIAL BEE. $2$ ing the stars and gazing into the silent depths of the universe will lift you higher and carry you farther, will give you more lofty purpose and elevation of soul than would a whole year spent in the most splendid drawing-rooms of the land. "Very respectfully yours, "JOHN P. ALTGELD." THE PRESIDENTIAL BEE. June 8, 1896. Hon. James S. Hogg, Attorney at Law, Austin, Texas. Dear Governor: — The delay in answering your favor of the 1st was due to absence from the city on my part. I feel highly flattered by your inquiry, but am glad to be able to say that I am not eligible to the Presidency. I was born in Germany and came to this country when I was three months old. While I am an enthusiastic American and almost a crank on the subject of republican institutions and of government- by the people, still I do not know what effect the buzzing of a Presidential bee might have upon my nervous system. I notice that it weakens most men. They are in constant fear of spoiling their chances, and consequently accomplish nothing. We have had three or four great Presidents, but as a rule the great men of this country have not been Presidents. In fact, the men whose labors made republican institutions possible in America, and most of the men who later on shaped our destinies, were men who could not have been elected President. It requires positive and ag- gressive men to do much for their country. Could I have my choice in the matter I should prefer belonging to the latter, but as it is, I expect to walk in the shady valleys and to seek contentment in the humbler walks of life. Many of us up here have watched you with much interest for several years, and have come to look upon you as one of the most able and aggressive men in the country, who has never bent before the winds that have been blowing so hard against Democratic prin- ciples, and I hope that I shall soon have the pleasure of seeing you. With my kind regards, I am, Very truly yours, JOHN P. ALTGELD. 526 LIVE QUESTIONS. OBJECTIONS TO NOMINATING A REPUBLICAN AT CHI- CAGO FOR PRESIDENT. (Note. — Mr. Harvey had written a note suggesting that the Democratic Convention should give recognition to both Populists and Silver Republicans by promising to each certain cabinet positions as a guaranty that certain principles would be carried out.) June 25, 1896. W. H. Harvey, Esq., 362 Washington ^Boulevard, Chicago, 111. Dear Mr. Harvey : — Your note of the 23d is at hand. The object aimed at is most excellent, and personally I would have no objection to the method, but you have noticed that while politicians can make bargains, they cannot deliver the people, and I fear that an arrange- ment of the kind you suggest would be so complicated that in the in- tense, fierce and desperate struggle which is going to ensue it would be in great danger of going to pieces. Having a limitless corruption fund, the enemy is going to resort to every trick and device to create dissensions, jealousies and disin- tegration in our ranks. You note that in '72 we tried to swing the Democratic party over and failed ignominiously. While the Demo- cratic party has not control of many of the States just now, still in '92 it swept the country, and is after all the most powerful political organization opposed to the Republicans that there is in existence and has in it a larger element of the rock rooted kind than any of the newer organizations. For example, the Populists and the independ- ent silver people are in a sense new, while there is a very large per cent, of the Democratic party which will insist on having a Democratic ticket or nothing, and if we do not nominate a Democrat, the gold clique will nominate one on a straddle platform and thus divide and beat us. No matter whether our leaders like it or do not like it, this is the case. Now the question is, how can we hold these men and also secure the support of those men who do not care much for party but are inter- ested in the great principle for which we are fighting, and it seems to me now as if the only way it can be done is to put at the head of our ticket two men who will be satisfactory to the Democrats and who yet are sufficiently broad to be satisfactory to the Populists and the silver people. In regard to parceling out the cabinet positions now, I will say that this is a very serious question. I see no objection to the can- didate for President making his selection of a cabinet now if he deems it wise to do so, but I am not prepared to say that it would be well OLtfEY P6R PRESIDEMf. 52? to make these selections in a convention or in such public manner that it would look like a trade, for the enemy would seize on it at once, would charge that it was going to be a hybrid affair, and inasmuch as this was one of the features of the Cleveland administration which made it so unpopular, it is probable that an attack upon this point would weaken us. Mr. Teller is recognized as one of the ablest men in the country, and if, for example, we should select Mr. Bland as our candidate for President, and he should give private assurances to some of the leaders of the silver States of the West that in the event of his elec- tion he would appoint a Secretary of the Treasury who would be satisfactory to them, it would probably answer every purpose. Some such method as this would leave the ticket a unit and not a combination affair and would enable it to make a better fight than it otherwise could, for it would hold the Democratic party solid to start with and would at the same time secure the confidence and support of all those reasonable men in the Populist and silver parties who want the move- ment to succeed above all things else. I do not believe that it is going to be possible to keep Populist candidates and straight out silver candidates and other independent candidates out of the field. The Wall street men will see to it that tickets of this sort are launched. Their motto is going to be, "Divide and Conquer," but I believe that if we have prudence we can put out a ticket which will get practic- ally all of the votes in these parties. Assuring you of my very high regard, I am, Truly yours, JOHN P. ALTGELD. OLNEY FOR PRESIDENT. Springfield, 111., Feb. 25, 1896. A Boston paper this evening wired Governor Altgeld the following query : "Will you kindly telegraph us your opinion on the possibility of Secretary of State Olney of Massachusetts as a Democratic candidate for the Presidency?" The Governor replied as follows: "Inasmuch as Mr. Olney has never come any nearer to the Demo- cratic fold than to play hide-and-seek in a mugwump alley, and inas- much as the great trusts have not yet driven him out of their rear yard, his chances should be very good, especially in the light of the last three Democratic conventions," 52& LIVE QUESTIONS. ILL FORTUNE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. Springfield, 111., February 27, 1896. — Governor Altgeld has some interesting things to say about the Democratic party in the following interview: "Governor, according to the newspaper reports you take a gloomy view of the prospects for the Democratic party. What do you at- tribute this condition to ? Are there fewer Democrats in the country now than formerly?" "On the contrary, there are more men in America to-day who hold to Democratic principles and who are alarmed over the growing power and corrupting influences of concentrated wealth, who feel that our country is getting rotten at the core and is drifting toward destruction, than there ever were before; but many of them feel that our party no longer represents Democratic principles, and they are therefore against us. And then there is a large body of men who are discon- tented because the times are hard, and they want a change." "Is there any ground for this loss of confidence you speak of?" "Well, glance back a moment. In 1864 a New Yorker was nom- inated for President. In 1868 a New Yorker was nominated. In 1872 a New Yorker was nominated. In 1876 it was again a New Yorker. In 1880 it was a man born in Pennsylvania, but at that time a New Yorker. In 1884 it was a New Yorker, in 1888 a New Yorker, and in 1892 a New Yorker. REPUBLICAN POLICY CONTRASTED. "Now see what the Republicans did during that time — beginning in i860 with an Illinois man, in 1868 and in 1872 an Illinois man, in 1876 an Ohio man, in 1880 an Ohio man, in 1884 they went to Maine, and in 1888 an Indiana man, and in 1892 an Indiana man ; and when they went to Maine in 1884 it was not the work of a small crowd of schem- ing politicians, but they went there because at that time Mr. Blaine was the most prominent man in their party, and even then they were defeated. They have succeeded every time they went West, except in 1892, and then they were defeated by what was called the 'McKinley law.' No matter about the merits of this law, the country sort of choked on it. It aroused active hostility, and as it was followed by the great strike and Homestead riots among Carnegie's workmen, the country determined to have a change. It was the McKinley law, the rapid growth of trusts, and Carnegie strikes which defeated Har- rison. "While the Republican party is the representative of Hamiltonism, ILL FORTUNE OF THE DEMOCRATS. 529 and leans toward the theory of having the government help the power- ful, and then let the powerful take care of the poor, and while that party is owned by the great trusts, still in their whole history they have not allowed a small clique of political schemers in one State to name their candidates and dictate their platform. The Republicans have recognized the fact that the great American republic lies mostly west of the Allegheny range, while we have gone on the theory that there' is- only one State in the Union. We have always gone there for our candidates, we have been defeated every time but twice, and when we did win we were worse off than when we were beaten. THE "ALBANY REGENCY." "If you will look again you will see that it was not even the great Democratic party of New York that controlled, but a small body of schemers who seemed to hold everything by the throat. For a number of years they were known as the Albany Regency,' made up of cor- poration agents and speculators. "If you remember, in 1884 it was Dan Manning, representing Wall street, and the agents of the Standard Oil Company who controlled the Chicago convention and nominated Cleveland. In 1888 Manning was dead, but the same influences went to St. Louis and renominated Cleveland. In 1892 it was the same influence led by Mr. Whitney that dominated the Chicago convention and gave Cleveland a third nomination. At all of our conventions these influences dictated plat- forms which meant nothing, which were intended to deceive, which were to receive one construction in one locality and another con- struction in another locality. In 1892 the convention rejected the platform which had been drawn by the Cleveland managers, and adopted a positive declaration in favor of tariff reform, but when the election was over this was practically disregarded. "So you see that for a third of a century a small band of political schemers in New York, who have not a drop of Democratic blood in their veins, whose sympathies are entirely with the great corporations, who have not even a conception of a Democratic principle, but who treat the American republic as foraging ground in which to amass vast fortunes, and who want to control the American government for that purpose, have constantly labored to use our party as a con- venience. Of course, in carrying out their schemes they have from time to time had the assistance of such Western men as were willing to overlook the interests of the great West and even the entire coun- try, for the purpose of gaining a personal advantage, 34 53o LIVE QUESTIONS. FALSE TO ITS PRINCIPLES. "It is true that the Republican party has become a rich man's party, but in being so it is true to its principles, while we are false to ours. Then the present national administration, although called Dernocratic and placed in power by the Democratic party, has ruth- lessly trampled into the mud every cardinal principle of Democracy, and the great body of the American people are not only disgusted but are alarmed and are determined to have a change, and it is this disgust and determination, added to the discontent growing out of the hard times, which is creating the tidal wave that is running against our party ; and the Republican party is being wafted toward victory, not because of anything it has done, but because the people have lost con- fidence in the men who assume to speak for Democracy and because the party in power always suffers when times are hard. "If the Democratic party will free itself from the grasp of these political birds of prey and will stand for these great principles which run through the ages and upon which the greatness of this republic rests; if it will nominate real Democrats for office and will make a declaration of principles which can be held up to the sun, then it will be but a short time until it will again sweep the land and guide the destinies of this country." SPANISH BARBARITIES IN CUBA. Springfield, 111., March 7, 1896. — Governor Altgeld was asked the following questions by a New York paper : 1. Should the United States grant to the Cubans belligerent rights ? 2. Do you recommend the independence of Cuba? 3. Should the United States make a personal matter of the Cuban efforts toward independence? The governor replied to these questions as follows : Answer to first question : Yes ; the Spanish have been sending large armies to the island. The Cubans have an army nearly as large as that commanded by George Washington, and have maintained it for a considerable time. They have an established government, at the head of which is a man of high character, and they are in possession of the greater part of the island. They have defeated the Spanish re- peatedly in regular battles. It is nonsense to say that this is not war. At the time Spain extended belligerent rights to the Sputh in 1861 COMMENTS ON CARLISLE. 531 not half as many battles had been fought and won by the South as have been fought and won by the Cubans. If we extend belligerent rights it will give the Cubans a market in which they can buy. Con- sidering that they have thus far been obliged to carry on their war without having a single open market in which they could buy their necessities, it is probable that these advantages would enable them to rid the island of the Spanish marauders. 2. The Spanish held Cuba for over a century. It was once the richest and most prosperous island in the world. By systematic robbery and butchery they have reduced, it to its present deplorable state. Both civilization and humanity demand that an end be put to these outrages. 3." Yes. In 1878, after a ten-year struggle for liberty, the Cubans were defeated. According to the Cyclopedia Britannica, during these ten years Spain sent 145,000 soldiers to the island, and, according to the American Cyclopedia, the Spanish authorities subsequently ad- mitted that during that war they had captured and then shot 43,500 prisoners. During that war, seventeen boys, who were attending school at Havana, gave expression to some patriotic sentiments in favor of their native island, and for this offense they were uncere- moniously marched out by the Spanish soldiers and shot down like wild beasts. The civilized nations cannot permit a repetition of these atrocities, and the United States of America cannot permit a per- petual robbery and perpetual butchery to be earried on so near that the shrieks of the tortured and dying victims are heard at our doors. The nations of the earth recognize the right to interfere in foreign matters in cases where the moral sense of the civilized world is shocked, as in the cases of cannibalism and the slave trade. But these are innocent amusements compared with the atrocities which the Span- ish have practiced for over a century in Cuba. COMMENTS ON SECRETARY CARLISLE'S CHICAGO SPEECH. (Note.— In April, 1896, Secretary Carlisle came to Chicago and delivered a speech at the Auditorium for the purpose of securing the support of the western democracy for the gold standard. The Associated Press asked for an article on this speech, and the following was given out:) You ask me for 1,000 words on Mr. Carlisle's speech. As Car- lisle's speech contained nearly 10,000 words, but little of it can be no- ticed in i,ooq words. 532 LIVE QUESTIONS. A teacher should be willing to answer questions. At the close of Mr. Carlisle's speech a number of gentlemen arose and asked for further information, but he turned his back and slipped off the stage, and by direction of his managers the questioners were hustled out by policemen. He could have made himself very interesting on a number of points which he persistently ignored. In 1878, when dis- cussing the money question in Congress, he expressed his convictions in the following language : "I shall not enter into an examination of the causes which have combined to depreciate the relative value of silver and to appreciate the value of gold since 1873, but I am one of those who believe that they are transient and temporary in their nature, and that when they have passed away or have been removed by the separate or united actions of the nations most deeply interested in the subject, the old ratio of actual and relative value will be re-established on a firmer foundation than ever. I know that the world's stock of precious metals is none too large, and I see no reason to apprehend that it will ever become so. Mankind will be fortunate indeed if the annual production of gold and silver coin shall keep pace with the annual increase of population, commerce and industry. According to my view of the subject, the conspiracy which seems to have been formed here and in Europe to destroy by legislation and otherwise from three-sevenths to one-half the metallic money of the world is the most gigantic crime of this or any other age. WOULD RESULT IN MISERY. "The consummation of such a scheme would ultimately entail more misery on the human race than all the wars, pestilence and famine that ever occurred in the history of the world. The absolute and in- stantaneous destruction of half the movable property of the world, in- cluding horses, ships, railroads and all other appliances for carrying on commerce, while it would be felt more sensibly at the moment, would not produce anything like the prolonged distress and disorganization of society that must inevitably result from the permanent annihilation of one-half of the metallic money of the world." It will be seen that this language is clear and emphatic, and has none of the sophistry and pettifogging about it that are found in his Chicago speech. His awful predictions made in 1878 came to pass. He not only saw his own prophecy fulfilled, btft he saw the misery of his country become even greater than he had predicted. Finding that his views had been correct, he continued to hold them until he entered Mr. Cleveland's cabinet, when in some mysterious manner there was a change of heart, but for some reason he seems unwilling to talk COMMENTS ON CARLISLE. 533 about it. There are two other members of the cabinet, Hoke Smith, of Georgia, and Herbert, of Alabama, who like Carlisle had made their voices heard for nearly a lifetime in demanding the restoration of silver, and in denouncing the great conspiracy that struck it down; and strange to say, when these two men entered Mr. Cleveland's cabinet they underwent a change of heart, and like Carlisle they avoid talking about it. When Saul of Tarsus saw a great light and changed his views, he was anxious to tell all the world about it; but these three statesmen seem to be ashamed to discuss the manner of their con- version. Why did not Carlisle throw a little light on this question? Second. All of these men now denounce those people who are op- posed to the single gold standard as being scoundrels and lunatics. Yet they are only following the doctrines which Carlisle & Co. preached. Are we then to infer that Mr. Carlisle and his two cabinet associates were scoundrels and lunatics until they got to be old men, and that then the tinsel of a cabinet position not only made them honest, but gave them brains? If not, then how are we to know which end of their career was honest, intelligent and patriotic? For in the ab- sence of any explanation some of us might think that they were honest and patriotic when in the vigor of their manhood they were standing by a wronged people, and that it is the latter end of their career that is destitute of honesty, intelligence or patriotism. Carlisle should have told us. Third. Mr. Carlisle should have explained why it was that for 200 years gold and silver held the market ratio of about 15! to 1. The ratio fixed by law was 15 to 1 in some countries, 15-J to 1 in most coun- tries, and for a while 16 to 1 in our country. In other words, the mar- ket ratio as shown by the tables remained practically the same as the statutory ratio during all that time. If the two metals cannot stand to- gether, how does it happen that they did so without serious fluctuation for 200 years, notwithstanding the fact that the annual production of each metal varied greatly from time to time ? Fourth. If only one of the metals can be a standard and a measure of the value of things, and if a combined standard of both gold and silver is as impossible as it is to have two yardsticks of different lengths, why was it that some of the greatest financiers of the world, and particularly Baron Rothschild, stated in 1869 that it was the sum of the two metals taken together which formed the measure of the value of things? No matter which metal might for a time predom- inate, nevertheless the sum of the two taken together was the measure of the value of all property. Fifth. Mr. Carlisle should have explained why it was that in every 534 LIVE QUESTIONS. country where silver was stricken down, it was done by the arbitrary act of government, and that neither commerce nor business had any- thing to do with it. If the same countries had stricken down gold by law and destroyed it for monetary uses and made silver the sole standard, would not silver have gone up and gold down in purchas- ing power ? Sixth. It is a fundamental law, recognized by all gold standard financiers, except recent converts, that when the volume of money in the world is reduced, the selling price of all property and com- modities goes down correspondingly. Therefore, the wiping out by law of nearly half the money of the world reduced the selling prices of commodities proportionately? And inasmuch as the debts were not reduced, as interest was not reduced, and as taxes were not reduced, does not Mr. Carlisle think even now, just as he did in 1878, that a great crime was committed against the entire debtor class and against the producing class by bringing about a condition of affairs by law which compelled the debtor, the producer, and the laborer to sell twice as much property or labor as were formerly necessary to get the same amount of money ? Seventh. If prices are so reduced that it takes everything the debtor can get together to pay his fixed charges, and everything the laborer can get together to buy a little coarse clothing and plain food for his family, can either the debtor or the laborer spend much money buying other articles? And if he cannot, then must that not result in the destruction of what we once called our great home market? If this is destroyed, so that our great factories and industries are un- able to dispose of their productions, must they not shut down and throw labor out of employment? Is not that exactly what has hap- pened in this country? Eighth. As the laborer prospers most when there is a large de- mand for the articles he creates, does it not necessarily follow that until there is a rise in prices, so that the debtor class and the producing class can again do large miscellaneous buying, there is no hope for the laborer ? Ninth. As there cannot be a general rise in prices without an in- crease in the volume of money, must not the present paralysis and stag- nation continue in the world until the volume of money is again re- stored to what it was before silver was stricken down? Tenth. There are in the United States over 9,000/ banks, includ- ing national, State and private. The comptroller of the currency, one of Mr. Carlisle's assistants, received reports from these banks showing the total amount of money of every kind that each bank COMMENTS ON CARLISLE. 535 had on July 11, 1895. From this report it appears that there were in round numbers only $127,000,000 of gold in all of the banks of the United States. This was all of the available gold in this country. There were about $100,000,000 in the treasury at that time, but this is not available. Mr. Carlisle did not refer to these figures, which are known to be accurate. But instead, he cited the figures given out by the director of the mint, also one of his assistants, in which it is claimed that there are about $600,000,000 of gold in this country. Mr. Carlisle must know that these figures are incorrect, and that the tables given out by the director of the mint are worthless because it appears from his report for 1892 that he assumes that every dollar put in circula- tion in this country since 1872 is still in circulation, except where a record was made of its exportation, and that he has made no allowance for the money that was carried over the northern boundary and our southern boundary for twenty-four years, nor for the money carried back by Chinese during that time, nor for gold coin used in the arts and not reported during that time, nor for all that was lost, nor for all that was carried across the ocean in the pockets of our people during all those years. Yet the director says in his report for 1891 that during the Paris Exposition the total sum spent by our people abroad in one year was over $90,000,000. Why does Mr. Carlisle use figures that he knows are incorrect and are manifestly given out only for the purpose of misleading the American people on the question as to the amount of money they have in circu- lation ? Eleventh. A year ago Mr.. Cleveland sent for his former law part- ner and close friend, and through him Cleveland and Carlisle together made a secret contract with another friend who was a former client of Cleveland's, by which that friend and his associate speculators were enabled to make over ten million dollars out of the government in a few weeks on a small bond transaction. And the reason given for this extraordinary and even criminal procedure was that the speculators had agreed to protect the government against the gold raids until the following November. That is, the wealthiest, the most enterprising, most powerful, most industrious and thrifty nation on the globe paid tribute to a small band of speculators for protection. And when the month of November arrived these speculators withdrew their pro- tection, and then the government proceeded to issue another $100,- 000,000 of bonds, thus increasing the burdens of our people. Now, Mr. Carlisle might have expatiated on this, and pointed out to the American people the lofty character of the statesmanship involved in these transactions ; for strange to say, many of our intelligent people 536 LIVE QUESTIONS. are utterly unable to comprehend it. While Mr. Carlisle does not seem to have been a success in the capacity of bunco steerer among the laboring men of Chicago, there are many points upon which he could be very interesting, and I would suggest that they bring him back and let him talk about matters in which he is at home. SPURNED THE ENDORSEMENT OF GOLD STANDARD MEN. (Note. — In April, 1896, the gold standard Democrats held a meeting and endorsed the then existing State administration and the re-election of the Governor. In answer to this the following interview was given out:) Springfield, 111., April 19, 1896. — Governor Altgeld was asked to- night to say something in regard to his endorsement as a candidate for re-election by "sound money" Democrats at Chicago last Friday night. In answer he said : "On the part of some of these gentlemen this was honestly meant, and I feel obliged to them, but on the part of others it was simply a sly move to mislead my friends. There are a few men in Chicago who have undertaken to help the bond jobbing Federal administration to make Illinois tamely submit to the single gold standard and thus per- petuate the paralysis, distress and suffering that exist in our country, in order that the process of fattening Eastern vampires on the life blood of the land may not be interrupted. Some of the men who met on Friday night, while disliking me, are anxious to get my friends to assist in this unholy scheme, and their vote was a kind of a blind. But it will not work. None of my true friends will be deceived by this. As I am not a candidate for Governor or any other position, I do not want the indorsement of anybody. Even were I a candidate and were I anxious to be elected, I would not for a hundred Governorships stifle my convictions on so momentous a question as that which lies at the bottom of our miseries. HE RIDICULES AN IDEA. "The idea that prosperity can be restored to the world with only half the money that was formerly needed to do the world's business is too absurd to be seriously discussed, especially when it is remem- bered that taxes, interest, the great debts, and other fixed charges have not been diminished. Consequently, a continuation of low prices means the absolute destruction of the purchasing power of the entire debtor class, This first reduces the volume of business, then forces, GOLD DEMOCRATS AMD PRIMARIES. $tf the shutting down of factories, and, by destroying the market for labor, soon destroys the purchasing power of the entire laboring class and fills the land with distress. "None of the sophists hired to maintain the gold standard has yet told the laborers how they can get the valuable gold they talk about. The laborer can prosper only when there is a demand for his labor. "The gold dollar, by reducing prices, while all fixed charges remain the same, destroyed the purchasing power of the country, and thus destroyed the market for the only thing the laborer had to sell ; that is, his labor. Until this purchasing power is restored, there can be no great demand for labor, and this purchasing power of the country, especially of the debtor classes, can be restored only by a rise in the selling price of things, and this can come only through an increase in the volume of money. The continuation of the single gold standard means the permanent degradation of the great toiling and producing masses of this country, and I shall do what little I can to prevent this. I shall do what I can to restore the free coinage of gold and silver ex- actly as it stood when a Republican Congress corruptly struck down silver. This restoration once made, if the subject needs legislation, it can be had; but the first duty of Americans is to right the great wrong, and I ask all my friends to do what they can to bring this about. We have been led off the correct road into desolation, and the first thing to do is to get back to the highway. Once again there, if it is necessary to mend harness or wagon, we can do it." GOLD DEMOCRATS AND THE PRIMARY ELECTION. (Springfield, 111., May 8, 1896.) Governor Altgeld returned from Chicago this afternoon and when seen by a reporter he was asked : "Governor, how are the Democrats of Chicago on the money ques- tion ?" He answered : "The people of Chicago are overwhelmingly opposed to the single gold standard and the whole bond- jobbing policy of the federal ad- ministration, and will send practically a solid delegation to the State convention in favor of the restoration of the free coinage of silver. There are a few men, mostly adherents of or office-holders under the federal administration, and some of the corporations' hired men, who, acting under instructions from Washington and New York, are trying to secure a delegation to the national convention that shall misrep- resent the people of this State ; but these men are all generals, they 53* LIVE QUESTIONS. are all great men who have no constituency, they have no privates, they are men who manage to eat the bread that others sweat for. But these men do not hesitate to resort to any means to carry their point. This whole gold movement is a part of that wave of corruption that is deluging our land. It started by controlling governments through improper influences and it progresses, not by appealing to the nobler manhood of the American citizens, but by buying its way. Owning the press and having many rich men in their ranks it must be ex- pected that the whole 'hanging-on class' — the men who like to pose in drawing rooms, the club-loungers and those fine young men who require an hour and a half to wash their teeth and comb their hair — should be on that side. -But the argument the managers rely on is 'boodle.' "Several weeks ago a Chicago banker in a conference stated that they must win, and that he alone would guarantee to raise $20,000 for this purpose. According to the boasting of some of the men in their employ, they have since then received $50,000 from New York, in addition to what is raised at home. While using this fund they employ catch phrases to deceive the people, such as 'honest money,' 'honest primaries,' etc., while they are all the time working for just the opposite ends. During the last ten days, many Democrats from different sections of the -State have visited Chicago. Naturally they went around to see what they could learn. They visited the head- quarters of the Cleveland Democrats, and according to the reports which they brought to me they were asked only a few questions in regard to the sentiments of their people, but in each case they were at once asked the question : How much money will it take to carry your county for us? That is, in each case they sought to put a price on the manhood of American citizens. "In order to handle this boodle fund effectively, the Cleveland man- agers tried to get control of the Democratic County Committee, con- sisting at present of about one hundred and twenty-five men. As they had a small number of men to deal with they felt that with all the money at their command they could easily buy their way through and succeed. According to reports coming directly the price offered for committeemen in some cases reached $500. But when the final test came there were more than two to one against the Cleveland people. They were routed, horse, foot and dragoon. A number of gold stan- dard men were so disgusted with the hypocrisy and fraud of it all that they voted with the silver men." "Governor, the newspapers say that the committee refused to grant honest primaries?" GOLD DEMOCRATS AND PRIMARIES. 539 "That is a slander and a part of the campaign of misrepresentation and deception that is being carried on." "Then, why did not the committee call the primaries under what is known as the Crawford law?" "The committee adopted all of the Crawford law that is of value and tends to secure honest primaries and it rejected only that part of the Crawford law which opens the door wide to fraud." "How was that?" "Well, the so-called Crawford law is a law on our statute books governing primary elections and whenever a political committee passes a resolution to hold its primaries under this law then the law at once applies and the committee has no more control over the mat- ter. Under this law the regular judges and clerks of elections, ap- pointed by the board of election commissioners for Chicago, and who sit at the regular elections, hold the primaries. This is an excellent provision and the Democratic committee on Tuesday niglit adopted this part. But unfortunately, under the primary law it is not com- pulsory on the regular judges to sit at a primary election, and when- ever they do not, then instead of having other capable and honest men appointed for that purpose, the vacancy is to be filled by the by- standers at the time the polls open, and in such a case if one faction has a crowd of rough by-standers present it can put in three of its tools and then the primary election becomes a farce, although it is osten- sibly held under the primary law. "When I went to Chicago last week I suggested to some of the members of the committee that they should call the primary elections under the so-called Crawford law and thus avoid all further contro- versy, but they replied that this would make a farce of the whole busi- ness, that some of the worst primaries ever held were conducted under this law. It was urged by these committeemen that if the committee adopted such a resolution and relinquished all control in the matter, that then the gold people, with their corruption fund, could induce a number of the regular judges to stay away, and as the ordinary citizen does not like a squabble and as the committee had no funds with which to secure the presence of by-standers, the gold people would have a crowd of roughs at the polling places and would put in three of their hired men as judges and that then the whole matter would be farcical. In view of these facts the committee did right in de- claring that the regular judges of elections shall hold these primaries in so far as they will agree to serve and that in cases where they will not act that then, instead of calling in by-standers brought there for 540 LIVE QUESTIONS. ' that purpose, the committee shall see that men of character are ap- pointed." "But the gold standard men threaten to bolt if they don't get their rights." "Oh, that is simply to carry out a prearranged plan settled on by the Eastern manipulators. The crowd that has made millions out of the government during the present administration is determined to keep its fingers on the treasury. For this purpose they have de- termined to control both national conventions. They care nothing about political parties except as they are a convenience. They already have the coming St. Louis Republican convention in their hands and they are bound to control the Democratic convention. They are deter- mined to rule at all hazards. You notice they are starting contests in al- most every State where they are defeated by the people and they hope by fraud, or by force if necessary, to seat enough contesting delegates to control the convention. You see they practically own a majority of the National Democratic Committee. They regard it as so many as- sets for future business purposes in making raids on the treasury and they hope through this committee to control the organization of the convention and in that way to unseat enough of the regularly elected delegates and seat a lot of their spurious delegates. Consequently if Christ himself were to hold the primaries and even if these gentlemen did not have one vote in ten they would still organize a bolt, because they are instructed to do so. Securing their rights simply means that the tail shall have the undisputed right to wag the dog. "Some weeks ago these gentlemen talked harmony. They insisted that we must have harmony in the party, and did you notice how this harmony was to be effected? The great masses of the Democrats were to surrender their convictions and were to let this small squad of men have their way arid in this manner we were to have harmony. The party has been controlled by the Eastern manipulators for a third of a century. One would suppose that the tail might for once make a little concession to the dog — but not so with these men. Instead of coming forward and saying : 'Now we have not only had our way for thirty odd years, but we have used you as a convenience during all that time and we will now let you have your way for once in order that we may have harmony.' "Instead of saying this they demanded a continuation of submis- sion. They practically said: 'Now, all of you fellows of the great West and the great South, just lay down and let us continue to walk over you with the nails in our shoes and we will be harmonious.' But there is an end to all things mundane. There is an end to patience SPEECH ON MONEY QUESTION. 541 atid there is an end to deception and fraud and the time has come when the great masses of the Democracy are going to speak for them- selves. And the Democrats of Chicago are determined to do this, and when their voice is heard there will be nothing in it that will comfort those men who are doing chores for the East." NON-PARTISAN SPEECH ON MONEY QUESTION. (At the Auditorium, Chicago, May 16, 1896.) Ladies and Gentlemen : For a number of years there has existed throughout the civilized world a severe depression with a constantly increasing train of bankruptcy, ruin, and misery. Nature has yielded her harvests as bountifully as ever, and the intelligence, energy, and ingenuity of man are as great as ever. We must therefore conclude that this sad condition is due to some unnatural and extraordinary cause. That cause is the great reduction in the volume of money in the world, incident to destroying silver as a money metal. The financial question, in its relation to the commerce, the in- dustry, the enterprise, and the prosperity of the world, is governed by certain fundamental la\ J or principles. When these are followed all is well. One of these fundamental laws now universally recog- nized is that increase in the volume of money in the world raises the selling price of things, while a reduction in the amount of money in the world lowers the selling price of things. Another of these funda- mental laws now universally recognized is that with rising prices go increased activity, industry, enterprise, and prosperity. Putting more money into the world is like putting more blood into the body ; it gives new life ; while falling prices stop enterprise, check industry, and pro- duce stagnation and distress because debts, taxes, and fixed charges never fall with the price of things, consequently more property has to be sold to get the same amount of money in order to pay the debts, taxes, etc., so that the debtor has no money left to spend. This soon destroys the market for commodities so that manufacturers cannot sell their products and are consequently obliged to shut down. This in turn destroys the purchasing power of the laborer, so that there is paralysis and distress around the entire circle of business and in- dustry. When carefully examined it is found that all of the panics we have had in this country were the result of a contraction of the currency, brought about by one cause or another. Inasmuch as the panic of 1873 is sometimes mixed up in the discussion of the silver question, I desire 542 LIVE QUESTIONS. to say a few words in regard to it, simply to point out at the beginning it had no direct connection with it. That panic was local to the United States and was due to causes which were local to this country. The panic which struck this country in 1893 was not local, but extended over the civilized world, and had been felt in other countries for a number of years before it reached us. During our civil war the government issued paper money in large amounts and there was neither gold nor silver in circulation in this country. After the war the government began to contract the amount of paper which was outstanding by issuing bonds with which to take it up. In recent years attempts have been made to revise the treasury reports, in order to make it appear that the contraction had not been great. But John J. Knox, who was for a time Comptroller of the Treasury, and is regarded as an accurate authority, published an article in Laylor's Cyclopedia based on the Treasury reports issued during and after the war, in which he gives a table showing the amount of paper money the Treasury had outstanding on July 1 of each year for a number of years and the character of each kind of notes. According to this table the largest amount of paper money we had • in circulation at any time during and immediately after the war was in 1866, when we had $1,261,415,475 in government paper and $281,479,- 908 in national bank notes, making a total of $1,542,895,383. By 1870 the government paper was reduced to $396,894,212, while there were $299,766,984 of national bank notes, making a total of $696,661,196. In other words, there was a reduction in the total amount of paper money in circulation in this country from 1866 to 1870 of $846,234,177. Inasmuch as the enterprise, industry, and ingenuity of our people had loaded every dollar of this paper money which had been in circulation with as much business as it could possibly carry, it was inevitable that a fall in prices corresponding to the reduction in the volume of money must follow. Senator John Sherman recognized this fact, and in a discussion of the currency question in the United States Senate in 1869 he said: The contraction of the currency is a far more distressing operation than the Senators suppose. Our own and other nations hate gone through that operation before. It is not possible to take that voyage without the sorest distress. To every person except a capitalist out of debt or a salaried officer or annuitant it is a period of loss, danger, lassitude of trade, fall of wages, sus- pension of enterprises, bankruptcy, and disaster. It means ruin of all dealers whose debts are twice their business capital though one-third less than their total property. It means the fall of all agricultural production without any great reduction of taxes. What prudent man would dare to build a house, a railroad, a factory, or a barn with this certain fact before him? speech on Money question. 543 Notwithstanding this warning of danger the government went on with its policy of contfaction, and Sherman's predictions were more than verified. Universal bankruptcy, ruin, and distress, with their attendant increase in suicides, crime, and insanity, constituted the price which the American' people paid to get on what was then called a "specie basis." I will not stop here to ask the question whether the American nation ever received any equivalent for the awful price which it here paid or not ; I am only commenting upon an historical fact. Toward 1880 the balance of trade was largely in our favor for a number of years, which fact tended to increase the volume of money in our country. The productions of our mines were very large for several years, so that, including Treasury and national bank notes, there were, according to the Treasury tables in the year 1880, between $1,100,000,- 000 and $1,300,000,000 of money in this country, being an increase of from 60 to 80 per cent over the sum which we had when the govern- ment had ceased contracting the currency, and there followed a cor- responding increase in the price of property. This was accompanied by general activity and prosperity, which was, however, local to our country, and lasted only a few years until we began to be affected by that general depression which followed the demonetization of silver. DEMONETIZATION OF SILVER. While the subject of demonetizing silver had been agitated in Eu- rope for many years, it had not been in the United States, but inasmuch as neither gold nor silver was circulating here the manipulators got our government to take the initiative in striking down silver. Accordingly the American Congress, in February, 1873, by law demonetized silver, so that it was no longer a part of our standard coinage and was no longer a legal tender as money for large sums, thus depriving it of its function as money. The effect of this was not at once noticed here. In the fall of the same year the German empire not only demonetized silver by law, but gradually threw nearly $400,000,000 of silver quietly onto the market as a commodity. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and some smaller States more or less dependent upon Germany, demon- etized silver by law immediately thereafter. Holland struck down silver by law in 1875 ; Russia in 1876 ; France and the countries of the Latin Union by law stopped the coinage of silver in 1878. Austria established a gold standard in 1879. In 1878 Congress attempted to remonetize silver, but the opposition was able to partially frustrate the movement. The Bland-Allison bill was passed, but it limited the amount to be coined to from two to four S44 LIVE QUESTIONS. millions per month, and it did not make this full legal tender, and the coinage was not free as it formerly was and as that of gold is. In 1890 this law was repealed and the Sherman law was passed, under which the government purchased $48,000,000 worth of silver every year and issued certificates against it. This added $48,000,000 to our currency every year, and helped slightly to keep up prices. But President Cleveland convened Congress in special session to repeal this law in 1893, and a further disturbance of prices ensued. The Indian mint continued coinage of silver until June, 1893, and inside of six days from the day it closed there was a fall in prices of nearly 25 per cent. BEGINNING OF THE MOVEMENT. Although the subject had been mooted before, there was no agita- tion in favor of adopting a single standard Until about the beginning of this century, when a number of writers discussed it. In 1802 Citizen Berenger, who had been deputized by the French government to make a report on this question, reported in favor of a single silver standard. Not gold, but silver. Berenger was one of the ablest men that have written upon this question, and it is noticeable that he advanced in 1802 practically all of the arguments in favor of a silver standard that have since been advanced in favor of a gold standard. Like the single standard men of to-day, he took the ridiculous position of fiercely con- tending that the government could not increase or decrease the pur- chasing power of a metal; that the whole matter was regulated by commerce ; and yet, instead" of leaving it to commerce, he labored for years, in season and out of season, to get the government to adopt one metal and strike down the other by law. In 1816 Lord Liverpool succeeded in getting the English govern- ment to adopt the gold standard by law, and his principal argument in favor of it was that the other nations of the world were using silver almost exclusively, and if England adopted gold and coined it in denominations that were not in use in other countries her money would be less liable to be drawn from the island, and that when it was drawn from the island it would have a constant tendency to return. The idea of getting an advantage over other countries by the use of gold was not then thought of. This advantage arose later, out of the fact that England, having become the great commercial and ship-owning nation of the world and London the great financial center, her people got the benefit of the exchanges and in time got the benefit of all those advantages which are reaped by men who handle large sums of money and are in a situation to compel others to come and deal with them. There were a number of minor steps taken by some of the govern- SPEECH ON MONEY QUESTION. 545 ments, which need not be noticed in this brief survey, but the advocates of a single standard increased in number and were finally divided into three classes : One class that wanted uniformity of coinage in order to escape the confusion which resulted from a great variety of coins is- sued by different small principalities. This class did not believe that there was enough of either metal -in the world to do the world's busi- ness, and favored the theory of having some countries adopt gold and other countries adopt silver. Another class was made up chiefly of professors, who advanced various theories which they wanted to have put into practice. The third and more powerful branch consisted of the great creditor classes, who wanted to make money dear, and of nearly all the official classes who hold office for life and draw salaries from the government. The charter of the Bank of England being about to expire was renewed 'by Parliament in 1844, and in the act renewing the charter Parliament "provided that the bank must buy up all gold of lawful standard that should thereafter be offered at £3 17s. gA. per ounce of . standard gold. In other words, it fixed the minimum price for gold by law and furnished the world a purchaser for it. Had it provided by law that the bank must buy every pound of wool thereafter offered at 30 cents per pound, it is evident that 30 cents per pound would have formed a minimum price for wool after that date, especially if it were limited in quantity, and this would have been due not to business or commerce, but to the arbitrary act of government. About the time of the great discoveries of gold in California and Australia, the creditor and officeholding class, fearing higher prices, started an agitation in favor of the demonetization of gold : and Hol- land, as well as some of the smaller German States, actually demon- etized gold for a time. Soon after 1850, when it became evident that the new gold fields were not going to deluge the world, the agitation in favor of demonetizing gold ceased, and then became active in favor of demonetizing silver. International monetary conferences were held at different times, at which the idea of establishing a single gold stan- dard was strongly pressed, although the folly and danger of it were pointed out by some of the ablest statesmen and financiers of the world; but the influence of the office-holding and money-lending classes was sufficiently potent to quietly carry it out, and finally they induced the American Congress to take the initiative. RATIO BETWEEN GOLD AND SILVER. As each little country had its own system of finance the greatest confusion prevailed until about two hundred years ago, when some of 35 546 LIVE QUESTIONS. the governments of Europe provided by law that silver and gold should be coined at the ratio of 15I parts of silver to 1 of gold of equal fineness; in some it was 15 to 1, while in our country it was 15 to 1 until 1834, and then 16 to 1. This constituted the legal ratio or mint price, and it is remarkable that for two hundred years after the estab-, lishment of this legal ratio or mint price the market ratio or price remained substantially the same as the legal ratio, the difference being chiefly the cost of exchange, and the market ratio or price was unin- fluenced by the increase or decrease in the production of either metal from time to time. The statistical tables giving what is called the market price of gold and silver for two hundred years prior to 1873 show that there was practically no variance of the market ratio of 15^ to 1 during all that time. Sometimes one metal would be a little more plentiful than the other in a particular country, but this did not matter; the* ratio or price of each remained the same, and the sum of the two rhetals taken together and treated practically as one constituted the measure of value of things throughout the world. During all that time commerce never , lifted its finger in favor of the demonetization of either metal, and the contention that the business of the world discriminated against silver is not true. COMMERCE OBEYS STATUTORY LAW. The history of these two hundred years shows that instead of com- merce dictating, it always adapts itself to the established laws ; in fact, the theory of tariffs and of protection rests entirely upon the idea that the business of the world, adjusts itself to pqsitive statutory enact- ments. At present gold is protected ; it is given a monopoly through the act of government. WHAT AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN STATESMEN HAVE SAID ON THE SUBJECT OF A SINGLE STANDARD. Attempts have been made to bolster this dishonest single-standard movement up with the names of distinguished statesmen and to make it appear that they favored that which in reality they denounced. In 1792 Alexander Hamilton wrote upon this subject: Upon the whole it seems to be most advisable, as has already been ob- served, not to attach the unit exclusively to either of the metals, because this can not be done effectually without destroying the office and character of one of them as' money and reducing it to the situation of mere merchandise. To annul the use of either of the metals as money is to abridge the quantity of circulating medium and is liable to all the objections which arise from a com- parison of the benefits of a full with the evils of a scanty circulation. SPEECH ON MONEY QUESTION. 547 Jefferson wrote to Mr. Hamilton in February, 1792, these words: I concur with you that the unit must stand on both metals. In 1822 William H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, reported to Congress as follows : All intelligent writers on the currency agree that when it is decreasing in amount poverty and misery must prevail. In 1852 Mr. R. M. T. Hunter, in a report to the United States Senate, said: Of all the great effects produced upon human society by the discovery of America there were probably none so marked as those brought about by the great influx of the precious metals from the New World into the Old. Euro- pean industry had been declining upon the decreasing stock of the precious metals and an appreciating standard of values. Human ingenuity grew dull under the paralyzing influences of declining profits, and capital absorbed nearly all that should have been divided between it and labor. * * * The mischief would be great indeed if all the world were to adopt but one of the precious metals as the standard of value. To adopt gold would diminish the specie cur- rency more than one-half, and should silver be taken as the only standard the reduction would be large enough to prove highly disastrous to the human race. In February, 1878, Mr. James G. Blaine said: On the much-vexed and long-mooted question as to a bimetallic or mono- metallic standard my views are sufficiently indicated in the remarks I have made. I believe the struggle now going on in this country and in other countries for a single gold standard would, if successful, produce widespread disaster in and throughout the commercial world. The destruction of silver and establishing gold as a sole unit of value must have a ruinous effect upon all forms of property except those improvements which yield a fixed return in money. It is impossible to strike silver out of existence as money without results which will prove distressing to millions and disastrous to tens of thousands. I believe gold and silver coin to be the money of the Constitu- tion; indeed, the money of the American people anterior to the Constitution, which the great organic law recognized as quite independent of its own exist- ence. No power was conferred on Congress to declare either metal should not be money. Congress has, in my judgment, no power to demonetize silver any more than to demonetize gold. United States Senator Roger Q. Mills, in discussing this ques- tion, said: But the crime that is now sought to be perpetrated on more than fifty millions of people, comes neither from the camp of the conqueror, the hand of the foreigner, nor the altar of an idolater. * * * It comes from the solid, phlegmatic, marble heart of avarice that seeks to paralyze labor, increase the burden of debt, and fill the land with destitution and suffering to gratify the lust for gold, * * * It demands of Congress an act that will paralyze all 548 LIVE QUESTIONS. the forces of production, shut out labor from all employment, increase the burden of debts and taxation, and send desolation and suffering to all the homes of the poor. In 1878 John G. Carlisle, while discussing this subject in the Amer- ican Congress, said: I know that the world's stock of precious metals is none too large and I see no reason to apprehend that it will ever become so. Mankind will be fortunate indeed if the annual production of gold and silver coin shall keep pace with the annual increase of population, commerce, and industry. Ac- cording to my view of the subject, the conspiracy which seems to have been formed here and in Europe to destroy by legislation and otherwise from three- sevenths to one-half the metallic money of the world is the most gigantic crime of this or any other age. The consummation of such a scheme would ultimately entail more misery upon the human race than all the wars, pestilence, and famine that ever occurred in the history of the world. The absolute and instantaneous destruction of half the movable property of the world, including horses, ships, railroads, and all other appliances for carrying on commerce, while it would be felt more sensibly at the moment, would not produce any- thing like the prolonged distress arid disorganization of society that must in- evitably result from the permanent annihilation of one-half of the metallic money of the world. Contrast these words of Carlisle with the sophistry he is now uttering. While Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. John Sherman wrote to W. S. Groesbeck, of Cincinnati, Ohio, saying, among other things : During the monetary conference in Paris I was strongly in favor of the single standard of gold, and wrote a letter which you will find in the proceed- ings of that conference stating my views. At that time the wisest of us did not anticipate the sudden fall of silver, or rather the rise of gold, that has occurred. Other arguments showing the dangerous effect upon industry by dropping one of the precious metals from the standard of value outweigh in my mind all the theoretical objections to the bimetallic system. I have time to notice only a few of the utterances of the great men of Europe who were familiar with this subject. I will first notice the results of the researches and observations of the historian, Hume, ex- pressed as follows : It is certain that since the discovery of the mines in America industry has increased in all the nations of Europe. We find that in every kingdom in which money begins to flow in greater abundance than formerly everything takes a new faith. Labor and industry gain life, the merchant becomes more enterprising, the manufacturer more diligent and skillful. Mr. Ernest Seyd, a high European authority, wrote years ago : Upon this point all authorities upon the subject are in accord, to wit: That the large increase in the supply of gold has given a universal impetus SPEECH ON MONEY QUESTION. 549 to trade, commerce, and industry, and to general social development and progress. In 1843 Leon Fauchet, in his work entitled "Researches upon Gold and Silver," says : If all the nations of Europe adopted the system of Great Britain, that is, single gold standard, the price of gold would be raised beyond measure, and we should see produced in Europe a result lamentable enough. In 1869, while the agitation in favor of demonetizing silver was in progress, the French government appointed a commission to inquire into the subject. A number of distinguished financiers appeared before this commission and gave their views. M. Wolowski said : The sum total of the precious metals is reckoned at so milliards, one-half gold and one-half silver. If by a stroke of the pen they suppress one of these metals in the monetary service, they double the demand for the other metal, to the ruin of all debtors. M. Rouland, the Governor of the Bank of France, said : We have not to do with idle theories. The two moneys have actually coexisted since the origin of human society; they coexist because the two are necessary by their quantity to meet the needs of circulation. The American people have heard much about the Rothschilds. I will quote from one. Baron Rothschild, one of the greatest financiers of the age, said to this commission : The simultaneous employment of the two precious metals is satisfactory and gives rise to no complaint; whether gold or silver dominates for the time being, it is always true that the two metals concur together in forming the monetary circulation of the world, and it is the general mass of the two metals combined which serves as the measure of the value of things. The suppres- sion of silver would be. a veritable destruction of values without any compen- sation. Let me state here that in the many books that have been written on this subject I know of no instance in which the essence of the whole matter is given in such few words as is done here by the Baron Roths- child : (1) The use of the two metals is satisfactory and gives rise to no complaint. (2) Whether one or the other dominates for the time, it is always true that the two together concur in forming the monetary cir- culation of the world. (3) It is the mass of the two metals combined which serves as the measure of the value of things. (4) The suppres- sion of silver would be a veritable destruction of values without com- pensation. Over a year ago the Secretary of the United States Treasury went 55o LIVE QUESTIONS. to New York, and in an address to the association of bankers at a wine dinner, in speaking of bimetallism or a combined standard, said that he could not understand how there could be a combined or bimetallic standard of values any more than there could be two standard yard sticks of different lengths. Whether Mr. Rothschild would have seen two yard sticks after a wine dinner I do not know, but there are men who have seen worse things than yard sticks under such circumstances. In 1873 tne great Professor Laveleye appeared before the Belgian monetary commission, and among other things said: The debtors, and among them the State, have the right to pay in gold or silver, and this right can not be taken away without disturbing the relation of debtors and creditors, to the prejudice of the debtors to the extent perhaps of one-half, certainly of one-third. To increase all debts at a blow is a measure so violent, so revolutionary, that I can not believe that the Government will propose it or the chambers will vote it. In 1876, when some countries had already stricken down silver and others were urged to do so, the Westminster Review, a standard pub- lication, in an able article on the subject, said : One of the things involved is the probable appreciation of gold. In other words, an increase in its purchasing power; that consequently * * * prices have seen their highest for many a long day, and that debts contracted in gold will, by reason of this movement, tend to press more heavily on the borrowers, and that it will be well if this pressure does not become so intolerable as to suggest a way of solution something like universal repudiation. In the article on money in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, written prior to 1883, by C. F. Bastable, a distinguished English writer on finance from an English point of view, the writer estimates that from 1849 to 1869 there was an increase of 20 per cent in the volume of money in the world, and that this caused a general increase of wages and greatly improved the condition of the classes living by manual labor. On the question of a standard he says : The immediate introduction of a universal gold currency is, by the admis- sion of all parties, eminently undesirable, and this is the only settled point in the controversy. Speaking of the fall of silver, he insists that careful investigation shows that any increase in production had little to do with it, but that "the great depreciation of silver resulted mainly from its having ceased to be money over a large part of the civilized world," and that this is due to governmental action. He holds with Delmar that what is called "the cost-of-production theory" is not sound. But on the subject of restoring silver by international agreement, he claims that as SPEECH ON MONEY QUESTION. 551 England is a creditor nation it will not be to her interest to give up any advantage which the debtor nations have given her through their own legislation. At the international monetary conference held in Paris in 1878, Mr. . Goschen, who represented England, and who, by reason of his experi- ence as a banker and as cabinet minister, may be regarded as one of the greatest financiers and statesmen in this line in the world, in a discussion of this question said : If, however, other States were to carry on a propaganda in favor of a gold standard and the demonetization of silver, the scramble to get rid of silver might provoke one of the greatest crises ever undergone by commerce. * * * There would be a fear on the one hand of a depression of silver, and on the other of a rise in the value of gold and a corresponding fall in the prices of all commodities. The American proposal for a universal double standard seemed impossible of realization, but the theory of a universal gold standard was Utopian, and, indeed, involved a false Utopia. It was better for the world at large that the two metals should continue in circulation than that one should be universally substituted for the other. In 1883, when the demonetization of silver had been practically effected by most of the European nations, Mr. Goschen delivered an address before the Institute of Bankers in London, having for his audience the most experienced and conservative financiers in the world. After referring to the argument that less money was necessary than formerly, because of certain economies effected in the way of drafts, checks, etc., he said : I certainly do share the opinion that the economies effected do not counterbalance the strain put upon gold, either by the increased demands of the population for pocket money or for the liquidating of the enormously increased balance of transactions, both of this country and of others. Happy, then, it is for those who have the sovereigns. On the other hand, unhappy it is for those who have commodities left on hand and produce which they have not sold. It is true [he says] that no state action on the part of England can be cited, but it would not be true of Europe generally, because if the fall of prices has been brought about by the absorption in Germany, Italy, and the United States of nearly £200,000,000 of gold coinage, it is by the laws passed by those Governments and not by any change in production that the serious results indicated have been caused; therefore I wish to put aside the doctrine that it is utterly out of the question for States to act. I must reply that to my mind the connection between the additional demand for gold and the position of prices seems as sound in principle as I believe it to be sustained by facts. My fellow-citizens, you notice that Mr. Goschen not only holds that governments can legislate in such manner as to raise the price of some things and depress the prices of others, but he believes that in this case 552 LIVE QUESTIONS. the rise in the purchasing power of gold and the consequent fall of prices was due to governmental actions. In June, 1885, Mr. Robert Giffen, the official statistician of the British Board of Trade, published a remarkably able article in the Contemporary Review on the subject of the fall in the prices of com- modities throughout the world. He says: We have the facts as to the extraordinary demands for gold since 1872. In round figures there have been new demands for about £200,000,000 sterling of gold, an amount very nearly equal to the whole annual production of the period, although a larger amount than that annual production had been neces- sary in previous years to maintain the state of prices which then existed. He then points out that £12,000,000 sterling, or $60,000,000, are annually required to replace the wear and tear of coin and meet the in- crease in the demand for money caused by increase of population ; and then adds : * *, * Looking at all the facts', therefore, it appears impossible to avoid the conclusion that the recent course of prices is the result in part of the diminished production and the increased extraordinary demands upon the supply of gold. It is suggested, indeed, that the increase of banking facilities and other economies in the use of gold may have compensated the scarcity, but the answer clearly is that in the period between 1850 and 1873 the increase of banking facilities and similar economies was as great relatively to the arrange- ments existing just before as anything that has taken place since. The same reply may also be made to the suggestion that the multiplication of commodities accounts for the entire change that has occurred. There is no reason to suppose that the multiplication of commodities has proceeded at a greater rate since 1873 than in the twenty years before that. Yet before 1873 prices were rising, notwithstanding the multiplication of commodities, and since that date the tendency has been to decline. The one thing which has changed, therefore, appears to be the supply of gold and the demands upon it, and to that cause largely we must accordingly ascribe the change in the course of prices which has occurred. STRINGENCIES IN MONEY MARKET. In commenting on the extraordinary demands upon gold Mr. Giffen says: Now, the course of the market since 1871 has been full of stringencies. In almost every year except 1878 and 1880 there has been a stringency of greater or less severity directly ascribable to or aggravated by the extraordinary de- mands for gold and the difficulty of supplying them. There is one more American authority which I shall quote, and that is the Chicago Tribune. It is perhaps not generally known that the Chicago Tribune gave to the world some of the ablest arguments yet SPEECH ON MONEY QUESTION. 553 made in favor of the remonetization of silver and against a single gold standard. For example, on January 14, 1878, the Tribune said: Silver dollars of 371 % grains, pure, were established as the standard of value or unit of account by the act of April 2, 1792, and this continued in full force until 1873-74. On February 23, 1878, it said: In 1873-74, as it was two years later discovered, the coinage of this silver dollar was forbidden and silver dollars were demonetized by law. This act was done secretly and stealthily to the profound ignorance of those who voted for it and of the President who approved it. * * * Under cover of darkness it abolished the constitutional dollar and has arbitrarily, and to the immense injury of the people, added heavily to every form of indebtedness, public and private. On January 10, 1878, the Tribune said: The silver dollar fills the bill exactly. So long as it was a legal tender it was an honest dollar, worth one hundred cents, and had the ring of the true metal. Remonetize it and it will again be what it was for eighty years, worth one hundred cents. And again : The big dollar (that is at a ratio of, say 20 to 1) is just what the country must stop if it hopes to escape universal bankruptcy. We want the old his- torical dollar of 371% grains pure silver, the equivalent of the old Spanish milled dollar, and nothing else. The present purchasing power of the gold dollar has been fearfully enhanced. On January 5, 1878, it said : The folly of advocating the single gold standard of money must be obvious to everyone not blind as a bat in the daylight. On February 6, 1878, it said : It is mere naked, unsupported, irrational, impudent assertion that re- monetization of silver will not reduce the difference in value between it and gold. Silver, even as bullion, has not depreciated since it was demonetized as compared with property or labor. And on January 8, 1878, it said: The theory that a remonetization of the silver dollar demands that the weight of that dollar be increased to correspond to the present London value of silver as measured by cornered gold is simply absurd. On January 5, 1878, in answer to the question as to whether the world could safely dispense with silver, it said : 554 UV& QUESTIONS. Let the falling prices and the rising multitudes of unemployed men answer this question. And on January 16 it had this editorial: To undertake to do the business of the world on a single gold basis of measurement and equivalents means loss, bankruptcy, poverty, suffering, and despair. Debts will grow larger and taxes become more onerous. The farmer will receive small prices for his crops, labor will be forced down, down, down, and there will be a long series of strikes, lockouts, and suspension of produc- tion. Those who own property but owe for it in part will see their mortgage increasing in proportion as gold acquires new purchasing power, while the property itself will be shrinking in value. There will be no relief, it must be kept in mind, for gold will be the only recognized equivalent of values, the stock of gold will be power constantly growing and the circle of wealth will be uniformly contracting. Nothing more prophetic was ever written. A volume could be filled with editorials expressing similar senti- ments written by the great editor of the Tribune. Now, by way of contrast, I will give you some of the arguments which the Chicago Tribune is making at present against the cause of silver and the people who advocate it: "Lunacy," "Monstrous absurdity," "Dishonesty," "Cranky notion," "Silver craze," "Dishonest dollar," "Scoundrelly scheme," "Liars," "Hypocrites," etc. To use its own language, the Tribune seems to be "as blind as a bat in daylight." IS LESS MONEY NEEDED? It is claimed by single-standard men that but little money is needed ; that scarcely 3 per cent of the business of the world is done with actual money ; that the business affairs of the world, great and little, are car- ried on by means of checks, drafts, bills of exchange, and bank notes. And this is unquestionably true. But it being admitted that some money is necessary as a base for it all, the single-standard advocates make a mistake in imagining that the world can get along with less money than formerly. Immediately prior to 1873 the world was as well banked as it is now, and all the agencies and systems of credit in the use of bank notes, checks, etc., were as fully developed then as they are now, and if it at that time required all the silver arid all the gold that there was in the world to form a basis for the business that was done, it will require the same to-day ; in fact, it will require more money to-day than formerly to restore the business of the world to what it formerly was, because the population has greatly increased, and the area over which business has to be done has greatly increased. Business can be carried on in a city with less money than it can in new and extended countries. The SPEECH ON MONEY QUESTION. 555 principal thing which is overlooked by the single standard people is the fact that the industry, energy, and enterprise of the world are always carried to the utmost extent that the total amount of money in the world will admit of. Every dollar of money is at once loaded with as much credit as it can possibly carry. I have here a picture of an inverted pyramid, the point turned down. This pyramid represents the business of the world as it formerly stood. At the bottom, marked in black, is the actual money, both gold and silver, which supported this pyramid. You will see it constituted only about 3 per cent of the whole, although the exact proportion is immaterial to illustrate the principle involved. Now, if every dollar was already loaded to its fullest capacity to carry, I ask you what will happen if you arbitrarily, by law, pull out from under this pyramid one-half of the money that is supporting it? I imagine I hear some one say — it will have to collapse. That is cor- rect, and that is exactly what happened in this case; the business of the world collapsed. EITHER HALF- PRICE OR HALF AS MUCH WORK. If the world now has only half the money that it formerly had, then it must follow that either the world's work must be done for half the former price or else only half as much work can be done. In either case the men who do the work will be ruined, for in one case they must work for half pay, and in the other there will be two men for each job ; and as the debts, interest, taxes, and other fixed charges have not been lowered and will absorb nearly all the earnings, I will ask is there any hope for our agricultural classes, for our manufacturers, for our great producing classes of various kinds? Does not the single standard mean the impoverishment of these classes and a permanent lowering of their status? AMOUNT OF MONEY IN THIS COUNTRY. The Comptroller of the Currency at Washington has for a number of years invited all the banks of the United States, national, State, and private, over nine thousand in all, to report the total amount of money of all kinds which they held on a certain day. These reports show that we have not in circulation in this country the amount of money that is usually claimed. For example, the last report given out by the Comp- troller, December 2, 1895, shows that on July n, 1895, all of the banks in the United States, national, State, and private, held only $631,111,- 290, while at the same time there was in the Treasury of the United States, as claimed by the reports, $429,517,713 ; but of this sum there 556 LIVE QUESTIONS. was $108,210,555 in gold, which was held as a reserve and was not available for circulation. This left the total amount of money in the banks and in the Treasury at that time $952,418,448. This was all the money in sight at that time available for circulation. Of the sum held by the banks $127,621,099 consisted of gold, and this was all of the available gold then in the United States. The foregoing sums comprise all the money we then had in this country except what there was in the pockets of the people. And in- asmuch as we have banks in every village, and we have had years of idleness during which little savings were exhausted, and inasmuch as building associations have in late years absorbed nearly all the money that used to be held by private individuals, it is claimed by competent judges that when you include the colored people of the South and the poor everywhere that an average of $5' per family would be a high average of what there was at that time in the pockets of the people. As there were then less than fourteen million families, that would make less than $70,000,000, but if we double this sum and assume that there was on an average $10 in the hands of every family in the United States at that time it would make less than $140,000,000. Adding that to what there was then in the banks and in the Treasury and it gives us- the total money in this country, which is less than $1,100,000,000. But the Treasury officials persist in giving out figures published by the Director of the Mint, in which he claims that there are in this country altogether $1,651,310,000; that we have $23,59 P er capita, and that there are $618,100,000 of gold alone in this country. But in his report for 1892 the Director explains that these figures are in part estimated and in part based on assumption. In the first place, he as- sumed that every dollar of paper issued by the national government during the last thirty years or more and by the national banks of this country is still in circulation, except where a record has been made of its cancellation in Washington, and that none has been lost or de- stroyed in all that time. Second, he assumes that all of the gold which the records of the custom-houses and at the mints show came into this country is still in circulation, except where there is a record of its exportation or of its use in the arts. In other words, he makes no allowance for what has been lost and destroyed during a quarter of a century ; he makes no allowance for what was lost by abrasion during that time, he makes no allowance for what was carried across our southern boundary for a quarter of a century, unrecorded, nor for what was carried across our northern boundary during that time, and of which no record was made, nor for what was carried to China during that time and of which no record was made. SPEECH ON MONEY. QUESTION. 557 He makes no allowance for what was used in the arts and of which no report was made, and he makes no allowance for what was carried to Europe in the pockets of our people during a quarter of a century. In his report for 1891, the Director says that the amount of money which the American people spent in Europe during the year of the Paris Exposition was estimated at over $90,000,000. Of course, most of this was registered in the form of letters of credit, etc., but so much of it as was carried in the pockets of the people was not registered, so that the tables given out by the Director of the Mint, when carefully examined in the light of information which he himself has given out in prior reports, are found to be absolutely worthless. The other figures given by the Comptroller that I have referred to are accurate. They practically constitute an inventory of everything in sight, and they show that instead of having $23.59 P er capita in cir- culation in this country we have not got $15 per capita in circulation, while England has $20.78, France $35.77, Germany $17.59, Belgium, $27.82, and the Netherlands $24.25. We are drifting toward the basis of the pauperized countries of Europe. Italy has $10.79 P er capita, Austria-Hungary $10.67, Russia $8.46; even impoverished Spain has $16.55- ' It is a most remarkable fact that the position held by a people in the scale of civilization seems always to depend on the amount of money they have in actual circulation. According to the tables issued by the United States Treasurer, Turkey has $4.09 per capita, Mexico $4-95, Central American States $3.66, India $3.33, China $2.08, and Servia $3.78. Bankers have been heard to say even during a panic that there was plenty of money. This was done to keep the public from becoming alarmed, for every business man knows that it is not true, and the fact that so many banks pay high rates of interest on deposits shows that it is not true. During the last panic the New York banks actually sus- pended payments and forced the public to take clearing-house certifi- cates. It has, however, been found that after a panic produced by a great contraction the money that is left flows toward the cities and lies idle because business conditions are not favorable. Physicians tell us that if a large part of the blood is taken out of the human body the remainder flows to the heart and the extremities get cold ; and the same law applies to money, which is the blood of commerce. Reduce its quantity and the body gets cold, while the heart may be congested. At present money is in demand, not for new business enterprises, but by debtors who are carrying a heavy load of old debts and are forced to make new arrangements. If prices were again to go up new life 55^ LIVE QUESTIONS. would come into the business world, and money would then be in de- mand and new enterprises would be begun. GOLD IN THE WORLD INSUFFICIENT. In June, 1892, Edward O. Leech, Director of the Mint, published an article in the Forum on the money question, in which, among other things, he said : I find that one of the most serious dangers which confronts us is the insufficiency of the supply of gold as a basis of the present and prospective business of the commercial world, and the consequent disturbances attend- ing its accumulation and movement. * * * It is seriously proposed to throw the burdens of an increasing population and business upon the gold stock. The annual product of gold of the world is only about $125,000,000, of which nearly one-half is used in the industrial arts, so that the annual supply for monetary purposes is hardly in excess of $65,000,000. If this plan is carried out, then the existing stock of gold must for many years form the basis of business and credit and serve as the medium of all exchanges. That such a narrowing of the basis of credit and trade is attended by incal- culable diflficillties and hardships must be apparent. Already monetary panics have been inaugurated. * * * Europe has no gold to spare. She has drawn within the last year large quantities of gold from this country, at times when the rate of sterling exchange did not justify such shipments — that is, a premium has been paid for American gold. The struggle for the possession of gold, with its consequent train of financial disturbances, is well under way. * * * If gold is to be the sole money of the world, not only will the extension of business and of foreign investments be seriously crippled, but the immense fabric of credit is liable to totter. Where is the gold to come from when the States of Europe not having a paper standard resume specie payments? * * * The truth is, the total supply of the precious metals is not more than sufficient to keep pace with the rapid increase of foreign trade. What is to be gained by discontinuing the use of one of the money metals and throwing all the work upon the other? Not stability of value, for, as already shown, for nearly a century when the bimetallic system existed in France the relative value of gold and silver did not vary appreciably. * * * If the experience of the last nineteen years has proven anything, it is that the value of gold and silver depends upon the monetary use which is made of them. The experience of the first seventy years of this century has demonstrated that both metals can be used as money with greater stability of values than one alone. It is a remarkable fact that nearly all of the great European finan- ciers, including those who favor a single standard, declare that there is not enough gold in the world to do its business and that it was a fatal step to take for the nations to all confine themselves to the use of either metal. I know we have new-born financiers in this country who argue that all that is needed is simply a standard of value, and that the quantity is immaterial. Carried to its legitimate conclusion their argument would be that if you take a single gold dollar and tie it to a SPEECH ON MONEY QUESTION. SS§ string and hang it up in the Treasury Department that will constitute a standard of value and is all that is needed. But the experience of the world is that while a vast amount of business can be done by the use of what are called credits there must always be a certain amount of money at the bottom of this, and there is a limit to the amount of credit which a dollar can carry ; consequently the amount of money at the bottom will practically determine the amount of business that can be done in the world. The spectacle which we see now is that of the great nations of the earth running a*fter the little bit of gold that there is in the world just like boys run after a football ; it is shifted hither to-day, dragged yonder to-morrow, and every time it shifts there is a disturbance in prices, even a disturbance in the low prices which now prevail. The amount of available gold in sight in the world is so small that a few large financial houses can manipulate it. As the Chicago Tribune says, they can "corner" it, and in recent years we have seen repeated instances of their doing so. Certainly it seems like the very height of madness to even suggest the idea of having the great business interests of this country and of the world rest upon a standard and a measure of values which can be manipulated. ASSUMED SUPERIORITY OF GOLD. An American gold standard man recently declared that gold went with the higher civilization and that silver belonged to a lower civiliza- tion. Let us look at this a moment. Until 1873 silver was the money that was chiefly used by nearly all of the great nations of the world. Germany was on a silver basis up to that time. The founda- tions of the great German Empire were laid and the entire fabric of German civilization and German achievement and German greatness was reared on the basis of silver. Since she adopted a gold standard she has not advanced. Her industries are crippled and there is stag- nation and distress throughout her entire borders. France, generally considered the most highly civilized country in the world, was a great silver-using country, and her unit of value is a silver coin.' The greatness of the United States of America was achieved prior to 1873. Our institutions were reared, the rebellion was crushed, the slaves were liberated, while the unit of value in our country was a silver dollar, provided by the act of 1792. Look where you will, you find that the progress of the world was made while silver was the money that was chiefly in use. And since the nations of the earth have been trying to get onto a gold basis there is universal depression and 560 LIVE QUESTIONS. stagnation. Instead of advancing civilization, gold is causing retro- gression, because there is not enough of it to do the world's work. THEORY OF OVERPRODUCTION. Attempts have been made in this country to attribute the general fall of prices to cheapness of production and to consequent overpro- duction. No doubt cheapening production tends to lower prices, but increased production does not necessarily lower prices if there is also increased consumption. It is said that three times as much wheat is flow sent to Liverpool as formerly, therefore wheat must fall in price. I ask, What is done with this wheat at Liverpool? Is there only as much sold and consumed as there formerly was and is the rest poured into the sea? Oh, no ; it is all sold and consumed. If that is the case, then consumption has increased as much as production, and if this is so then it does not follow that there must be a fall in price simply because there is increased production. In fact, wheat has not fallen in price much more than the average fall of all commodities. As Mr. Giffen stated, from 1850 to 1873 there was relatively as great an increase in production, taking it the world over, as there has been since that time ; yet from 1850 to 1873 prices the world over continued to rise, while since 1873 they have continuously fallen. But the argu- ment that improved methods of production, and consequently the cheapening of production, have been the cause of lower prices as com- pared with gold, overreaches itself, because there have been more improvements in the methods of mining both gold and silver than there have in almost any other department of industry. Consequently, if improved methods and cheapening the cost of production are to be con- sidered, gold should have declined in purchasing power together with other commodities, and certainly with silver. It is not overproduction, it is underconsumption that ails us. Furthermore, there has been no overproduction of land ; on the con- trary, the struggle for land and for- homes is more fierce than ever. Years ago we had the great West open to settlers, yet lands in the Cen- tral and Eastern States were valuable and remunerative, because farm products brought a fair price. At present there is scarcely any more productive land open to settlement, but lands, instead of going up, have fallen in price the same as all other property and commodities, and there are thousands of farmers who have to lose their farms because" they cannot get living prices for what they produce. SPEECH ON MONEY QUESTION. 561 OVERPRODUCTION OF SILVER. The claim made that there is an overproduction of silver since 1873 ' as compared with gold, and that this is the cause of its fall in price, is absolutely without foundation. According to the tables issued by the Treasury Department August 16, 1893, showing the total production of gold and silver in the world at coinage value, it appears that from the year 1792, when our monetary system was founded, to the year 1852, being a period of sixty years, the total production of silver in the world, rating it at coinage, value, was $1,769,197,000, and the total pro- duction of gold during that time was $960,236,000 ; that is, there was al- most twice as much silver produced as gold. The production of each metal of course varied greatly during the different years, and yet the market ratio between the two metals remained practically the same during all that time. The tables show that during those sixty years there was a variance of only seven-tenths of 1 point, or just about the cost of exchange. The same tables show that from 1852 to 1873 the total gold produc- tion of the world was $2,516,575,000, while the total silver production was $989,225,000 ; that is, there was two and one-half times as much gold produced as silver, yet the market ratio remained undisturbed during those twenty-one years, just as it had during the period of sixty years, when there was twice as much silver as gold. Again, the same Treasury tables show that from 1873 to 1892, inclu- sive, the total gold production of the world was $2,176,505,000, while the total silver production was $2,347,087,000 ; that is, the production of gold was nearly equal to that of silver. During the first two periods silver was a money metal ; during the last period it was not. The fact that during the first two periods, covering over eighty years, the mar- ket ratio remained the same, although the production of each metal varied greatly from time to time, shows that the market price or ratio was practically the same as the legal ratio or mint price, so long as both metals were used as money. Now, inasmuch as silver did not fall in value as measured in gold during sixty years in which there was twice as much silver produced as gold, it is clear that had silver not been demonetized it would not have fallen when the gold production was nearly equal to that of silver, as it was after 1873. Again, silver has not fallen in comparison with other property. By taking the average price of all commodities known to the markets it is found that a pound of silver will buy as great an amount of com- modities, as great an amount of property, as ever. It is gold that has gone up. The law, by striking down the competition, has given gold a 30 562 LIVE QUESTIONS. monopoly. Practically, the gold dollar is a 200-cent dollar. Nomi- nally, it still has only 100 cents in it, but it takes 200 cents' worth of commodities to get one when measured by bimetallic prices. PRICE PAID FIRST FOR SPECIE BASIS AND NOW FOR GOLD STANDARD. For some years during and after the war we were on a paper basis, and for a while a paper dollar was not worth over 40 cents in gold, but our people prospered as they had never prospered before. There were no strikes and no tramps ; labor was employed and was content. There were enterprise, thrift, and industry everywhere. Then we contracted our currency, and paid the awful price of six years of panic, with all the misery and ruin which it spread over the land, in order to get on a. coin or specie basis, as it was then called. Now, my fellow-citizens, look at the price our country with the rest of the world is paying for this gold standard. Bankruptcy, paralysis, ruin, endless suffering and misery for all these years, and we are getting absolutely nothing in return for it. Debts have, been practically doubled by law ; that is a condition that was created by law which so affects prices that it forces the debtor to sell twice as much property as was formerly needed to pay off his debt; All the great European countries are even worse off than we are. A year ago Mr. Depew returned from a general tour of Europe, and in an interview stated that the one thing which struck him everywhere was the almost uni- versal paralysis in the industries and in trade, and the misery which goes with it. In making this statement he simply verified what other travelers, as well as the European writers, have already proclaimed to the world. No man has pointed out or can point out wherein the people of the world have derived one dollar's worth of benefit by the adoption of the single gold standard. This fearful payment of the lifeblood of the nations of the earth has gone practically for nothing, and there is no hope or prospect of restoring the prosperity and hap- piness of our people until this great wrong is in some manner righted. CONDITIONS IN MEXICO. We frequently hear men who have more zeal % than knowledge refer to Mexico as a terrible example of a silver basis and a 50-cent dollar. These gentlemen do not seem to be aware of the fact that since the demonetization of silver in other countries Mexico has been more pros- perous than ever before. Mexico, like some South American countries, was very far behind the United States on account of poor government, oppression, superstition, fanaticism, limited money, and genera) dig- SPEECH ON MONEY QUESTION. 563 order; but she has made greater strides toward becoming a mighty nation since 1873 than ever before. In June, 1895, the Mexican minister at Washington, M. Romero, published an article in the North American Review on the silver ques- tion so far as it affected Mexico, in which he shows that while the de- monetization of silver and the consequent burden on gold had forced the purchasing power of gold up so that a Mexican silver dollar was worth only 50 cents as measured in gold, still the Mexican silver dollar bought as much commodity in Mexico as it ever did. In other words, there was no decline in the silver dollar as compared with the price of -commodities. That the mere fact of the Mexican dollar being worth less than a dollar in gold prevented it from going out of the country as it formerly did, so that finally money became more plentiful in Mexico. Further, that as imports had to be paid for in gold, which was at a pre- mium, the amount of imports were greatly reduced, while the pur- chases in the home market were correspondingly increased, and the result was that not only all their factories were working to their utmost capacity, but that everywhere new factories were being started, and their laborers were all employed and wages greatly increased over what they formerly were. He gave figures to show that the railroads in Mexico, the banks, the manufacturers, the farmers, the laborers, are all prospering, and agricultural products, instead of going down as meas- ured by their home dollar, have advanced. And he also says that so far as he has been able to observe similar conditions exist in other silver-using countries. While railroads in the United States are going into the hands of receivers, railroads in Mexico are prospering and are paying properties. It is true the Mexican railroads, like our, own, have to pay the inter- est on their bonds in gold and have to pay a very high premium to get that gold, but after paying this premium they still have large profits left. The owners of railroads in the United States could learn a lesson from the Mexicans. About a year ago President Andrews, of Brown University, called attention to the fact that the gold-using countries could not trade successfully with silver-using countries, and were liable to forever lose this trade because the low price of silver was giving such an impetus to manufacturing and to all kinds of trade in these silver countries that they would cease buying of outsiders. That con- sequently if we would restore silver we could get and could hold this trade against all Europe. 564 LIVE QUESTIONS. ARE WE NOW PROSPEROUS? I saw a statement in a gold-standard newspaper recently to the effect that we are now prosperous, had about everything we needed, and ought to thank the Lord that we are as well off as we are. Now, I have no argument to make in answer to such wild statements as that. I simply leave it for every laborer, for every manufacturer, for every business man, yea for every railroad man and every banker to answer. We have unlimited resources, have the most productive country in the world, we have every kind and character of industry, and the ingenuity, enterprise, push, and intelligence of our people are unsurpassed any- where; therefore we should be prosperous and happy. LABOR NEEDS A MARKET. The very first thing and the last thing that labor needs is a market for its products. You may speculate to a laborer until he is blind on the beauties of a dear dollar and it will do him no good. His wife will be in rags and his children will starve. He must have somebody to buy that which he makes. If nobody comes to buy the things which he makes then the factory in which he works must shut down. If it shuts down he is in distress and his purchasing power is gone. The difficulty that has existed in our country in late years is undercon- sumption, not overproduction. The people are not in a condition to buy what they need, and they will not be until there is a rise in prices. When this happens then the whole debtor and producing classes will again be able to buy and there will be a restoration of our home market. JUGGLING FIGURES AS TO WAGES. Attempts have lately been made by men holding positions under the federal administration and by men who have been hired to work for a gold standard to show that wages have not fallen. This is simply a dishonest juggling with figures. Every mechanic and laboring man in the United States knows that it is not true, and thorough investigation by Congress shows that just the opposite is the case. In 1S91 a com- mittee of the United States Senate made a thorough investigation of the entire subject of wages. John G. Carlisle was a member of this com- mittee. It made an exhaustive report, and showed that from 1840 to 1873 wages had nearly doubled, but, in the language of the committee, "after 1873 there was a marked falling off." The committee then shows that while there was a slight rise about 1880 in wages, it never reached the point occupied before, and that afterwards there was a continuous decline. SPEECH ON MONEY QUESTION. 565 One method of juggling with figures which is sometimes resorted to is the following : The salaries of higher officials of a corporation, which as a rule have not been reduced, are added to the sum paid the workmen ; in this way they get a high average. For example, take a corporation which formerly employed 100 men and gave each on an average $600 a year, making $60,000 for a hundred; at the same time it paid one high official $10,000 a year; by adding this to the $60,000 would make the pay roll $70,000; then dividing this sum by 101, being the number of employes, including the high official, it makes nearly $700 as the average. The same corporation may to- day employ only 50 men and give each on an average only $500, mak- ing $25,000; it pays the present high official $10,000, which, added to the $25,000, makes the present pay roll $35,000; dividing that sum by 51 it makes nearly $700 as the average, although formerly twice as many men were employed as now and each man got one-fifth more than he gets now. This illustrates the adage that while figures don't lie, liars can figure. SHALL WE CONTINUE THE SINGLE STANDARD OR RETURN TO BIMETALLISM? This is the only question before us. For at present there is an organized and desperate effort being made by the Federal adminis- tration and its adherents and by those who control great concentra- tions of capital, to perpetuate the single gold standard for the world, while all fixed charges must remain the same or increase. The move- ment to force the great nations of the earth to a gold basis has been a campaign of organized corruption. Every influence that money could in any way control has been brought to bear. Nearly all the great newspapers and other agencies for molding public thought have been bought up or forced into line, and that army of men who have been called "handy hired men" is now at work with all manner of sophistry to prevent the people from rising to overthrow this system. Catch phrases are invented, and everything possible is resorted to to delude the puhlic. Much is said about an honest dollar. My fellow citizens, the most dishonest dollar ever given to man, a dollar that has blood on it, is the present gold dollar, which has doubled the burdens of all debtors and destroyed the happiness of all toilers. It is a 200-cent dollar. This is what the gold standard has given you. You have noticed that wherever the adherents of the Federal administration are able to control they are adopting reso- lutions in favor of the single gold standard. Here in Chicago these men have for about a week again talked bimetallism, but to see that 566 LIVE QUESTIONS. this talk on their part is insincere and is intended simply to enable them to get an advantage in primary elections and conventions, it is only necessary to glance at their own utterances of a few weeks' earlier date. That newspaper which is the especial organ of the administra- tion has for months been upholding the single gold standard and ridiculing and denouncing those who are in favor of anything else. And an ex-judge who is regarded as the spokesman of that faction only recently in an address argued for the maintenance of the single gold standard and ridiculed the people who are demanding the restora- tion of the coinage of silver. The capitalists and the Federal admin- istration have forced the issue, and for the time at least the question of a proper ratio and of the best method of procedure are shoved into the background. The immediate question which confronts us is, are we for or against the single gold standard? There is at present absolutely nothing to divide those who favor bimetallism and demand the free coinage of both gold and silver. We must first save the principle of bimetallism, for by the use of those peculiar and corrupting influences which cap- ital always uses to carry its ends, bimetallism has not only been over- thrown, but a desperate and determined effort is now being made to drive the last nail into its coffin. QUESTION OF RATIO. The question of ratio is scarcely open for discussion. We must first decide whether we shall have gold monometallism or gold and silver bimetallism. If we are to continue the single gold standard, then there is nothing further to discuss. Every intelligent man can see at a glance that the re-establishing of the great principle of bi- metallism does not depend on any particular ratio. No man in this country has yet declared that we must have any named ratio or nothing. If we ever reach a point where the government has to consider the question of ratio, the battle for bimetallism will already have been won. And an intelligent consideration of the financial history of the world and of existing conditions will readily solve the problem when the time comes. I will only say it would be mani- festly wrong to adopt the present market ratio, which is the result of giving gold a monopoly of the money function in the world and of demonetizing silver by law. To do this would be to permanently lower the value of silver and to reduce the volume of money which could be coined from it in the future. It would be a little like making the present low price of wheat permanent, apd as it is probable that the whole production of both SPEECH ON MONEY QUESTION. 567 metals will be insufficient to meet the increased demands of the world in the future, such an unjust ratio would affect the prosperity for all time. I believe that if an international agreement is ever made it will be on a basis of 15^ to 1, as that was the ratio which formerly existed in nearly all countries of the world, and which worked so satisfactorily for two hundred years. In our country the ratio was 16 to 1 — that is, 16 parts of silver to 1 of gold of equal fineness. Many are demanding a return to the old standard, leaving the subject then to be dealt with as necessity may require. They regard this as the first step toward getting out of the woods and back onto the great highway. They would be sat- isfied with any other fair ratio, but nothing else ,is offered them. For none of the men who criticise this restoration of the old standard has offered anything. Not one of them. If any man who is honestly for bimetallism can offer something better, let him do so, and it will be considered. But the fact is that these critics are simply helping to maintain the single standard. That is the result of their attitude. I favor the immediate restoration of the free coinage of both gold and silver according to the old standard, and I believe if this is achieved the ratio question will be solved. But I say to all men, let us defeat this gold standard and make it possible for our country to again prosper, and if you can suggest something better than the old standard, do so. INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT. There are men who want an international agreement, and I am in hearty accord with them if we can get it. But this mighty nation cannot forever sit in the dumps and wait for other nations which are just as badly off to come and pull us out. We must relieve our people, whether the other nations come or not. Inasmuch as our govern- ment led the way in striking down silver, it should lead the way in restoring it, and it can in the very act of restoration make such trade regulations as will compel those nations which desire to trade with- us to enter into an agreement with us on the money question. We will secure international agreement a great deal quicker by being in a position to dictate than we will if we remain in a condition in which we can only implore. The present Federal administration has done nothing to further an international agreement. On the contrary, it is straining every nerve to maintain the single standard. There- fore, when a man indorses the financial policy of Cleveland and yet pretends to be a bimetallist you are warrapted in questioning his sin- cerity. 568 LIVE QUESTIONS. WITHDRAWAL OF GOLD. A banker said to me lately : Suppose you restore silver, will not all the gold in this country at once leave and produce a further con- traction before you can coin much silver ? I answer no.. The moment you restore silver some of the burden will be taken off of gold, so that there will "be less demand for it. Sec- ond, as already shown, there are only $127,000,000 of gold in all the banks of the United States, national, State and private. This con- stitutes all of the available gold in this country. Suppose the banks were to let it go and it were all to leave for awhile, it could not make matters worse than they are now. But if silver were restored, there would be several dollars for every one that left. The statement that only a limited amount could be coined in a year needs no notice. If we had not the machinery now, we could soon get it. Better still, certificates should be issued, just as there are against gold. Nobody now carries much of either silver or gold; everybody prefers paper certificates. EFFECT ON LABOR OF RESTORING SILVER. Let us have all the silver we can possibly get converted into money. It will not lie idle. It will be used to buy lands, buy labor, build houses, build factories, build railroads, and carry on business. It will- be that much new blood and will give us an activity and a prosperity better than we have yet seen. The laborer will be the first to feel its benefits, for there will be an immediate demand for his services — not only will all be employed, but wages will go up. CAN WE GO IT ALONE? If a number of European nations were to restore the free coinage of both gold and silver at the former ratio, and again make each a legal tender, nobody would question that it would be absolutely suc- cessful. The two metals would circulate again as formerly, because these are the great commercial natipns of the world. Well, the United States has a population nearly equal to that of France and Germany put together, we have more railroads than all Europe, and under favor- able conditions our internal trade exceeds that, of all Europe, for while some European countries have large populations, they have but little purchasing power, and but little internal business. If Europe could go it alone we could. The mere act of remonetizing silver, and thus re- ducing the importance of gold, would reduce the purchasing power of gold ; the tendency of the two metals would be to come together, be- SPEECH ON MONEV QUESTION. 569 cause each could be used for the same purposes. When silver can be used in payment of taxes, payment of debts, used to travel on the railways, buy property, etc., the market ratio will again be what it was before silver was destroyed as money. The market ratio will be the mint ratio. But, says some one, what about our foreign business? Well, it amounts to less than 5 per cent, of all our business, and will occasion no difficulty — certainly not if both are what we call at par, and in- asmuch as the field in which both are to circulate on the same basis is so great, they would circulate on a par basis. Again, some one asks, How would the government get gold then ? Why, it would get it in the natural course of business, for there would be less demand for it then than there is now. There would be an end to the bond selling business in which the government is now engaged. BANKS, RAILROADS, MANUFACTURES, ETC. If we did not know that the most of the 9,000 banks of the United States are a good deal like sheep and go in flocks, following directions received from a few Eastern bankers, and if we did not know that the managers of large railroads have to take their instructions from the same source, and if we did not know that the large manufacturers are dependent on banks and are obliged to court favor, we would be utterly at a loss to understand why so many of the bankers, railroad managers, and some manufacturers should oppose the restoration of silver; because the restoration of silver, by increasing the volume of money, would raise prices ; a raise in prices would again restore our home market and do what it always has done in all countries and in all times ; it would give activity so that our railroads would earn nearly twice the money, our banks would prosper, and our manufacturers would have all they could do, while the laborer would be employed and his family be comfortable. INJUSTICE TO CREDITORS. But, says some one, there are many debts that were made since prices have gone, and if you now increase the volume of money and raise prices, will you not do these creditors an injustice? I answer, No. There is just this difference between increasing the burden of debts by making money scarce and reducing the burden by making money cheap when money is scarce; it first destroys the debtor, but it does not stop there. It produces that general stagnation which in time reaches the creditor and injures him. For instance, every holder of securities in the United States has found that this universal depres- 57* LWn &j£$fi6tis. sion has reduced the value of sortie of his securities. Every time that a railroad was forced into the hands of a receiver the securities of that road were worth less in the market. On the other hand, when the burden of his debt is lightened by making money plentiful, it begets such a general activity that new enterprises are started and the capital- ist or the creditor derives a benefit from the universal prosperity. Now, my fellow citizens, this is not merely a question of the day. It is a question that will affect the entire future of our country ; that will affect the perpetuity of republican institutions in our land. It affects the toilers of to-day and will affect the millions of«toilers yet unborn. Upon its solution will largely depend the question whether we shall be entirely Europeanized ; whether we shall have a small class excessively rich reveling in luxury, while the great masses are groaning under constantly increasing burdens and sinking in the standard of citizenship, or whether our land shall continue to be the home of intelligent freemen and a happy abiding place for all men who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. INTERVIEW FOR NEW YORK WORLD, GIVEN JUNE 26, 1896. Question. Do you really wish to permanently alienate from the Democratic party New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland? Answer. After New Jersey, Delaware and Connecticut have been practically abandoned by the Democrats, and after New York has gone Republican by a hundred thousand, and even bourbon Maryland by upwards of thirty thousand, there is something sarcastic in the above question. Q. What States hitherto not Democratic do you believe can be carried on the sixteen to one platform, to replace the certain loss of the sixty-two electoral votes in the Eastern States mentioned ? A. First, there is not a single Democratic electoral vote in sight in the Eastern States on a gold platform. Second, on a platform pro- viding for the free and unlimited coinage of both gold and silver at the old ratio, we will carry all the States west of the Mississippi River, we will carry all of the Southern States — this alone would elect the President, but in addition we will carry several of what are called the great Middle States, and we will stand a better show of carrying New York and the Eastern States than we would on a gold platform, for the reason that we can offer them something to hope and something to INTERVIEW POR M. Y. WORLD. $?i fight for, while under a gold platform you can offer neither, for it means the ultimate destruction of republican institutions in this country, and it means the absolute annihilation of the Democratic party. Q. Do you really think the United States able, if free coinage is adopted, to maintain our currency at par with gold, unaided by other nations ? A. There is no question about it. The internal business of the United States under normal conditions is greater than that of all Europe, for while some European countries have large populations, they are so impoverished that they do but little business. The State of Illinois alone has almost as much railroad mileage and property as all Europe put together. Every one of the great European statesmen who has discussed this question has admitted that if the European countries would stand together in the use of silver, they could very easily go it alone. The United States being, from an internal business standpoint greater than all Europe, can easily go it alone. But we do not have to go it alone. France and the Latin Union have not de- monetized silver, they only stopped coining. They are feeling the destructive effect of the present policy and would be glad to join us in opening their mints, and there is already a powerful movement in Germany in favor of re-establishing silver in that country. Q. Would not the adoption of free coinage make all our silver and paper money worth only sixty cents on the dollar in gold? A. That question is of American parentage. No European writer on finance ever asked such a question. According to Mulhall's statis- tics, which is the standard English authority, there is less available silver in the world now than there has been for a very long period. At present silver has to be sold as bullion, and can be used only in the arts. Now, if it is restored to its full functions as a money metal and placed in the same position that it held before, then instead of selling his silver to be used in the arts, the holder of silver would take it to the mint and exchange it for silver dollars or for silver certificates. With these he could pay taxes, he could pay import duties, he could pay interest on debts, he could pay debts themselves, he could buy property — in short, he could do just the same things with them that he could with so many gold dollars. This being so, it is apparent that silver would again be at par with gold, just as it was for the two hun- dred years prior to 1873. From 1792, when the financial system was founded in this country, to 1852, when the great gold discoveries were made, being a period of sixty years, there was just about on an average two dollars' worth of silver produced in the world to one of gold, rat- ing both at coinage value. During all that time, however, the silver 572 um QVEstidttS. dollar was at, par with gold, sometimes on account of cost of exchange, being at a premium. From 1852 to 1873 there was two and a half times as much gold produced as there was silver, rating them at coin- age value, yet both metals circulated at par as before. From 1873 down to the present time there has been just about as much gold pro- duced on the average as there has silver, but during the former two periods silver was a part of the redemption money of the land, while during the last period it was not. During the last period it was only a commodity, and the moment it became only a commod- ity, and the work which formerly was done by it had to be done by gold alone, and as Mr. Goschen, the great London banker and financier, has on several occasions pointed out, when you double the work which gold has to do you double its importance, you double the demand for it, and you double its purchasing power, so that it will buy twice as much property on the average as it formerly did. This is exactly what has happened throughout Europe and in this country. Now, the restoration of silver will reduce the work which gold now has to do by one-half, it will reduce its importance, and it will reduce its purchasing power correspondingly. Silver has not fallen in value as compared with commodities or property. A pound of silver buys as much property as it ever did. It is gold which has gone up. Just take the heavy load off of gold, put half of the world's work again onto silver, so that each metal can be used for exactly the same pur- poses, and they will be at par. Q. Would there not be a shrinkage in the value of the volume of money now in use, and would not that produce a panic ? A. A moment's reflection shows that it will not. Instead of a shrinkage in the value of silver, it will increase in value, as I have al- ready shown. The holders of silver would not let it lie idle. They would first convert it either into silver dollars or silver certificates, and then they would buy lands, build houses, build factories, build shops, build railroads, start business enterprises of all kinds and create an activity such as we have not seen in this country. Money then would be in demand for new enterprises. Instead of being used only by bond sharks and pawnbrokers, it would be used by the enterprising business men of this country in every line of activity, and we would immediately enter upon the greatest period of prosperity that our people ever saw. Q. Do you think the international co-operation for free coinage is worth striving for? A. Not as long as the English money lenders can keep us in a dependent, subservient and tribute paying situation by the present INTERVIEW FOR N. Y. WORLD. 573 system, nor can we get it as long as the English government can make enormous profits out of the Indian coinage system, which it derives by keeping silver in the position of a commodity. The Eng- lish government has taken from the Princes of India the power to coin money. Silver is used there exclusively, and the rupee which has been in use there for a very long period of time is the legal tender for all debts and for all purposes. It is a legal tender there for nearly forty per cent, more than it costs the English government to buy the silver in the English market as bullion, so that by keeping silver in the position of a commodity and a position in which she can use the gold of other nations to buy silver cheap she can, by coining rupees and 'using these rupees for debt paying and other purposes in India, make a profit of about forty per cent, on her outlay. Of course, she will not give up this advantage, but if we re-establish bimetallism here and silver is taken out of the market as bullion and is used for debt paying and other purposes in this mighty republic, then silver, as I have al- ready stated, will go to par, England would derive no more profit by buying silver as she now does, nor would her money lending classes any longer have the tremendous advantage over our people in this country which they now have. When these conditions have been brought about England will be ready to join a bimetallic agreement, but not until then. In other words, bimetallism must be established in spite of England, and not by her assistance. Q. Do you think if the United States adopted the currency basis of Mexico and China it would make international bimetallism possible within a generation to come? A. That question was framed by gold standard men without hav- ing taken the pains to ascertain the conditions in the countries named. For purposes of comparison you must take those countries in the con- dition in which they were prior to the time that silver was demon- etized by our country in 1873 and compare their condition at that time with their condition as it is to-day. When this is done you will find that since 1873 those countries, and especially Mexico, have pros- pered as they never did before in their history. In August, 1895, Senor Romero, the Mexican minister at Washington, published an article in the "North American Review" upon the silver question so far as it affected Mexico, in which he demonstrated that that coun- try was enjoying a prosperity now such as it never enjoyed before, was developing in manufacturing industries, in railroads, in agricul- ture, in building of cities, as it never had before, and that this was largely due to the fact that Mexico had not attempted to get onto a single standard gold basis. Both Mexico and China compare very 574 LIVE QUESTIONS. much more favbtably with the United States to-day than they did prior" to 1873. The nations of Europe and this country have in late years been drifting toward the conditions that existed in China and Mexico, that is, we have been going down, and the cause which kept China and Mexico so far in the background was the same cause which has destroyed the prosperity of Europe and of this country. That is a con- stantly increasing population with a constantly contracting and de- creasing circulating medium. In other words, an utterly inadequate volume of money to permit of progress and development. For ex- ample, the money in circulation in China amounts to only $2.08 per capita, and in Mexico it amounts to only $4.95 per capita of population,' while the money in circulation in France amounts to $35-77 P er capita. The statistics show that the amount of annual production of gold which can be permanently used for money pur- poses is scarcely more than sufficient to replace that which is lost by abrasion and in other ways. The population of the world is constantly increasing at a very rapid rate. Unless there is a yearly increase in the volume of money in the world equal to the increase in population and to the increased area over which business must be done in the new countries, this process of contraction must go steadily on, and if it is continued long enough we will finally reach the point that the Chinese are at now, where we will have only two or three dollars of money in circulation, per capita. Q. If the necessity for the free coinage of silver is so plain and its benefits so certain, why is it that a large portion of the country, particularly the East, is not in favor of it and its statesmen of all parties are opposed to it? A. By the word statesmen I suppose you mean public men simply. Our history shows that as a rule they are ready to lend their services to those interests which are powerful in their States or their communi- ties. You remember that Daniel Webster was opposed to a pro- tective tariff because Massachusetts was opposed to it." John C. Calhoun at the same time favored a protective tariff because some powerful interests in South Carolina wanted it. Some years later the manufacturing interests of Massachusetts demanded a protective tariff and Webster then became the great champion of a protective tariff. At the same time the more powerful interests in South Carolina de- manded free trade, and John C. Calhoun championed free trade. Illus- trations of this kind can be cited without limit. Now, the most powerful influences in the East are what are called the money influences, they absolutely dominate and control. They own or absolutely direct all of the great newspapers, daily and weekly, INTERVIEW EOR tf. Y. WORLD. tf$ including the pictorial papers. They absolutely control every agency for the formation of public thought. They are in position to reach every big merchant, every manufacturer, every business man of every kind and character. They are in a position to control the places of trust and profit which pay high salaries. in railroads, in banks, in in- surance companies. They are in a position to crush almost any man when they make a determined effort to do so. You will find as you trace this influence back that it all leads to a comparatively few men, and these in many cases are the agents and representatives of the Eng- lish and European money lenders. The great money lending classes of Europe have. always taken the position that it is to their interest to make money dear. England is the great creditor nation of the world ; we, for example, are a great debtor nation. Immediately after the war England got thousands of millions of our bonds, government bonds, State bonds, city bonds, railroad bonds, bonds of every kind and character. Most of them brought five or six per cent, interest. At that time a thousand bushels of wheat or ten horses, for example, would pay off a thousand dollar bond. One hundred bushels of wheat or one horse would pay the interest on a thousand dollar bond. These were the conditions existing at that time. Then the English bond- holders sent one Ernest Seyd over here prior to 1873, who commun- icated with a number of our so-called statesmen. It is charged that he brought two and a half million dollars with him, and that he left it here. So thereafter a law was passed by Congress which ostensibly did nothing except revise the law governing the mints. It was a very long act and was signed by President Grant. Some time after it had been signed it was discovered that this law actually demonetized silver and reduced it practically to a commodity, stopped its coinage. Then during the several years which followed all of the European nations were induced to take the same step and to by law strike down silver. The result was that the amount of redemption money in the world was reduced by one-half. Immediately thereafter there set in a gen- eral fall in prices, or rather the purchasing power of gold went up until it bought twice as much property of all kinds as it for- merly did, and Mr. Goschen, formerly Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Robert Giffen, the statistician of the British Board of Trade, both men who favored a gold standard for England because it is a creditor nation, both showed conclusively that this rise in the pur- chasing power of gold was due to the fact that silver had been de- monetized and the work to be done by gold has been doubled. At present it takes twice as many horses, twice as many bushels of wheat, or twice as much property of any kind or character as it formerly did && LIVE QUESTIONS. to pay any of the fixed charges. It takes twice as much work to pay the debts that we then created, as would have been required at that time to pay them. The English money lenders, acting upon the the- ory that to make money dear and property cheap was to their inter- est, have resorted to every means on earth not only to fasten this policy upon us, but to perpetuate it, and English gold, when handled by cunning and unscrupulous American agents, has thus far been in- vincible. About a year ago a small crowd of New York speculators made over $10,000,000 in a few weeks out of the government in a small bond transaction carried out through a secret contract with the President and the Secretary of the Treasury. These men were representatives to a great extent of English bondholders. They do not want any change of policy in this country and are determined to perpetuate the present system. Q. Will not their influence be felt in Chicago? A. There is no doubt about it. Their influence has long been felt, and is feared to-day, by the American people. We have for years seen a slimy trail of corruption stretch from Wall street to Albany, to Washington, to the various State capitals and city halls all over this country. We have seen it buy legislation and dictate the appointment of judges. We have seen it crush the right and establish the wrong, and always by the same methods. I am told that the platform adopted at St. Louis was telegraphed to Mr. Morgan, the agent of the Roths- childs, in order to obtain his approval of it. The St. Louis platform was framed in the interest of the English money lenders and their agents in this country. Naturally the same men who were instru- mental in securing that would like to secure a similar platform at Chi- cago. They are determined to prevent having this money question squarely submitted to the American people. They feel they have the advantage now, and they are determined to keep it. Q. What will be the result at Chicago? A. The people of this country have become thoroughly aroused on this question. They have noticed the peculiar tactics that have been adopted in some States to prevent an expression of sentiment upon this question. They are determined to have square dealing this time and no more efforts at hoodwinking or side-tracking, and at present I don't believe that there is gold enough in all Wall street to corrupt that convention which will meet in Chicago July 7th. JOHN P. ALTGELD. PEORIA DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION. S77 PEORIA DEMOCRATIC STATE CONVENTION, JUNE 23, 1896. Gentlemen of the Convention : Four years ago our people met under brighter skies. The country was tired o£ that governmental policy which made the few mighty and the many poor. In Illinois the people rebelled at the interference of the State in the personal affairs of the individual. We promised Democratic government in national affairs, and a business administra- tion in State affairs. The people took us at our word and they gave us their confidence, and we swept the country by such a majority that fidelity to Democratic principles would have insured supremacy for a quarter of a century. But before the inaugural festivities had ceased at Washington the head of the new administration sought strange gods and espoused alien principles. He called into his counsel prophets who knew not Democracy or the tenets of the fathers. Our people were asked to bow to altars which fhey had been taught to abhor. The interests of money were placed above those of humanity. Organized greed was fed with golden spoons, while the cry of the husbandman was unheeded and the sweat of the toiler brought him no bread. There was disappointment and sorrow among our people, but they hoped and waited. They wanted to stand by an administration which they had helped to create. Soon it became apparent that the new administration was trying to rob the Republicans of their birthright and to move along lines the country had condemned. The Repub- licans had inherited the principles of Hamilton, according to which the government should be a convenience for the rich. Our President tried to crowd them out and to place his own feet on this ground. As the months rolled by every principal that is vital to republican institutions was violated and every precept of Jefferson, every doctrine funda- mental to Democracy was trampled into the earth. Those men who voted with us because they wanted government by and for the people left us, while the true Democrats suppressed their bitterness of soul when it became apparent that they had been betrayed and that all was lost. Since then defeat has followed dishonor until we have lost even what we formerly had. Some reaction was to be expected after 1892 because of the necessary disappointments in office seeking and because of the hard times. But this reaction would have been short in duration if any sympathy had been shown for the suffering masses. All might have been well if the administration had respected repub- 37 578 LIVE QUESTIONS. lican institutions and not used its great powers to increase the bur- dens of our people for the benefit of foreign and Eastern shylocks. But the spirit of Democracy is immortal. No matter how often betrayed, it rises with the buoyancy of youth. When the first shock of disappointment and humiliation was over our people began to lift up their heads and to kindle anew the fires on the altars of popular government. First one and then another repudiated the golden calf- which the sons of mammon had set up in the East and which all men had been ordered to bow to on penalty of social and political death. To-day the Democratic hosts are again mustering on the plain. They are again entering the struggle against plutocratic government. If all the men who think alike on the great questions of the day should stand together, every unscrupulous hireling of plutocracy would flee to the mountains. Unfortunately we have pursued a course which has led men to question our Democracy and to doubt our professions. We have allowed ourselves to be influenced by men who have not a drop of Democratic blood in their veins. Some of them were men who look upon government as a great skimmer, by means of which the few who toil not can get the cream off of everything which genius and industry can produce, while some of them were the hired men and humble suppliants at the feet of power and fashion. These men brought us no strength, they brought only insatiable appetites and unsatisfied ambition. Listening to their counsels made the party neutral on almost every subject, every great issue had to be straddled for fear of losing votes. A neutral army never yet won glory. In the days of Jefferson and Jackson our party stood for definite ideas. It was the aggressive party of the age and it ruled the land during the most important epoch of our history. It then was the hope of the millions who toil, of those men who constitute the bulwark of society, and if it is to perform its mission it must again assume the aggressive, it must fight for principle and not merely to get office. My fellow citizens, that political party and that man that has no higher ambition than to merely get high office is an abomination in the sight of heaven. Neither republican institutions nor the best interests of the world are safe in such hands. A party in the minority may serve its country by holding in check a corrupt majority. But a party that stands only for individual and collective greed can only be feared when in power and despised when out of power. The first thing necessary for us to do is to stand for something definite, stand for those principles upon which the hope of humanity depends. If we do this and once show the people that we are in PEORIA DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION. 579 earnest, no power in this land can prevent our shaping the policy and ■ guiding the destinies of the republic ; for there are more men who be- lieve in Democratic doctrines to-day than ever before in the history of this country. The harvest is ours if we will only show that we are honest husbandmen. TARIFF. The question of a protective tariff has long been an issue in this country. For the first time we took an unequivocal position on it four years ago and we won. The tariff has been revised and the probabilities are that neither political party will make any radical changes in it. True, the followers of Hamilton who assembled at St. Louis last week tried to again drag it from its resting place and to give it a little artificial life, but the effort will fail, it will deceive no- body. The time has gone by when the American people can be de- luded by it. It is no longer worth while to discuss the theories of a tariff. The question is now historic. It has been tried and we know exactly what it will do. It has produced exactly the same results in all countries and in all times. It always and in all countries builds up a few at the expense of the many. It protects the proprietor, but not the laborer, for while it checks the importation of goods it cannot prevent the importation of cheap labor from all over the earth. In Europe the degradation and poverty of the laborer is in exact proportion to the height of the tariff or import duties. In our country we had exceedingly high import duties during the war ; and after the war, instead of being reduced, they were periodically raised. As it became apparent that some deep seated cause was at work steadily paralyzing enterprise in this country, the only remedy which the Re- publican party could think of was an increase of the tariff. The patient kept growing weaker and weaker, and the only remedy which the old fashioned doctors knew of was to keep on bleeding him until finally the climax was reached in the passage of that legislative mon- strosity known as the "McKinley Law." This law was based on the theory that if taking blood out of the patient was beneficial, then the right thing to do is to draw it all out at once and be done. This law was in force nearly four years, and as the duties fixed by it were so high as to almost stop importation, during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1894, it produced a deficit in the United States treasury of about $70",ooo,ooo, while wages were gradually reduced and conditions throughout the country continued to go from bad to worse, until the final crash came in 1893. Our experience under the McKinley law is a complete illustration of the supreme folly of an exceedingly high 580 LIVE QUESTIONS. tariff. We must maintain a reasonable tariff which will not be so high as to stop all importation and will therefore supply the treasury- with revenue. But we must look elsewhere for the cause of that par- alysis which is destroying our country. The prostration of industry and trade is even greater in all the nations of Europe than in this country, therefore it is not due to any cause that is local to our country alone, and it is not due to tariff legis- lation by us, for this could not prostrate Europe and America at the same time. If it injured one it should help the other, and it could not be due to tariff changes in Europe, for there have been none of im- portance for many years. MONEY QUESTION. Between 1873 and 1880 this country and all of the nations of Europe by law destroyed one-half of the redemption money of the world and reduced by fully one-half the annual addition to the stock of money of the world. Silver, when used at all, was put on the basis of paper money. The effect of this was to double the work which gold had to do, and by doubling its importance its purchasing power was doubled, it made two hundred cent dollars ; so that on the average it took twice as much of commodities and of property to get one hundred dollars as it formerly did. As the debts, interest, taxes and other fixed charges were not reduced, it took nearly everything which the farmer and the producing classes generally could scrape together to meet the fixed charges. They had no money left to purchase the comforts of life. Their purchasing power was gone. This destroyed the trade of the merchants and soon forced the factories to shut down ; there being no market for what the laborer made he had to go idle, so that the pro- ducer, the merchant and the laborer were all in distress. In the European countries prostration of industry and trade fol- lowed immediately the general demonetization of silver, and there has been a universal paralysis there ever since. In our country there were some local causes which held us up for a few years. For instance, the balance of trade was very greatly in our favor for several years, which largely increased our volume of money; and then our mines yielded abnormally, which also helped to increase the volume of money ; but these local causes lasted only a few years, and then the paralysis re- sulting from the striking down of silver slowly crept over our country and prostrated our people, and there has been no revival since, either here or in Europe. Nature has yielded her harvests with greater abundance than ever, but all in vain. The conditions are getting worse day by day, and there can be no great prosperity in Europe and PEORIA DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION. 581 in this country until the wrong that produced this distress has been righted. As it was done by the arbitrary act of government, so it must be undone by the act of government. As the Democratic party represents the great toiling and producing masses, it must take the lead in undoing this wrong. It will be a fierce struggle, for those unscrupulous men who by corruption and trickery fastened this system on the world will resort, nay are already resort- ing, to the most desperate means to hold their advantage. The Dem- ocratic party must speak with no uncertain sound on this question. Hedging genders a party impotent, reduces it to a mere office getting machine and makes it contemptible. Our country has gone through a period of political straddling on all questions. He was considered the best politician who could fool the most people ; but all things come to an end, and this practice has reached its limits. The people are in earnest and demand plain talk. We must state our position clearly and live up to it. RATIO. We are at once confronted with the question of ratio. Theoretic- ally the bimetallic system does not depend on any particular ratio, and if this question could be considered by Congress on its merits alone and free from outside pressure, it is probable the subject of a ratio would not be discussed at all by the public. But the bimetallic system was destroyed by corrupt outside in- fluence and Wall street has repeatedly shown its ability to shape legis- lation at Washington. The men who make vast fortunes out of ex- isting conditions will do all they can to prevent a change. The men who a year ago made about ten millions of dollars out of the govern- ment in a small bond transaction carried out through a secret con- tract with the President and the Secretary of the Treasury will do all in their power to prevent a change of policy. These men seek to control both political parties. Either party is satisfactory if they can make money out of the government. A week ago they captured the Republican convention. Like Caesar, they came, they saw, they con- quered. They owned the horse, the coach and the driver. They will try to capture the Chicago convention, and failing in that will move heaven and earth to control the new administration in case we succeed. Bitter experience has taught our people that their interests are always in danger at Washington and that if we succeed in this campaign the victory may be thrown away there, consequently it is felt to be neces- sary to leave no room for quibbling. In Europe the ratio was 15^ parts of silver to 1 of gold of equal 582 LIVE QUESTIONS. fineness, and nearly all their monetary systems were in harmony with this standard. In our country it was 16 to 1, and our whole system is in harmony with that ratio. A declaration in favor of 16 to 1 means nothing new, not an experiment, but a return to what we had. It being necessary to make a specific declaration in order that we may not lose the fruits of victory in case we win, and no man having suggested anything better, the only thing for us to do is to declare for that historic ratio under which we prospered and which is in har- mony with our whole financial system, REPUBLICAN CONVENTION. Last week there was held in St. Louis a convention which will be known in history as "Mark Hanna's Trust." Railroad attorneys, corporation agents, lobbyists and those men who have made millions out of the government and are looking for another harvest by gov- ernmental aid, were not only in control but filled every place, from chairman to page. I am informed the railroad people estimate that over three thousand men came to this convention in private Pullman cars. It was the most brazen effort on the part of organized greed that was ever witnessed in this country. The people of this country had neither hand nor heart in it. It adopted a platform in the interest of England, a great creditor nation, and against the interests of Amer- ica, which is a great debtor nation. Its principles stand for paralysis, poverty and distress, and it put into the field a candidate whose ante- cedents, taken in connection with the methods of his nomination and influences that secured it, give assurance that he is expected to be only a servant who will carry out policies dictated to him by others. My fellow citizens, if the Democratic party will be true to its mis- sion, if it will not weaken itself with compromises, or destroy its strength by adopting a neutral course, then that ticket placed in nom- ination at St. Louis will be dead long before the frosts of November come. If the Democratic party will declare for an American policy, if it will boldly declare that we must be true to ourselves and look after American interests first, we will sweep this country. It has been a long time since so great an occasion presented itself to our party, and the only way to meet it is by adopting the course that was followed in the days of Jefferson and in the days of Jackson — to spurn compro- mise and all weakening dalliance, to declare fearlessly for that which is eternally right, and to carry it out to the letter. PEORIA DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION. 583 STATE POLICY. My fellow citizens, four years ago the Democracy made the people of this State certain pledges. The people accepted them and entrusted us with the government, and I am glad to be able to say to you that so far as regards this State those pledges have been faithfully carried out. The able men and women connected with the various departments of the State government have striven to meet the highest expectations. All of the departments at the capital are in an admirable condition, I have not the time to particularize, but the institutions of the State, taken together 'and considered from a scientific, a business, a pro- gressive and a humane standpoint are unsurpassed on this earth. Every citizen of this great State, no matter what his politics are, may feel proud of them. LEGISLATURE AND REVENUE SYSTEM. Gentlemen, we have in this State a revenue system that has for many years been regarded as a monster of injustice under which the very wealthy escape taxation and the farmers and people of moderate means have their burdens doubled. Two years ago the Republican party elected an overwhelming majority of the legislature of this State, but that legislature, instead of carrying out the will of the people, em- barked upon a career of corruption such as had never been seen be- fore. Corporations doing a legitimate business were threatened with adverse legislation and were blackmailed with organized ferocity, while the rights of the people were attempted to be bartered away in the most shameless and open manner, for boodle. So ferocious did it be- come in the pursuit of ill gotten gains that it seemed to be almost in- competent to attend to the legitimate business of the State. It was urged at the general session and then again at the special session to relieve our people of this unjust system of taxation by passing a just revenue law, but acting under the influence of men who grow rich by tax dodging, it not only refused to do anything, but finally, in the most supine manner, adjourned and hurried away at the dictation of the political boss who was then chairman of the Republican machine and is now its candidate for governor. A brief glance at the history made then will show the people of our State whether they have any- thing to gain or to hope by electing another Republican legislature and by elevating the Republican machine to power. In order to show that the experience in our State was not ex- ceptional and that the course pursued by the legislature here is in harmony with what may be expected everywhere, I call your atten- 584 LIVE QUESTIONS. tion to the fact that two years ago Republican legislatures were elected by large majorities in a number of States, and in all of them there was at once inaugurated such a reign of corruption as had never been witnessed in those States. In all of them the rights and interests of the people, instead of being served and protected, were in constant jeopardy and in many cases suffered irretrievably through the acts of the legislature. The history of the different Republican legislatures of the last two years shows conclusively that wherever that party is put in power it is dominated by the trusts and by corrupt influences, and that the country has nothing to hope from that source. PENITENTIARIES. Notwithstanding the severe depression in the times the law has been carried out and the contract system has been abolished and the State account system has been successfully established in our peni- tentiaries and our great prison at Joliet is self-sustaining. It was mainly through the efforts of the Democratic party in this country that the barbarous leasing system and then the corrupt and degrading con- tract system have been abolished, and we must take one more step forward. There is something higher in the world than money, and a prison must have a higher end in view than merely to be self-sustain- ing. In my judgment the State should not be engaged in the manu- facturing business to the extent that we must be under the existing law, nor should it permit its prisons to be used directly or indirectly to compete with outside free labor. Our law should be farther amended so as to practically take the prisons out of competition. RENOMINATION. Now, my fellow citizens, some of my friends have been kind enough to urge my renomination. Naturally it is a comfort to have the ap- proval and the confidence of patriotic and intelligent men, and I appreciate these expressions of esteem, but I am not in a condition to stand for re-election. My health has been so badly broken that it is necessary for me to get out of the intense strain that I have been under for several years. Again, at the time of my election I had large prop- erty interests, but was greatly in debt. Since then property has been constantly shrinking in value and becomes less and less productive. This, added to the fact that I have had to neglect my affairs to some extent, has reduced me to a situation where I am not financially able to make a campaign and where justice to my creditors requires that I should give my time to my own affairs rather than to the public. I have no desire "to be rich, but I must' try to give every man his due. NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION. 585 1 have given the public four of the best years of my life and have done the best I could. I do not desire to longer hold office. I believe in the potency of the succesful private individual, and if I could have my choice should choose that path. I have no ambition to be a party leader or to be prominent in politics. I am not unmindful of the honor the Demo- cratic party has conferred on me, and I am ready to do what I can to serve my country, but I must ask that some one of the many able and patriotic men in the party be placed at the head and that I be per- mitted to retire. In conclusion let me say that some ten months ago universal gloom enveloped our party, there was not a rift in the clouds. Everywhere defeat stared us in the face, but of late the sun is beginning to shine again. A great issue has arisen, and the Democratic party is again called on to fight the battle for humanity. Everywhere the hosts are mustering, a new day is breaking upon us and the early rays of the most glorious victory ever achieved on this continent are lighting the sky. Let us appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the American people. Let us stand for principle and be true to convictions. Let it be known that the great Democratic party does not beg for any man's vote. That it is not a mere office-seeking machine-. Let the world know that we regard our party platform sacred as holy writ and that any pledge made to the people, will be carried out, and long before the ides of November the cohorts of plutocracy and corruption and all their hirelings and hangers-on will be driven from the great tem- ple of the people. SPEECH IN THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION AT CHICAGO, JULY 8TH, 1896. (While the convention was waiting for the report of the committees, there were calls for Governor Altgeld, but the Governor refused to speak, and asked that the convention hear the Hon. David B. Hill, of New York. When it was discovered that Mr. Hill was not present, speeches were made by several other gentlemen. Then a motion was made, and carried, that Governor Alt- geld be formally invited to address the convention, and on the invitation of the chairman, the Governor ascended the platform and spoke as follows:) Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of this Convention: I did not come here to make speeches. I came here to assist in nominating the next President of these United States. I came here to assist in formulating a declaration of principles that shall again offer hope to our people. 586 LIVE QUESTIONS. Rarely in the history of government has an assembly of free men been confronted with such far-reaching questions — with questions that are fraught with so much of weal or woe to human kind — as those with which this convention must deal. For a number of years there has existed in Europe and in our country stagnation in trade, par- alysis of industry and a suspension of enterprise. We have seen the streets of our cities filled with idle men, with hungry women and with ragged children. The country to-day looks to the deliberations of this convention for promise of relief. In order to deal intelligently with these unhappy conditions, it is necessary to glance for a moment at the cause which produced them. During the decade which followed the civil war we became the great debtor people of the earth. Everything from the gov- ernment down to the sewing machine of the seamstress was mort- gaged. There were the great national, State, city, county and other municipal debts. There were the great railroad and other corporation debts. There were the farm and city mortgages, the great private indebtedness, all amounting to thousands of millions of dollars and nearly all held by English money lenders. The interest on this great indebtedness had to be paid every year out of the toil of our people, but under the conditions as they then existed, we met those payments and our people had a surplus. They were able, in addition, to supply themselves with the necessities and comforts and even the luxuries of life. As a consequence the farmer prospered, the manufacturer prospered and labor was employed. But, unhappily for the world, the large security-holding classes conceived the idea that it would be to their interest to make money dear and property and labor cheap. It being an immutable law of finance that when you increase the volume of money in the world you increase the selling price of prop- erty and things, so, on the other hand, when you reduce the volume of money in the world you reduce the selling price of property and labor. These gentlemen determined to destroy one-half of the money of the world, and between 1873 and 1880 they got our government and the governments of Europe to arbitrarily, by law, strike down silver. They demonetized it; they stopped its coinage; they took away its legal tender functions; they reduced it to the position of token money, where it was used at all. The effect of this was to double the burden thatwas put upon gold. Formerly the two metals together did the work of the business world. After that time the one metal alone had to do all the business of the world. Consequently the num- National Democratic convention. 587 ber of people who had to have it were doubled. It was doubled in importance and its purchasing power was doubled so that thereafter the gold dollar bought twice as much labor, twice as much property, twice as much of the bread and sweat of mankind as it did before. Not only this, but they reduced by one-half the annual addition to the stock of money of the world. Formerly there was added every year all of the silver and all of the gold produced to the world's stock of primary or redemption money. Since that time there is added every year only the gold produced, so that we have a constantly shrink- ing standard of value with a constantly increasing population, which means a constantly decreasing scale of prices. When these great debts were created, the world's standard and the world's measure of values consisted of the sum total of the two metals considered practically as one. They formed the standard of prices. To-day the standard of prices consists of only one metal, and it is only half as high as it was when it consisted of the two, and, as a consequence prices to-day are only half as high as they were when we had the two metals. What has been the result? Why, to-day it takes all that the farmer,- all that the producer can scrape together to pay these fixed charges; all that he can get to pay interest, taxes and other fixed charges; for, mind you, this great debt was not reduced, interest was not reduced, taxes were not reduced. On the contrary, they were higher than they were, and as a result our American market has been destroyed. The farmer now can not buy as much at the store as he formerly could. The farmer is prostrated, the merchant does less business, the railroads do less business, the manufacturer can not sell his product and the la- borer finds that there is nobody to buy the things that he makes, therefore he is out of employment. Physicians tell us that if you take half of the blood out of the human body the remainder congests at the heart and the extremities grow cold and lifeless. That is what happened in this case. With abundant harvests the world is in dis- tress. Now, the question is, shall we continue this system or shall we restore the former standard? Gentlemen, we are offering nothing new. We are suggesting no experiments. We are simply declaring that when you pay a cred- itor in the same kind of money which he gave you, you are doing everything that God or man can ask at your hand. Those foreign people, those English money-lenders, gave us gold and silver, and we propose to pay them back in the same money they gave us. Let me say to you that the statement that silver has fallen is not sustained by the facts. A pound of silver to-day buys as much wheat, 588 LIVE QUESTIONS. buys as much cotton, buys as much property and buys as much labor as it ever did, and buys as much as it did when we got that money. It is gold, the gold dollar, that has gone up to where it buys twice as much as it formerly did. These debts my fellow citizens, cannot be paid for centuries, and shall we now declare that our people must go on paying interest, paying principal, with 200-cent dollars, or shall we go back and say we will pay in 100-cent dollars? Shall we pay in the same kind of money they gave us? But these English money-lenders and their American agents and representatives do not intend to give up the advantage they have gained. The bond holders are now making fortunes and won't let go. They are making a determined fight tq perpetuate low prices. Two weeks ago they went to St. Louis and took charge of the Republican convention, an assembly that will go into history as "Mark Hanna's Trust." At that convention Mr. Hanna nominated a candidate for President; a candidate with one idea, and that idea wrong. That convention declared in favor of the present English single gold standard. The London newspapers have compli- mented that convention and that platform. They are delighted with it. An Englishman always feels good when he sees a prospect of getting more sweat and more blood out of the American people. To be sure, they said nothing about a tariff in that platform, but the moneyed people cared nothing about that; they knew that was sim- ply a little dough intended to hide the hook. Now, after they have harnessed the Republican party to the Eng- lish cart, the other members of the firm are here trying to put the same English halter upon this convention. Are you going to allow them to do it? What are the arguments that you hear around the hotels and at your headquarters? You noticed some weeks ago these Eastern people declared that they would have nothing but a single gold stand- ard, but when they found that the people were against them — when they found that the Democracy of the country would not tolerate it, then they were willing to modify their demands. They have come on here and are talking compromise. "Get together and agree upon something that we can all accede to and endorse," is what they now say. We are asked to do as we have done in the past. We are asked to adopt a declaration of principles which will mean one thing to one man and another to another man; which will mean one thing in one section of the country and another thing in another section, and which will enable these people to maintain a single gold standard in the end. These forces are powerful. They represent the bankers of London 'NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION. 589 and control nearly all of the banks throughout the country. A few banks in London and New York to-day control the whole banking system of this country. They control all of the newspapers, all of the agents that formulate thought; they control the corporations — the manufacturer and the merchant, and we have recently had something like a monetary terrorism. Anyone who did not subscribe' to their wishes was threatened with social, financial and political death. Catch phrases are invented. There was a time in the history of the world when men and women were slaughtered in the name of liberty. We have seen a time when a great nation can be robbed in the name of an honest dollar. There are men who otherwise are intelligent and seem patriotic, who claim that they love their country, who yet are doing all they can to fasten this English yoke upon our people. The question now is shall the Democratic party stand squarely for liberty, or shall we straddle, shall we dodge? Shall we put our- selves in the position of the steer which jumped part way over the fence and could neither hook before nor kick behind? Gentlemen, there is a principle involved here which rises above vote getting, which rises above office getting — a principle which affects the welfare of a great nation. In 1776 the question was, Shall republican institutions be established in America? In 1896 the ques- tion is, Shall republican institutions be perpetuated in America? Or shall we make the mass of the toilers and producers of this country mere vassals, mere tribute-paying serfs to English capitalists? Shall we install the typical Johnny Bull, with whip in hand, as a task- master over all the generations of Americans yet to come? That is the question. England devours the substance of Ireland; she gathers the harvest in the valley of the Nile; she has carried away the riches of India; she has ravished the islands of the sea; she has drawn the life blood out of every people that has ever come under her domina- tion. Shall this mighty nation, after we have triumphed over Eng- lish armies upon land, after we have destroyed English fleets upon the waters, after we have triumphed upon every field of honor and field of glory — shall we now supinely surrender to English greed, English cunning, and English corruption? We must make no mistakes. Our people are in earnest. They .will have neither straddling on platform or straddling on candidate, and those prudent, cautious, wise gentlemen, who have to consult the tin roosters every morning to see what their convictions should be during the day can have no show in this convention. We must have a declaration of principles that will admit of no quibble. We must have a declaration of principles that will mean 590 LIFE QUESTIONS. the same thing on the mountain, in the valley, and at the seashore. We must have a declaration of principles that we can hold up before all Israel and the sun. It is not the time for compromise. It is a time to be serious, be- cause the question is serious. It involves the future of our country. If the present standard of value, the present standard of prices, is to be maintained, then the great producing classes of this country will be devoured by the fixed charges. They will have no money to buy the comforts of life. They will have no money to educate their families. It is not a question that can be compromised. Compromise is proper when it involves only personal interest, but not when the interests of a great nation are at stake. Just see how history repeats itself. In 1776 the money classes in our country were opposed to the Declaration of Independence. They represented foreign interest, and they talked compromise. In 1861 the money classes of the East were opposed to making great sacrifices to maintain the Union. They talked compromise. In 1896 the same interests are again represented, and they talk compromise. My fellow-citizens, the hand of compromise never, yet ran up the flag of freedom. The spirit of compromise never yet laid the founda- tions of republican institutions. No compromise army ever fought the battles of liberty. Go search the hundred thousand graves found on hilltop, found in forests and in fields, where sleep the men who died to uphold this flag, and you will not find the bones of a single man that talked compromise. They stood erect and said to the Almighty, "Here are our lives." Gentlemen, the time has come when the Democratic party must announce to the world that we stand for great principles, that we stand for those principles that offer hope to humanity, and that we offer our lives to defend them. To simply say that we are Democrats may sound laconic, but unless we stand for something definite that earnest men and earnest women can lay hold on in life, unless we stand for something that will lift up humanity, we will be despised by mankind. And if this convention will rise to the occasion, as I be- lieve it will, if this convention will rise to meet the needs of a great people, then our morning will be wrapped in splendor. If we do that, then the ides of November will usher in a new century of prosperity, . of industry, of enterprise, and of happiness. It will usher in a century which in grandeur and in glory will surpass all that have gone be- fore. AT GIRARD. $91 SPEECH AT GIRARD AUGUST 29m 1896, OPENING THE CAMPAIGN. My Fellow Citizens: There are in this audience many young men who have reached a point where they must decide what they will follow in life. There was a time in the history of our country when a healthy body, a healthy brain, an honest heart and two willing hands were all the capital that a young man needed to start on a successful career. He had his choice of employment. There was activity on every hand and he could enter a field that suited his taste. To-day there is no field that invites him, and the tracks of the wandering tramp tell him of the difficulty of finding employment. There are thousands of parents who themselves started in life poor and have run successful careers who are now anxious to see their children settled in life, but who sit down with sad hearts because the outlook is cheerless. There are millions of farmers who once were prosperous and could sell the products of their farms for such prices as enabled them not only to pay their taxes, pay their debts, but to supply their families with the com- forts and even the luxuries of life. They had money to spend at the store, at the shop and at the college. To-day these men find that it takes nearly all they can produce to pay their taxes, pay the in- terest on their debt and pay what are called fixed charges. They are no longer able to buy even the comforts, let alone the luxuries, of life. Their purchasing power is gone. There are in this community mine operators who once found a broad market in which to sell their coal and could realize prices which enabled them to pay living wages to their men. To-day they find that many of the factories are not running, the market is limited and after shipping their coal they are obliged to accept prices which mean star- vation. There are in this State thousands of miners who make their living by the hardest work known to man, digging in the bowels of the earth. Once there was a demand for their labor. Instead of having to tramp over the country and seek jobs they were sought for at their homes. They were able to earn enough money to not only support their families, but to educate their children. To-day many of these men are entirely out of employment, others are working at half time and those who are employed have to work for wages which mean in the end degradation for themselves and their families. There are all over this country merchants who once were prosper- ous and active, their business was large, the farmers and laborers came to their stores and purchased freely, Now every day brings a 5$4 tiVt QUEsfidNS. record of new failures and new assignments. Farmers and laborers are no longer buying as they did. Business has fallen off, collections are hard and bankruptcy is constantly hammering at the door. There was a time when the manufacturers were all busy making the various things that were used by a prosperous and progressive people. There was a buyer for everything they could make. Their shops were filled with laborers receiving living wages. Now that, mar- ket has been to a great extent destroyed, and there being no longer purchasers the manufacturer is obliged to in part or in whole shut down, and when he does so his workmen are turned on the street and their purchasing power is in turn destroyed. There was a time when our railroads were all busy. There was a time when there was activity everywhere in the land. There was a demand for brains and a demand for muscle. Every man willing to work had his choice of labor. The great common toiling masses of our country were contented, were educating their children, were good citizens and were happy. All this is changed and there is paralysis, stagnation, want, suffering and discontent all over this, the richest land under the sun. This change has not come suddenly. It has been creeping over us for a great many years. During this time we have had sunshine and rain as before and nature has yielded her harvests as bountifully las ever before. The earth and the elements have done all in their power to make man rich and prosperous. It is not nature but man that is responsible for the change. The causes of our distress are not natural but are artificial. It is governmental policy that is the mother of our sorrow. During all of the time that this depression has been coming upon us we have had a high protective tariff. We have to-day a tariff that is higher in most respects than it was in war times, and up to a year and a half ago we had a tariff that was almost prohibitory, yet the dis- tress of the country became more and more intense. Nearly every year for fifteen years we have had in New York and the money centers of this country what was called a "money flurry." That is, a small panic, the result of which each time was a slight lowering of prices and a slight lowering of wages. During this time the leaders of one of the great political parties of the country kept advocating an increase of the tariff as a remedy for the rapidly increasing ills of the land. Although the tariff we had was almost the highest in the world, and although the war had been over for a quarter of a century, the only remedy that was suggested was to raise the tariff taxes, During the Presidential campaign of SPEECH AT GIRARD. 593 1888, recognizing the fact that the conditions in the land were rapidly becoming worse, the leaders of this party, in their platform, advo- cated an increase in the tariff. The country accepted their theory and Mr. "Harrison was elected President, and when Congress assembled a tariff act was passed, known as the "McKinley law," which almost doubled the already high duties. While this law was being framed the leading manufacturers of the country went to Washington to lobby, and it is now a matter of history that they got a bill framed just as they wanted it. Major McKinley, who had the bill in charge, practically allowed the manufacturers to write it themselves. The argument used was the protection of the American laborer. On this theory the duties were made so high as to almost stop importation in many lines, and yet the ink of the President's signature to this bill iiad scarcely become dry when over three hundred of those large man- ufacturers went home and reduced the wages of their operatives. This was in 1890. The country is familiar with the reduction of wages which then took place and with some of the labor disturbances that followed, so that the first effect of the McKinley act was in many cases to lower instead of raise the wages of the men, and when the work- men protested or went out on a strike their places were filled with men brought over from the pauper districts of Europe, under con- tract, men who worked for wages on which the American laborer could not support his family. This importation of foreign as a substitute for the American laborers was carried to such an extent that Mr. Pow- derly, himself a Pennsylvanian and well posted in that regard, declared that almost every native-born and every naturalized American had been driven out of the shops and mines of Pennsylvania and his place filled by pauper labor brought over from Europe. It was while this law was in force, during the spring of 1892, while Mr. Harrison was President, that the great Homestead labor riots in Pennsylvania occurred. This law was in force until near the be- ginning of the year 1895 an ^ for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1894, it produced a deficit in the United States treasury of $70,000,- 000. This was due to the fact that the tariff in many cases was so high as to check all importation. So that while the McKinley law brought the laborer no comfort and no bread it impoverished the United States treasury. During all of the time that it was in force prices kept falling, labor disturbances increased, business kept shrinking, stagnation spread and the distress of the country kept increasing. It was apparent all the time that the trouble of the country was due to some other cause and that that cause was steadily at work day and night during the $ ■ 594 LIVE QUESTIONS. whole of the time. Although the McKinley law was enacted to arrest the downward tendency of the times, it was found, impotent for this purpose and it was in the spring of 1893, while the McKinley law was in force, that the final crash came. The strain had begun more than ten years before and had steadily increased until finally it became so great that the collapse came. After the McKinley tariff had proven a failure in this country men looked more carefully into the effect of tariffs in other countries and they found that they had produced the same results everywhere as here. They. in some cases enriched the manufacturer, but nowhere helped the laborer because there was no tariff on labor. The em- ployer could bring cheap labor from any part of the earth at any time. It was found that those countries in Europe which had the highest tariffs were the very countries in which were found most of the pauper labor and it was also found that while wages in free trade England were low, they had more than doubled since the time that England abolished her tariffs, and further that they were now higher than in any of the protective countries of Europe. On further study- ing the situation it was found that the distress which was spreading over our country was not local to America, but that it was at the same time spreading over Europe — spreading over countries where they had high protective tariffs and over countries where they had low tariffs and over countries where they had no tariffs. It became apparent that this paralysis in the activity, enterprise and industry of the world had no connection with tariffs, but was due to an entire- ly different- cause, operating throughout the civilized world, and that cause was the reduction in the standard and measure of values of the world. In other words the falling prices were caused by the arbitrary wiping out by law of one-half of the primary or redemption money of the world. This was done not only by the government of the United States but by the governments of Europe and produced the same results there that it did here, that is it produced a rise in the pur- chasing power of gold, so that it took more property, more products and more labor thereafter to get a dollar than it did before. Wages and the selling price of property go together. Labor produces prop- erty. When property sells at a high price then it is possible to pay high wages, when it sells at a low price wages must be low, when it cannot be sold at all then there is no work. Let us consider the money question in its relation to the hard times. There are fundamental and immutable laws of finance just as there are laws of physics, and they are not difficult to understand. Many of you have never studied what are called the sciences. You have SPEECH AT GIRARD. 595 never talked learnedly about the laws of nature, but you know enough about them to answer all practical requirements. You know that water will run down hill, you know that an apple falling from a tree will go to the ground, you know that sparks fly upward and that fire will burn. Just so with the financial question. You know that a scarcity of money means low prices and that low prices mean hard times. You know that when there is plenty of money in the country, when farmers are in a condition to buy freely, that then there is ac- tivity, then there is prosperity. You know that it takes more money to do the business of two men than it does to do the business of one man. You know that if the amount of money that there is in the world were doubled that the holders of this money would not let it lie idle but they would buy property, build houses, build factories and otherwise invest it amd that the result would be activity, and with this would come a demand for labor and a demand for the products of the farmer and a consequent increase in wages and an increase in the price of commodities. This would restore the purchasing pow- er of the farmer and the laborer, it would restore the wonderful home market we used to hear about and would again give us prosperity. Applying this rule, that when money is scarce times are hard and when money is plenty times, are good, to the affairs of the world it amounts to this, that when you increase the volume of money in the world you increase the selling price of property and of products and make the producing classes prosperous, and this means the prosperity of the people. While if you reduce the volume of money in the world you correspondingly reduce the selling price of property and of pro- ducts and destroy the prosperity of the producing classes. This rule is recognized by all great financiers of the world as an immutable and fundamental law of finance and it has been verified by the financial history of our country. From 1862 to 1866 we had neither gold nor silver in circulation in this country. Our money consisted of treasury notes issued by the government and of national bank notes, and according to the treas- ury tables we had during that time altogether fifteen hundred and forty-two millions of paper money in circulation. It is true gold was at a premium. Sometimes it took two and a half dollars of paper to get one of gold, but the people did not need gold and the most pros- perous years that this republic has ever seen were those years. Many of you recall them distinctly. Farmers prospered as they never had before. The merchants and the bankers prospered and the manu- factories were running to their fullest capacity. But the government decided to return to specie -payments and for 596 LIVE QUESTIONS. that purpose began to call in and cancel the greenbacks and issue bonds in their stead which did not circulate as money, and between 1866 and 1870 the paper money in the country was reduced by more than one half and there followed a corresponding fall in prices. This produced the panic of 1873, during which time prices fell from the paper money basis dawn to what was then called the specie basis. This was local to this country and did not affect Europe. The years of ruin and disaster following the panic of '73 were the result of the contraction of the currency by the government This resumption of specie payments by the government was on the basis of gold and silver. These two materials had done the busi- ness of the world since the dawn of civilization. For two hundred years their relation to each other was established and was practically uniform throughout the world. Unfortunately for mankind the monied classes of Europe conceived the idea that it would be to their interest to make money dear and property and labor cheap. During the decade following the war our people had become the great debtor people of the earth. Not only had the government, the States, the counties and the cities issued bonds, but the railroads and all other great properties and great interests had issued bonds, even most of .the farm and city property had been mortgaged. The great bulk of all this indebtedness was held by the English money-lenders. The inter- est on this vast debt had to be paid by the American people in one form or in another. Either in the form of taxes or increased charges on the railroads or increased prices of articles purchased, but under the prices which then existed for farm products and for labor our people were able to pay this vast interest and yet have a surplus left which enabled them to supply themselves with the comforts and even luxuries of life, and we had what was then known as the great Ameri- can market. Our farmers were prosperous and all other classes were prosperous. This was when we had silver and gold. At that time the London bond-holders had to take the interest on two one thousand dollar bonds to buy a horse or to buy a hundred bushels of wheat and they concluded that if they could wipe out half of the money in the world that then the interest on a one thousand dollar bond would buy a horse or would buy a hundred bushels of wheat and buy a corre- spondingly increased amount of labor or any other kind of property, and this is what they accomplished. In 1873 they got our govern- ment to by law demonetize silver, stop its coinage, deprive it of its legal tender functions and reduce it practically to the basis of token money, and between that year and 1880 they got nearly all of the governments to take similar steps, so that silver was no longer a pri- SPEECH AT GIRARD. 597 mary or redemption money, but occupied the place practically of token money, and as the amount of silver dollars in the world was just about equal to the amount of gold dollars in the world, it followed that when silver was demonetized and its coinage was stopped, that there- after the work which was formerly done by gold and silver together had to be done by gold alone. The number of people who had to have gold was doubled, its importance was doubled and it necessarily fol- lowed that its purchasing power was doubled, so that thereafter a gold dollar would buy just twice the amount of products, twice the amount of property, twice the amount of labor that it formerly, did, on the average. According to the great law of finance which I have just named this is what had to follow and you know from bitter experience that this is just what did follow. The selling price of all property when taken on the average, the selling price of all products when taken on the average was reduced by just one-half. So that wheat went from a dollar to fifty cents and all other farm products were sold in pro- portion. The selling price of everything which labor produces was lowered, but nothing that the bondholder held was lowered. The debts all remained the same. The vast sums of interest to be paid every year remained the same. The taxes if anything were higher. All of the fixed charges calling for cash payment remained the same. Thereafter it took everything that the farmer could scrape together to pay the fixed charges and in many cases he could not do it. His purchasing power was destroyed and that universal paralysis which I have already described ensued. Formerly there was added every year to the volume of money that existed in the world not only the amount of gold that was mined, but also the amount of silver that was mined, less what was used in the arts, and as the population kept increasing constantly and as it was necessary that the volume of money should be enlarged every year to keep pace with the increase of population in order that prices might not fall, the world depended upon the increase to be derived from both metals being about equal in amount. But since the demonetization of silver there is added each year only the gold that is produced, less what is used in the arts. In other words the annual addition now to the stock of money is only half what it used to be, while the annual increase in population is much greater than it used to be. Consequently prices must go on steadily falling a little year by year. That is what has happened during the last few years and is what is going on now, and it is a well known fact that there can be no prosperity in a country-on falling prices. Money constitutes the blood of the commercial world and when half of it was wiped out by arbitrary acts of government the remainder manifested a tendency 598 LIVE QUESTIONS. to concentrate at London and other European money centers, while all that part of the world which depended upon industry and enterprise became' cold and lifeless. Now, my fellow citizens, these debts remain. These fixed charges can not be reduced and unless the standard of prices can again be raised so that our farmers and producers can earn some money over : and above these fixed charges no general prosperity will be possible in this country. In the tariff discussion of years ago it was debated as to whether the importer or the home manufacturer should supply the great home market. To-day we find that that market has been de- stroyed and the. question is how can we revive it. That home market died under the McKinley law, it died under high protection. Who are the men who profit by the existing order of things? Only the New York and European speculators and the Englishmen who hold American securities. The great bond-holding classes of Europe now find that one half of the interest on their bonds will buy as much labor and will buy as much property as all of it used to buy. Naturally they want to continue that condition of affairs. The at- tempt to maintain this gold standard has involved the American gov- ernment in such difficulties that during the last three years $260,000,- 000 of bonds have been issued, making that much more of a bond for the American people to pay interest on and ultimately to pay off. A year and a half ago a small crowd of New York speculators with J. Pierpont Morgan at their head made upwards of ten millions of dollars in a couple of weeks out of the government in a small bond transaction. Do you blame Morgan and his associates for wanting to continue that condition of affairs? I do not. But I do blame the representatives and so-called leaders of the American people who under one pretext or under another pretext are helping to perpetuate a policy which shall furnish a perpetual harvest to bond sharks. You ask how is it that the bankers are on the side of this gold standard? It is simple enough for the Eastern bankers to be there, and the fact that the Western bankers are on that side simply shows the power of money. It shows that the Western bankers are in the clutches and subject to the dictation of Eastern and foreign capital. The great money center of the world now is London. The large finan- ciers of New York under our existing system are in the habit of look- ing to London bankers. Having made themselves dependent on them or deriving a profit from serving them these New York bankers not only act on the suggestions but follow the dictation of the London- bankers. The few bankers in New York again have their corresponds ents in the other cities of the country and these correspondents in many SPEECH AT GIRARD. 599 cases are either dependent on or else find it profitable to serve the New Yorker. Consequently they not only act on the suggestions but fol- low the dictating of a few New York bankers. There are in this coun- try altogether upwards of nine thousand banks, and under the existing system they are made to act almost as one man. Bankers ordinarily make money when the country is prosperous and the bankers in all producing and industrial sections of the country would be immeasur- ably benefited by a restoration of silver and prosperity, and when they take a position which is against the interests of the community in which they live and do business it shows that they are ready to either blindly follow the cruel dictates of the gold men or are hopelessly in the clutches of what is called the "Eastern money power." These English and New York bankers are able to dictate to .every railroad, every manufacturer and every business man in this country and they have now for several months been exercising a money terrorism over the people of this country. Every man that works for wages for any great concern has a moral threat of dismissal hanging over him unless he will vote at the dictation of his employer. Bankers are re- fusing credit to business men who will not surrender their manhood or their rights of citizenship. Even railroad operatives are threatened with dismissal if they insist upon being independent. The English money power is conducting a campaign in this country and while there are some honest and some good men arrayed on that side, it is a re- markable fact that all of those influences that undermine and destroy republican institutions, all of the corruptionists are arranging them- selves on the side of the English money lenders. General Jackson fought a monied power that was American in its character, that sought to fasten on the people of the republic an American yoke. We are confronted by a money power that is seeking to fasten upon the people of this country an English yoke. We are now in the midst of the gravest crisis that ever confronted this republic. In 1861 the Union was confronted with dissolution, which meant anarchy in respect to government and a perpetuation of the African slavery. In 1896 we are confronted with the question of perpetually enslaving the white race. We are confronted with the question whether we shall install English shylocks as. task-masters over all the generations of Americans that are yet to come. We are not proposing to wrong any- body. We are proposing to give every man his due. We are not sug- gesting experiments, we are demanding a return to the experience of the world for thousands of years and we say that this experiment of trying to force the nations of the earth onto a gold basis for the benefit of European creditors is ruining the American people, 600 LIVE. QUESTIONS. We propose to pay back the English creditors in the same money they gave us, gold and silver. We propose to give them dollars that shall have the same purchasing power, that will buy as much property and as much labor of every kind as the dollars which they gave us. Money having exactly the same purchasing power. We propose to pay them principal and interest in the same money exactly which.they gave us and we say that their acts in getting silver demonetized and gold made dear, after they had succeeded in getting our bonds and our notes, so as to compel us to pay in a different kind of money from what they gave us, to pay in dollars which cost twice as much sweat, twice as much blood as did the dollars which they gave us, we say that that act was a fraud and was a crime against civilization. This is not.a partisan question. It is not a question of Republican- ism or of Democracy. John Sherman and Grover Cleveland are sleeping together. It is a question of patriotism. It is a question of maintaining the institutions of the fathers, for if the present standard is to be maintained, if our people must go on paying interest and principal in dollars that require twice as much labor, twice as much sweat, twice as much blood to obtain as did the dollars that were in circulation when the debts were created, then the doom of American producers is sealed. Low prices will be made perpetual and there will be no hope for the American farmer, the American mechanic or the American laborer. You have heard glib talk about fifty cent dollars. Gentlemen, there is no such thing as a fifty cent dollar. The silver dollars which they speak of as fifty cent dollars buy as much property on the aver- age of every kind, buy as much of the products of the earth on the average of every kind, buy as- much labor on the average of every kind, as they did before silver was demonetized. Silver has not fallen. It occupies the same relation to property, to the products of the earth and to labor that it formerly did, it is gold that has gone up. The pur- chasing power of gold has doubled and our people are obliged to pay their debts, principal and interest, in dollars which as a matter of fact are two hundred cent dollars. Who gets the benefit of this? The English money lenders. It is said, Why, we have local money lenders. . Some of our farmers have money loaned out. Don't they get the benefit of it? I say no. No farmer, no resident of this State can derive a benefit from a condition of affairs that bankrupts his neighbor, that produces paralysis in the • country surrounding him, for universal bankruptcy must in the end pull down and destroy the local creditor. It is a mistake to suppose SPnncn AT &rAr£>. 601 that a local money lender derives a benefit from the conditions which now exist. We say restore, silver to where it was. Coin it free as you do gold. Restore to it its legal tender qualities and just as soon as this is done, just as soon as silver can be used at the custom-house, can be used to pay taxes and to pay notes at the bank, just as soon as it can be used to do the same work that gold does, just that soon the importance of gold will be lowered, its purchasing power will be lowered, the import- ance of silver will be raised, its purchasing power will be raised, until the two metals again circulate at par just as they did for two hundred years before silver was demonetized. But, says some one, The idea of bimetallism is all right but we can not go it alone. We must have Europe to help us, otherwise gold will go to a premium. Examine this a moment. Everybody admits that if all the European States would act together they could go it alone. They could absorb the silver that is annually produced and in fact a great deal more without having gold go to a premium. Now, gen- tlemen, the internal trade of the United States, under normal condi- tions, is greater than that of all Europe put together, for while some of the European countries have large populations, they are so ex- tremely poor that they possess very little purchasing power, conse- quently if Europe could go it alone the United States could still more easily do so. We could absorb more than double the amount of all the silver that would be brought to our country and it would be like putting new blood into the body. The patient is now too weak to travel. We say restore his blood to its normal condition and then he will again be active. It is said that a Mexican dollar which is as heavy as ours is worth only fifty cents in gold, and we are asked if this is so how will we make our silver dollars circulate side by side with gold. I say we will do it by giving our silver dollars a field sufficiently large to absorb all and in which they can do the same work that gold does. The business of Mexico is so small that it does not furnish a suf- ficiently large field to absorb all of the silver dollars. The business of Mexico is less than that of some of our States. Multiply the trade of Mexico by forty and it would absorb twice the amount of silver that could be furnished any one year. When the large import duties paid at our custom houses and the limitless sums of taxes paid in our country are considered it becomes at once ap- parent that this country could absorb two hundred times as much silver money as Mexico could, independently of all the other nations of the earth. Mexico is on a silver basis, and M. Romero, the Mexi- 6o2 LIVE QUESTIONS. can minister at Washington, a year ago published an article in the North American Review describing the conditions of his country, and he showed that Mexico is more prosperous now than it ever was before in its history. Her farmers are prospering, her business men are prospering, her manufactories are all busy and new ones are being erected and there is scarcely an idle laborer in Mexico. But if all of the talk about'gold going to a premium were true, it would not meet the question. The question is, shall republican institutions be main- tained in this country? If our farmers, our mechanics and our labor- ers are reduced to the condition of mere tribute paying serfs then the doom of this republic is sealed. If they are to be reduced to the impoverished condition of the toilers of Europe then a high and in- telligent order of citizenship in this -country is impossible. Men who have nothing to eat and little to wear cannot educate their families; men who have to give up all of their strength and all their thoughts to what is practically unrequited toil are not calculated to act the role of independent freemen. In 1776 England sought to dominate us politically; the financial and industrial policies of the world were not so prominent then. At that time al^of the bankers and most of the very rich and influential people of this country were Tories. They sided with England but the great common people of the colonies demanded independence. There were less than 3,000,000 of them. The influential class were all against them. The fashionable people of the colonies and of Europe jeered them. The aristocrats of Europe sneered at their pretensions. Suppose that under those conditions the colonies had said "Liberty is a good thing but we must wait until Europe consents for us to have it." Would this republic ever have been founded? Instead of that, they announced to, the world their independence and their readiness to die to maintain it. In 1812 England sought to dominate us upon the seas and again the bankers and monied classes of our country sympathized with England. Sup- pose the weak and struggling republic had then said "Freedom from search upon the seas is an excellent thing but we must wait until Eu- rope helps us to get it." Would our history have been the same? Al- though England was then almost mistress of the world the young and struggling republic defied and defeated her. Since then conditions have changed; policies have changed. England does not care to dominate us politically further than to shape our financial policy. She does not care to search our ships -upon the seas, for under the peculiar policy which has been pursued by our government for the last twenty-five years, we have scarcely any. She does not care to send her own tax collectors over here to dominate over us; she has SPEECH AT GIRARD. 603 found a method of subjugation that suits her better. If she can but keep our country in the condition in which she has us now, where all the sweat, all the toil and all the blood of our people is drawn to her coffers to be coined into English sovereigns, she is content. Three millions of people established republican institutions in this country in the face of a jeering and a sneering world. The question now is, shall seventy millions of people surrender these institutions or announce to the world that they are incapable of maintaining them. Three millions of people a century ago announced to the world that they could get along without Europe. Shall seventy millions of people now proclaim that we are dependent upon the monarchy ridden and corruption eaten European States? My friends, it is not a question of office getting. There are things in the world that arise above office and arise above empty honors. I ask you to support Bryan and humanity against McKinley and plutocracy. I ask you to support the institutions of the fathers against the dictation pf foreign shylocks. I ask you to sustain a policy which gives every man his due on the one hand and will make it possible for every industrious and intelligent man to make a living on the other hand. In our State the most important question to be met is that of equalizing the burdens of taxation. The present system is a colossal iniquity, which shifts the burdens from the very rich onto the people of moderate means. There are in Chicago many men who possess vast fortunes and pay no taxes. Strangely enough they are the men who have much to say about patriotism. There are in our State hundreds of millions of dollars that contribute nothing to the support of the government. An effort was made at the regular session of the Legislature and again at the special session of the Legislature to have this great wrong righted, but the interests which profit by this iniquity were able to defeat action. The arguments they used for this purpose were said to be of a kind that pass from hand to hand rather than from mouth to mouth, and I ask you, my fellow citizens, to consider the conduct and the character of the last Legis- lature and its political complexion, and then ask yourselves the ques- tion whether if the same political influences control the next Legisla- ture you can reasonably expect any relief from it. During the special session a strong pressure for revenue reform was brought to bear upon the Legislature by patriotic citizens, and it looked once as though something might be done, but at this juncture there appeared upon the scene the chairman of the Republican State Committee, "who is now a candidate for Governor, and he succeeded in forcing the Legis- &H I1V& QUESTIONS. lature to adjourn without taking any action. I leave you to judge in whose interests he did this. Whether in your interests or in the interests of the men who annually defraud the State out of hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxes, and I further ask you the question, what reason have you to expect or even hope for any relief or any reform if this ex-chairman of the Republican State Committee, who forced the Legislature to adjourn without action, is elected Governor? Speaking of my own candidacy I have only tcr say that I have served you nearly four years. I have never worked harder in my life. I have striven to do my duty. Unquestionably I have made mistakes, but I have aimed to follow the dictates of justice and right. I have aimed to know neither rich nor poor, neither friend nor foe in the discharge of my duties. I have aimed to raise the banner of this mighty State to the highest pinnacle. I have acted upon the principle that every man is equal before the law and all are entitled to equal protection. If you are satisfied with my stewardship, natu- rally it would gratify me to have you say so, but, my fellow citizens, all questions of office sink into insignificance when compared with the great issue that is before our people. Office holders come and go and as a rule the world is little the wiser or little the better. But policies shape the destinies of nations and determine the happiness or the misery of unborn generations, and if there are Republicans here who feel that they must in part support their ticket, then I say to you with all the earnestness of my soul, go into the booth, vote for Mr. Tanner for Governor, and then think of your families; think of the future of your children, think of the future of our great country and cast a vote for Bryan and for 'humanity. LETTER TO WILLIAM S. FORMAN. Springfield, 111., Aug. 27, 1896. William S. Forman, East St. Louis, 111.: Sir: My attention has been called to the fact that while I was away from home you emerged from the brush and made some insinu- ations against me, and also made an attack upon two dead men. I have made it a rule not to notice attacks upon myself coming from personal and political animosity and have found that in time the calumniators are buried in their own slime. While your entire article is made up of malicious, false and slander- ous trash that has been repeatedly published in partisan newspapers, and while all of it that any living man knows anything about has by LETTER TO WILLIAM S. FORM AN. 605 them been branded as false and malisious and does not call for any further notice, it is urged by prominent Democrats that as you are trying to pose before the people of this State you should be asked to step out of the shadow into the sunlight and experience a new sensa- tion. It is to be regretted that this campaign promises to be bitter and full of personal vituperation, and it is still more to be regretted that the first gun, loaded with personal calumny, should have been fired not by the Republicans but by a man and a set of men whom I had personally helped and to whom the Democratic party had given bread to eat and who, because they can not now control that party, are trying to destroy it, .not by a manly fight in front but by a skulking fusillade in the rear. You cried to me for money during your last campaign and I furnished you the means to return to Congress and asked noth- ing in return. Why did you write that letter at this time? Everything in it was old and you simply rehashed a slander. Every insinuation you make is false and if you knew anything about the facts then you knew that you were making false insinuations. If you knew nothing about the facts and simply allowed your political disappointment to lead you into this step then you did a thing that was cowardly. You drag in the name of John W. Lanehart, who died in Chicago a few weeks ago. He was known to the people of that city as one of the most able, hon- orable, straight-forward and substantial young men of the State. A man who was the soul of honor, a man who was extensively engaged in affairs, carrying on large real estate operations and being interested in other business enterprises. While he was alive you slipped in and slipped out of Chicago a great many times and you uttered not a syllable, but as soon as he is buried you come forward in the night and howl over his grave. The Western settlers attribute this quality to the coyote. You had been a member of the Democratic State Committee and had once fondly imagined that you controlled the party. You had been sent to Congress by that party. Your course and your methods while on the committee were well known; your career in Congress was well known; your votes in Congress, which were nearly always on the side of monopoly, were well known; your reputation among the lobbyists at Washington was well known; the fact that your con- stituents had determined to bury you and that you retired in order not to give them a chance to express their opinion of you was well known. In view of these facts it was a little remarkable that you 606 LIVE QUESTIONS. should write that letter at this time and it really looks as though you were trying to pose and get blood money from the Republicans. Now let us clear the atmosphere a little and let a little daylight in on the worm that is eating your soul. About eighteen months ago you came to Springfield and came over to the capitol to have a private talk with me. You complained that I had formed a wrong impression of you. You stated that you had not been on friendly terms with Rufus ' Ramsey, the late State treasurer, and that you feared he and some others, whom you named, had prejudiced my mind against you,. I got up and closed the door of the private office in which we were sitting and then said to you that you were mis- taken; that neither Mr. Ramsey nor any other person had influenced me against you, but that I had myself watched your career and that politically I had absolutely no confidence in you; that you seemed to me to be entirely too sly and foxy and too cunning to be trusted and that even your close frierids called you "Foxy Bill." Do you recall this conversation? I made a special effort to be candid with you for I did not want you to blame anybody else on account of my opinions. You protested that I was mistaken and was doing you an in- justice, etc., etc. The conversation lasted nearly an hour and when you took leave you said that if I would just trust you once I would change my opinion of you. At that time I did not grasp the full meaning of your last words, but soon thereafter Mr. Browning, a prominent Democrat of Du Quoin, in southern Illinois, came to Springfield and urged me to appoint you to some prominent State office, mentioning a railroad and warehouse commissionership, and if that was not practicable then a membership of the Southern Illinois Penitentiary Board. He did not say that you had sent him, but he urged me strongly to appoint you, showing that he at least knew that you would accept if you were appointed. He urged among other things that your brothers were prominent and influential men whose good will toward the State administration would be of value. I did- not tell him all that I had told you, but I did say to him that I could not make the appointment. I will not attempt to notice all of your exploits after that, for your tracks were seen all over the State. You were still a member of the Democratic State Committee and undertook to shape the policy of the party. Last spring your friends came to me a number of times and wanted to arrange an interview with you in regard to State politics. Knowing your course, knowing the low political standards LETTER TO WILLIAM S. FORMAN. 6o? you have, I did not care to see you and I put them off, so that no interview took place and I do not blame you for feeling mad. Next you figured in a characteristic role. You had just moved into East St. Louis, in St. Clair County, and had barely finished tacking down your carpets when you undertook to run the politics of the city, and when the old citizens of the county refused to acknowl- edge your leadership you organized a bolt in the town convention. Reflect on this a moment. Here was a man who had been a member of Congress and had once imagined that he controlled the Demo- cratic party of the State, organizing a bolt, not in a national con- vention, nor in a State convention, nor even in a county convention, but in a little convention of the town in which he had just moved his furniture. The result was you were not permitted to sit in any convention held by your party. Yon claim that the friends of the State administration helped to bring about your discomfiture. Whether they did or not is imma- terial. It is evident you are not happy. When the world finds a man with a bandage on his conscience and his head in a sling it does not expect him to be in a good humor. But you greatly mistake the intelligence of the American people if you imagine that after play- ing the part you have you can now deceive anybody by attempting to pose as a lover of your country. I am told that you have taken the contract to elect Mr. Tanner Governor. This is the privilege of every citizen of Illinois and I certainly will not begrudge you the right to exercise it, but if you wanted to destroy the party which once honored you would it not be more manly to get out in front and join the Republicans rather than to stab it while professing to still love it? Mankind learned long ago that there is no man so bitter and no man who will stoop so low as the renegade. While I may regret very much to see a man of your ability act this role, yet it is not in my power to prevent it, and if you are determined to move along that line I assure you you shall have an open field. You are at liberty to say and do what you like unmolested by me. It is noticeable in this campaign that the monopolists, the men who devour the substance of others, the men who fatten off the toil of others, are all arraigning themselves on the side of the British gold standard. The men who corrupt legislation at Washington and at the various State capitals, the men who corrupt assessors and escape taxation, as well as all their handy hired men, are arrayed against the people. While on the other side are the great masses of toiling and patriotic Americans who support our institutions and 6o8 LIVE QUESTIONS. ' make our civilization possible. By the law of natural selection y6U have drifted to where you belong and if you do not get British gold for your work I suppose it will not be your fault. By the way, Judas threw away the reward of his treachery and hanged himself — will you follow his example? You say at the beginning of your letter that you suppose it makes no difference what you do in the coming election in relation to my candidacy. Here you are mistaken. If I can not respect the commission by virtue of which I exercise the functions of office then I do not want to hold it, and if I can not look honest men in the face then I do not want to be Governor of Illinois, and I therefore repeat what I have said on a number of previous occasions that if my elec- tion depends upon your vote, then I do not want it. JOHN P. ALTGELD. LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF THE NEW HOSPI- TAL FOR INSANE AT ROCK ISLAND, SEP- TEMBER, 1896. We are here on a grand mission, on a mission that rises above politics, partisanship and self seeking. We have come to lay the corner-stone of a great public charity. A charity which we hope will be a blessing to the world for all the centuries to come. In these days of excitement and heated discussion, when the passions of men are much inflamed, it is inspiring to see men of all political^ convic- tions meet together to perform a ceremony that appeals to the nobler and loftier sentiments of man. The progress of the world is recorded, not by the development of phenomenal physical strength, but by its intellectual, its moral and its charitable development. Through long ages those who were unfortunate enough to be deprived of the use of some of their faculties and who were there- fore unable to care for themselves and became a burden upon others were deliberately destroyed by their more fortunate brethren. Then came many long, hard centuries in which those who were bereft of reason were thought to be possessed of a devil, and were regarded with horror. They were chained to trees, they were locked in filthy and dark dungeons and permitted to rot in loathsomeness and misery. Toward the beginning of this century science asserted that insanity was simply a disease of the brain; that the brain, like all other. organs of the body, was physical in its character and subject to a great va- riety of diseases and that certain forms of disease destroyed the HOSPITAL FOR INSANE, ROCK ISLAND. 609 functions of the brain, and with them the reasoning powers of the patient. It was also asserted that diseases of the brain, like diseases affecting other portions of the body, could be treated, and in some cases successfully. As a necessary consequence of these new ideas it followed that the insane, instead of being locked in filthy dungeons, or tied to trees, should be treated as nearly as possible as were people afflicted with other diseases. But experience soon showed that it was more difficult to care for an insane person than a patient otherwise afflicted, and that there were times when an insane patient actually needed restraint, and that consequently it was difficult to properly care for them in private families, especially in cases where the families were poor. Then" the more enlightened governments took upon themselves the care of the insane, and began to erect asylums for them. As may readily be supposed the first efforts in this direction were very crude and in many cases the buildings erected were mere prisons and not homes, and as the subject in general was not fully understood, and the care of the insane was in most cases left to incompetent and improper custodians, it followed that many of the early insane asylums, and in fact some of the more recent ones, became the scene of indescribable horrors. But the world progressed in this as in other lines. Intel- ligent and humane men and women gave these matters their atten- tion. Efforts were made to throw as much daylight and as much sunlight as possible not only into every asylum, but upon its manage- ment and its general routine, and with each exposure of cruel methods came more improved ways of dealing with these unfortunate people. One of the things which distinguishes the enlightened govern- ments of this age from the governments of former ages, and that shows the progress of man in civilization and in humanity, is the effort that is made to care for all of the unfortunates who, by reason of some physical ailment, are incapacitated to care for themselves. Man has finally recognized, at least in part, that he is his brother's keeper. The recognition of the fact that we are all children of the same God has inspired man with a new sense of duty toward his fellow man. In the work of this new civilization the great commonwealth of Illinois stands at the head. With a most lavish hand has she aimed to provide for her unfortunate children. Aside from her great reform- atory and penal institutions, and aside from her great educational institutions she has aimed to provide for the care of the blind, she has a great institution for the care and instruction of the deaf and dumb at Jacksonville, a home for soldiers' orphans at Bloomington, a home for old soldiers and sailors at Quincy, a home for feeble 39 610 LIVE QUESTIONS. minded at Lincoln, a charitable eye and ear infirmary at Chicago, giving free treatment to thousands and thousands of poor, and we have already four large insane asylums, one at Elgin with about twelve hundred patients, another at Jacksonville with about twelve hundred patients, one at Anna with about a thousand patients, and one at Kankakee with twenty-two hundred patients. This year the State is founding two more asylums for the care of the insane, one of which is located at Peoria, and we here lay the corner-stone for the other to-day. It is a matter of congratulation for every citizen of Illinois that in efficiency and usefulness the charitable institutions of this State are unsurpassed upon the globe. There are a few institutions in the East and in Europe which make more display, which maintain a great deal more pomp in administration; that is, the officers have more elegant quarters and live in grander style, but nowhere is the care and the comfort of patients more earnestly looked after than in our State. These institutions are not partisan. They are maintained by all of our people and they should be the pride of all of our people. Every citizen of the State has a right to know how they are administered and I will say that we are making every effort to run the administrative departments of these institutions upon purely business principles and at the same time to bring the institutions up to the highest possible scientific standard. The aim is to buy all supplies of the lowest bidder, to have nobody on the pay-roll who is not absolutely needed and to keep no man on the pay-roll for an hour after it is discovered that he is incompetent. And the inflexible rule is to promptly discharge any employe who is careless in the discharge of his duties or is rough or brutal in dealing with patients. Three years ago I instructed the superintendent of each charitable institution in the State to investigate the best institutions similar in character to his, in this country and in Europe, and also the results of the latest scientific researches as to methods of treatment, etc., and to compare methods of treatment there with those in his institution and to report the result of such investigation together with his con- clusions. Also that if anything was found anywhere which was thought to be an improvement upon what was already had, to promptly adopt it. As a result many of the superintendents made most thorough re- ports of their investigations and I feel warranted in saying to you that no country on the earth to-day has charitable institutions that surpass those of our own great State. My fellow citizens of northwestern Illinois, you have waited long HOSPITAL FOR INSANE, ROCK ISLAND. 611 for your day. While this State was developing and founding institu- tions in all other sections of it you helped bear the burden without a murmur. No section of the State contributes more freely of its re- sources to the support of our institutions than does this section. Nowhere are there to be found a people more intelligent and patriotic than are the people of this section, and no section in the Union sur- passed northwestern Illinois in furnishing brave men to support the integrity of the flag. You have long felt that you were entitled to recognition. That your location and importance entitled you to a State institution. Your representatives in the Legislature have worked hard for this end and your day has come, and as the Executive of this State it gives me great pleasure to assist in the ceremonies of laying this corner-stone. I feel that I am most fortunate in having been of- ficially connected with the State at a time when she is founding a num- ber of new institutions; for we are founding two new insane asylums, two new normal universities, besides erecting a number of other most important public buildings in different sections of the State. What was known as the Augustine age in Rome was made lustrous, not by Augustus, who was not a great man, but by the genius and the works of the great men of that age. I feel that I am fortunate in being officially connected with this State at this time when her great people are planting the landmarks of her civilization by the erection of new institutions. I commit this institution to your watchful care, to your patriotism and to your high sense of public duty. No matter who the trustees may be from time to time, they will be influenced by your judgment and I ask you to see to it that this institution is made to serve the high purpose for which it was founded. I ask you to see to it for all the years to come that it be not used as a convenience by political manipulators and that its pay-roll be not made to furnish support for the dependent relatives of prominent citizens. I ask you to see to it that character, merit and superior qualifications alone shall rule this insti- tution. You have observed that the style of architecture adopted is what has been called Tudor-Gothic and has something in common with some of the famous castles found in Europe. I am told that as a traveler ascends the Rhine and views some noted castle situated on a hill-top he is regaled with an account of the marauding baron who lived there centuries ago and with a small band of retainers emerged from time to time to rob and plunder his weaker neighbors. In the centuries which are to come, as the intelligent traveler shall ascend the great Father of Waters and see this magnificent structure 6x2 LIVE QUESTIONS. commanding a view of the surrounding country, he will exclaim: "There stands a monument to the intelligence, the civilization and the humanity of the people of northwestern Illinois." ANSWER TO SCHURZ AND COCHRAN. (Delivered at Central Music Hall, Chicago, September 19, 1896.) Ladies and Gentlemen: I hold in my hand a printed copy of the speech of Mr. Carl Schurz, delivered in this city two weeks ago, and a like copy of the speech of Mr. Cochran, delivered- one week ago. The first fills twelve col- umns of closely printed matter in a newspaper, and both have been advertised as the ablest. arguments in favor of the gold standard that have yet been made. The gold standard advocates speak of them as containing Moses and the prophets, the law and the gospel of the money question. From the manner in which these people speak of them we are warranted in concluding that every argument and 'every fact that can be marshaled upon that side of the question is contained in these speeches. This being the case we naturally examine them with the deepest interest, for if the gold standard is to be maintained we want to know what we may reasonably hope from it. NO HOPE IN EITHER. It would have given great relief to the minds of thousands of patriotic men to have had presented some balm for the ills of our land, and as I love my country more than party or honors, I am sorry to have to say to you that in these long speeches, containing as we are told the law and the gospel of the gold standard, there is not a line, not a sentence, not a syllable that offers any hope to the American people. That we are in distress is not denied in either speech, but there is no suggestion of a remedy. The substance of the whole argu- ment is, that we will be better off and suffer less if we keep quiet, and that the remedy proposed by the Chicago platform would only make matters worse instead of better, or, as Mr. Schurz puts it, the application of this remedy would be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, and if he is correct in this then the only question which is left for the consideration of those of our people who are dying in the frying pan is whether they would be any worse off in the fire. M'KINLEY PANACEA. The straight-out adherents of McKinley have a panacea. They realize the unsatisfactory conditions in our land and propose to remedy ANSWER TO SCHURZ AND COCHRAN. 613 them by an increase of the tariff. They feel that some hope must be offered to the American people and having nothing else to present they ask us to again try the idea of increasing the tariff tax. THEY ASK PEOPLE TO SHUT THEIR EYES. They ask the people to shut their eyes to the fact that the distress from which we suffer exists all over Europe as well as this country; that it exists in the countries having a high tariff and in countries having a moderate tariff and countries having no tariff at all, and is clearly due to some cause that has no connection with the tariff. They ask us to shut our eyes to the fact that we have already a very high tariff and that the decline in prices began many years ago under a still higher tariff and that it went right on under the highest tariff ever known in this country, called the McKinley tariff. They ask us to shut our eyes to the fact that in 1888 the conditions in our country were unsatisfactory and that the remedy that was then proposed as a cure was an increase of the tariff and that this immediately followed the election of Mr. Harrison when the famous McKinley bill was enacted. They ask us to shut our eyes to the fact that under that law wages were not raised, prices kept steadily falling and that immediately after its enactment in 1890 there was a marked reduction in wages in several hundred of the largest manufacturing establishments of this country. They ask us to shut our eyes to the fact that while the tariff shielded the manufacturer in some cases against competition it per- mitted him to fill his factories with the cheapest kind of pauper labor brought from the fields of Europe and thus instead of raising the wages of the American workman not only reduced their wages but drove them out of employment. They ask us to shut our eyes to the fact that it was in the spring of 1892 while the McKinley law, was in force and while Mr. Harrison was President that the famous Home- stead labor riots occurred, being among the most bloody that ever took place in this country; that at that time the conditions of the la- borer were rapidly getting worse and the prices of American products were steadily falling. They ask us to shut our eyes to the fact that the McKinley law for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1894, produced a deficit to the United States treasury of $70,000,000. They ask us to shut our eyes to the fact that neither the laboring man of this coun- try nor of Europe has derived any substantial benefit from the tariff because the employer is always permitted to fill his shop with cheap labor. They ask us to shut our eyes to the fact that the tariff is no longer a matter of theory but a matter of history. It has been tried and it has been found wanting. Consequently with the adherents of 614 LIVE QUESTIONS. McKinley it is a question in this campaign of seeing how often they can fool the people. Both Mr. Schurz and Mr. Cochran have been avowed enemies of this tariff. They cannot and they do not offer it as a remedy for any of the ills of the land) and having no other remedy to offer and seeing no prospect of a change for the better under existing policies they simply tell the patient that if he will only lie still he will suffer less than if he attempts to bestir himself. They have no remedy to suggest but they strenuously object to permitting the people to do anything towards helping themselves. That bishop who told an anxious negro that there were only two ways open for him and that one led directly down to hell while the other led away off to eternal damnation was evidently the man who furnished the text for both of these speeches. The negro scratched his head and replied: "If dat's so, massa, den dis chile takes to de woods." And if Messrs. Schurz and Cockran are correct then the American people will ha've to take to the woods. NOT A LOCAL QUESTION. , In considering the question as to whether the demonetization of silver in the world reduced prices they shrewdly leave Europe out of consideration, shut their eyes to the fact that the effects produced there are the same as those produced here, treat the whole question as though it were local to our country, and then argue that inasmuch as - there had not been many silver dollars coined in our country and those that were coined went abroad, because of the fact that they com- manded a premium of two per cent., that, therefore, the demonetiza- tion of silver in the United States could not have affected prices be- cause there was scarcely any silver here to drive out of circulation. SILVER IN EUROPE HELPED TO FIX PRICES. Let us first look at this theory. The greatest markets for most of American products were in Europe; whatever affected prices of com- modities which were shipped there in the end affected the prices of commodities at home. Let us suppose that there was no silver in circulation in the United States, that as Mr. Schurz intimates it was all in circulation in Europe, then it was doing the work of money in Europe, it was doing a work there which would otherwise have had to be done by gold ; it practically displaced that much gold over there and permitted the gold to flow elsewhere. It increased the vol- ume of money in the world, and in that way affected prices for the world, not simply in any one country, but -for the world. Under those conditions, so far as prices were concerned, it made' little difference ANSWER TO SCHURZ AND COCHRAN. 615 whether the owners of silver bullion brought it to our mints to -be coined or took it to European mints to be coined. In either case it helped to swell the volume of money in the world, it helped to do the business of the world, and helped to fix the standard of prices of property. Mr. Schurz knew this fact, and I, therefore, submit that when he, at the outset, tried to treat the question as a local one and to conceal from view the fact that if silver was circulating in Europe it was just as good as if it were circulating here, so far as prices were concerned, he was not making a fair presentation of the question. I do not care to use severer language, although I am aware that if a man speaking for the silver side was to pursue such a course he would be vehemently denounced as a pettifogger. COINAGE IN THIS COUNTRY. Now let us look at the facts in regard to the coinage of silver in this country. It is true that Jefferson for a time suspended the coinage of silver dollars. The reason was that half dollars were a full legal tender for any amount, just as much as dollars were, and inasmuch as the country was new and poor it was thought that half dollars would be more convenient in circulation than dollars, and inasmuch as they could be used in payment of debts the same as dollars it made no dif- ference, but the coinage was on the same basis as that of gold, and any. man having silver bullion could convert it into money just the same as though it were gold, and the treasury tables given out at Washing- ton show that from 1806 down to 1873 there were $154,318,071 of sil- ver coined in this country. In 1871 there were 1,117,127 of silver dol- lars coined — not subsidiary coins, but dollars — and in 1872 there were 1,118,600 silver dollars coined, being nearly twice the number ever before coined in one year. Bear this in mind, the two years before silver was striken down there were nearly twice as many silver dollars coined as in any previous year. Mr. Schurz knew these facts, and yet he presents his figures in such a way as to make the impression that no silver had been coined in this country, and therefore we demone- tized nothing. AMOUNT OF MONEY IN THIS COUNTRY. His next claim is that we had more money per capita in circulation in 1895 than we had prior to the demonetization, and that, therefore, there was no reduction in the volume of money, and that consequently demonetization had nothing to do with the fall of prices. He says that in 1895 we had a total of $2,217,000,000 in circulation, making $22.96 per capita, while in 1873 we had only $18.04 per capita in circulation. 616 LIVE QUESTIONS. TABLES WRONG. Now, this is based on the tables given out by one branch of the Treasury Department; that is, the director of the mint, and sometimes copied in the reports of other branches of the treasury, but they ema- nate originally from the office of the director of the mint, and they are not only wrong, but are well known to be wrong. In his report for the year 1892 the director of the mint explains the origin of these tables. They ascertained what specie there was in the country at the time of resumption, and they have added to it year by year the coinage and what the custom-house records show to have been imported, and they have deducted only what the records show to have been used in the arts and what the records show to have been exported, and they assume that all the balance is still in circulation. They make no al- lowance for what was carried over our Southern boundary in a quarter of a century unrecorded, nor for what was carried over our northern boundary during that time unrecorded, nor for what was carried to China during that time unrecorded, nor for what was lost during that time, nor for what was used in the arts for a quarter of a century with- out a record having been made of it, and they make no allowance for what was carried to Europe in the pockets of American citizens traveling abroad, and of which no record is made; yet in one of his reports the director of the mint says that it was estimated that the American travelers in Europe during the year of the Paris exposition spent $90,000,000. Of course the most of that we may presume was in the shape of letters of credit and therefore a record was made of it, but no record was made of what they carried in their pockets. Thus you see that the tables become utterly worthless. Again, in regard to paper money, they assume that every dollar that was ever issued, by the government and is not shown by the records at Washington to have been canceled is still in circulation, a proposition too absurd to be discussed. REPORTS OF BANKS. But the Treasury Department gives out another report that is accurate and it tells an entirely different story in regard to the amount of money we have in our country. This report is given out by the comptroller of the currency who has supervision of the national banks. For several years past the comptroller has been sending a request to every bank in the United States, national, State and private, to report the amount of money they had on hand at the close of business on a particular day and to state what it consisted of. There are in the United States a little less than four thousand national banks and about 'ANSWER TO SCHURZ AND COCHRAN. 617 five thousand State and private banks. Substantially all of these banks responded to the inquiry and I have here the comptroller's re- port for the year 1895 and on page 15 he gives a summary of these reports. REPORT OF COMPTROLLER. I will give you this in the language of the comptroller: "The cash held by national banks on July nth, and by other banks at about that date, amounts to $631,111,290, classified as follows: Gold, $127,- 621,099; silver, $15,594,037; specie not classified, $19,298,363; paper currency, $342,739,129; fractional currency, $1,023,442, and cash not classified, $124,835,220." The reports for several prior years were practically the same. At about that time there were iri the United States Treasury all told, $329,517,713 available for circulation. Add- ing this sum to what there was then in all the banks of the United States it makes $950,629,000. This constituted all of the money in sight in this country except what there was then in the pockets of the people. There is no way of ascertaining definitely just what this would amount to, but considering the fact that we had had several years of panic and idleness and distress, during which time most of the little savings had been used up, and considering the further facts that in recent years building associations have been formed in every village in the land, and the money that used to be saved or hoarded in a small way was drawn out and absorbed by these building associations; and that we have banks in almost every village in the land, and that all business men deposit every day so as not to run the risk of leaving much money in their stores over night, it is apparent that the amount of money then in the pockets of the people was not large. Good judges have asserted that when you take into consideration all of the poor laboring classes of this country and of the colored people of the South, and the fact that farmers had very little money, that an aver- age of five dollars per household would be a full average, and as there were then about fourteen million families, that would make seventy millions of dollars. But in order to cover every contingency let us nearly double this, let us add another fifty million. This would make one hundred and twenty million dollars, being at that time, as we say, in the pockets of the people. ^Adding this sum to what there was then in the banks and in the Treasury it makes $1,070,629,000 as the total money in the United States available for circulation, less than half of the sum named by Mr. Schurz. 618 LIVE QUESTIONS. AMOUNT PER CAPITA. Now bear in mind that this is the result of an actual inventory made by all the monied institutions in this country and therefore is the most reliable information which the Treasury Department has yet furnished us upon this question. If you say we have underesti- mated the amount in the pockets of the people then add another five dollars for each household and it will make only $70,000,000 more and still be only half the sum named by Mr. Schurz. If Mr. Schurz knew these facts and withheld them from his audi- ence and his readers and used figures that were incorrect for the pur- pose of making a wrong impression, then you will admit that he is not a safe guide. If he did not know these facts then it will be ad- mitted he is not a safe counsel. But in either case it is apparent that so much of his argument as was based upon the alleged amount of money we have in this country must fall to the ground. MONEY SCARCE. The fact is there is not enough money in this country at present to do its business. In all of the agricultural States of the South, the Mis- sissippi Valley and the West, there is the greatest scarcity of money. The banks are unable to furnish what is needed, and even in the money centers a very little disturbance renders the banks helpless. Recently, we had what is known as the "Diamond Match Stock Speculation," and a collapse followed, and so seriously did this single speculation strain the money market of this great city, with all of its large banks, that many of the banks had to refuse credits to their customers in legitimate business, and the banks, acting together, forced the stock exchange to close, so thai: there should be no market quotations on Diamond Match stock, for fear that otherwise a number of banks would be unable to meet their obligations and be ruined. A feW years ago the banks of New York that are perniciously active in this money agitation -actually refused to pay their obligations because they had not the money with which to do it, and forced the public to take clearing-house certificates. Mr. Schurz says there are oceans of money lying idle, and then in another sentence he says that gold is now leaving our country and going to Europ : because it finds prof- itable employment there. Naturally you ask if there are oceans of money lying idle in those money centers, then how can money going there from here find profitable employment there. He is no doubt correct in this, that there is congestion in money centers, but it is be- • cause of the constant downward tendency in prices which prevent ANSWER TO SCHURZ AND COCHRAN. 619 prudent men from embarking in enterprises and using money for legitimate purposes. The heart is congested and the extremities are cold, a condition which always follows when a large portion of the blood is taken from a patient. SMALL AMOUNT OF GOLD HERE. In passing, I call your attention again to the fact that, on the 1 ith day of July, 1895, all of the banks in the United States of America together held only $127,629,099 of gold, and that sum, added to the hundred millions of gold that are supposed to be constantly in the treasury, constituted all the gold there was in- sight in the United States. No sensible man now claims the poor people are hoarding gold; the fact is that even rich people rarely get to see it. In depict- ing the horrors which will come upon our country in the event of the election of Mr. Bryan, Mr. Schurz points out in a thrilling manner how six hundred million dollars of gold would instantly take wings and vanish. Other gold standard orators have dwelt loud and long upon the vanishing of six hundred million dollars of gold. It is one of the stock arguments met everywhere, and it is iterated and reiterat- ed by the bankers themselves. Now, in view of the facts published by the Treasury Department itself, and which will not be challenged by gold standard people, I am warranted in asserting that these bankers know that there are scarcely two hundred million dollars of gold in the entire country, including what there is in the United States Treas- ury. They know that if every dollar of gold were withdrawn from all the banks in this country, it would make only a little over $127,000,- 000. When they therefore try to make the impression that there would be a contraction of $600,000,000, their conduct is in keeping with the whole history of this gold standard movement; that is, it is one of misrepresentation, deception and fraud. These bankers further know, and Mr. Schurz knows, that, no matter who is elected President, so long as they want to run their banks they will of necessity keep some gold, and it will perform the functions of -money while they have it. The fact is, they could not well reduce the amount of gold they now have, and whoever is elected President, there will be little or no move- ment of gold from the banks of this country; but if it were all to go, and if that which is in the United States Treasury were also to go, it would amount to only about $227,000,000 of gold. Therefore so much of the awful catastrophe that is to befall this land by the removal of six hundred million dollars of gold, in the event of the election of Mr. Bryan, will not come to pass. It is one of those predicted storms that it is not necessary to insure against. §26 LIVE QUESTIONS. NO OVERPRODUCTION. But the main fabric of the whole speech of Mr. Schurz is based upon the theory of overproduction. He insists that there is a fall in the price of silver and that this is due to overproduction. That there was so much more silver produced than formerly that it had to fall in price. You will readily see that if there was the same increase in the produc- tion of both metals, then there was no reason why the relations which they bore to each other, or the market ratio which they bore to each other, should change. Mr. Schurz knew this. Why didn't he state it that way? Because he knew the facts were against him. He wanted - to make an impression which he could not make without a suppression of part of the case. Fortunately this is not a matter that we need to speculate about. We have history, experience and accurate data upon this subject. According to the tables issued by the Treasury De- partment August 16,-1893, showing the total production of gold and silver in the world at coinage value, it appears that from the year 1792, when our monetary system was founded, to the year 1852, the time of the great gold discoveries, being a period of sixty years, the total pro- duction of silver in the world, rating it at coinage value, was $1,769,- 197,000 and the total production of gold in the world during that time was $960,236,000; that is, on the average there was just about twice as much silver produced as gold, during that time. The production ' of each metal varied of course during the different years, and yet the market ratio between the two metals remained practically the same during all that time. The tables giving the market prices show that during those sixty years there was a variance of only seven-tenths of one point, or just about the cost of exchange. The same tables show that from 1852 to 1873 the total gold production of the world was $2,516,575,000 while the total silver production was only $989,225,000, that is, there was two and a half times as much gold produced as sil- ver, yet the market ratio remained unchanged during these twenty- one years just as it had during the period of sixty years when there was twice as much silver as gold produced. Again, the same tables show that from 1873. t0 l %9 2 > inclusive, the total gold production of the world was $2,176,505,000,. while the total silver production was $2,- 347,087,000, that is, the production of gold was nearly equal to that of silver. During the first two periods silver was a money metal. Dur- ing the last period it was not. Inasmuch as silver did not fall in value, as measured in gold, during the sixty years in which there was twice as much silver produced as there was gold, it is clear that had silver 'ANSWER TO SCHURZ AND COCHRAN. '62 1 not been demonetized it would not have fallen when the gold pro- duction was nearly equal to that of silver after 1873. SILVER HAS NOT FALLEN. Again, silver has not fallen in comparison with other property. By taking the average price of all commodities known to the market it is found that a pound of silver will buy as great an amount of com- modities as ever. Silver occupies the same relation to the products of the earth and to labor to-day that it did before. It is gold that has gone up. The law by striking down the competition has given gold a monopoly. It protects gold against competition. Practically the gold dollar is a 200-cent dollar. Nominally it still has only 100 cents in it, but it takes 200 cents' worth of commodities to get one, when measured by bimetallic prices. Consequently, we find, first that there has been no increase in the production of silver when compared with the increase in the production of gold, and secondly we find that silver has not fallen when compared with property and the products of labor, therefore the entire fabric of Mr. Schurz's argument must fall to the ground. FALL OF WAGES. Mr. Schurz next tried to convey the impression that wages have not fallen, and were therefore not affected by the demonetization of silver; and he says that wages have risen more than 60 per cent, since i860. See the ingenuity of this and ask yourselves whether this is a fair way of representing that question. All the world knows that wages have nearly doubled since i860. The question is, how have wages been affected by the fact that this country and Europe demone- tized silver and reduced the volume of money in the world between 1873 and 1879. Had he been candid he would have compared the wages for say twelve years prior to the general demonetization with wages for twelve years after that general demonetization was accom- plished. This subject of wages was carefully inquired into, in the year 1891, by a committee appointed by the United States Senate. This com- mittee made a thorough investigation. John G. Carlisle, the present Secretary of the Treasury, was a member of that committee. It made a long and full report, and it showed that between 1840 and 1873 wages had just about doubled, and then, the report says: "After 1873 there was a marked falling off." The report goes on and shows that toward 1880 there was a slight rise in wages above the point they had recently fallen to, but never reached the point they had occupied before, and that soon thereafter a decline set in which continued. 622 LIVE QUESTIONS. Mr. Schurz was once a member of the United States Senate, and the investigation by this committee on the subject of wages must have attracted his attention. If he was thorough in his investigation he must have seen this report. Had he been thoroughly candid he would not have tried to make the impression that because wages had risen between i860 and 1873 that therefore they were still as high as they ever were. The fact is that there was a great fall in wages between 1873 and 1880, there was a slight rally in '80 due to causes which I will explain presently. This lasted for a comparatively short time, and since that time there- has been a steady decline in. wages. Wages arid prices must on the average go hand in hand. Labor creates proper- ty; if property must be sold for low prices then labor can not be paid high wages for creating it. This is axiomatic. PRICES WOULD NOT FALL AT ONCE. Mr. Schurz tells us that if the demonetization of silver had any- thing to do with the fall in prices, then the fall should have come in- stantly. I ask you to consider that statement a moment and then tell me whether it is not contrary to the universal experience of man- kind. Owners of property do not accept lower prices until they are obliged to. No matter what cause may be operating to reduce prices, owners of property hold it- up as long as they can, they hold it up until the debts press too hard and the strain gets too severe, when they are obliged to let it go. So that the decline is never instant, and in the very nature of things comes gradually, the weaker holders giving way first and the stronger holding out till the last. Further, silver was not demonetized by all of the countries at once. Germany set her face toward demonetization in 1871, but did not enact her lavyc until 1873; our government acted in 1873, the other nations followed later; Holland acted in 1875, Russia in 1876, and Austria did not adopt a gold standard until 1879. It is true that owing to the fact that Ger- many, Italy and some other countries drew heavily upon the principal gold market of the world, which is London, there were serious mone- tary disturbances in London and some portions of Europe almost every year after 1873, and prices and consequently business were seriously affected in Europe during this year. All of the leading finan- cial writers of England refer to this fact, and although they insist on maintaining the gold standard for England, because she is a creditor nation, they attribute this fall in prices, this disturbance in business to the acts of the governments of Europe in striking down silver by law, and establishing a gold standard, because these acts of govern- ment affect the supply and demand. 'ANSWER TO SCHVRZ AMD CdCtfRAtf. 623 SUPPLY AND DEMAND. By destroying silver they reduced the supply of money in the world. By adopting a gold standard they increased the demand for gold. In our country there were a number of reasons why the de- monetization of silver was not immediately felt. First, the govern- ment had between 1866 and i860 reduced the volume of paper money we had in this country, which was all the money we had, from one thousand six hundred and forty odd millions down to less than eight hundred millions and had issued bonds instead. This reduction in the volume of money then in circulation in our country was followed by a corresponding fall in prices which had been based on the former volume of paper money. PANIC OF 1873. The fall was so great that debtors were unable to meet the debts which had been contracted on the basis of prices formerly prevailing and the panic of 1873 followed as a necessary result of that. By issuing more bonds the government got coin and we resumed what were called specie payments. BALANCE OF TRADE AND INCREASE OF MONEY. When we began to rally from the panic of '73 Europe was feeling the effect of the demonetization of silver, but in our country we found that the balance of trade between us and Europe toward 1880 was greatly in our favor so that according to the treasury tables there were added to the volume of money in our country from that source several hundred millions of dollars. Our gold mines were productive during that time and there was a large addition to our circulating medium from that source. Then the Bland-Allison act which partially restored silver was enacted in 1878 and required the Secretary of the Treasury to coin not less than two nor more than four millions of dollars per month. The effect of this was to add anywhere from twenty-five to forty-eight millions of dollars per year to our currency and thus helped to keep up prices. The increase in the volume of money in our coun- try, according to treasury tables, during these years was so great that prices and wages rose correspondingly from what they had been after the panic of 1873. But these causes were local and did not last and in the course of a few years the general depression which had already spread over Europe, following the demonetization of silver, began to spread over our country and from that time on has become more and more intense. &4 UVE QUESTIONS. EFFECT OF FALLING PRICES. Both Mr. Schurz and Mr. Cochran treat the whole subject of fall- ing prices as if it were simply a scramble between different citizens — between seller and buyer. If this were all, then the matter would not be of such transcendent and far-reaching importance, and would not so directly affect the welfare of the whole people. Neither grasps the great principle that falling prices first disturb business in its entire cir- cle, and affect the property of both rich and poor, and that when prices go very low they destroy the purchasing power of the great producing and farming classes, and that this destroys what we call the home mar- ket and forces manufacturing establishments to shut down, because there are not sufficient buyers to take what they make, and thus forces labor into idleness and destroys the, purchasing power of labor and produces a general paralysis in the land. No matter what may be the cause of falling prices, their effect upon the community is more than a mere scramble between buyer and seller, and' here is where all advo- cates of the gold standard fail to rise to the occasion, fail to meet the requirements of the case; their treatment of this question is almost flippant. PRODUCTION AND PRICE OF WHEAT. In attempting to account for the fall in price of prop- erty, Mr. Schurz selects wheat as an illustration, and he attempts to show that there has been a great increase in the annual production of wheat; that we have not only open the whole Northwest, which is producing wheat, but that our farmers have to compete with the wheat of India, Argentine Republic and of Russia, and he assumes that therefore the price of wheat had to fall. There are three things to be said in answer to this. First, increase in production does not produce a fall in price, provided there is an equal increase in consumption. This is self-evident, and Mr. Giffen, the statistician of the British Board of Trade, has, on dif- ferent occasions, pointed out that for more than fifteen years prior to 1873 tne increase in the production of nearly all commodities in the world had been greater on the average, year by year, than the increase has been in any year since 1873, and yet, as he says, during all of those years prior to 1873 prices kept constantly rising, notwithstanding the enormously increased production, while since 1873 prices have been steadily falling, notwithstanding that the increase was not as great as it formerly was. The second observation is that wheat has not fallen in price any 'ANSWER TO SCHURZ AND COCHRAN. 625 more than all other commodities. It has fallen no more than all prop- erty has fallen; has fallen no more than wages. It is not contended that Russia, India and the Argentine Republic have entered into com- petition in the production of all other products which our people put upon the market. These two points show that Mr. Schurz is entirely wrong in his theories. The third observation is that he is entirely wrong in his facts. The truth is that there has been scarcely any improvement in ma- chinery for raising and harvesting wheat in the last twenty years, and the statistics show that there has been very little increase in the pro- duction of wheat in the United States in that time. More is raised in the Northwest it is true, but very much less is raised in the central and eastern States. I have endeavored to get the most reliable data on this question from the reports of the various Boards of Trade and the government reports, which are recognized as the highest author- ity obtainable on this subject. The government reports show that the wheat crop for 1878 was more than 420,000,000 bushels, and that for the year 1896 the crop does not exceed 400,000,000 bushels. In fact, if the increase in population is considered, the wheat crop has constant- ly grown less in proportion to the consuming population ever since 1878. The wheat crop of this year is about 56,000,000 bushels short of what the average has been since 1878, and is 20,000,000 bushels less than it was that year. So that in spite of the opening of the new fields in the Northwest there has been no greatly increased production of wheat in this country, and when compared with the consuming popula- tion there has been an actual falling off, yet twenty years ago the price of wheat was more than twice what it is now. Again, in referring to the foreign wheat he endeavors to make the impression that there has been a great increase in production, and artfully selects a recent year of the highest production and compares that with an earlier year having the lowest production. The fact is that the world's wheat crop has remained substantially the same for sixteen years. In 1880 the world's production of wheat was 2,280,000,- 000 bushels. In 1885 it was 2,108,000,000 bushels, and that was the lowest crop of a number of years. In 1895 the crop was very large and amounted to 2,553,000,000 bushels. This year the world's produc- tion is 120,000,000 less than last year, and the total production of the world is smaller than it has been for six years, yet wheat is lower than ever before. In addition to this, the crop of rye which, together with wheat, furnishes the bread of the world, is 170,000,000 short, yet in spite of that fact the price of rye has fallen steadily with that of wheat, 40 626 LIVE QUESTIONS. It may also be remarked that we have the smallest- oat crop that we have had for a great many years, and yet oats is worth less than one- half what it was several years ago. Now why is it that with the wheat crop of the world 120,000,000 bushels short and the population in- creasing enormously, the rye crop 170,000,000 short the price has reached the lowest point that it has ever reached in the history of the country? PURCHASING POWER OF MONEY. In order to get a more comprehensive view of the whole subject let us see what are the fundamental laws governing finance. There are two theories at present advanced in regard to the pur- chasing power of money ; one is what is called the cost of production theory under which supply and demand have but little influence, and the other may be called the quantitative or volume of money theory. This theory is based upon the law of supply and demand. COST OF PRODUCTION THEORY. The cost of production theory has been seized upon by the gold standard advocates of this country and is used as the basis of their ar- guments. It simply means that it takes on the average a definite amount of labor to produce a gold dollar and it is the cost of this labor, the average cost of producing the gold dollar, that fixes its purchasing power, and after the dollar is once in existence then its purchasing power undergoes comparatively little change. It will always buy an amount of property that is equal in value to the cost of producing the gold dollar and the question of sup- ply and demand has but little influence thereafter upon this dollar. It is practically unchangeable and always the same, so say the advo- cates of the gold standard. Under this theory it does not matter whether money is plentiful in the land or exceedingly scarce. The purchasing power of the dollar will always be about the same. It does not matter whether there are a thousand men scrambling to get the dollar because they must have it or whether there are only ten men scrambling to get it, the dollar will remain practically the same." It will buy no more property when a thousand men are struggling to get it than it will when only ten men are struggling to get it, and of course if this theory is correct then the demonetization of silver had no effect upon the world's prices of products and property. If it is correct you can wipe out one-half of the money that now exists in the world and it will not affect prices. The purchasing power of the dollar being determined by the cost of production it continues to be the same. I imagine I hear some man say: "Why, that theory is contrary to the ANSWER TO SCHURZ AND COCHRAN. 627 experience of the whole commercial world." Well, my friend, that makes no difference; gold standard advocates don't care about the experience of the commercial world. It is true that under this theory the gold dollar should have become very cheap in recent years be- cause there is scarcely an industry, scarcely a field of production in which such tremendous improvements have been made as in that of gold mining. The labor saving machinery introduced in the last quar- ter of a century in this industry is equal to if not greater than that applied to farming. It is exactly the same as that applied to the min- ing of silver. It costs less on the average to mine a gold dollar now than it ever did before, and yet a gold dollar will buy twice the prod- uct and twice the property that it did a quarter of a century ago. Let me say in regard to this theory that the great statesmen and great financiers of Europe never entertained it for a moment; they brush it aside with the wave of their hand and look upon it as being ridiculous. VOLUME OF MONEY THEORY. The other theory rests chiefly on the law of supply and demand. Under it the total amount of money in the world forms the standard and measure of prices. When there is a large amount of money in circulation among the people prices are high; when money is exceed- ingly scarce among the people then prices are low. Under this doc- trine if you wipe out one-half of the world's money prices fall corre- spondingly on the average. If you double the volume of the world's money prices will on the average double; that is, the general tendency will be that way. The price of any particular article or piece of prop- erty will again be affected by the law of supply and demand as relates to it. The volume of money forms what may be called the line for prices. It is horizontal if money is steady; it inclines upward if money is increasing in volume; it inclines downward if money is shrinking in volume and the general tendency of prices will be to move along this line, but the supply and demand in case of different articles will cause the price of those articles to from time to time either come slightly above or drop slightly below this line. This theory or law, like the law of gravitation in the physical world, is in harmony with and explains nearly all financial phenomena. When carefully studied it will be found running through all the centuries and producing the same results everywhere. Under this law the demonetization of silver had to affect general prices throughout the world. That is, it had to lower the general level of prices and this was the view which nearly all of the great statesmen and financiers of Europe took of the matter 628 LIVE QUESTIONS. at the time. But that is not all. Under this law two men require more money than one, a thousand require more than fifty do. INCREASE OF POPULATION. In other words, as population increases there must be a corre- sponding increase in the volume of money or there will follow a prac- tical shrinkage, that is, there will be less money per capita. Formerly there was added every year to the world's stock of money, not only all of the gold but all of the silver, except what was used in the arts, the > „ silver being about equal to the gold. This in a measure kept pace with the increase in population so that the increase in population would not necessarily affect prices, but now there is added annually only the gold that is produced, less what is used in the arts. In other words there is added only one-half as much as there used to be, while the population is increasing at a more rapid rate than ever. The necessary consequence of this is and will be that if this gold standard is main- tained prices must go on slowly and steadily falling throughout all the years to come. So that the demonetization of silver tended not only to reduce prices and thus paralyze the enterprises and the industries of the world, but it also creates a condition which must give us a slow- ly, but steadily increasing paralysis. CHECKS, DRAFTS, ETC. It is true that about 95 or 96 per cent, of all our business is done by means of checks, drafts, bank notes and other substitutes for money, and that only about 4 or 5 per cent, of our business is done in actual cash, and this fact has misled many men and we hear men argue that there is but little money needed ; that other things have taken the place of money and therefore it does not matter whether there is much money or little money. But these people lose sight of two things. First, that after all these checks, drafts, bank notes and other substi- tutes for money rest on money. Everyone admits that you must have some money, even though it be a little, to base these things on. No man has yet claimed that you can do away entirely with money and use these substitutes and get along. This being so, it necessarily fol- lows that there is a limit to the amount of credit which a dollar can carry. That is, there is a limit to the amount of the drafts, checks and bank notes that can be based upon a dollar. If this were not so, then if there were only one single dollar in the world all the business in the world could be done on credits based on that one dollar. But there is a limit to it. ANSWER TO SCHURZ AND COCHRAN. 629 CREDIT RESTS ON MONEY. The second thijig that is lost sight of by those people is that the enterprise, industry and business of the world is always so great that it exceeds the credit which a dollar can carry. In other words, the enterprise, the business and commerce of the earth are always car- ried to the uttermost point possible. They load every dollar up with all that it can carry and therefore when you strike out any dollar from under this load a certain part of the load must come down. When the amount of checks or drafts is increased it does not release a cer- tain amount of money and cause it to lie idle ; the enterprise of men will immediately reload all the money that is so released with every bit of credit it can carry. That is always the condition of the commercial and manufacturing world in prosperous times. It therefore follows that when you reduce the amount of money in the world under these conditions it is a much more serious matter than it would be if there were not these checks, drafts and other evidences of credit, because you destroy not only the given amount of money but you pull down so much of the whole fabric of credit or business, if you please, which has rested on that money. So when you increase the volume of money you not only make it possible to increase the amount of business in proportion, but you make it possible to increase the business twenty times as much as the actual increase in money, because every dollar of money will again be instantly loaded with credits. OPENING THE MINTS WILL INCREASE CREDITS. Therefore we say that opening the mints to silver will add to the stock of primary or legal tender money, and this will again be loaded with credits which will make possible an increase of business twenty times as great as the increase in money. We sometimes hear it asked "How will you get that money into circulation? or what good will this increase in money do you if you have not anything to get it with, if you have no property or any collateral?" That question is purely American and shows that in some things at least we are yet new. HOW MONEY WILL GET IN CIRCULATION. It needs but a moment's reflection to see that the additional money will get into circulation just as the money that is in circulation got there, and that when men again coin silver bullion into dollars or get certificates for it, which are legal tender, which can be used in paying taxes, which can be used in paying duties at the custom house, which can be used in paying debts, they are not going to let that money 630 LIVE QUESTIONS. lie idle because it will not make it profitable any longer to have it so. Money will cease appreciating in value then and they will go to build- ing houses, building shops, building railroads, manufacturing and do- ing business; they will start activity in a thousand channels and a thousand fields. That will be the result. There will be an imme- diate demand for brains and muscle. There will be an immediate de- mand for engineers, for skilled men, for clerks, for mechanics and for day laborers, and instead of laborers being obliged to tramp around over the country in search of work which they cannot find, they will be sought for at their homes and requested to come over and go to work. The man who has nothing to sell except his muscle will find a market for that muscle. The man who has nothing to sell except skill will find a market for that knowledge and very soon the whole com- munity will feel the vivifying and the electrifying effect of an increase of blood and vitality in its veins. M'KINLEY ON DEAR MONEY. Let me read to you what Major McKinley said on this subject in 1892 during the Presidential campaign when he was speaking of Gro- ver Cleveland: "During all his years at the head of the government he was dis- honoring one of our precious metals, one of our great products; dis- crediting silver and enhancing the price of gold. He endeavored, even before his inauguration to office, to stop the coinage of silver dollars, and afterward, and to the end of his administration, persistently used his power to that end. He was determined to con- tract the circulating medium, demonetize one of the coins of com- merce, and limit the volume of money among the people, make money scarce and therefore dear. He would have increased the value of money and diminished the value of everything else ; money the master and everything else its servant. He was not thinking of the poor then, he had left their side, he was- not standing forth in their defense. Cheap coats, cheap labor and dear money! The sponsor and pro- moter of these professing to stand guard over the poor and lowly! Was there ever more glaring inconsistency or reckless assumption? He believes that poverty is a blessing to be promoted and encour- aged, and that a shrinkage in everything but money is a national ben- ediction." This is what Mr. McKinley, speaking tc the Ohio Republican League, said about our President, Grover Cleveland. Mr. McKinley was right then, but wrong now — and the other gentleman has been wrong all the time, ANSWER TO SCHURZ AND COCHRAN. 631 You notice that the Major distinctly recognizes the principles that demonetizing silver tended to make money scarce and dear and that dear money meant low prices and low wages. That dear money means hard times and poverty. OTHER STATESMEN. I would like to read to you the language of Mr. Goschen, a great banker of London and late chancellor of the British Exchequer, one of the great statesmen and financiers of the world to-day. I should like to read to you the language of Mr. Giffen, the statistician of the Brit- ish Board of Trade. I should like to read to you the report of the Royal Commission on Gold and Silver made to Parliament in 1888. I should like to read to you the language of a number of other great economists and financiers, men who for years have been assisting in the management of the world's affairs, who for years have had their finger upon the pulse of the commerce and the business of the earth, who have watched the circulation of its blood and have felt its heart beats; men who are not theorists, but who are first students and then practical men, and you would be astonished to see how their views are all in accord upon this great question. They hold that the law of supply and demand does apply to money. They hold that when the governments by law demonetize silver or wipe out any other actual money the governments thus by law reduce the world's supply of money. They hold that when the governments adopt a gold standard and make it the only legal tender money, the governments by law in- crease the demand for gold, because by reason of the law more people must thereafter have gold than formerly had to have it. INCREASING DEMAND FOR GOLD. The work that was formerly done by silver has thereafter to be done by gold, and the necessary consequence of this is to increase the importance of gold, to double the number of people who have to have it, and in the end double the purchasing power of the gold dollar. Now, we insist that in harmony with the world's basic law of finance ; in harmony with the entire experience of mankind; in harmony with the expressed views of the greatest statesmen, living or dead, that the demonetization of silver doubled the purchasing power of gold, so that it took twice as much of the products of the earth to get a gold dollar and pay a debt or pay taxes thereafter; twice as much labor as it for- merly di& 632 LIVE QUESTIONS. DESTRUCTION OF HOME MARKET. The consequence was not only to do an injustice to the whole debtor world, but inasmuch as taxes, interest, debts and fixed charges remained the same, it destroyed the purchasing power of the whole producing classes, because' it took all they could scrape together to meet the fixed charges. This first destroyed business and necessarily forced the manufacturers to shut d6wn, because there were no longer . purchasers for what they made, so that in turn labor stood i^le, and it was no comfort to tell the laborer that if he had a gold dollar it would buy twice as much as it used to. For, if there was no purchaser for what he made, there was no way to get any kind of a dollar. Thus there followed naturally universal paralysis and distress. RESTORE PURCHASING POWER. We insist that according to this same law the restoration of silver will tend to again raise prices and again restore the purchasing power of the farming and producing classes, and with the restoration of that purchasing power, when the farmer can again spend money at the store, can again spend money at the shop, spend money at the col- lege, spend money in travel there' will come universal activity. The manufacturer will again find a market for what he makes, and labor will be employed and the tendency will be to revive universal activity and prosperity. MINE OWNER AND FARMER. Like the common run of gold standard orators, Mr. Schurz ap- pealed to the prejudice of his audience by bringing in the mythical rich mine owner. Now there are two -things to be said in regard to the mine owners. First, a rich mine owner is largely a myth. They are all in distress. Second, the prices of the mine owner's products have not fallen any more than have the prices of farm products. They stand exactly on the same level. As measured by gold, silver sells for just one-half what it did, and that is true on an average of all farm products. The mine owner has an enormous advantage over the farmer in breasting the hard times in this, that when he finds that it does not pay to operate his mine he simply shuts it up, and the people who suffer directly are the laborers who are thrown out of employ- ment, but the farmer cannot stop farming. No matter how low pro- ducts go in price the farm has to go on as before. He must support his family there; he must make his taxes; he is obliged to go on cultivating his farm and raise more products whether they bring him 'ANSWER TO SCHllRZ AND COCHRAN. 633 big prices or a little price. So that the mine owner in the first in- stance does not suffer as much as the farmer, and can protect himself in a manner that the farmer cannot. Therefore in the future I would suggest to the gold standard orators that they drag in the rich farmer and use him as a bugaboo, as the man who is going to profit by the restoration of silver. But to show the utter want of consistency, if not of good faith, I call your attention to the fact that throughout the whole of Mr. Schurz's speech he speaks of a 50-cent dollar. He describes the conditions that are going to exist after Mr.- Bryan is elected and after the new regime has been introduced, and he tells you how silver dollars will be worth only 50 cents under the new order of things and the great injustice that will be done to creditors by giving them dollars that are worth in the market only 50 cents. He dwells on this in a manner that is pathetic, and strange to say, he does this after having told his hearers that the mine owner was the man who was to be made enormously rich by the restoration of silver. Now if the mine owner is to be made rich, it will have to be by raising the price of silver in the market, and if by reason of the increased demand for silver and its use again as money the price of silver rises in the market, then there will be no 50-cent dollar. If all of the new silver dollars can be used to do exactly the same work that a gold dollar would do, then it is self-evident that the gold dollar will have to come down from its high perch and be worth no more than a silver dollar. SAVINGS BANKS. During the last few years we have heard a great deal about the deposits in savings banks increasing. This allegation, like that to the rich mine owner and the fifty-cent dollar, is constantly harnessed up and made to do duty by the gold standard people and one would get the impression that instead of stagnation in industry and in business in this country there was the greatest activity and that all of our people were employed and that everybody was happy. But the fact is, that inasmuch as the savings banks pay a high rate of interest, higher than the ordinary commercial banks do upon deposits, people of large means in many cases deposit their money in the savings banks rather than in the commercial banks. They do this because money cannot be used profitably in business, and as they do not desire to loan it permanently they put it into the savings bank, where it can be with- drawn on short notice and where in the meantime they get the highest rate of interest, so that instead of the large deposits in savings banks at present being an indication that we are prosperous or that our 634 LIVE QUESTIONS. laborers are employed they show in themselves that capital cannot be profitably or safely used in business or in manufacturing or any of the great industries of this country. PANIC OF 1893. Mr. Schurz attributes the panic of 1893 to the fact that, as he says: "The grave doubt arising in the public mind whether the government would be able to maintain the gold standard. We were then within a hair's breadth of a very widespread bankruptcy of the banks and only the wisest management and the utmost efforts of the clearing houses prevented it." Now, Mr. Schurz is entitled to credit for being the only man in the world who made the discovery that the panic of 1893 was brought about by the cause he named and he is entitled to the greatest credit because of the fact that he never ran a bank or a business or a manufacturing establishment or a railroad and was never engaged, so far as we know, in any commercial business. He had an established reputation as a rhetorician and as a man who could make an equally good speech on any side of any question. If the panic of 1893 was due to the cause to which he ascribes it then we are liable to have panics of that character every year, so long as the existing conditions continue, but, my fellow citizens, that panic was not local to the United States and the depression that followed from it is not local but exists all over Europe and in fact nearly all over the world and is most severe in the gold using countries. There was no doubt in the minds of the public at that time about England's maintaining the gold standard, nor about Germany maintaining the gold standard, nor about the other countries that had recently adopted a gold stand- ard maintaining it, and yet in all of those countries the distress and paralysis is even more severe than it is in our own. Mr. Schurz may be able to patent his idea in this country, but his letters patent will be worth nothing in Europe. BOND SALES. But perhaps the strangest part of the speech is that which em- phatically endorses and commends the bond issuing policy of the present administration. I ask you to consider this a moment. During times of profound peace in less than four years the national debt of this country has been increased $260,000,000; not to support the government, for President Cleveland declared expressly that this was not needed to support the government as they had money in the treasury to meet the current expenses. It was done for the sole pur- pose of maintaining the gold standard by the government and of 'ANSWER TO SCHURZ AND COCHRAN. 635 paying gold on obligations which on their face were payable not in gold but in coin which meant that they could be paid in other metal which the debtor, that is, the government, might select. This has been the law and the practice for centuries and the governments of Europe always act upon it. Mr. Schurz suggests no change of policy and he offers no remedy; therefore the existing conditions are to be continued and if it was necessary to issue $260,000,000 of bonds in the last three years we are warranted in assuming that it will be necessary to issue a similar amount in the next three years, and that this will continue to go on. Do you think that this is the right policy for our govern- ment to pursue? Every time a bond is issued the oppression of the men who toil is increased. The interest on these bonds is not pro- duced in the banks or in the offices of the cities. It has to come out of the industry of the country. It has to come from the products of a country and the products of a country are created by the men who toil ; the men who make and cultivate farms, who build and oper- ate railroads ; the men who build cities, the men who do the work of the land, the men who make our civilization possible. For I say to you that swallow-tail coats and big shirt fronts never yet laid the foundation of empire; purple and fine linen never yet built a mighty State. Perfumed handkerchiefs and bright neckties are not the forces that sustain the flag of our country in time of peril. The people who have to pay the interest on these bonds and ultimately have to pay the principal, whose sweat and whose toil has to produce the product to do it derive not one farthing's benefit from these bonds. The men who get the benefit of these bond issues are the class of people who manage by the aid of government to lick the cream and devour the fruit of other men's industry. Let the American people follow the suggestions of Mr. Schurz and our country will become a bond is- suing country in perpetuity, and the further down the vista of time that the American patriot glances the darker will be the cloud and the heavier will be the burden which his children must face. NATIONAL HONOR. Mr. Schurz and Mr. Cochran wring their hands in horror over what they call the prospect of sullying the national honor and paying our obligations or the interest on our obligations in anything else than gold, and they point to the fact that in 1890 Congress declared practically that it was the policy of this government to keep every- thing on a gold basis, that the world had accepted this, and for us to disregard that declaration would place us in the light of repudiators and dishonest men before the world. Just see how little substance it 636 LIVE QVESTiOMS. takes to enable a rhetorician to fill the air with ghosts. When was our great debt created? Long before 1890. And what kind of money did we get for the bonds we sold? We got paper for some and gold and silver for the remainder. Neither Mr. Schurz nor any other mortal has been able to point out wherein you wrong a creditor when you pay him in exactly the same money that he gave you. Neither he nor any other mortal has been able to point wherein you do an injustice to any man when you pay a creditor in money that has exactly the same purchasing power, that will buy as much property of any and every kind, and as much labor as did the money he gave you. I will agree with Mr. Schurz that a creditor should not be paid in money the purchasing power of which is much less than was that of the money that he gave to the debtor, but if it is dishonest to pay a creditor in money that is cheaper than the money that he gave the debtor, I ask you and ask the American people whether it is not dis- honest to compel a debtor to pay a creditor in money that has twice the purchasing power as had the money which he got from the creditor? If paying the creditor in cheaper money than he gave the debtor is repudiation I ask whether compelling a debtor to pay his debt in money that is twice as dear as the money he got is not robbery? BONDS PAYABLE IN COIN. What are the facts? For both Mr. Schurz and Mr. Cochran care- fully avoid referring to them. Substantially all of the bonds and interest-bearing securities of the United States now in the hands of our creditors at home and abroad provide on their face that they are payable, not in gold but in coin. No man could possibly be de- ceived in buying one of those bonds, and, with the exception of the bonds issued during this administration, they were not paid for in gold, but were paid for in coin, which meant gold and silver. What is true of the principal of these bonds applies equally to the annual interest. Every individual in the United States or in Europe that holds one of these bonds knew at the time he got it that the principal and interest were payable in gold or silver at the option of the gov- ernment. You remember that a little over a year ago the President was so bent on fastening the gold standard upon our country that he asked Congress to authorize the issue of gold bonds, which he said could be floated on a lower rate of interest, but Congress refused to do it. Thereupon the government issued bonds of the same character that it had formerly issued; that is, coin bonds, and, according to the President, they brought less money in the market, because of the fact ANSWER TO SCHURZ AND COCHRAN. 637 that they were not payable in gold. The bankers got them cheaper than they could otherwise have gotten them, by reason of the. fact that they were payable in coin and not in gold. And yet, in the face of these well-known facts, Messrs. Schurz and Cochran have the assurance to tell us that we will be guilty of repudiation, and of sully- ing the national honor, if we do not pay those bonds in gold. Sup- pose a man advocating the coinage of silver were to stand before an intelligent audience and make such an argument as that, what would they call him? As I remember it, one batch of bonds was sold in the market for about seventeen millions of dollars less than the President assured us they would have brought had they been payable in gold; yet these bonds are like all other outstanding bonds that were sold cheaper by reason of the fact that they were payable in gold or silver; and instead of the national honor requiring us to pay those bonds in gold, national honor, common sense and eternal justice alike forbid our paying those bonds in gold if to pay them in gold will cost the American people one dollar more than it would to pay them in silver. If it is wrong to unjustly withhold anything from the creditor that is due him under the contract, then it is a crime to compel a debtor to pay something that he does not owe. GREENBACKS, ETC. But the bonds issued by the present administration were issued for the purpose of redeeming greenbacks and treasury notes in gold, and we are told that to pursue any other policy will be repudiation. Let us see. These greenbacks and treasury notes have been outstanding almost ever since the war, and not one of the several hundred millions that are outstanding is payable in gold. But this is not all: The government has taken pains all along to tell the world exactly what these bills would be paid in. On March 18th, 1869, Congress passed what was called the "Credit Strengthening Act," reading as follows: "That the faith of the United States is solemnly pledged to the pay- ment in coin or its equivalent of all of the obligations of the United States not bearing interest known as United States notes, and all the interest bearing obligations of the United States, except in cases where the law provides they may be paid in a currency other than gold or silver." Notice here the specific declaration made in 1869, that both the non-interest bearing obligations and the interest bear- ing obligations of the United States were payable in coin, gold and silver. Then on January 14th, 1875, six years later, the specie resump- tion act was passed, to take effect January 1st, 1879. It did not pro- 638 LIVE QUESTIONS. vide for resuming in gold, but for resuming in specie, which meant gold and silver. MATTHEWS RESOLUTION. Three years later, on the 25th day of January, 1878, the Senate passed a resolution which has become known as the "Matthews reso- lution," because it was introduced by Senator Matthews, a Republican from Ohio, and the House passed the same resolution on January 28th. This resolution reads" as follows: "That all the bonds of the United States issued or authorized to be issued under the acts of Congress hereinbefore recited are payable, principal and interest, at the option of the government of the United States, in silver dollars of the coinage of the United States, containing 41 2 \ grains each of standard silver and that to restore to its coinage such silver coins as a legal tender in payment of said bonds, principal and interest, is not in violation of the public faith nor in derogation of the rights of the public creditor." Consider this resolution a minute. It was introduced by a Repub- lican and passed by both houses of Congress, and it expressly declares that all of the bonds already issued and all that may thereafter be is- sued under the acts of Congress were payable, principal and interest, in silver dollars. This resolution did not change the character of the bonds, nor of the obligation. It could not. It simply declared what was the law at that time, that is, that the government being the debtor had the option of paying in any kind of money named in the bond, and inasmuch as the bonds were payable in coin and coin meant gold and silver, the government had the right that every debtor has of de- claring which money it would pay in. If there had been a misunder- standing about the question before that, there was a notice to all the world, and, mark you, no fault was found with this, no bondholders complained at that time, neither the Eastern nor the European bond- holders sent their bonds over and claimed that there was a misunder- standing, they were not thrown on the market. There was no talk of repudiation, and if they were payable in silver then, when was the contract changed so as to compel us to pay gold now? A contract has two sides to it and every increased obligation is supposed to carry with it an increased consideration, and even if it were true that Congress had thereafter by mere resolution declared that all obliga- tions should thereafter be paid in gold it would not make them so payable. Congress, as a matter of fact, never made such a declaration, but if it had it would be void if it increased the burdens of the debtor. Suppose Congress had by resolution declared that the hold- ers of those bonds should give to the United States an additional ANSWER TO SCHURZ AND COCHRAN. 639 sum of money to what they originally paid for them. Would the holders be obliged to pay? Nay, would not you have heard an outcry about robbery? If Congress could not change the contract with ref- erence to the creditor it could not legally change it with reference to the debtor. So you see that under the contracts with the creditors and under the declarations of the government made to the world from time to time, the bonds and the interest thereon, as well as the green- backs and treasury notes, are payable in silver, at the option of the government, and the Eastern bankers so understood this all along and made no complaint, and it was not until Mr. Harrison was Presi- dent and Mr. Foster was Secretary of the Treasury that they broached the subject of having these treasury notes redeemed in gold. This was in 1891. PAYING GREENBACKS IN GOLD. From January 1, 1879, t0 January i, 1891, only a little over $34,000,000 of greenbacks were presented for redemption, or an aver- age of a little over two and a half millions per year. You see there was no run on the treasury then because the policy pursued by the treasury up to that time did not offer a special inducement to make a run on it; but at that time Mr. Foster and the Harrison adminis- tration yielded to the influence of the Eastern bankers and ordered treasury notes to be redeemed in gold alone, and the Cleveland ad- ministration did the same. This was in the fall of 1891 and see what has happened since then: During the four years following that date $351,000,000 of greenbacks and treasury notes were presented for redemption and redeemed, and to carry out this policy of redeeming these notes in gold, President Cleveland issued the $260,000,000 of bonds. Think of this amount. The burdens of the American people increased $260,000,000 in four years without benefiting the debtor a farthing. Had the same policy been pursued which we pursued be- fore, of redeeming these notes in gold or silver at the option of the government very few of them would have been presented; there would have been no disturbance in the money market and no necessity of issuing bonds. CRIMINAL POLICY. This policy was a criminal policy and it is a child of and in keeping with this entire movement to fasten a gold standard upon the world; it is dishonest, it loads the people of this country with burdens for which it gives them nothing in return; it is a policy from which the masses of mankind all over the world derive no benefit; a policy which benefits only a few men who call themselves financiers, but 640 LIVE QUESTIONS. whose mission in life seems to be to get something for nothing when- ever they can get the government to assist them in doing so. AMOUNT OF PRODUCTS TO PAY NATIONAL DEBT. Let us see how the policy of the American government has af- fected the American people and. who has derived the benefit of that policy. After we had resumed specie payments we were on the same basis with the other nations of the earth and our national debt amounted to about $2,000,000,000. At that time wheat was worth upwards of $1 per bushel and the price of all other American pro- ducts ranged in proportion. At that time it would have taken about 1,800,000,000 bushels of wheat or a proportional amount of other American products to pay the whole national debt. Since that time we have been paying for nearly a quarter of a century and at present the debt is a little less than $1,800,000,000; wheat is selling at less than fifty cents a bushel and the prices of all other American products on the average are in the same proportion, and to-day it will take 3,600,000,000 bushels of wheat or' a proportional amount of other American products to pay the remainder of the national debt, that is, after we have paid 1 for twenty years, after a generation has labored to reduce this debt it now will take twice the amount of American products to pay the remainder of the debt that would have been necessary to pay the whole of the debt at the time we resumed specie payments. WHO PROFITS NOW? We are a producing nation and the policy of our government has tended to reduce the prices of our products. Twenty years ago when a foreign bond-holder took one of our thousand dollar bonds and clipped off the interest coupons for a year amounting, say, to $50, he could buy with them only from 40 to 50 bushels of wheat or a pro- portional amount of other American products. To-day when that bond-holder clips off the coupons for a year's interest that same $50 will buy him 100 bushels of wheat or a proportional amount of other American products. I ask you, my fellow citizens, in whose interest has the American government been run during this time? And if this policy is to be continued, if this gold standard is to be main- tained, if we are to go on with a constantly increasing population and a non-increasing volume of money, then there must be a further and a continuous decline in prices over the world, and when another generation has spent its life paying at this national debt it will then take nearly twice as much of American products to pay the remainder of the debt then existing as it will take to-day to pay it. Is it any ANSWER TO SCHURZ AND COCHRAN. 641 wonder that the gold standard people do not want this subject dis- cussed? Is it any wonder that they charge that we are trying to arraign class against class when we call 'attention to what are simply the hard facts? The American people are the sufferers, and the only people who profit by this policy are the foreign and the Eastern bond- holders and their American agents. In one of the bond transactions under the present administration a New York banker and his asso- ciates, who represent English capital, made upwards of ten millions of dollars out of the government in a few weeks. Is it any wonder that those men want to continue this policy? Do you really think, my fellow citizens, that a policy which lowers the price of all American products while it increases the American debt can be said to be a wise American policy? INDEBTEDNESS OF THIS COUNTRY. The indebtedness of our country, when you consider the vast cor- poration, municipal and other debts, almost baffles computation. It is nearly all held abroad. The interest has to be raised by the toil and the labor of American people. It has to be paid by American products. Shall we pursue a policy which will keep the price of American products down so low that it takes practically everything that the American nation can earn to annually pay the interest on that indebtedness, and thus destroy their ability to buy, which means a destruction of the American market? Can we reasonably hope for any prosperity in the future? Talk about maintaining this gold stand- ard and paying these vast sums in gold, why there is not gold enough in all the world to pay a fractional part of the interest on our debt in gold, and in recent years we have repeatedly seen gold manipu- lated in such a manner that a few great institutions control it. In other words, they were able to corner the available gold. I have already shown you that in the entire United States there are only $127,000,000 of available gold; that includes all the banks have and the amount of gold in sight in the world which is available at any time is very small, and we, therefore, must expect if we stay on this basis that gold will be cornered repeatedly from time to time. The specu- lators will profit and the producers will suffer. TWO YARD-STICKS. The talk about two yard-sticks of different lengths is unworthy of either of these gentlemen. Everybody who has examined the subject knows that under bimetallism there are no two standards; that under bimetallism the sum total of the two metals taken together and con- 41 642 LIVE QUESTIONS. sidered practically as one constitutes the standard and the measure of prices. When you take the sum total of the two metals it makes one standard the same as if melted into one. The fact that they are coined separately makes no difference so long. as each performs the same functions. If the sum total of the two metals forming the standard and used as money is twice as great as the amount of either metal would be alone then under bimetallism prices would range twice as high as they were under the single standard. STEADINESS OF STANDARD. Mr. Schurz claims that the gold standard is a steady standard and therefore desirable for the commercial transactions of the world. Other gold standard advocates have made the same declaration. It is im- possible to understand why they have done so, for all the world's experience is to the contrary. England is a gold standard country. The Bank of England rests on a gold standard. France is a bimetallic country. While it has coined no silver since 1873, the Bank of France rests on the bimetallic basis. During the ten years from 1875 t0 ^84 inclusive the Bank of England was obliged to change the rate of dis- count sixty-six times; the Bank of France only thirteen times; in other words, during those ten years the bimetallic standard was five times as steady as the gold standard. And during the seven years from 1885 to 1891 inclusive the Bank of England was forced to change the rate of discount fifty-nine times, the Bank of France only six times. When one metal alone is the standard it is affected not only by the change in production but by reason of its limited quantity is subject to manipulation, whereas when the standard is supplied from two sources there is greater steadiness in the supply and the volume being so much greater it is more difficult to manipulate. PRICES AND LEGISLATION. Mr. Cochran argues that you cannot change values and then he uses this language: "A man may change prices by legislation." That sentence admits the charge made by the bimetallists and is in harmony with the views of the greatest European statesmen, who claim with the bimetallists that when the governments of the world demonetize silver they by legislation reduce the supply of money in the world and when they adopt a single gold standard they by legislation increase the de- mand for gold, so that by legislation the law of supply and demand was in such a manner interfered with as to force up the purchasing power of gold to twice what it formerly was. If our committee were ANSWER TO SCHURZ AND COCHRAN. 643 not so poor I should recommend that they give Mr. Cochran a check for traveling a thousand miles to make that admission. COCHRAN ON WAGES. Mr. Cochran further gave us the benefit of his views on political economy in .this language: "Wages depend on production, and noth- ing else." Again he says: "Wages depend absolutely on production." If this is correct, and nothing further is needed than to produce, then all that is necessary is for the mills to start up and go to producing, and the more they produce the higher the wages they can pay, and everybody will be happy. If there are any manufacturers in the house, I ask you how this would strike you? Has Mr. Cochran covered the case? Is there not something wanting? Has he not left out the most essential element, and that is the market? No manufacturer can run his mills unless he has a market for the things which his employes make, and it is strange that all of the gold-standard orators of the country persistently shut their eyes to the fact that until we restore the market there is no use of opening the mills. Wages depend on the prices paid for the things that are manufactured. The manufacturer cannot run his mills and pay high wages and accept low prices for his products. Labor creates property, and the price of that property must necessarily fix the scale of wages. OPENING MILLS. Major McKinley recently told some gentlemen that he thought it was more important to this country that we should open the mills to the laborer than to open the mints to the mine owners. This is an artful statement, calculated to deceive. Suppose he is taken at his word, and every mill owner in America opens up his mills, how long will they run; and if they are obliged to shut down, why will they be? Because there is no market for the things they make, and I say to Major McKinley that the only key that will open the mills and keep 'them open is an increase in the volume of money in this country. Let prices gradually come up to bimetallic standard and you will restore the purchasing power to the country. The farmer will again be able to buy, the railroad will be busy, and every business will increase with the general prosperity. The manufacturer will be busy, and the bankers and merchants will again be doing business. That is the only way in which the mills can again be permanently opened. LABOR PAID IN GOLD. I recently heard a gold standard man make this argument to la- borers ; "Why, you earn your bread by the sweat of your brow ; you 644 LIVE QUESTIONS. begin toiling early in the morning and you work until night and when night comes you want to be paid in gold. You want a dear dollar. You want a dollar of the greatest purchasing power to buy you as much of the comforts of life as is possible." A very seductive argument. It looks plausible on its face but like all the arguments offered on this gold subject it is fallacious, calculated to deceive, and utterly ignores the fact that the laborer needs a market for what he produces. It is an insult to the intelligence of the laborer to tell him that the gold dollar buys more than any other dollar, if you do not at the same time tell him how he can make that gold dollar. If this subject of prices were the mere scramble between buyer and seller then the idea that the dear dollars were in the interest of laborers might be correct, but the trouble is that a dear dollar not only in this coun- try but in all countries lowers prices and therefore means not only lower wages but by lowering prices and leaving the fixed charges the same it destroys the market. It has disabled those people from buy- ing who formerly bought. To the laborer it presents itself this way. A dear dollar and no market for the things he makes; the mill closed, himself out of employment and his family out of bread. CHINA AND INDIA. China and India have lately been held up to us as horrible ex- amples of the condition that we will reach if we coin both gold and silver. I have pointed out to you the. effects that a reduced volume of money has upon the prosperity of a country, that, as the volume grows smaller and smaller the people sink lower and lower. In China the amount of money in circulation is only about $2.50 per capita, in India about $3 per capita and while many things in both countries and in other countries that have but little money in circulation have contri- buted to the present unhappy condition of the people the most po- tent of all causes has been the inadequate circulation of money, and if this gold standard is to be maintained for the world, if, as I have said, our population is to go on increasing at enormous rates all over the world and the volume of money does not increase, the tendency of our country will be directly toward the same conditions that exist in China and India. LOCAL CREDITOR. But, says someone, if you add silver to the volume of money will you not be injuring our own local creditors who have money loaned out? I say no, emphatically no. No creditor, be he banker or private individual, can possibly benefit or profit by having universal bank- ruptcy all around him. Every creditor, be he banker or merchant ANSWER TO SCHURZ AND COCHRAN. 645 or private individual, does profit by having general activity around. It opens new channels for his capital, it creates a demand for his money and he profits by general prosperity. There is just that difference be- tween falling and rising prices. Falling prices not only injure the debtor but if long continued they in the end destroy the creditor, while rising prices help the debtor and by. producing general prosperity in- crease the prosperity of the creditor. MASSES AGAINST CLASSES. In all ages and in all countries the men who were in the wrong deprecated discussion. In no country have dishonest policies sought the sun, and no organization of highwaymen has as yet petitioned for electric light. The man who has no argument seizes the nearest ' epithet and hurls it. These observations are singularly applicable to this gold standard movement. It is the hyena that has sucked the blood of commerce and left the prostrate form of labor by the road- side. It has rendered this nation helpless, and when the people try to learn the cause of their distress, when an effort is made to diagnose the patient, then there is a fierce howl. It came into the world with a stealthy tread, and is seeking to maintain itself by still more stealthy and dark deeds. Every man who does not at once concede to it the sole right of traveling upon the highway is assailed with a fierceness that is calculated to frighten the timid and all others who are in any way dependent. The gold standard people find that the facts are against them. They are obliged to resort to deception and sophistry to prevent the people from putting an end to this policy; therefore, they deprecate discussion. Unwilling to confess the truth, they talk about rousing the masses, etc. The fight is as old as human greed; as old as human selfishness. For twenty years prior to 1861 the slave power deprecated discussion, even in the North where there were no slaves, and they put their objection on the ground that it prejudiced the masses against the classes. There never yet was a great wrong or a great abuse but what objected to investigation and discussion. Prior to 1861 the slave holders were assisted by the hang- ing-on class, that aggregation of human beings who are born to be obsequious, and to-day the gold standard people are again supported by the hanging-on class. AMERICAN DEGENERATION. It is a sad sight to see this grand century draw to a close and give such unmistakable evidence of degeneration of American manhood as we haye recently seen. In 1776 less than three million men who 646 LIVE QUESTIONS. were poor and even despised by the world declared that they were not only free but that they were independent of every other nation on the globe. In 1896, when we have seventy millions of people and are ad- mittedly the richest and most powerful nation on the globe, when we are admittedly the most enterprising people on the globe, one of the greatest political parties of the nation in its convention at St. Louis declared to the world in substance that while we might be free we were dependent, that while a particular financial policy would be beneficial to this nation we could not have it until Europe consented to give it to us. That convention was run from beginning to end by the men who control trusts, syndicates and corporations. Had those men been in the convention in 1776, which was held at Philadelphia, the Declara- tion that would have been made by that convention on that famous morning of July 4th, would have read this way: "Liberty and Inde- pendence are desirable, but we must wait until Europe gives them to us." Our fathers petitioned England long and earnestly and when they found that it did them no good they declared their independence and were happy, and so long as there is a language spoken upon earth will men sing their praises. To-day the descendants of these men urge that we shall again go into the business of petitioning England. What a fall is this in patriotism and American manhood. Mark Hanna is raising millions of dollars with which to debauch and degrade the American voter — with which to debauch and degrade the American citizen, in order that he shall approve of this degenerate policy. If this movement shall succeed then our glorious republic has crossed the brow of the hill and we will slide down into the wastes and marshes beyond. SAVING REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS. If the gold standard is to be maintained, if prices are not only to remain low, but to go on falling while the interest on our enormous debts has to be met, then the producing power of this nation will in time be exhausted in the mere effort to meet the fixed charges; Our farmers, our mechanics, and our laboring men will cease to be high spirited, free men who are proud of their citizenship and they will sink to a lower status. They will sink to the status of the men who till the fields of Europe or the Valley of the Nile; they will not be able to educate their families ; we will no longer have that patriotic yeomanry which has been the support of this nation in every crisis. We will have only extremely rich people on the one hand and an ignorant and helpless people on the other, a people whose minds are untrained and whose spirits are cowed; who neither understand nor appreciate free institutions. If this gold standard is to be maintained, then these SPEECH AT COOPER UNION. 647 conditions are near at hand, and when they come, then the days of the republic will be over. NOT A PARTISAN QUESTION. In 1861, when the drum beats called you to arms, you were not asked whether you were a Republican or a Democrat, you were not asked whether you were a Whig or an Independent; you were only asked whether you loved the flag and were ready to fight for it. In 1896 the question is not whether you are a Republican or a Demo- crat, whether you are a Populist or a Prohibitionist; the question is, do you love republican institutions and will you help maintain them. We are at the fork of the road, by turning to the left we pass per- manently under a British policy, we go into the region of dear money and low prices, into the region -of perpetual hard times for all men who toil. We go into the region where we will have Turkey, Egypt, India and Ireland for associates. But if we turn to the right, if we repudiate Hanna and his boodle, if we respect the memory of the fathers, if we again declare as they did that we are independent of every nation on earth, then this republic will leap forward on a new career of grandeur and of glory, a career of prosperity and of happi- ness, a career that will elevate the sons of men and be a blessing to the people of the earth. SPEECH AT COOPER UNION, NEW YORK, OCTOBER 17, 1896, ON THE CHICAGO RIOTS.— GOVERN- MENT BY INJUNCTION.— FEDERAL IN- TERFERENCE. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I have come to bring to the patriotic people of New York and of the East the greeting of the great Mississippi Valley; of that hardy yeomanry of the Central and Western States that has always rallied to the support of the American flag in times of danger, and that sup- ports and maintains our institutions in times of peace. Those great toiling and producing masses who make our civilization possible feel that their destiny is linked with that of the sons of liberty who inhabit the East. We are unwilling to believe out in the West that patriotism has died east of the Alleghenies and that Mammon is the only god at whose shrine Eastern people bow. We are unwilling to believe that the few men in your large cities who use government as a convenience to make fortunes; who use our republic as a mere foraging ground- to amass wealth; who .cringe to European aris- 648 LIVE QUESTIONS.. tocracy and who wave the American flag with one hand while rob- bing the public with the other, represent the sentiment of that sec- tion of the country that was the cradle of American liberty. We do not believe that because you have in your midst men who value the privilege of taking breakfast with the Prince of Wales more than they do the blessings of free government; that because you have in your midst men who are ready to undermine and to overthrow republican institutions in our land in order to gain a temporary personal ad- vantage for themselves, that therefore the fires of liberty which for more than a century burned upon your hilltops and illumined the world are extinct. We believe that the hearts of a majority of your people are loyal to the institutions of the fathers, and that they beat in unison with the hearts of the great people of the South and West who believe that the time has not come for converting this republic into an oligarchy. THE MODERN EUMENIDES. ~ At present there is in addition to the gold standard a quartette of blighting sisters in our land, respectively called: "Federal interference in local affairs." "Government by injunction." "Usurpation by the United States Supreme Court," and fourth, "Corruption." All four are clothed in phariseeism and pretense, and all recog- nize the gold standard as their natural or foster mother. We believe that these blighting sisters* whose smile means paralysis and whose embrace means death have no more admirers among your people than they have among ours. This campaign is to decide, not only whether we shall perpetuate the experiments of this English financial system, which is prostrating our nation, but also whether we shall permanently adopt these four sisters into our household and make them the ruling members of the family'. THE GOLD STANDARD DISASTROUS. The mask has been torn from the gold standard. Our people are beginning to understand the attempt to introduce it throughout the commercial world is a disastrous experiment; that down to 1873 the world used not only all the gold and all the silver as money, but so great was the world's business that every dollar was loaded with twenty times as much credit; that all the great achievements of mankind were accomplished under the bimetallic system; that under this system everything that makes the civilization of this century was SPEECH AT COOPER UNION . 649 done, and that since the introduction of the universal gold standard the wheels of progress have stood still. Our people are beginning to understand that formerly there was added every year to the world's stock of money, nearly all of the gold and silver that was mined, which in a measure kept pace with the increase of population, but that since 1873 only the gold has been added, that is, only one-half as much has been added each year as there formerly was, while the population has increased more rapidly than ever, and that this fact alone must produce a continuous fall in prices. Our people are be- ginning to understand that making money scarce makes money dear, that dear money means low prices for property, for the products of the earth and for the products of labor. They further understand that as taxes and debts were not reduced low prices have destroyed the purchasing power of the farming and producing classes, so that they can no longer buy the products of the factory and the mill as they formerly did, in consequence of which the factory and the mill had to partially or wholly shut down, thus in turn destroying the purchasing power of the laborer, and that in this manner the gold standard has spread paralysis not only over America but over Eu- rope and the civilized world. Our people understand that when the governments of the earth forced the world off of the bimetallic standard ,of prices down onto the low gold standard prices, they practically doubled the burden of all debtors, and that strange as it may seem none of the pharisees who now cry aloud against making money cheap and injuring the creditor ever uttered a word of sym- pathy for the poor debtor. They understand that the bullion in one of the so-called "fifty-cent dollars" — treated as bullion with the stamp of the government erased- — has substantially the same pur- chasing power and will buy as much property, as much of the products of the earth and of labor, as had or did any of the dollars which the Englishmen gave us for our bonds. They understand that the gold dollar has been forced up to where it will buy twice as much property and products as it formerly did; that the govern- ments by destroying silver reduced the world's supply of money and by making gold alone do the world's work they increased the de- mand for it, thus interfering with the law of supply and demand, and that as soon as this legislation is wiped out gold will of necessity come down to its former position. Our people understand that it will be impossible to open the mills and restore prosperity to the world until the purchasing power of the farming and the great pro- ducing classes of the earth is restored and that this can only be done 650 LIVE QUESTIONS. by putting an end to this gold standard experiment and restoring bi- metallism. REPUBLICAN ABUSE AND VILIFICATION. Finding that the facts and the arguments were against them the gold standard people are resorting to vilification and abuse, a specimen of which has lately been furnished the people of the West by a triplet of retired generals drawing high salaries, who have been giving ex- hibitions under the management, and, as I am informed, under the care of Mr. Hanna, and 'who showed in their first efforts that they did not know the one-hundredth part as much about the money question as did the poor privates whom they were seeking to con- vert; But what they lacked in knowledge on the money question they made up in abuse. They carried with them a flat car built by Mr. Pullman for this purpose, having on it a cannon and other mili- tary equipments, to show the laboring men of this country what policy they may reasonably expect to be carried out in case Mr. Hanna succeeds in carrying this election. Now, my fellow-citizens, let me direct your attention to that part of the Chicago platform which denounces what I have called "The Blighting Sisters." Calamities rarely come singly. Whenever the foundation is undermined a horde of evils follow and there has come upon us a group of evils, each one of which is destructive of repub- lican institutions. If they were not born of, they at least came hand in hand with this English system of low prices and great debts. Poverty and loss of liberty go together. The forces which produce the one generally build the machinery that destroys the other. FEDERAL INTERFERENCE. Let us look at "Federal Interference and Government by In- junction," and to illustrate how the Constitution and the laws can be trampled upon and every principle of free government brushed away with a mere wave of the hand, I will cite the action of the federal government and the federal courts during the railroad strike in 1894. I am aware that by persistent vilification and deliberate misrepre- sentation the partisan press has made the impression upon the minds of many good citizens that I, as Governor of Illinois, during the rail- road disturbances of two years ago, did not do my duty and did not make the proper effort to protect life and property in Chicago, but sympathized with lawlessness and disorder; that federal interference was necessary to save the city. If there were even a semblance of truth in this, then no condemnation could be too severe, for a gov- . SPEECH AT COOPER UNION. 651 ernment that will not promptly and thoroughly protect life and prop- erty and preserve law and order is an abomination and should be wiped off of the earth. But, let us see what the indisputable facts are as shown by the records, and then you can judge for yourselves. A narration of the incidents in that strike at Chicago may be a little tedious, but as it bears on one of the great issues of this cam- paign and shows what the laboring classes of this country may ex- pect for themselves and their children if the present tendency is not arrested, it is important. THE COAL STRIKE. In order to give you a more comprehensive view of the situation, I remind you that during the several months immediately prior to the beginning of the railroad strike there prevailed in all of the coal mining States a great coal miners' strike, which was so serious that it stopped production and in some localities caused a coal famine. The policy of the miners was to abstain from work until a standard of wages could be fixed. Their families were in great distress and never did men behave better or show themselves to be better law-abiding citizens than did nearly all of the miners during that time. Illinois has one of the largest coal fields in the world — a coal field 250 miles long and over 100 miles wide, and there are coal mines all over it. The suspension of mining extended nearly all over the State. As a rule the miners themselves were well behaved, but disorderly ele- ments in some cases taking advantage of the situation attempted to interfere with the moving of trains, and in several instances by stealthy acts, and without the knowledge or even the suspicion of the local civil officers, succeeded in committing depredations. During this strike there was a demand for troops from various sections of the State, and they were not only furnished promptly, but they were moved with a celerity never exceeded by the regular army. The Illi- nois National Guard consists of about 6,000 men, and in point of training, readiness for duty, soldierly bearing and general intelli- gence, they are not surpassed by any body of soldiers on this conti- nent. During this coal strike troops were sent to six or eight differ- ent points in the State. Frequently the request for them did not come in until 11 o'clock at night and the order for troops to report at a particular point was issued at that late hour, and in such perfect con- trol was the guard, and so perfect were the arrangements for collect- ing men that, in instances of this character, where they did not re- ceive the order until midnight, they got together and were moved 100 miles and reported for duty by sunrise in the morning at the 6$2 LIVE QUESTIONS. place of trouble. In several instances an entire regiment reported for duty at a point 240 miles from its headquarters within 14 hours after it was ordered out. During that long strike order was main- tained everywhere, railroad trains were moved, and in those in- stances where depredations had been committed stealthily the of- fenders were all arrested and immediately lodged in jail and were punished. An examination of the records will show that while during the coal strikes some of the railroads in Ohio, where Major McKinley was Governor, were almost paralyzed and were at the mercy of the mobs in some cases for nearly a week at a time, in Illinois they got instant relief. THE RAILROAD STRIKE. No sooner was this coal strike over than the great railroad strike began, and the operatives or trainmen of nearly all the great rail- roads of the country stopped work. This left the railroads helpless. Illinois is the greatest railroad State in the Union and Chicago the -greatest railroad center in the world. The operating and switching yards of that city were mostly out on the prairie adjoining the city and were so extensive as to almost surround it. In addition to Chi- cago there are more than a dozen railroad centers scattered over the State. The railroad operatives, partly out of respect for the law and partly because they felt that violence would injure their cause, were orderly, but in centers of population, where there were great numbers of idle men drawn together by the excitement, a vicious element sometimes became demonstrative, and after the roads suc- ceeded in getting new men to man some of their trains there were efforts made by the mob to prevent the moving of Pullman cars, and this in some cases precipitated trouble. Under the laws of Illinois, whenever the civil authorities are not able to maintain order or en- force the law, the Governor can order out troops for their assistance on the application of either the sheriff of the county, the mayor of a city or village, the county judge or the coroner. The constitution and laws of that State, in harmony with the Constitution and laws of the federal government, are based upon the principle that in a re- public in time of peace the military should be subject to the civil of- ficers and that the maintenance of law and order should in the first instance devolve upon the local officers in each community. Early in this railroad strike and before there had been any serious disturbances in Chicago, applications for assistance were made by the local civil officers of five or six different railroad centers throughout the State and troops were promptly sent to their assistance, always ar- Speech At cooper vmotf. 653 riving on the ground within a few hours after they had been applied for. STATE TROOPS PROMPTLY FURNISHED. To show the attitude of the State administration during this time, I quote a few dispatches received and sent, which are fair specimens of all. On July i, I received a dispatch from Decatur, 111., signed by a number of passengers on a railroad train stating that no effort was being made by the railroad company to move their train and they demanded assistance. This was the first intimation that I had that there was any trouble in that locality, and I immediately sent this telegram to the sheriff of that county: Springfield, July I, 1894. To the Sheriff of Macon County, Decatur, 111. : I have a dispatch purporting to come from passengers now detained at Decatur because trains are obstructed and they ask for assistance. Wire me the situation fully. Are railroad officials making proper efforts to move trains and are you able to furnish the traveling public the necessary protection and to enforce the law? (Signed) J. P. ALTGELD, Governor. To this the sheriff replied that he had been able to preserve or- der so far, but could do so no longer, and asked for troops, and the following reply was sent: Springfield, July I, 1894. To the Sheriff of Macon County, Decatur, 111.: Have ordered troops to your assistance. They should reach you before sunrise. See that all trains unlawfully held are released at once. J. P. ALTGELD, Governor. On the same day the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad Com- pany telegraphed from Danville that their trains were tied up at that point and that the sheriff would do nothing, although he had been repeatedly called on, and they asked for assistance. To this the fol- lowing reply was sent: Springfield, July 1, 1894. W. H. Lyford, General Counsel, C. & E. I. R. R. Co.: We can furnish assistance promptly if the civil authorities show that they need it. Thus far there has been no application for assistance from any of the officials of Vermilion county, either sheriff, coroner, mayor of town or the county judge. J- P- ALTGELD, Governor. At the same time the following dispatch was sent to the sheriff of Vermilion county: Springfield, July I, 1894. To the Sheriff of Vermilion County, Danville, 111.: Officials of the Eastern Illinois Railroad complain that their trains have been tied up and that they cannot get sufficient .protection to move them. 654 LIVE QUESTIONS. Please wire me the situation fully. Can you enforce the law and protect the traveling public with such force as you can command? J. P. ALTGELD, Governor. A similar telegram was at the same time sent to the county judge and other local officers. The following reply was received from the sheriff : Danville, 111., July I, 1894. Governor J. P. Altgeld: Your message received. Send me one hundred rifles and ammunition and I will try to protect the railroad's men and property. As to the situation, there are from 300 to 700 men on the ground and oppose the movement of any and all trains or cars except mail cars. They are usually quiet and duly sober, but are very determined. I will advise if I am not able to afford protection. J. W. NEWTON, Sheriff. To this the following telegram was sent: Springfield, July 1, 1894. To J. A. Newton, Sheriff, Danville, 111.: We have not got 100 stand of arms left here, but from information we get we consider situation serious at Danville, and therefore have sent you troops. They will be there early in the morning. All those trains unlawfully held should be moved before noon. J. P. ALTGELD, Governor. OLNEY STATES THE CORRECT DOCTRINE. In several instances troops had been asked for to protect railroad property and were promptly furnished, and it was then found that the railroad companies had no men who were willing to work, and we had to find soldiers who had to act as brakemen and engineers in order to transport the troops. Several weeks prior to these dates, while the coal strike was pending, the Hon. William J. Allen, United States District Judge at Springfield, 111., finding that the marshal was having trouble to carry out some of the orders of his court, wrote to the Attorney General at Washington upon the subject of receiving assistance from federal troops to enforce the orders of the United States court, and the Attorney General sent the following dispatch: Washington, D. C, June 16, 1894. Allen, United States Judge, Springfield, Illinois: I understand the State of Illinois is willing to protect property against law- less violence with military force if necessary. Please advise receivers to take proper steps to procure protection by civil authorities of the State. If such protection proves inadequate, the government should be applied to for military assistance. OLNEY, Attorney General. This laid down the correct doctrine, that is, that the local authori- ties should be applied to first, and in case of their failure, then the SPEECH AT COOPER UtilON. 655 Governor of the State should be applied to for assistance. Immedi- ately after the date of this telegram, and on several occasions there- after during the coal strike, as well as on several occasions during the subsequent railroad strike, prior to the serious disturbances in Chi- cago, the United States Marshal for the Southern District of Illinois applied to the Governor for military aid to enable him and his deputies to execute the processes of the United States court, and in each in- stance troops were promptly sent to his assistance. This, in brief, shows the attitude of the State administration toward that part of the State lying outside of Chicago, and as troops were always promptly furnished where needed, and in every instance were promptly fur- nished to the United States Marshal when asked for to assist him in enforcing the orders of the United States court for Southern Illinois, and as the State administration stood equally ready to furnish any assistance which the United States Marshal at Chicago might re- quire to carry out the orders of the United States court there, and inasmuch as Attorney General Olney had only a few weeks before telegraphed that the Governor should be applied to for troops to assist in carrying out the orders of the United States court, it would natur- ally be expected that if the United States Marshal at Chicago should need assistance that he would apply for such assistance to the Gov- ernor of the State. But instead of pursuing this course, just the op- posite course was pursued. No application of any sort for troops was made to the Governor by the United States Marshal or any of the United States authorities at Chicago, nor was any such application made by any of the local city or county officers of Chicago until the 6th of July, and then such application was made on my suggestion. You may ask why the federal administration at Washington did not direct the United States Marshal at Chicago to apply to the State for troops in order to enforce the orders of the United States courts there just as the United States Marshal for Southern Illinois had ap- plied to the State for troops to enforce the orders of the United States courts at that place? I will tell you. It subsequently developed that more than ten days before there was any trouble the corporations of Chicago applied to the federal government for troops so that a precedent might be set under which they could in the future appeal directly in all cases to the federal government and become inde- pendent of local governments. OLNEY REVERSES HIMSELF. Thereupon, more than five days in advance of any trouble in Chi- cago, Mr. Olney and Mr. Cleveland decided to reverse the policy and 65S Ut^i QUESfidNS. practice of the government and take an entire new departure by set- ting a precedent of having the President to interfere at pleasure and having the United States courts and the United States government take the corporations directly under their wings in the first instance in all cases, and in order to have the American people submit to the violation of the Constitution and laws of the land as well as of every principle of self-government, the trouble at Chicago was, by syste- matic effort and deliberate misrepresentation, so magnified as to make it seem that we were bordering on anarchy, and that conse- quently federal interference was necessary. The impression was sought to be made upon the country that we were bordering on civil war and the destruction of society and that neither the local authori- ties nor the State authorities were willing to maintain law and order, while the real fact was that the federal government took steps to in- terfere in Chicago before there was any rioting or any serious trouble of any kind, and that the State authorities, who stood ready to act promptly, were intentionally ignored. THE DESTRUCTION NOT GREAT. The disturbance at its worst did not equal in point of destructive- ness the disturbances that occurred at Buffalo, N. Y., the year previ- ous ; was not near so bloody or destructive as a number of disturbances that have occurred in Pennsylvania, and was not as bloody or de- structive as had occurred in Ohio while Mr. McKinley was Governor. The federal commission appointed by President Cleveland after- wards to investigate this strike made a thorough examination of the subject and in its report used this language: "According to the testimony the railroads lost in property de- stroyed and in the hire of United States deputy marshals and other incidental expenses at least $685,783.00." Bear in mind that this includes the expense of a large number of deputy marshals and of loss sustained, as the commission says, in other incidental expenses. Deducting this incidental expense and the part that was paid deputy marshals and it reduces the amount of property actually destroyed to a sum which is lower than the amount that was destroyed in the disturbances in the other States that I have mentioned, and when it is remembered, that property destroyed consisted chiefly of freight cars found in railroad yards that extended over miles of territory and that it was easy for lawless men to stealthily set cars on fire under this situation, it will be seen that the property destroyed by actual rioting or by a large mob was very small. The Chicago Fire Department, which officially investigated every SPEECH AT COOPER UNION. 657 case where there was a car or any other property destroyed, reports as follows: "During the first three days of the month of July no efforts were made to damage the property of corporations. After that the destruction of property was as follows: July 4th $ 2,150 July 5* 3,435 July 6th 338,972 July 7th 3,700 July 8th 575 July 9th 1,150 July 10th 850 July nth ■ . . : 2,100 July 12th '. 565 . July 13th 115 July 14th 2,300 Total ." $355.6i2 Subsequent examinations have shown that even this sum was ex- aggerated. It will be seen by the table that nearly all of this oc- curred on the 6th of July and was due to the fact that a fire had broken out in a very large railroad yard south of the city, where there was no water and where the fire department was consequently powerless. It seems that most of the burning occurred in the even- ing after the rioting of that day in that locality had been suppressed, and after both the police and the State troops had arrived on the ground, but owing to the absence of water but little could be done to arrest the flames. One fire engine put out over a half a mile of hose, but was unable then to reach the cars. A mere glance at the facts shows that the reports that were sent out as to the actual condition in Chicago during the strike were malicious libels upon the city. It will be noticed, according to the reports of the fire department, that it was not until the 4th of July that the rioting began, and it was very light during the 4th and 5th of July and did riot become serious until the 6th. So much for the extent of the riot. EFFECT OF STRIKE ON MAIL SERVICE. Now let us see how it affected the mail service. Several months after the riot the superintendent of the railway mail service at Chi- cago, upon whom the duty of getting the mails in and out of Chi- cago during the strike devolved, wrote as follows in regard to the extent of the delays : 658 LIVE QUESTIONS. With the exception of some trains that were held at Hammond, Ind., Washington Heights, Danville and Cairo, 111., the greatest delay to any of the outgoing and incoming mails probably did not exceed from eight to nine hours at any time. (Signed) LOUIS L. TROY, Superintendent. This shows that whatever the difficulties may have been at other points there were no great delays at Chicago, and when it is remem- bered that the railroads for a time were helpless because they could not get men to man their trains, it is apparent that the delays there were very insignificant, and that in so far as the mails are concerned nothing had happened to call for federal interference. The truth is that there had been strikes in Chicago that looked more formidable than this one and yet the mayor and local authorities had found them- selves amply able to preserve order and enforce the law. In the pres- ent case the mayor had sworn in a large number of extra policemen, and the sheriff of the county had sworn in a large number of deputy sheriffs, and they believed themselves to be able to easily control the situation. Early in the trouble Sheriff Gilbert, who was a Repub- lican, telegraphed for arms with which to equip his deputies, and these arms were at once sent him. This was the last request he ever made for assistance. Remember, now, that the report of the fire department shows that on the 1st, 2d and 3d of July there was no property destroyed; that on the 4th and on the 5th of July there was a little destruction of property, and it was not until the 6th of July that the rioting became serious. I call your attention to the following: "On the afternoon of June 36 the superintendent of the railway mail service at Chicago sent the following dispatch to the authorities at Washington: 'No mails have accumulated at Chicago so far. All regular trains are moving nearly on time with a few slight exceptions. LEWIS L. TROY, Superintendent.' " , Yet notwithstanding this dispatch, on the next morning, before anything more had happened, the authorities at Washington decided to appoint a special attorney at Chicago to represent the United States in the strike. Thus far it will be noticed that the government was in no way involved. It had just been advised there was no serious delay in the mails and there was nothing in the situation that in any way affected the federal government. INTERESTED ATTORNEY APPOINTED SPECIAL COUNSEL. The government already had a United States District Attorney with a largo number of assistants in that city who were amplv able to attend to all of the government business there, but instead of simply SPEECH AT COOPER UNION. 659 , increasing their number, Attorney General Olney and President Cleveland decided to appoint a special counsel who should still more directly represent the government during this strike. The adminis- tration claimed to be Democratic. There were hundreds of able and distinguished Democratic lawyers in Chicago whose appointment would have carried confidence, but the administration would not have any of these. The Attorney General and the President evidently felt that when the Constitution and the laws were to be trampled on, when the precedents and traditions of the government were to be dis- regarded and a new and a revolutionary policy was to be inaugurated, that they needed a Republican for that purpose. Here again there were hundreds of able and distinguished Republican lawyers in Chi- cago who were not connected with corporations, who were in no way involved in the strike on either side and whose appointment would at least have aroused no suspicion; but the Attorney General and the President evidently felt that they would not do; that for the particu- lar work which they wanted done they needed a corporation lawyer, and here again there were a large number of able and distinguished corporation lawyers in Chicago who were Republicans and who were in no way involved in the strike on either side; but the Attorney General and the President evidently felt that for the peculiar and revo- lutionary work they wanted done these men might not be reliable. So they rejected these and appointed Mr. Walker, who was not only a Republican and a corporation lawyer, but who was at that time the attorney for a great railroad that was directly involved in the strike, so that he himself was already involved in the controversy, he on one side and the railroad employes on the other. In other words the Attorney General and the President took one of the parties to the controversy and placed at his disposal United States Marshals, United States courts and the United States army. Never before in the history of our country were the courts, the grand juries, the United States Marshals and the United States army stripped of all semblance of impartiality and given as a convenience to one of the parties. This, bear in mind, was on the first day of July, three days ahead of any rioting and five days in advance of any serious rioting, and on the same day the United States troops at Fort Sheridan, within an hour's run of Chicago, were ordered to be in readiness to go to that city on a moment's notice. The plan determined upon was to have the United States courts issue blanket injunctions, hereafter ex- plained, against the strikers and all other people, forbidding every- thing imaginable, and then use the marshals for the purpose of carry- ing out these injunctions and use the federal troops for this and other 660 , LIVE QUESTIONS. purposes. Up to this time neither the Republican sheriff of the county nor Mr. Hopkins, the Democratic mayor of the city, nor any other local State official, nor any federal official at Chicago or elsewhere had applied to the Governor for troops. PERVERSION OF INTER-STATE COMMERCE LAW. Some of the judges who issued these injunctions claimed to base them upon what was called the Interstate Commerce Law, an act of Congress passed some years ago for the purpose of protecting the shippers of this country, and especially for the purpose of preventing unjust discrimination by the railroads between shippers. This act had become almost inoperative so far as the purpose of its enact- ment was concerned, because some of these same judges had first held one clause and then another clause to be unconstitutional, so that it was practically destroyed as a measure that should prevent discrim- ination by the railroads. But after having rendered it harmless so far as the railroads were concerned at that time (the Supreme Court has since reversed some of their decisions) they, to the amazement of the American people, made of this law a club with which to pound the backs of the laboring men. I repeat that some of the judges based their injunctions on the ground of protecting interstate commerce, and they held that if a car was loaded with goods at any point and was intended to be shipped to some point out of the State, that then it was interstate commerce and the President and the federal author- ities could take complete control of the situation and could ignore State and local authorities entirely. Some of these injunctions were sued out by the Attorney General in the name of the United States, and were claimed to be partly based on the anti-trust law, an act of Congress intended to prevent the formation of trusts by large cor-, porations in restraint of trade. The Attorney General had refused to enforce this law. He did not try to break up a single trust under it, but after having refused to enforce it against the corporations and for the purpose for which it was passed, he made it a whip with which to scourge labor. CALL FOR FEDERAL TROOPS UNWARRANTED. Immediately after the beginning of the strike in which the railway operatives refused to work, the managers of the railway lines entering Chicago formed an organization to fight the strike, and they met to- wards the close of each day to report upon the situation, and at 6 o'clock p. m. of July 2, the day after the special counsel had been appointed by the government, and the day after the troops at Fort SPEECH AT COOPER UNION. 661 Sheridan had been ordered to be in readiness at Chicago, they met and reported as to the condition of their roads and the following copies of reports made by themselves, which are samples of all the reports, show the situation at that time : Wisconsin Central: "All passenger and freight trains moving and business resumed its normal condition." Chicago & Northern Pacific : "Suburban trains all running about on time. Freight moving without interruption. Night suburban trains discontinued for fear of being stoned by loafers." Chicago, Burlington & Quincy: "Thirty-seven car loads of dressed beef loaded in Kansas City yesterday morning have passed over this road safely and delivered to Eastern lines this afternoon and are now moving all right." Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul: "All passenger trains have ar- rived and departed on time. No freight moving here, but is moving on other parts of the line." Chicago & Northwestern: "All through passenger traffic has been continued without interruption. Not trying to handle freight." Lake Shore & Michigan Southern: "No interruption to business. Both passenger and freight trains have come and departed as usual." Baltimore & Ohio: "All passenger trains with full equipment met with no delay and all very nearly on time." Chicago and Great Western: "Passenger trains moving as usual with the regular Pullman equipment. Freight service partially re- sumed on the Chicago Division." Chicago & Erie: "All passenger trains are running out on time. Not attempting to do freight business. Have trouble at Marion, O." This was on the evening of July 2d, and corroborates the statement made by the fire department that for the first three days in July no attempt was made to destroy railroad property. In those cases where a road was not attempting to move freight it was due to the fact that their old hands had quit work and they had not yet been able 'to get new ones. On the morning of July 3d, being the morning after the railroad managers had reported the conditions of their roads, as already shown, and before anything further had developed, Mr. Walker, the special counsel, dictated a dispatch which was sent to Washington, asking that federal troops be sent into the city, and on the afternoon of the 3d, the federal troops appeared in Chicago and camped on the Lake Front and ostensibly went on duty. Let me repeat here that up to this time there had been no serious disturbance of mails, no de- struction of property and according to the reports of the railroad 662 LIVE QUESTIONS. managers themselves ho serious interference with the operation of the railroads or with interstate commerce. STATE AUTHORITIES IGNORED. And let me also repeat that up to this time the State and local authorities had been completely ignored, the State was not asked to do anything or to assist" in any manner, although it was not only able to entirely control the situation, but stood ready to do it. The special counsel for the government was also the representative of the rail- roads, and assistance from the State was not wanted, but every step was taken to establish a new precedent that might be used in the future; that is, to apply only to the federal government so that the corporations might at any time in the future be able to get federal troops at pleasure and also that the precedent might be established of authorizing the President to interfere at pleasure in any com- munity, because if interstate commerce is to embrace any car or any article of merchandise intended to be shipped out of the State, then there is scarcely a neighborhood in America but what some pretext could be found for sending federal troops into it. At about 6 o'clock on the evening of July 3d, about the time the United States troops were entering Chicago, the managers of the different railroads again met and reported in substance as follows: Santa Fe: "Six regular passenger trains on time; moving freight." Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul: "All passengers on time and without interference; moving freight." Chicago & Alton: "Trains stop for want of firemen." Baltimore & Ohio: "Trains moving; one engine detached by withdrawal of coupling pin; police detailed and protected train at once." Chicago, Burlington & Quincy: "Passenger trains running as usual;- no freight handled because firemen and engineers refused to work with new men." Lake Shore & Michigan Southern: "Trains moving as usual; freight trains delayed at Englewood, but prompt action by the police department raised the blockade." Chicago & Eastern Illinois: "Situation better than yesterday." Illinois Central: "Ties found on track nearing crossing, but did not delay trains ; matters getting along as nicely as could be expected under the circumstances." Chicago & Great Western : "Passenger trains all moving ; freight trains started; went through without trouble." SPEECH AT COOPER UNION. 663 Chicago & Grand Trunk : "Completely blockaded at Battle Creek, Michigan; will send out no trains from Chicago until that is raised." Monon Route: "Men cannot be had to take strikers' places." Chicago & Erie : "Passenger trains moving all right on time." Wabash: "Account of trouble at other places, but none at Chi- cago." Panhandle: "Trains moving all right, none more than twenty minutes late." Chicago & Northern Pacific: "All day suburban trains on time; business being handled without interruption." Rock Island: "Trouble at Des Moines, Iowa, at Blue Island and at other places, but none at Chicago." On the 4th of July there was some disturbance, although the fed- eral troops were on the ground, but instead of overawing the mob they seemed to act only as an irritant to intensify the situation, and on the evening of the 4th of July the managers again met and reported in substance as follows : Chicago & Alton: "Local trains between Chicago, Joliet and Dwight are running; through trains are held at Bloomington by strikers." Santa Fe: "Everything in pretty good shape; passenger trains on time ; ran five freight trains in Missouri and eleven in Illinois in past twenty-four hours and have resumed local freight service between Chi- cago and Streator." Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul: "Trouble with firemen running on Council Bluffs line; with the exception of a local train all passenger trains departed and arrived on time; no trouble on the line between Chicago and St. Paul." Baltimore & Ohio : "Passenger trains on fairly good time ; no de- lays due to strikers." Nickel Plate: "Regular passenger trains left and arrived on time; freight switching business is at a standstill." Chicago & Northwestern : "All through trains on Galena division gotten out last night, but suburban traffic on that division was ham- pered by inability to find engineers; are operating all passengers in and out of Chicago on Wisconsin division and are rapidly getting suburban traffic on Galena division running; handled no freight yes- terday, but resumed to-day; brought in a train of fruit from the West and have several trains of beer coming in from Milwaukee; no acts of violence on our lines in city." Wisconsin Central Lines: "Passenger and freight trains moving and about on time." 664 LIVE QUESTIONS. Chicago & Northern Pacific: "All suburban trains running regu- lar except night trains ; freight business is being handled promptly." Michigan Central: "Handled all freight that is tendered; moving all trains and doing regular work; a train of beef consisting of forty cars which was held at Halsted street has been pulled through the jam and is moving eastward." Illinois Central: "The conditions on this line are more favorable than since the beginning of the strike; there is no suburban service to- day, but this service will be resumed to-morrow morning; handled 109 cars of merchandise and coal yesterday placed on tracks for un- loading." Chicago & Eastern Illinois: "Moving some passenger trains and resuming business gradually." Chicago & Grand Trunk: "Started out mail train for the East this morning; have no equipment at Chicago with which to make up through trains, as this is tied up by strikers at Battle Creek, Mich." Chicago, Burlington & Quincy: "Had trouble in attempting to move a freight train; last night Pullman cars were cut from passenger train, but with assistance of police were promptly recoupled and train moved forward; all other trains of last night and to-day are running without interference of any kind. The entire force of switchmen in St. Louis left the service of the road yesterday evening. We are not trying to handle freight to-day; everything is quiet." PROMPT RESPONSE TO CALL FOR STATE TROOPS. On the 5th of July the conditions were about the same as on the 4th, but there were rumors of an extension of the strike, and it is evi- dent that the federal troops were doing no good there. On the morn- ing of the 6th of July the President of the Illinois Central Railroad telegraphed me that the property of his road was being destroyed by a mob and that he could not get protection. I wired him at once to get some one of the local authorities who are authorized to ask for troops to do so, and that if all should refuse, to wire me that fact, and that we would furnish protection promptly. I took the position as a matter of law that if the local authorities failed to protect property and enforce the law and refused to apply for State aid while property is actually being destroyed and the peace is being disturbed, that then the Governor of the State not only has the right, but it is his duty to see that order is restored and the law enforced, and therefore I sent that telegram. At the same time I sent a telegram to a friend in Chi- cago requesting him to at once see Mayor Hopkins and tell him that it seemed to me the situation was serious and that he had better apply spmch at cooper Union. 665 to the State for aid. This message was at once communicated to Mayor Hopkins, and about noon on that day, being the 6th of July, the day on which the property was destroyed, the mayor telegraphed for troops and by sundown on that day we had put over 5,000 State troops on duty in Chicago, although some of them had to be trans- ported 150 miles to reach the city. Never were troops moved with greater celerity. They at once got the situation under control and stopped the rioting, but they found that one of the railroad yards in which a fire had broken out was far out on the prairie and had an in- sufficient supply of water; that the fire department was unable to put out the fire and thus prevent the destruction of some cars that took fire from others that were burning. Within twenty-four hours after the State troops arrived on the ground the rioting was suppressed. There were still a few cases, during the following days, of stealthy incendiarism, but no more forcible resistance. On the morning of the 7th of July one of the companies of State troops was attacked by a large mob and opened fire on it and several men were killed. Up to this time the United States Marshal at Chicago, instead of calling on the State for assistance, as the marshal for Southern Illi- nois had done, had sworn in an army of over 4,000 deputy marshals to assist him in carrying out the injunctions which had been issued by the courts. There was no trouble about enforcing the usual and reg- ular processes of the United States court. The administration of jus- tice was in no way interfered with, but this army of deputies was sworn in to carry out this new system of government known as gov- ernment by injunction; but notwithstanding their number they did not seem able to accomplish anything. The disturbances kept growing and • spreading. They were sent along lines of railroad which the federal courts had taken under their wing, but as already shown, it devolved in the end upon the police and State troops, the properly and regularly constituted authorities, to restore order. FEDERAL TROOPS USELESS. Speaking of the work of the Federal troops in Chicago, it will be seen by the record that they did no good. They were ordered to be in readiness five days in advance of any trouble, and were actually on the ground on the 3d day of July, before there had been any serious disturbance of any kind, and they remained on the ground for weeks thereafter. Yet instead of overawing the mob or exerting an in- fluence for good, their presence added to the excitement and served as an irritant, and instead of suppressing rioting it will be noticed that it did not begin until after their arrival and then grew steadily, 666 Livn QUESTIONS, and on the 6th, the worst day, instead of suppressing they accom- plished nothing. The federal soldiers and their officers were no doubt brave men and good soldiers, but they, like the deputy marshals, were occupying an anomalous position, and were therefore under a disad- vantage. I am informed that on one day they tried to move a freight train at the stock yards, but finally abandoned the attempt. So far as can be learned, their presence did not prevent the burning of a single freight car in Chicago, they accomplished nothing, yet during all this time the impression was made on the country that President Cleve- land and the federal troops were saving Chicago. General Miles was in command, and his headquarters seemed to be, for a number of days, a regular newspaper bureau, and there was an apparent effort on the part of some people to make an impression throughout the East that civil war was raging in Chicago, and the General and President Cleve- land vied with each other in claiming the credit of suppressing that war. Cleveland, whose star had been rapidly sinking, hoped to win glory enough to insure his re-election, and it is reported that a cold- ness has grown up between these gentlemen because they could not agree upon a division of the honors. The fact is that up to the time the State troops appeared upon the scene the police force of Chicago alone did all of any value that was done to maintain law and order. The only officer who attempted to make any report of the things actually done by the federal troops in Chicago was Captain J. M. Lee, assistant to Inspector General (Exhibit C to report of Major General Nelson A. Miles to the Adjutant General United States Army, Sept. 4th, 1894). Captain Lee says that from July 4th to 20th he was con- stantly with the troops in Chicago. That duties consisted in communi- cating verbal orders and instructions of the commanding general to officers in command; also in accompanying troops to the riotous dis- tricts, selecting camps and stations and "in investigating and report- ing upon the grave situations from day to day." It is clear that he would know of all that the troops did do. And as the whole report shows an effort to magnify every incident and make the most pos- sible out of the occasion, we may feel certain that he told all he knew. He tells of moving troops, etc., and that on the 5th of July at the stock yards "troops guarded a train, while loading with cattle, with loaded guns and fixed bayonets, one company on each side." That troops drove mob from in front of the engine and the train moved at noon. Track was obstructed by broken switch, which was re- paired by railroad man, who was struck by a stone while doing this. That cars were overturned on track in advance of troops ; that he ac- SPEECH AT COOPER UNION. 667 coirtpanied railroad official to telegraph office to procure wrecking train, and then went east, where cars had been overturned on track, stopping trains; that by protection of two companies wreckage was removed and trains released. He does not say moved, simply re- leased, and then he says : "Returned to where I had left cattle train, but obstructions had caused train to put back into the -stock yards, and as a result of day's work here the strikers and mob were jubi- lant over their success." Judging from his statement the entire job was abandoned and no further efforts were made. Certainly the federal troops did not put down the riot that day. Then, in his record for July 6th, he says that he received report that passenger train was held on Grand Trunk Road at Forty-sev- enth street. Found trouble in getting any one to guide troops to the point, but finally got a guide and went ahead, and found that trouble had occurred at Fifty-first street; mob had been driven off and train released by Captain Conrad. Then he says: "At night observed fire of the burning of hundreds of freight cars about four miles south- west of stock yards." But he does not claim that the federal troops lifted a finger to prevent or to put out this fire. I have now given every specific thing named in his report that the federal troops actually did in Chicago. On the 5th their action, according to his report, en- couraged the mob, and all that he claims for the 6th of July is that Captain Conrad had released a passenger train. This was the day on which so many freight cars burned. Yet, so far as appears from his report, the federal troops did not prevent the burning of one car or the ditching of a single engine. If they were there to protect property or commerce why did they not at least make an effort on that day? Captain Lee next tells in his report of a trip to the town of Ham- mond, in the State of Indiana, where he says they arrived just in the nick of time to prevent rioting. How he knows this he does not say. General Miles, in the report already referred to, does not men- tion anything in particular that the federal troops did. But after speaking of their discipline says: "And their actions have very greatly contributed to the maintenance of civil law and in my opinion saved this country from a serious rebellion when one had been publicly declared to exist by one most responsible for its existence." This is extraordinary language and in view of the fact that there was no disturbance whatever of any kind in the city proper, that the rioting was at the stock yards and in the railroad yards on the prairies on the outskirts of the city; in view of the comparatively small damage done as found by the federal commission appointed by President Cleveland &§ wn Quzsmm. to investigate the whole matter, and as also found by the Chicago fire department, and in view of the written statements of Louis L. Troy, the superintendent of mails, that there had at no time been any considerable delay in moving the mails; and in view of the written reports of the railroad managers themselves that there was compara- tively little interruption of their business, and finally, in view of the report made by Captain Lee at the time this language of General Miles seems absurd and must tend to destroy confidence in his judg- ment or else create the conviction that he was trying to make a false impression for the sake of getting a little glory thereby. It is a matter of gratification to every patriotic citizen of Illinois that it was the State troops and the local civil authorities that re- stored law and order in that city. While they were not petted by fashionable society and were given very stinted praise by the news- papers, they did deal directly with the mob and restored order. Dur- ing the trouble thousands of men all over the State tendered their services to the Governor, and I am satisfied that an army of two hundred thousand men could have been mustered in a few days if they had been called for. This spirit of patriotism was especially mani- fested by the old soldiers of the State. FORMAL PROTEST. On the 5th day of July, 1894, after the federal troops had gone on duty in Chicago, I sent the following protest to the President and asked him to remove the troops: Executive Office, State of Illinois,- July 5, 1894. Hon. Grover Cleveland, President of the United States, Washington, D. C. Sir: — I am advised that you have ordered Federal troops to go into service in the State of Illinois. Surely the facts have not been correctly presented to you in this case, or you would not have taken this step, for it is entirely unnecessary, and, as it seems to me, unjustifiable. Waiving all questions of courtesy, I will say that the State of Illinois is not only able to take care of itself, but it stands ready to furnish the Federal government any assistance it may need elsewhere. Our military force is ample, and consists of as good soldiers as can be found in the country. They have been ordered promptly whenever and wherever they were needed. We have stationed in Chicago alone three Regiments of Infantry, one Battery and one troop of Cavalry, and no better soldiers can be found. They have been ready every moment to go on duty, and have been and are now eager to go into service, but they have not been ordered out because nobody in Cook county, whether official or private citizen, asked to have their assistance, or even intimated in any way that their assistance was desired or necessary. So far as I have been advised, the local officials have been able to handle the situation. But if any assistance were needed, the State stood ready to furnish 100 men for every one man required, and stood ready to do so at a SPEECH AT COOPER UNION. 669 moment's notice. Notwithstanding- these facts the Federal Government has been applied to by men who had political and selfish motives for wanting to ignore the State government. We have just gone through a long coal strike, more extensive here than in any other State, because our soft-coal field is larger than that of any other State. We have now had ten days of the rail- road strike, and we have promptly furnished military aid wherever the local officials needed it. In two instances the United States marshal for the Southern District of Illi- nois applied for assistance to enable him to enforce the processes of the United States court, and troops were promptly furnished him, and he was assisted in every way he desired. The law has been thoroughly executed, and every man guilty of violating it during the strike has been brought to justice. If the marshal of the Northern District of Illinois or the authorities of Cook county needed military assistance they had but to ask for it in order to get it from the State., At present some of our railroads are paralyzed, not by reason of obstruc- tion, but because they cannot get men to operate their trains. For some rea- son they are anxious to keep this fact from the public, and for this purpose they are making an outcry about obstructions in order to divert attention. Now, I will cite to you two examples which illustrate the situation: Some days ago T was advised that the business of one of our railroads was obstructed at two railroad centers, and that there was a condition border- ing on anarchy there, and I was asked to furnislr protection so as to enable the employes of the road to operate the trains. Troops were promptly ordered to both points. Then it transpired that the company had not sufficient men on its line to operate one train. All the old hands were orderly, but refused to go to work. The company had. large shops which worked a number of men who did not belong to the Railway Union and who could run an engine. They were appealed to to run the train but flatly refused. We were obliged to hunt up soldiers who could run an engine and operate a train. Again, two days ago, appeals which were almost frantic came from the officials of another road stating that at an important point on their line trains were forcibly ob- structed, and that there was a reign of anarchy at that place, and they asked for protection so that they could move their trains. Troops were put on the ground in a few hours' time, when the officer in command telegraphed me that there was no trouble, and had been none at that point, but that the road seemed to have no men to run trains, and the sheriff telegraphed that he did not need troops, but would himself move every train if the company would only furnish an engineer. The result was that the troops were there twelve hours before a single train was moved, although there was no attempt at interference by any- body. It is true that in several instances a road made efforts to work a few green men and a crowd standing around insulted them and tried to drive them away, and in a few other cases they cut off Pullman sleepers from trains. But all these troubles were local in character and could easily be handled by the State authorities. Illinois has more railroad men than any other State in the Union, but as a rule they are orderly and well-behaved. This is shown by the fact that so very little actual violence has been committed. Only a very small percentage of these men have been guilty of infractions of the law. The news- paper accounts have in many cases been pure fabrications, and in others wild exaggerations. 670 LIVE QUESTIONS. I have gone thus into details to show that it is not soldiers that the rail- roads need so much as it is men to operate trains, and that the conditions do not exist here which bring the cause within the Federal statutes, a statute that was passed in 1881 and was in reality a war measure. The statute authorized the use of Federal troops in a State whenever it shall be impracticable to en- force the laws of the United States within such States by the- ordinary judicial proceedings. Such a condition does not exist in Illinois. There have been a few local disturbances, but nothing that seriously interfered with the admin- istration of justice, or that could not be easily controlled by the local or State authorities, for the Federal troops can do nothing that the State troops can- not do. I repeat that you have been imposed upon in this matter, but even if by a forced construction it were held that the conditions here came within the letter of the statute, then I submit that local self-government is a fundamental prin- ciple of our Constitution. Each community shall govern itself so long as it can and is ready and able to enforce the law, and it is in harmony with this fundamental principle that the statute authorizing the President to send troops into States must be construed; especially is this so in matters relating to the exercise of the police power and the preservation of law and order. To absolutely ignore a local government in matters of this kind, when the local government is ready to furnish assistance needed, and is amply able to enforce the law, not only insults the people of this State by imputing to them an inability to govern themselves, or an unwillingness to enforce the law, but is in violation of a basic principle of our institutions. The question of Federal supremacy is in no way involved. No one disputes it for a moment, but, under our Constitution, Federal supremacy and local self-government must go hand in hand, and to ignore the latter is to do violence to the Constitution. As Governor of the State of Illinois, I protest against this, ancl ask the immediate withdrawal of the Federal troops from active duty in this State. Should the situation at any time get so serious that we cannot control it with the State forces, we will promptly ask for Federal assistance, but until such time, I protest, with all due deference, against this uncalled for reflection upon our people, and again ask "the immediate withdrawal of these troops. I have the honor to be, yours respectfully, JOHN P. ALTGELD, Governor of Illinois. PRESIDENT'S REPLY. Executive Mansion, Washington, July 5, 1894. Hon. John P. Altgeld, Governor of Illinois, Springfield, 111. : Sir: — Federal troops were sent to Chicago in strict accordance with the Constitution and laws of the United States, upon the demand of the postoffice department that obstruction of the mails should be removed, and upon the representations of the judicial officers of the United States that the process of the Federal courts could not be executed through the ordinary means, and upon competent proof that conspiracies existed against commerce between the States. To meet these conditions, which are clearly within the province of Federal authority, the presence of Federal troops in the city of Chicago was deemed not only proper, but necessary, and there has been no intention of thereby interfering with the plain duty of the local authorities to preserve the peace of the city. GROVER CLEVELAND. SPEECH AT COOPER UNION. 671 GOVERNOR ALTGELD'S SECOND TELEGRAM. To the Hon. Grover Cleveland, President of the United States, Washington, D. C: Sir: — Your answer to my protest involves some startling conclusions and ignores and evades the question at issue — that is that the principle of local self- government is just as fundamental in our . institutions as is that of Federal supremacy. First — You calmly assume that the executive has the legal right to order Federal troops into any community of the United States, in the first instance, whenever there is the slightest disturbance, and that he can do this without any regard to the question as to whether that community is able to and ready to enforce the law itself, and, inasmuch as the executive is the sole judge of the question as to whether any disturbance exists or not in any part of the country, this assumption means that the executive can send Federal troops into any community in the United States at his pleasure, and keep them there as long as he chooses. If this is the law, then the principle of self-government either never did exist in this country or else has been destroyed, for no com- munity can be said to possess local self-government, if the executive can, at his pleasure, send military forces to patrol its streets under pretense of enforc- ing some law. The kind of local self-government that could exist under these circumstances can be found in any of the monarchies of Europe, and it is not in harmony with the spirit of our institutions. Second — It is also a fundamental principle in our government that except in times of war the military shall be subordinate to the civil authority. In harmony with this provision, the State troops are ordered out to act under and with the civil authorities. The troops you have ordered to Chicago are not under the civil authorities, and are in no way responsible to them for their conduct. They are not even acting under the United States Marshal or any Federal officer of the State, but are acting directly under military orders issued from military headquarters at Washington, and in so far as these troops act at all, it is military government. Third — The Statute authorizing Federal troops to be sent into States in certain cases contemplates that the State troops shall be taken first. This pro- vision has been ignored and it is assumed that the executive is not bound by it. Federal interference with industrial disturbances in the various States is certainly a new departure, and it opens up so large a field that it will require a very little stretch of authority to absorb to itself all the details of local gov- ernment. Fourth — You say that troops were ordered into Illinois upon the demand of the postoffice department, and upon representations of the judicial officers of the United States that process of the courts could not be served, and upon proof that conspiracies existed. We will not discuss the facts, but look for a moment at the principle involved in your statement. All of these officers are appointed by the executive. Most of them can be removed by him at will. They are not only obliged to do his bidding, but they are in fact a part of the executive. If several of them can apply for troops, one alone can; so that under the law, as you assume it to be, an executive, through any one of his appointees, can apply to himself to have the military sent into any city or number of cities, and base his application on such representations as he sees '672 LIVE QUESTIONS. fit to make. In fact, it will be immaterial whether he makes any showing of not, for the executive is the sole judge, and nobody else has any right to inter- fere or even inquire about it. Then the executive can pass on his own appli- cation — his will being the sole guide — he can hold the application to be suffi- cient, and order troops to as many places as he wishes and put them in com- mand of any one he chooses, and have them act, not under the civil officers, either Federal or State, but directly under military orders from Washington, and there is not in the Constitution or laws, whether written or unwritten, any limitation or restraint upon his power. His judgment, that is, his will, is the sole guide, and it being purely a matter of discretion, his decision can never be examined or questioned. This assumption as to the power of the executive is certainly new, and I respectfully submit that it is not the law of the land. The jurists have told us that this is a government of law, and not a government by the caprice of an individual, and, further, instead of being autocratic, it is a government of lim- ited power. Yet the autocrat of Russia could certainly not possess, or claim to possess, greater power than is possessed by the executive of the United States, if your assumption is correct. Fifth — The executive has the command not only of the regular forces of all the United States, but of the military forces of all the States, and can order them to any place he sees fit; and as there are always more or less local dis- turbances over the country, it will be an easy matter under your construction of the law for an ambitious executive to order out the military forces of all of the States, and establish at once a military-government. The only chance of failure in such a movement could come from rebellion, and with such a vast military power at command this could readily be crushed, for, as a rule, sol- diers will obey orders. As for the situation in Illinois, that is of no consequence now compared with the far-reaching principle involved. True, according to my advices, Fed- eral troops have now been on duty for over two days, and although the men were brave and the officers valiant and able, yet their very presence proved to be an irritant because it aroused the indignation of a large class of people, who, while upholding law and order, had been taught to believe in local self-govern- ment and, therefore, resented what they regarded as unwarranted interference. Inasmuch as the Federal troops can do nothing but what the State troops can do there, and believing that the State is amply able to take care of the situation and to enforce the law, and believing that the ordering out of the Federal troops was unwarranted, I again ask their withdrawal. (Signed) JOHN P. ALTGELD. REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS CONDEMNED FEDERAL INTERFERENCE. When all of the facts pertaining to the situation in Chicago are brought out it becomes apparent that if you were to concede the right of the President to send troops to any part of the Union whenever he pleased and on any pretext he pleased, there was no occasion for sending them to Chicago at all and especially not at the time that the order was given, which was in advance of any trouble. Let us con- sider whether it is true that under our constitution and form of gov- SPEECH AT COOPER UNION. 673 ernment the Federal government can interfere at will, and for this purpose let us see what construction the Republican party has placed upon the Constitution. It will be remembered that prior to 1861 there was an act of Congress which permitted slave-holders to pursue their slaves through free States and which expressly made it the duty of the courts and all officials to assist the slave-holder in that particular. That act was of the same dignity and had just as much binding force as any other act of Congress could have relating to the exercise of federal power and an order of a federal court made in pursuance of that act would have the same force that an order made under any other act of Congress on this subject would have, and if it is proper to have the United States courts interfere by means of injunction and other orders issued by them to carry out acts of Congress, and if it is proper to use the United States troops to enforce these orders of the United States courts, as is now contended for by the managers of the McKinley campaign, then it was proper for the United States courts prior to i860 to make such orders and to use the United States troops to enforce those orders. After the Dred Scott decision there were several flagrant cases of Federal interference at different places, growing out of this question and when the Republican National Con- vention met at Chicago in i860, on the 16th of May, it adopted a plat- form which contained the following resolution: "Section 4. That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and en- durance of our political fabric depends, and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed forces of the soil of any State or Territory, no mat- ter under what pretext, as among the gravest of errors." The armed forces here referred to were federal forces sent to ex- ecute acts of Congress and the orders of federal courts. THE POLICY OF JEFFERSON. I have not the time to enter upon a general discussion of the pri- ciples involved. The Constitution of the United States specified the conditions under which the federal government can interfere in cases of domestic violence in any State. It provides it can be done only on the application of the Legislature or of the State Executive, when the Legislature is not in session. Now, even if it were true, which it is not, that the acts of Congress have attempted to enlarge the powers of the President in this regard, they would be void, because Congress could not, under any pretense, invest the President with any greater 43 674 LIVE QUESTIONS. power than it has itself under the Constitution. The plank of the Republican platform of i860, which I have just read, was intended as a condemnation of the use of the federal authority in the affairs of the States under the fugitive slave act of Congress. The old Federalist party, of which the Republican party was the successor, had always leaned toward concentrating power in the federal government, but this plank in the Republican platform followed the doctrines of Jef- ferson, who said: "It is by dividing and subdividing these republics from the great national one down through all its subordinations, until it ends in the administration of every man's farm by himself; by placing under every one what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best. What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generaliza- tion and concentrating all cares and powers into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or the aristocrats of a Venetian Senate. And I do believe that if the Almighty has not decreed that man shall never be free (and it is a blasphemy to be- lieve it), that the secret will be found to be in the making himself the depository of the powers respecting himself, so far as he is competent to them, and delegating only what is beyond his competence, by a synthetical process, to higher and higher orders of functionaries, so as to trust fewer and fewer powers in proportion as the trustees be- come more and more remote." The Democratic National Convention in 1892, in Chicago, which nominated Grover Cleveland for President, contained the following: "We believe that the public welfare demands that these (Jeffer- sonian) principles be applied to the conduct of the federal government through the accession to power of the party that advocates them, and we solemnly declare that the need of a return to these fundamental principles of free popular government, based on home rule and indi- vidual liberty, was never more urgent than now when the tendency to centralize all power at the federal capital has become a menace to the reserved rights of the States, that strikes at the very roots of our government, under the Constitution as framed by the fathers of the republic." These are the fundamental principles : LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT THE FOUNDATION OF FREEDOM. The act of the President was an entirely new departure in the his- tory of our government, and Judge Cooley, a great constitutional writer of the country, in complimenting the President upon having SPEECH AT COOPER UNION. 675 taken this step, speaks of it as a great step taken in constitutional construction, and is thankful that it cost so little bloodshed, thus practically stating that this new departure was a violation of the Con- stitution as it had been understood for a century. The old doctrine of State rights is in no way involved. Nobody for a moment questions the supremacy of the Union. But it does involve the question whether, in connection with federal supremacy, there does not go hand in hand the principle of local self-government. These two prin- ciples, i. e., federal union and local self-government, have for a century been regarded as the foundation upon which the glory of our whole governmental fabric rests. One is just as sacred, just as inviolable, just as important as the other. Without federal union there must follow anarchy, and without local self-government there must follow despotism. Both are destructive, not only of the liberties, but of the higher aspirations and possibilities of a people. The great Civil War settled that we should not have anarchy. It remains to be settled whether we shall be destroyed by despotism. If the President can, at his pleasure, in the first instance, send troops into any city, town or hamlet in the country, or into any number of cities, towns or ham- lets in the country, whenever and wherever he pleases (as is now contended he can) under the pretense of enforcing some act of Con- gress, his judgment, which means his pleasure, being the sole criterion, then there can be no difference whatever in this respect between the powers of the President and those of Emperor William or of the Czar of Russia. Neither of these potentates ever claimed anything more. The question is whether the local and State authorities should not first be called to enforce the law and maintain order, using for that purpose such local agencies and forces as the law has created, or whether he can ignore all these and bring a foreign force and station it in any community at pleasure. In this respect federal civil officers and the federal army do not stand on the same footing. The federal civ- il officers always have acted directly in the matter within their jurisdic- tion, but the American people, as all other free and intelligent people, are jealous of a central military power, hence great precautions have been taken to limit the use of such power, and these limitations have always been recognized in this country, and were recognized by the Attorney General so late as June 16, 1894. Again, the Constitution provides that the military shall be subordinate to the civil authorities, and in all cases where State troops are ordered out they are subject to the control of the local civil authorities and act under their direc- tion, but the federal troops ordered to Chicago in 1894 did not act un- der any civil officer, whether federal or State. They did not act under 676 LIVE QUESTIONS. the United States Marshal, but directly under orders from military headquarters at Washington, and were subject to those orders only. So far as they acted at all, it was military government. Local self-- government is the very foundation of freedom and of republican in- stitutions, and no people possess this who are subject to have the army patrol their streets, acting not under, but indepepdently of the local authorities, and do this at the mere discretion of one man, or of a central power that is far away. Such local self-government as would be possible under these conditions may be found all over Russia. We grew great and powerful and won the admiration of the world while proceeding under a different form of government, and if we are to go on in this same line, then the American people must arrest and rebuke this federal usurpation. In all history no power possessed by government was ever allowed to lie dormant long. Either the man or the class soon appeared who, for selfish purposes, proceeded to exercise it. If the acts of the President are to stand unchallenged and thus form a precedent, then we have undergone a complete change in our form of government, and whatever semblance we may kee*p up in the future, our career as a republic is over. We will have a rapidly increasing central power controlled and dominated by class and by corporate interests. Holding these views and knowing that the law had been enforced, property protected and order maintained for a whole century by constitutional agencies, and feeling that the mighty State of Illinois needed neither assistance nor interference from any outside source, I considered it my duty, as the executive of the State, to protest against the presence of federal troops under the existing circumstances, and requested their withdrawal. It is a mat- ter of special regret to many of our patriotic citizens that this blow at free institutions should have been struck by a President who was placed in power by a party that had made local self-government a cardinal principle for more than a century. According to Judge Cooley, Mr. Cleveland- gave the Constitution a new construction. This may be true, bur he stabbed republican government to the vitals when he did it. I have felt disposed to excuse ex-Mayor Hopkins on the ground that it was natural for him to want his administration to demonstrate its ability to do what prior administrations had done. But, however this may be, he is now working for the election of McKinley by trying to defeat the Democratic candidate. Let the McKinley orators abuse him if they like. In the fall of 1874, during the administration of President Grant, the governor of Louisiana applied for federal troops to quell internal SPEECH AT COOPER UNION. 677 disturbances in that State, and acting on this request troops were sent there. On January 4, 1875, by order of the governor, these troops dispersed the lower house of the Legislature on the ground that it was a mere mob, and the action of the troops was sustained and endorsed by the administration at Washington. This aroused in- dignation throughout the Northern States, and on January 15, 1875, a meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, Boston, to protest against this act of the federal government. Mr. William Gray was made President and there was a large list of Vice-Presidents, comprising a number of the most distinguished men of Boston. At this meeting resolutions were adopted which strongly con- demned the administration — Mr. Gray, Col. Henry Lee, Gen. S. M. Quincy, John Quincy Adams, Hon. F. W. Bird, Hon. Leverett Sal- tonstall, Hon. Albert Mason, Richard Olney and Robert M. Morse made speeches. Mr. Olney among other things said : "Apparently the administration meant to assert that the President might enter a State with troops to suppress disorder and violence at his own discretion upon his own view of the exigency and without waiting for the request or consent of the State itself. No more glaring attempt at usurpation can be imagined. If successful it would revolutionize our whole gov- ernmental system and clearly annihilate the right of local self gov- ernment by a State." Mr. Olney here struck the right key note, and as shown by his dispatch to Judge Allen at Springfield, he still held this view on June 16, 1894. It was immediately after this last* date that the great corporations demanded that a new precedent be set and that the federal government take them directly under its wing so that they might ignore and in the end defy local government. As Mr. Olney was himself a corporation man he joined with Mr. Cleveland in grant- ing this demand. Attempts have been made to draw a distinction between the laws of Congress and the United States courts on the one hand and the laws of a State and State tribunals on the other, claiming that federal troops could be used in the first instance to execute the laws of Congress and the decrees of the United States courts while the State troops could be used only to execute the laws of the State and the processes of State tribunals. But there is no such distinction, nor was there ever before such a contention. The laws of Congress are the laws of each State and of each city just as much as the acts of the State legislature or of a city coun- cil. And it is the duty of a State and of a city to execute and enforce the laws of Congress just as much as it is to enforce the local laws. In this respect there is no distinction between laws. The mere fact 678 LIVE QUESTIONS. that the federal government as a matter of expediency has seen fit to create judicial machinery to enfo*rce the laws of the United States does not relieve a State nor even a city of the fundamental duty of enforcing the laws of the United States. To repeat — these laws are just as much in force as the acts of the State legislature or the ordi- nances of a city government. Local self government means that a municipality or a state shall use all the power in its possession to enforce all laws that are in force within its borders whether they be federal, State or municipal, and if the power of the State is inadequate for this-purpose then the Con- stitution has provided a method for bringing in federal troops. It is as much the duty of the State to furnish all necessary force to execute the process of a federal court held within its borders as it is to furnish the necessary force to execute the process of a State tribunal. Mr. Olney clearly recognized this principle when he tele- graphed Judge Allen of the United States court at Springfield that the United States marshal of that district should apply to the State for the necessary assistance to execute the process and the decrees of the United States courts. To further illustrate this point : the fugitive slave law was an act of Congress — it was a law of the United States. The United States courts in a number of instances rendered judgments and decrees under this law and it was to execute these judgments and decrees that the United States forces were sent to assist the United States marshal at Boston and in several other instances prior to i860. As already shown, when the national Republican convention met in Chicago in i860 it violently denounced these acts of federal interference, as destructive of our institutions, and Mr. Lincoln denounced these acts with great earnestness in his speeches. The fact that the federal troops had been used to execute decrees of the United States courts founded on acts of Congress was not accepted as a justification. It has been asked: "Suppose the officials and the people of a State in time of trouble refuse to enforce the law and refuse to ask for federal assistance, then must you let all society go to destruction?" You might as well ask, "Suppose the President failed or refused to do his duty then would the republic perish and all society be destroyed ?" This idea is absurd and grows out of the assumption that we exist and are held together by a force coming from above, instead of governing ourselves. It assumes that seventy millions of people may go to destruction and free institutions be destroyed unless some official reaches out and saves them. It ignores the fact that our government is founded on the theory that the people themselves do the governing SPEECH AT COOPER UNION. 679 and that the world's experience has shown that they can.be trusted a thousand times over rather than some office-holder, and it further ignores the fact that for one hundred and twenty years the people of this country have so governed themselves, and that it was during this time that our institutions were developed, our cities were built and our greatness was achieved. AMATEUR SAVIORS OF SOCIETY. / It is amazing to see the young saviors of society that have recently sprung up. During the one hundred and twenty years in which this country grew great and won the admiration of the world they were unheard of and were not needed. But through the accident of an election or an appointment they were brought to the attention of the American people and then these debutants suddenly felt that the responsibility of saving the republic was on them and that society would go to destruction unless they reached out and saved it. All the intelligence, the ability, the patriotism, yea, the experience and suc- cess in self government counts for naught, and we have been given to understand that unless a few young men, some of whom had bor- rowed money to get a new suit of clothes before going to Washing- ton, now save society, all will be lost. GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION. The immortal Jefferson, after having written the Declaration of Independence and helped to launch the new republic, watched the operations of the new government for years, and with a vision that was prophetic wrote the following: "It has long been my opinion and I have never shrunk from its expression, that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary, an irresponsible body working like gravity, by day and by night, gaining a little to-day and a little to-morrow and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdiction until all shall be usurped from the States and the government of all become consolidated into one. To this I am opposed because when all government, domestic and foreign, in little and in great things shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks prpvided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated." See how accurately he located the danger and described the future. I have not the time to point out the alarming encroachments and usurpations of the federal courts since the days of Jefferson. I will 680 LIVE QUESTIONS. only call attention to their most recent and astounding pretension and usurpation of power. During the last decade they have established a form of government that is government by injunction, under which the federal judge becomes at once legislator, judge and executioner. Sitting in his chambers and without notice to anybody he issues a ukase, which he calls an injunction, against all the people of a State, forbidding anything that he sees fit to forbid and which the law does not forbid, for when the law forbids a thing there is no need of an injunction. When the law is violated provision has been made for punishment, and if it is found at any time to be inadequate it can always be remedied by legislation. But by this injunction the judge can forbid anything which whim, prejudice or caprice may suggest, and his order is law and must stand until it is reversed by a superior authority, and this may take months and even years, and when any individual disregards this injunction he is arrested by the United States marshal and dragged to the point where the court is held, sometimes a distance of a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles, away from his friends, on a charge, not of committing a crime, not of violating the law, but on a charge of being guilty, of contempt of court, that is, of having disregarded the judge's injunction, and he is tried, not by a jury, as guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the land, not ac- cording to the forms of law even, but he is tried by the same judge whose dignity he is charged with having offended, and then he is sent to prison indefinitely. Had he committed a murder or a heinous crime, had he violated the law in a flagrant manner he would have been entitled to be tried by a jury, according to the forms of law, and in the county where the offense was committed and where he could produce his witnesses, but not so when he is guilty of showing a want of respect for the order of a judge which was made outside of the law and in violation of the Constitution. When the Sultan of Turkey or the Czar of Russia issues a ukase forbidding something that the law had not forbidden he at least leaves the task of trying those who are charged with disregarding this ukase to some other individual. Common decency and common justice would suggest such a course, but in our country a federal judge assumes to do things which would be discountenanced even in Russia or Turkey. Several years ago it was charged that the management of the Northern Pacific railway had robbed that road of about sixty million dollars, and after this charge was made the same managers went before Judge Jenkins, of the United States court at Milwaukee, and got him to appoint their friend, Mr. Henry C. Payne of Milwaukee, and two other friends, as receivers of the road, and instead of trying to collect back the sums Speech at cooper union. 68i that were charged to have been wrongfully taken from the road the first thing that Mr. Payne did was to reduce the wages of the men who worked on the road, and did it without notice to the men, and then he, together with his attorney, Mr. Spooner of Wisconsin, went before this same Judge Jenkins and he got that judge to issue an injunction forbidding the men from quitting the employment of the road.-^ This also was issued without notice to the men. If any man quit the employment of the road while that injunction was in force he, was guilty of contempt of court, liable to be tried, not by a jury, but by the judge who issued the injunction himself, and sent to prison indefinitely. A somewhat similar order to this had been made some time previous by a federal judge at Toledo, Ohio. Judge Ross of California issued an injunction compelling the em- ployes of a railroad to go to work. Think of a judge legislating that way. When an individual has an employe who won't work he dis- charges him, but this judge ordered railroad employes sent to jail if they did not go to work. He undertook to run a railroad and just sat down and made law to suit him. He legislated, judged and ex- ecuted. The ConstiVution, the law, trial by jury, and the rights of the citizen were all brushed aside by this federal judge. During the railroad strike of 1894 Judges Wood and Grosscup, in the United States court at Chicago, issued a number of these injunctions which, in so far as they forbade what the law forbade were unnecessary, and in so far as they forbade what the law did not forbid amounted to new legislation. After they were issued the farce was enacted of having an officer attempt to read them to a mob, which, under the circum- stances, could neither hear nor understand. them, and the United States marshal at Chicago swore in four thousand, four hundred and two deputy marshals for the purpose of enforcing these injunctions. Some of these injunctions were obtained as early as June 29 and June 30, a number of days ahead of any trouble, yet as a preventative they were total failures and accomplished nothing. The trouble kept spreading and growing just as if there had been no injunctions. Ac- cording to their own statements the United States marshals arrested about four hundred and fifty men on a mere charge of being guilty of a contempt of court, and these had nearly all to be discharged after having been dragged to the court because nothing whatever could be proved against them. One man was a train master and had done nothing whatever except simply to quit work, but he had won the enmity of his superior and he was arrested, was taken a hundred miles in charge of officers, remained in their custody for several days, and when his case came to be heard he was dismissed with the simple 682 LlVi QUEST tO MS. statement that the government did not care to prosecute. For the time the corporations, through Mr. Walker, were the government. In other cases men were taken a hundred and a hundred and fifty miles from their homes and were lodged in jail until their cases could be heard and had to be discharged because nothing could be proved against them and then they found themselves penniless and had to beg their way back. Through these injunctions certain cor- porations and individuals have been able, at various times, to make a kind of side door convenience of the federal courts and thus lower and destroy the. respect for and confidence in the tribunals of justice and create the impression in the land that courts, by making law for them- selves and robbing men of a trial by jury and violating the Constitu- tion, are instruments of oppression. GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION A USURPATION. A mere glance at this invasion shows that government by injunc- tion is incompatible with republican institutions, and if it is to be sustained then there is an end to trial by jury in our country, and instead of being governed by law we will be subject to government by judges, and if government by injunction- is to be sustained as to federal judges, then we will soon have it on the part of State judges and the very foundations of free institutions will have disappeared. These injunctions are outside of the regular machinery of government ; so far as they are outside of the law they are usurpations, and where they are not usurpations, they are wrong, because the Constitution has created other machinery to enforce the criminal law. Courts of chancery were not created for this purpose. In Chicago they did not prevent the burning of a freight car or the ditching of a train." Our country has existed for more than a hundred years. During this time all our greatness and our glory has been achieved. Property has been protected, law and order has been maintained by the machinery established by the Constitution. This machinery has at all times been found to be sufficient for every emergency. If both the Constitution and our past experience are now to be disregarded and the courts are to be permitted to set up this new form of government, then the affairs of life will soon be regulated, not by law, but by the personal pleasure, prejudice or caprice of a multitude of judges. Formerly, when a man charged with contempt filed an affidavit purging himself of the con- tempt, that is, denying it, the matter ended. All that could be done was to prosecute him for perjury if he had sworn to what was not true. But after thus purging himself he could not be tried for con- tempt by the very judge whose dignity he was charged with having SPEECH AT COOPER UtilOti. 6S3 offended. In other words, when a man denied his guilt he could not be sentenced to prison without a trial by jury. But this protection of the citizen is now brushed away with a mere wave of the hand. The citizen is robbed of a trial by jury, and he is tried by the judge for whom he is alleged to have shown a want of respect and is sent to prison indefinitely. It was the extraordinary action of a few judges that called the attention of the American people to the possibilities and to the ex- tremely dangerous character of this system, and which makes law abiding and patriotic men feel that if not checked it must destroy free institutions. (For a more full discussion of government by injunction see speech delivered at Philadelphia September 5, 1897, in this volume.) THE SUPREME COURT. The Chicago platform denounces the peculiar conduct of the Su- preme Court in the income tax case. The platform declares that the income tax law had been passed in strict pursuance of the uniform decisions of that court for nearly one hundred years ; that the court had in the last decision sustained objec- tions to that law which had previously been overruled by the same court, and the platform therefore in substance declares in favor of securing the reversal of that decision if possible and of having Con- gress do all in its power to equalize the burdens of taxation so that wealth may bear its due proportion of the expense of government. This criticism of the Supreme Court is denounced as subversive of order and destructive of the respect that is due that tribunal. Aston- ishing as it may appear, men formerly connected with the Democratic party and men connected with the Republican party insist that courts are of a sacred character and above the reach of criticism. My friends, I give way to no man in admiration for American institutions. My life has been spent in trying to protect the flag of my country and trying to advance the educational institutions of the country, and as an officer of the court serving in the' capacity of prosecutor and for five years as a judge of the superior court of Chicago, and after this experience at the bar and on the bench, I say to my countrymen that there cannot be in a reptiblic any institution exempt from criticism, and that when any institute is permitted to assume that attitude it will destroy republican government. The judicial branch of the government is just as much subject to the criticism of the American people as are the legislative or executive branches, and it needs this criticism more than does either of the other two branches, because by reason of frequent 684 LIVE QUESTIONS. changes the people can make their will felt in the legislative and executive offices, but as the federal judges are not appointed by the people and are not responsible to them, and for all practical purposes cannot be reached except by the moral sentiment and sense of justice created in the public mind by free criticism. The judges of our federal courts are as honest as other men and no more so. They have the same passions and prejudices that other men have, and are just as liable to make mistakes and* to move in the wrong direction as other men are, and the safety of the republic not only permits, but actually requires, that the action of the courts should be honestly and thor- oughly scanned and be freely criticised, not with a view of arousing resistance to the decision of the court, but for the purpose of forcing the court in the end to see its error and to correct it. The mere fact that the Supreme Court has all through its career repeatedly reversed its own decisions shows its fallibility. Everybody admits that the decision of a court is binding in the case in which it was rendered and until it is reversed constitutes a precedent to indicate how the courts will decide the same question again, but this fact does not prevent men from doing what they can to get the court to reverse its de&sion. Nor does the decision of the Supreme Court in any case become a rule of political action the correctness of which the voter dare not question. The Supreme Court cannot by mere decision upon a con- stitutional question rob the people of the powers of self-government nor prevent the American people from deciding for themselves, through the properly constituted machinery, whether they will accept the decision of the Supreme Court as being final or whether they will refuse to accept it as a rule of action. As Mr. Lincoln said, "It does not necessarily become a rule of political action." The people have not parted with their power of self-government in favor of either legislative, executive or the judicial branch of the government. For the benefit of so-called Democrats who have criticised this plank in the platform, I would recall the language of Jefferson already quoted, and will add the following: In 1800 Mr. Jefferson wrote to a friend as follows : "You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions. A very dangerous doctrine indeed and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps and their power is the more dangerous, as they are in office for life and not responsible as the other functionaries are to the elec- tive control. The Constitution has erected no such tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided with the corruption of time and of SPEECH AT COOPER UNION. 685 party its members would become despots. The Constitution has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves." I would likewise remind you of the language of Andrew Jackson. After the Supreme Court had held the national bank bill to be constitutional in all parts, he refused to be bound by that de- cision, and asserted that he, as President, would not be bound to hold the national bank to be constitutional, even though the Supreme Court had decided it to be so. He accepted the doctrine of Mr. Jef- ferson and acted upon it under his official oath in vetoing a charter for the national bank, and 1 would remind the Republicans who are making this criticism of the attitude of Lincoln toward the Supreme Court when discussing the Dred Scott decision in the Lincoln and Douglas debate, when in referring to that decision he said : "We do oppose that decision as a political rule which shall be binding on a voter to vote for nobody who thinks it wrong ; which shall be binding on the members of Congress or the President to favor no measure that does not actually concur with the principles of that decision. We do not propose to be bound by it as a political rule in that way . Judge Douglas would make that decision a rule of political action for the people and all of the departments of the government. I would not. By resisting it as a political rule, I disturb no right of property, create no disorder and incite no mobs." Again he says, "We offer no re- sistance to the Dred Scott decision, but we think it is erroneous. We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it overrule this one." In his first inaugural address he said : "The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, as in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their . government into the hands of that eminent tribunal." CHICAGO PLATFORM VOICES JEFFERSONIAN DOCTRINE. Now that is the attitude which the Chicago platform takes to- ward the Supreme Court at present. It recognizes the decision of the court as being binding so long as it stands, but we believe the decision to be wrong and in violation of the Constitution. It was made by a divided court and under circumstances that look very strange, if not suspicious, to the American people. Let me quote a little more standard Republican authority. Sena- tor Sumner, on the floor of the Senate on February 3, 1865, in refer- 686 LIVE QUESTIONS'. ring to the Dred Scott decision, charged Chief Justice Taney with flagrantly perverting the truth of history. He compared him with the infamous Jeffreys of England, charged him with being a tool of the slave power, and said: "I declare that the opinion of the Chief Justice in the case of Dred Scott was more thoroughly abominable than anything of the kind in the history of courts. Then and there judicial baseness reached its lowest points. An outrageous judgment was sustained by falsification of history; the Constitution of the United States, every principle of liberty and historical truth were falsified." But we need not look for authority outside of the court itself upon the question as to whether it is sacred or is exceedingly fallible and needs the wholesome influence of criticism as well as any other insti- tution in this country. Let me read you a few sentences from the- dissenting opinion in the income tax case of Mr. Justice White, con- curred in by Justice Harlan, both members of that court: "I con- sider that the result of the opinion of the court just announced is to overthrow a long and consistent line of decisions and to deny to the legislative department of the government the possession of a power conceded to it by universal consensus for one hundred years, and which has been recognized by repeated adjudications of this court." And again he says : "And now after one hundred years, after long continued action by other departments of the government, and after repeated adjudications by this court, this interpretation is overthrown, and the Congress is declared not to have a power of taxation which may at some time, as it has in the past, prove necessary to the very ex- istence of the government." And again : "Great as is my respect for any view announced by this court, I cannot resist the conviction that its opinion in this case annuls its previous decisions in regard to the powers of Congress on the subject of taxation, and is therefore fraught with danger to the court, to each and every citizen and to the republic. The conserva- tive and orderly development of our institutions rest on our accept- ance of the results of the past. Their use as lights guide our steps in the future. Teach the lesson that settled principles may be over- thrown at any time and confusion and turmoil must ultimately result." SUPREME COURT NOT INFALLIBLE. Now, my fellow citizens, we insist that the language in this Chi- cago platform relating to the Supreme Court is more kindly and is much more respectful than was the language of any of the great men I have named. These great men all recognized the fact that that SPEECH AT COOPER UNION. 6ty court, like all other courts, is fallible, as all other human institutions are. That while its decisions were binding and conclusive in the cases in which they were rendered and were entitled to great respect in all cases, yet to accept them as a binding rule of political action would lead to the destruction of republican institutions and the establishment in the end of oligarchy in government. And when you reflect that we have already reached a point where a federal judge, in fact, several federal judges, have actually issued orders prohibiting men who are working for, a railroad from quitting their employment and threatened to imprison men for refusing to work, you see that there is no limit to the authority which they attempt to exercise. For a number of years the great corporations and trusts and syndi- cates have carefully looked after the matter of appointments to the federal bench, and so great was their influence that few could be ap- pointed who were not satisfactory to them. In many cases men were taken out of the corporation offices and put on the federal bench. These men brought with them all of the bias and prejudice that take pos- session of men who have long been subject to corporate influence and environment, and when some of these men trample justice and equity under foot and" render outrageous decisions in the interest of their former employers, shall it be said that the American people have no right to criticise their action just as they would criticise the action of a governor or a legislature ? If they have not this right when did they lose it? Let me remind you, my countrymen, that neither the poor people nor the great toiling masses of the earth have ever destroyed a government. All the great governments and institutions of the past were destroyed by the rich and powerful, who shut their eyes to in- justice and, through selfish greed, inaugurated policies that pulled down the pillars of state, and while thus engaged in bringing ruin upon their country they made a pharisaical pretense of patriotism. These things are now happening in our land. QUESTIONS INVOLVED. No campaign ever made in this country involved so many far- reaching questions as this one does. Questions, every one of which goes to the foundation of free government and affects the perpetuity of our institutions. First — The question whether the people have surrendered the right of self-government into the hands of the Supreme Court of the United States, and whether the courts are thus placed above criticism and their acts exempt from that scrutiny which every patriotic and intelli- 688 LiV& QUBSflOtiS. ~ gent man should give to the acts of the other branches of the gov- ernment. Second — Whether both the constitution and the traditions of the government shall henceforth be ignored and the Presi4ent shalh be conceded the power of sending federal troops at his pleasure into any neighborhood in the United States or a thousand neighborhoods at one time; troops who will not be subject to the civil authorities nor to the local authorities ; who are under instructions from Washington ; whether this can be done not only without the request of the local authorities, but in defiance of them ? Third — Whether the people of this country and especially the lab- oring masses who do not have much. of a voice in the selection of judges shall recognize and thus perpetuate the system of governing by injunction, which does away with constitutional government, which does away with government by law, does away with trial by jury, does away with trial according to- the forms of law and substitutes the caprice, whim, prejudice or passion of a judge for all these, making him at once legislator, judge and to a certain extent executioner? Fourth — Whether we shall dissolve in boodle, bribery and corrup- tion. Whether the men who have, grown great as lobbyists shall rule this land. Whether we shall declare to the world scoundrelism is in the end the loftiest form of patriotism. It is a remarkable fact that those men and those influences whose slime is dissolving our institu- tions are all helping Mr. Hanna. Everything within their reach is being prostituted. Where they can, they degrade the religious press and defile the pulpit. They have dragged the American flag in the mire by using it as an advertising sheet for McKinley and Hobart. In Chicago it is a fitting coincidence that most of the buildings from which the flag is thus degraded do not pay their fair share of taxes. Wave the flag and plunder the public, is the gospel of McKinleyism. Fifth — Whether the British monetary policy shall be made per- petual so that the toiling and producing masses of this country will be reduced in their purchasing power ; will be reduced in the end to a lower plane of civilization ; will be reduced in the end to the conditions of the men who till the fields of Europe or the Valley of the Nile? McKINLEY VS. THE PEOPLE. It is a remarkable circumstance that Mark Hanna and the whole crowd of men who are supporting this British policy of plutocracy are against the people of this country on all of these great questions. That crowd of men who nominated Mr. McKinley and who treat him as a kind of convenience, favor federal military interference, sustain SPEECH A T COOPER UNION. 689 the usurpation of the federal courts, sustain government by injunc- tion, and sustain this English monetary policy which makes every- thing that the American people produce, everything that the American people create, cheap, while it makes what the English have to sell, namely, money, very dear. The American people are called on this year to make a new declara- tion of independence to mankind. Over a hundred years ago the declaration that was made by less than three million people to the world was that they were not only free but that they were independent of all the nations of the earth ; now the American people are asked to announce to the world that free institutions have perished among them; that the President of the United States has arbitrary power with respect to the use of troops, as great as the Czar of Russia or Emperor William ; they are asked to announce to the world that the people have given up and surrendered to the courts of the United States the power of self-government and are bound now to take with- out question or without criticism whatever policy those courts may dictate ; the people are asked to make a declaration to the world that we are no longer governed absolutely by law and according to the forms of law, but that the right of trial by- jury has been abolished and that every man now walks the streets only by the grace of the federal courts. We are asked to make a declaration to mankind that we were once free and were once independent of all the nations on the globe, but we are now a mere financial dependency of England. These are the issues involved in this campaign. Low prices have de- stroyed the purchasing power of our fanners and in that way have shut up the mills and the factories, turned the laborer out of his job because there was and is no market for what he makes. Low prices have spread poverty, misery and' increased crime throughout the civ- ilized world. They are the result of that legislation in Europe and in this country which interfered with the law of supply and demand with regard to money ; that legislation which by destroying a part of the world's supply of money and by making gold the sole standard in- creased the demand for gold. So long as this standard is perpetuated so long will these conditions, which it has produced, continue. If the toiling masses of this country, if the patriotic men of this country favor a continuation of these conditions then let them vote for Mr. Hanna and plutocracy, for Mr. McKinley is scarcely a factor in this campaign. Mr. Mark Hanna and the agents of syndicates and trusts constitute the power that is subverting free institutions. 44 690 LIVE QUESTIONS. A NEW DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. . My fellow citizens, if you do not believe in the policy advocated by these men, if you are not in favor of converting this republic into an oligarchy, if you believe that this country should at least be in part governed by the men who toil and not solely and alone governed by the men who devour the fruit that others toil for, then rise in your manhood, stand out in the sun and before the Almighty declare, as did the fathers over a hundred years ago, that we are not only a free but that we are an independent people. Declare that the time has not yet come when this country must be made a financial dependency upon England, that the experiment of twenty odd years of having the world's business done on a single gold standard has been a failure, that it has covered the- earth with misery, and distress, and that it must be brought to an end. Stand up and declare that this country must return to that standard of prices which had been the world's standard through all the centuries that have passed; that standard under which the foundations of this republic were laid, under which we grew great and mighty and became the most powerful people of the earth ; that standard under which everything that is great, grand and glorious in the world today was created ; that standard upon which this wonderful civilization of the nineteenth century rests. De- clare yourselves to be in favor of that policy under which the mints shall again be opened to both of the metals so that there will be an end of this destructive fall in prices; so that prudent men will again feel that it is safe to go into business or to embark in new enterprises. De- clare in favor of an American policy which will result in instantly inducing intelligent and enterprising men to open up new fields of industry, which will at once create a demand for all kinds of labor, all kinds of skill and for all kinds of talents. Our fathers made a declaration of independence and there followed a century of the grand- est development ever known upon the earth. If you believe in the in- stitutions of the fathers and in perpetuating them, then go to the polls on the 3d of November and make a new declaration of inde- pendence and there will follow another century which in grandeur and glory and in achievement and the blessings to be showered upon man- kind will surpass the century that is closing. THE ELECTION OF 1896. 691 THE ELECTION OF 1896. Chicago, Nov. 4, 1896. To the Democrats of Illinois : Although defeated I desire to thank you for the loyal support you have given me and I congratulate you on the heroic fight you have just made. Consider that only six months ago our great party lay prostrate. It had been betrayed into the hands of jobbers and monopolists by President Cleveland; it had been robbed of everything democratic except a name. It stood for no great principle, .and its flesh was being torn by political birds of prey. "It was loaded with political deadheads, men who never did anything for the party except to ride it, and it was infested by political vermin of both the smooth and rough and dusty variety; yet under these sore conditions the party broke the cords with which the Lilliputians had tied it; it rose with new energy, it cut loose from the domination of trusts and syndicates, it repudiated the men who betrayed it, it threw off the load of deadheads, it drove out the political vermin and with a new inspiration it again proclaimed democratic principles and espoused the cause of toiling humanity. Although it was obliged to reform while under the fire of the enemy, it has made the most heroic political fight ever seen in this country. It was confronted by all the boodle that could be scraped together on two continents ; it was confronted by all the banks, all the trusts, all the syndicates, all the corporations, all the great papers. It was confronted by everything that money could buy ; that boodle could debauch or that fear of starvation could coerce. It was confronted by the disgust which the majority of the American people felt towards the national administration for which they held us responsible. It was confronted with the unfounded charge of being partly responsible for the hard times. It was confronted by a combination of forces such as had never been united before and will probably never again be, and worse still the time was too short to educate the public. While we are defeated our party is more vigorous and in better condition generally than it has been for a third of a century. I call your attention to the utter insignificance as shown by the returns of those men who, after having helped to ruin our party, were either driven out or left it in this campaign. Two years ago these men were with us and always insisted on occupying front seats and wanted to lead; then we were not confronted with any powerful opponent and we lost the State by upwards of one hundred and fifty thousand majority. This year these men opposed us and we had to meet all the forces I have named. We had no sinews of 692 LIVE QUESTIONS. war, we had all the power of corrupt wealth against us-, we had to reform under the fire of the enemy and the time was too short to make a proper campaign, yet we reduced the adverse majority of two years ago by about one-third; these men are at last where they belong. While we are defeated we have dug the grave of the British gold standard. One more campaign of education will forever bury the palsied form of that curse which has blighted prosperity and happi- ness of mankind. My fellow Democrats, on account of my health I welcome the retirement which is now assured and which I have long wished for, but let me say in parting that if you cherish republican institutions then your country will need your services. Two years ago several States were carried by the same forces that have triumphed this year, and in every one there followed a saturnalia of corruption and rottenness. Now these conditions are to be spread over the whole country, and it will devolve upon the Democratic party to ultimately stop them. The shadow of the man and the influences that will con- trol the coming administration is already on the land. Republicans tell us that the newly elected President is weak ; that he allowed the man- ufacturers to frame his tariff bill, and that as Governor of Ohio he was very weak. We may assume that the coming administration will be controlled by the men who have been so prominent in securing this election. Look at some of them: Mr. Hanna, Mr. Carnegie, Mr. Depew, Mr. Pullman, Mr. Huntington, Mr. Payne, Mr. Thurston, of Pacific Railroad fame, and a number of others of the same character. Many of them have long been regarded as corruptionists, as men who have helped to spread a moral leprosy over this country, and who use the government as a convenience to make money for cor- porations. There will be some bond issues and all manner of govern- ment jobs, and although we have no enemy on either side of us an effort will be made to give this country a standing army because plu- tocracy demands this. An effort will be made to advance the doctrine that local self-government does not go hand in hand with federal supremacy, but that the President shall have the same power to use the army that the Czar of Russia has to use his army. Efforts will be made to perpetuate government by injunction and destroy trial by jury, because plutocracy demands these things. An effort will be made to still further tighten the grip of the money power on the throats of the people and to gradually convert the republic into a plutocratic oligarchy, and it will devolve upon the Democratic party to save free institutions. I believe that at the next general election of the people the Democrats will triumph. Remember, it was Jefferson who led the way in freeing us from MISSION OF MINORITY PARTY.' 693 British domination in 1776. It was again Jefferson who saved free institutions in 1800. It was Jackson who freed the people from the clutches of the money power in 1832. It was the great common peo- ple of America and not the rich who saved our institutions in 1861, and it will devolve on the great common people of this country to save free government in 1900. JOHN P. ALTGELD. THE MISSION OF A MINORITY PARTY. (The following address was delivered at a Democratic banquet at the Tremont House, Chicago, January 8, 1897.) In a free country a political party stands for either a principle or an appetite, and a majority party may for a short time represent both. When it stands for a principle it is composed of men who have con- victions, who are held together by those convictions, who are conse- quently positive in character and who give that positive character to the party. No matter how small their number, they become an aggressive, advancing force. But when the party represents only appetite it is composed of men who either have no convictions or are willing to lay aside all convictions for the sake of preferment. Such a party is a mere negative force, incapable of advancement. It dare not move to the left for fear of losing votes.' It dare not move to the right for fear of giving offense. It dare not move forward for fear of losing in the rear, and when such a party gets into power it is not by reason of anything it has done but because the public is disgusted with the opposite party. All great reforms, all forward movements of the human race, were born of, were nurtufed, rocked and reared by minority parties. The majority party being occupied with the details and difficulties of administration and being compelled to make all manner of concessions and compromises in order to. hold together conflicting interests and thus maintain its hold on power may be well adapted to carry out reforms that the country has already spoken on, but it is not adapted to the development of new truths or the promulgation of further re- forms. The minority party on the other hand, being free from these embarrassments, can devote its best efforts to the consideration of great principles. Its mission is to discover the pole star of eternal right and to meet the newly developing wants and needs of our civiliza- tion. The mission of the minority party is therefore of a much higher order than that of the majority party. In our country the earnest advocacy of a great principle has always 694 ' LIVE QUESTIONS. furnished the most direct road to' power and even to the public crib. While we were yet British colonies Jefferson advocated the abolition of the aristocratic system of primogeniture and entail, and he advo- cated the freedom of religion. These propositions were received with horror and alarm by the majority, and by established society. They were looked upon as destructive, and he was denounced as an enemy, but in a very brief time the men who advocated these reforms consti- tuted the majority and controlled the government. The idea that men are born equal and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, was born of the minority, was ridiculed and denounced and its advocacy was even made a crime, but in time its advocates formed the majority and shaped the policy of the government. During the adminstration of John Adams the majority which was then in power favored strong centralized government and invested the President with powers that were destructive of liberty. Hamilton, speaking for the majority, said : The people can not be trusted. You must have great centralized power. You must curb the liberties of the people. Limited monarchy bottomed on corruption, such as England has, is the best government. Let the government help the rich and trust to the rich to help the poor. Hug the shore, said Hamilton, follow the customs of the past. Jefferson, who spoke for the minority, declared that the people could be trusted. He said : Yonder is the ocean of freedom calm and deep. Steer the ship of state out upon it and ride in safety. Keep away from the dangerous shoals and rocks near the shore. Keep away from the dangerous debris which the ages of superstition, tyranny and oppression have deposited there. Take your longitude and latitude from the sun and from the never changing stars and steer toward the port of liberty and the rights »f humanity, and before his utterances had died away in the distance he was called to the head of the government. During the decades which followed different political parties succeeded each other in power, representing different principles. Each remained in power simply long enough to test its theories. Meanwhile a few men in the East were giving expressions to the doctrine that no man can have a property right in a fellow man and that slavery was an abomination. They were not simply denounced, they were prosecuted and persecuted. Strange as it may seem to us to-day, cultured Boston closed its doors to these men. The church denounced them. The fashionable people and the so-called respecta- ble citizens avoided them. Yet so direct did their course lead towards power that before they had time to change their garments they found MISSION OF MINORITY PARTY. 695 themselves at the head of the government. Under ordinary circum- stances their career would have been short, but the Civil War raised new issues, and gave them opportunities to perpetuate their party in power. Since the war that great party has represented little else than organized greed wearing the mantle of pharisaism. Had there been an aggressive party standing for a definite principle opposed to it it would have been driven from power in disgrace. But unfor- tunately during nearly all of the years since the war the opposite party took no definite and aggressive stand on any question. Some gentle- men in the East who amassed vast fortunes got control of that great party. These gentlemen were of two classes : One cared little for the honor but saw they could make vast fortunes out of the government by manipulation. Their desire was to control both political parties, hence every firm and every corporation had its Republican manager and its Democratic manager. The other class consisted of men who wanted political prominence. They saw that the Republican party was already crowded with rich men and that the opportunities were not so good for preferment and although they were Republicans in taste, in theory and in association, and although they had not a sin- gle drop of Democratic blood in them and were not capable of com- prehending a Democratic principle, and although they stood for those forces which devour the substance of the people, they managed to get control of the Democratic party and used it for their own ends. Hav- ing no principles of their own to carry out, they prevented the party from advocating any. In 1884 the Standard Oil and other corporate interests came to Chicago and controlled the Democratic convention. They did not want a Democrat, nor did they in reality want a Presi- dent. What they wanted was a registrar, some one who would do their bidding. They knew their man and they got him. We won, not because of what our party stood for, but because of the dissatisfaction of the people with the opposite party. In 1888 the Standard Oil and other trusts and great corporate interests went to St. Louis and con- trolled the Democratic convention. In 1892 the Standard Oil and other trusts and great corporate interests went to Chicago and con- trolled the Democratic convention. Men who stood for everything that is destructive of Democratic principles yet controlled the party of the people. A platform was presented to that convention, framed to suit the men who controlled it, and it stood for nothing. Some one in the convention got it amended so as to make a stand for some- thing definite on the tariff. To a limited extent we became an aggres- sive force. The country being dissatisfied with the opposite party, ■we won. Then the Democracy went to sleep under an upas tree, 696 LIVE QUESTIONS. Hamilton would have been amazed had he .returned and seen how a so-called Democratic administration was robbing him of all of his glory by making a complete surrender to concentrated wealth. In 1896 the Standard Oil and the great trusts and corporate interests came to Chicago to again control the party, which by that time they considered as belonging to them by a vested right, but the Democracy of America had shaken off its stupor. They proclaimed again the rights of humanity, they raised again the banners of Jeffer- son and of Jackson and they declared that the Democratic party must again stand for Democratic principles. They adopted a new declara- tion of independence, and they selected for their standard bearer him who made the most remarkable campaign ever witnessed by man. As an intellectual achievement, as a feat of genius, as a heroic struggle on the most lofty plane of intelligence and morality his performances are without a parallel in all history. Never before was a great cause more brilliantly and more ably championed. Never before was there such a combination of adverse currents and hostile forces to meet. While the forces of plutocracy and corruption will seat Mr. McKinley now, the silent usher in Fame's great temple will conduct the people's champion to the highest place of honor. We are to-day the minority party and we stand for certain great definite principles. If we will be true to them then you will soon hear the voice of the nation calling the Democratic party to power. Now, gentlemen, why do we celebrate the birth of Andrew Jack- son? It is because he stood erect in the sight of Omnipotence and all the children of man, and defied the forces of plutocracy. It is be- cause he stood for the great toiling masses of humanity, because he stood for those doctrines that are vital to free government. What ' is the situation now? Jefferson declared that the prerogative of is- suing money or bills which should circulate as money, belonged to the government alone, and that banks of issue were destructive of the liberties of the people. Yet the present administration ha:s trampled that principle into the mud and openly advocated that the govern- ment should surrender its prerogative of issuing bills that shall cir- culate as money to the corporations. Jackson found the money changers in the temple and drove them out, and when the plutocracy of his day became insolent and oppressive as it is to-day, he declared : "By the Eternal, the people shall rule this land and not the money power." The present federal administration instead of following the footsteps of Jackson has made a complete surrender to the money power, has registered its decree and its will in every particular. Every principle vital to free government advocated by Jefferson has been retiring speech. 697 scouted by this administration, and every declaration in favor of gov- ernment by the people made by Jackson has been waved aside with a sneer by the present administration. Yet notwithstanding these facts there will gather to-day at various places in this country some gentlemen who uphold and applaud the present administration for the course it has taken in insulting the memory of Jefferson, and spit- ting upon the good name of Jackson, who yet insist upon calling themselves Democrats. We know that we stand for certain princi- ples. They boast of representing the opposite principles, yet there are men in the land who say we should unite. Think of opposites unit- ing! Let me ask, what would we represent then? Certainly nothing but an appetite. Form such a union and there will be nothing left that is worthy of the ambition of any honorable man. Even the road to the fleshpots will be lengthened, but if we stand by our colors then success is in sight, and the relief of the people is near at hand. RETIRING SPEECH, JANUARY n, 1897. NOTE. — It had been the invariable custom at the inauguration of a new administration in Illinois for the retiring Executive to deliver a retiring speech. At the inauguration in January, 1893, this courtesy was extended to Governor Fifer, who delivered an able address. But in January, 1897, Governor- elect Tanner requested the managers of the House and Senate not to permit the retiring Executive to speak, and although Senator Mahony moved that this courtesy should be extended in accordance with custom he was overruled. So as the following address was already in the possession of the press, it was printed. This occasion does not invite extended remarks from me. The world has decreed that an actor who has played his part shall simply make his bow and retire from the stage. Men turn their faces toward the rising sun and so it should be, for while the past may admonish it is the future that inspires. But we may pause long enough to note the character of this oc- casion and the lesson it teaches. It took the world thousands of years to reach a point where such a scene as this was possible. Mankind struggled through weary and bloody centuries before anything like government was evolved and then there followed dark ages before it became possible to take the reins of government out of the hands of one political party and place them in the hands of a hostile party without bloodshed. The scene which we witness here to-day shows the triumph of republican government and teaches us that the journey of man, when viewed from headland to headland, has been onward 698 LIVE questions. and upward; that passion is retiring and reason is mounting the throne, and we may congratulate ourselves upon the fact that in this great advancement America has set the example for the nations. The presence of the defeated and retiring party is not necessary for the peaceful change of administration, yet in order to add the graces to republican form it is customary for the retiring party to be represented and participate in the ceremonies of inauguration, and to-day the great party which I have the honor to represent, not only assists in these ceremonies, but it expresses the hope that the new administration will direct the destinies of this mighty State along the paths of honor and of glory. While politically divided we are all Illinoisans and the greatness and the grandeur of this State rise above, all considerations of persons or of party. Her past thrills, her present awes and her future dazzles the intellect of man. To the distinguished gentleman who is to stand at her head I extend the most cordial greeting and hearty good wishes. Loving Illinois as I do I shall applaud his every act that tends to her ad- vancement. I have given her four of my best years and have brought all my offerings to her altar. Had it been necessary to do so I should have considered life itself but a small sacrifice in her interest and I retire from her service and from the high office to which her people elected me without any trace of bitterness or disappointment. I have tried to further the best interests of my country, and while I erred in many cases they were errors of judgment and I go forth with a peaceful conscience. I have endeavored to carry out those principles that form the basis of free government and I have acted on the con- viction that it would be better to be Governor but for one day and follow the dictates of justice than to hold office for fifty years by winking at wrong. In my judgment no epitaph can be written upon the tomb of a public man that will so surely win the contempt of the ages than to say of him that he held office all his life and never did any- thing for humanity. We believe that the institutions of -the State are in excellent condition. Some of my friends feel that we have been cleaning house ; that we have been putting things in order. Permit me to say that if any of the measures which we have inaugurated should prove beneficial to the country the people will be in no wise indebted to me, for when a public man gives to his country the very best services in his power he has done no more than he agreed to do and has done no more than the public had a right "to expect. I do not endorse the charge that republics are ungrateful. I believe that in the end there is a disposition to give every man his meed. In fact, many men have RETIRING SPEECH. 699 been loaded by republics with honors which were far beyond their deserts. We turn the affairs of the State over to our successors. I would remind my distinguished successor that there is no such thing as repose in the universe; that the centripetal and centrifugal laws are constantly at work ; that nothing stands still ; that nothing is ever perfect ; that there is a perpetual development and a constant dis- " integration, and that the institutions of this State must go on develop- ing, reaching a higher and a higher plane successively or they must retrogade, and I will further say to him that rarely does the hand of fate open the gate to a more alluring pathway of glory than is open to him now. Illinois is already the guiding star of the American constellation. Her people have outstripped all other peoples- of the earth and they will surely shape the destiny of this republic. Their institutions of every kind and character should be the models for the earth and the flame of intelligence burning on her prairies and by the inland sea must brighten the sky for all people, and there could not possibly be a greater achievement than to assist in directing the thought and shaping the institutions of such a people. But I warn my distinguished friend and successor that the task is not a light one. It is beset with the greatest difficulties and will require wisdom, courage and intense determination and persistence. The selfish forces of greed are always ready to tear to pieces the noblest creations of patriotism. Hence it has been well said that the tablets of immortality are harder than flint and that only persevering genius can engrave a name or an act there. To the members of that great political party to which I have the honor of belonging let me say that while we are relieved of the responsibility of administration our responsibility in another direction is increased, for in a republic it is the minority party which creates the sentiment and develops the principles which the government shall in the end carry out. Not being hampered or embarrassed by the detail of administration, the minority party can devote its best energies to the discussion of great principles, while the majority party, being obliged to conciliate conflicting interests and to compromise, is in that respect hampered and generally spends its force in endeavoring to carry out a policy already determined upon by the country and is not able to deal in an independent manner with new questions which are from time to time evolved. It is the minority party that has made progress possible not only in this country but in Europe. In England it was the minority party that repeatedly forced the government to adopt new and great reforms. The immortal orators of England spoke for the minority. In our country the great forensic efforts which helped ?66 IWB QUESTIONS. to move the nation forward were made by men who stood in the ranks of the minority. In fact, every great reform in our country had to first confront a hostile majority. In a sense the mission of the minority is of a higher order than that of the majority. True, it does not deal in spoils, it has no fleshpots to distribute, but it is its high mission to discover the eternal essence of things and to point out the way of justice. We go out of power with nothing to regret. Conscious of having struggled for a great cause we smile at the frowns of fate and go forth with renewed hope and a firmer purpose. We need not inquire what were the reasons for our defeat. We know there were some condi- tions for- which we were not responsible, and on account of these con- ditions the currents began to run against us nearly three years ago and they ran with such irresistible force two years ago that they cov- ered the State like a deluge, submerging everything. In the last campaign the same currents were still running with the same force, other hostile forces were added which in themselves seemed irresist- ible. Our party was obliged to reform as it were in the face of the enemy. It eliminated many elements of weakness, elements which for years had tended to neutralize the party and make it impotent, so that it stood for no definite or great principle and was incapable of making an aggressive fight. After eliminating these elements of weakness the party made one of the grandest campaigns ever witnessed. But all this belongs to the past. No American has a right to stand with his face toward that which is gone. Government is the con- stant meeting of new conditions. It is not the things of yesterday but the things of to-morrow that must engage our attention. The prin- ciples we hold are the only ones upon which free government can en- dure. Let us renew our devotion to them and kindle anew our en- thusiasm. Let us not follow the example of those who try to use the names of Jefferson and Jackson to hide the most undemocratic prin- ciples and even the most destructive practices. In so far as ,the new administration, federal and State, shall adhere to the great doctrines of human right and shall adhere to those great principles that lie at the very basis of republican institutions let us give them our hearty commendation and support, but let us be watchful and whenever it shall seem to us that the welfare and prosperity of our great country are being endangered let us raise the alarm and let us all the time feel an abiding confidence that right will in the end prevail. RECEPTION SPEECH. 701 RECEPTION SPEECH AT TREMONT HOUSE. NOTE. — On January 23, 1897, the Democrats of Chicago tendered me a reception, at which I delivered the following address: Democrats of Chicago : I thank you for this expression of good will and I congratulate all in so far as this occasion is intended to represent or endorse certain ideas in government. It is ideas that distinguish political parties and that ultimately shape the character of government. I desire also on this occasion to thank those members of the general assembly who honored me by making me the minority candidate for the Senate. The Democratic party owed me nothing; it had conferred so many substantial honors upon me that I am greatly its debtor, and I feel that this last compliment should have been given to some one of the many able exponents of the last national Democratic platform. The Democratic party is not a one-man party. Sometimes one man may, for a short period, be unduly prominent in it, but that condition does not last long. Now that the Senatorial election is over, and that the new political machinery is slowly getting into motion, it may be well for the men who love their country to take a brief retrospect, not from the stand- point of partisans, but from the standpoint of patriots — and see in what direction we are drifting. Let us refer only to what are matters of history. Last summer the great Republican party, meeting at St. Louis, faced about and declared in favor of a gold standard. Prior to that time nearly every prominent man in it had, for years, been denouncing the gold standard and demanding the repeal of the law which de- monetized silver. That convention was controlled, even to its minutest details, by the representatives and agents of the great trusts of this country, and nearly every man who was prominent in it had estab- lished a reputation before the American people of being a lobbyist, and a manipulator of legislation. When the convention was over nearly all the public men of that party ate or swallowed all their past utterances and proceeded to defend the gold standard, and pro- ceeded to abuse and vilify those men who were not willing to thus suddenly flop and surrender all their convictions to the money power. This is one of the saddest spectacles, for it shows that the men who are leading and controlling the great Republican party of this country to-day, no longer represent a great principle or are actuated by deep convictions, but are simply time-servers, ready to do the 702 LIVE QUESTIONS. bidding of any master who can furnish power and boodle. Thank God there were a few men in it who would not bow to Mammon, but . they were driven out of the synagogue. Then an effort was made to commit the Democratic convention to the monied interests, but it failed, and that convention adopted a declaration of principles which was in harmony with what both parties had in prior conventions de- clared to be right. As the campaign progressed, people were astonished to see a number of men who had grown great as lobbyists and corruptionists, who had established reputations as manipulators of legislation and "fixers" of courts, come forward and strike a high moral attitude and pose before the world as high priests of morality and public honor; and every agency and every individual, high or low, that money or influence could purchase, direct or control, was finally enlisted on that side. Nothing was sacred from the church to the character of man. A corruption fund, amounting to many millions, was raised by the corporations and monied interests of the country that want to control the government, and this corruption fund, controlled by one man, swept over the land and seemed to penetrate every pore of society. When the campaign closed, Mr. Mark Hanna had debauched a con- tinent. When the returns finally came in they showed on their face that Mr. McKinley was elected, yet so close was it in a number of States that 30,000 votes, properly distributed, would change the result of the election. As the smoke began to clear away, it was found that the Republican ticket had received the support of the following classes of people. First : The negroes, of the country. Second : The very poor and very ignorant foreign-born people, living in our country, who had been cajoled and frightened, and delivered by their bosses. Third: The pur- chasable vote all over the country had gone as a unity for that party. Fourth : The repeating and fraudulent vote. Fifth : The entire vote that could be controlled by the money power through the news- papers, and through the trusts, syndicates, corporations and the people, rich and poor, who are swayed by these influences. Mr. Bryan, on the other hand, received the support of the great body of intelligent, patriotic American people, most of whom were American born. The great majority of the men who investigate and think for themselves gave him their support. I have called attention to the sad fact that the leaders of the Re- publican party showed themselves ready to abandon any position or conviction in order to gain power and office. And I now call atten- RECEPTION SPEECH. >?d% tion to another fact, which must fill every patriot with anxiety, and that is that the plutocratic forces of the country have demonstrated their ability to unite and to control the very ignorant vote of the country, and in that manner to override and to defeat the will of the more intelligent and patriotic element in American politics. But other facts have developed since the election which show a still more alarm- ing condition. These facts consist of the indisputable" and unanswer- able evidences of fraud carried on, in a wholesale manner and prac- ticed in every way that the ingenuity of man could devise. Let it be understood that we are uttering no whine; we seek to raise no disturbance ; the men declared to have been elected will be seated, and I, for one, regret these developments more than language can express, for so long as I feel that the sentiment of the majority of the American people can rule, so long shall I feel that republican institutions are safe. For while the people sometimes are misinformed and make mistakes, they are reasonably certain to right them in the end ; but the developments of the last two months show clearly that the will of the people was overridden ; that they were defeated by a count of votes that were not legally cast. These developments show that in each of the fifteen States which Mark Hanna started out to carry, there have been many more votes counted than there are male inhabitants over twenty-one years of age. For example, in Ohio, there were nearly 200,000 more votes counted in 1896 than there were in 1892, which would indicate an increase of population in that State, during four years, of very nearly 1,000,000 of people; whereas in reality, there has not been an increase of a third of a million in that time. In other words it is clear that in Ohio over 94,000 fraudulent votes were counted, and, as the returns show, that Mr. McKinley had only a majority of 49,000 in that State, it is certain that Mr. Bryan carried Ohio by over 40,000. A similar condition of affairs exists in fourteen other States. In all of the remainder of the States of the Union, the increase in the vote is a normal increase and is in harmony with past experience and bears a proper relation to the population* of those States; but in the States which were made the battleground during the last campaign there is everywhere an excess of votes over the number of male in- habitants in those States. This list of fifteen States includes several Southern States. The figures indicate that in Illinois there were over 100,000 fraudulent votes counted. In 1892 we had an exciting election in Illinois; practically every legal vote was cast, yet in 1896 there were 243,000 more votes counted than there were in 1892; which would indicate an increase of popula- 7S OF 1896. 719 if 129,657 population produces only 33,000 voters, is it possible that one-third as many people can produce two and a half times this num- ber of voters? You say that you are in absolute charge of the election machinery here, and I fully admit it. You further say that over one-third of the election judges in Chicago were Democrats ; that quite a number more were Populists, representing the same ticket and that, therefore, there was no opportunity to practice frauds in Chicago. Your friends insist that you have a keen eye. This being so, I do not see how it could have escaped your notice that a large per cent, of the so-called Demo- cratic judges were in communication with the Republican managers ; some members of the Democratic committee assisted in this, and appeared to want such memberships for the express purpose of mak- ing themselves valuable to the Republicans. To a limited extent this condition existed in 1894. In 1896 a number of men who were connected with the State administration worked hard for the Repub- lican ticket; some openly and others secretly, but their movements and their actions were well known, and here, as in the country, you will find that, as a rule, in those precincts where the greatest Repub- licans gains were made, and in those precincts where there was the greatest increase in the total vote, the Republicans had absolute con- trol of the machinery, no matter what the judges called themselves. It is true that the census for Chicago has always shown a much greater number of male inhabitants over twenty-one years of age than there were votes cast. But this is due to the fact that Chicago has always been and is now a great immigration center, and as an immigrant must be in this country five years before he can be natural- ized, it follows that all of the male immigrants who have come during five years will be included in the census, but cannot appear on the voting list. This number is always large. The per cent, of these was as large in 1896 as in former years. In 1892 the work of natur- alization was so thoroughly looked after that almost -every male im- migrant over twenty-one years of age who had been here the requisite time was naturalized. If you say that at prior elections the actual vote polled was below the number registered in Chicago, then I remind you that this was the case in 1896. In that year there were 374,425 registered, and there were 354,851 votes returned. The per cent, of voters registered that year who did not vote was about the same as it was in 1892. In view of all these facts it cannot be claimed that the astonishing in- crease in the vote returned for 1896 was due to the fact that 154,000 ?2d 'UV& QUEtTldNS. voted that year who could have voted in 1892 and did not, but did vote in 1896. Taking the entire State together, several things stand out promi- nent. First. — That in those precincts where the greatest Republican gains were made and in those precincts where there was an astonishing in- crease in the vote, the Republicans absolutely controlled the whole machinery — not only the election machinery, but the prosecuting ma- chinery. Second. — That there appears to have been a system in the method of perpetrating frauds, as there were at least five distinct methods practiced in different sections of the State. Third. — That out of the 217,000 increased vote in our State in 1896 over that of 1892 only about 60,000 were legitimate and legal and that over 154,000 have not been explained and can neither be explained nor located. As this letter is already much too long, I will only glance at a few of the other States. In Ohio the vote returned in 1896 was nearly 200,000 more than that returned in 1892, indicating an increase in the population of about 1 ,000,000 people in four years ; whereas prior to that time it had taken the State three-quarters of a century to gain 4,000,000. Manifestly there is something wrong here. Several things at once become ap- parent on examination. First. — That in the agricultural sections of the State and in those cities where there is not a large ignorant vote, the increase in popula- tion was only the normal increase, and the Democrats made great gains. Second. — That the Republican gains and abnormal increase in vote was reported from those precincts and counties in which the Re- publicans had the entire machinery in their hands. Third. — That the great Republican gains and abnormal increase in the vote were along the Ohio River and in those manufacturing and other centers where there was a large colored and ignorant foreign population. It appears that there were many thousands of Finns and other for- eign-bom men who were brought over to this country to displace American workmen, and who are not legal voters, most of whom had not been in this country long enough to secure their naturalization papers. I am informed that in one precinct in Ashtabula seventy- five of these men, who were not legal voters, tried to vote, but the Republicans did not have control of the machinery in that precinct and their votes were rejected. The same class of men voted in hun- ELECTION FRA UDS OF 1896. 72 1 dreds of other precincts in the State, and their votes were received. In my speech I made merely an incidental reference to the condi- tions in Ohio. How did the Republicans receive these? Precisely like the man who had stolen the hog in Arkansas. Mr. Grosvenor, a member of Congress from one of the districts along the Ohio River, where many frauds were said to have been committed, arose in his seat in the house and abused and vilified me, and then, in true Republican fashion, he proceeded to certify to the superior virtues of himself and his associates. Men who either have had some of the pork or whose friends want some of it, care but little how the animal was captured. Examination of the facts forces the conclusion that Bryan carried Ohio by over 40,000 votes. A similar state of affairs exists in Indiana, Kentucky and in Cal- ifornia — in fact in every State that Mr. Hanna made a strong effort to carry. Wherever you find a State, North or South, where there is an enormous increase in the vote, you will find that Mr. Hanna's agents were operating there. In all of the remainder of the States of this Union the increase in the vote is normal and harmonizes with the present population and with the experience of the past. For a while Mr. Hanna expected to carry Texas and Missouri, and made some efforts at a number of points in these States, and it was exactly at those places where there was an astonishing increase in the vote. In all other places the increase was normal. An examination of the figures shows that a majority of the legiti- mate vote of the country went for Mr. Bryan. In 1892 Mr. Cleveland carried Illinois by about 27,000 plurality. In 1896 Mr. Bryan received 38,000 more votes in Illinois than Mr. Cleveland did. Mr. Cleveland lost Ohio by about 1,000. Mr. Bryan received 70,000 more votes than Mr. Cleveland received, showing that almost the entire legitimate increase in the vote of that State went to Mr. Bryan. Mr. Cleveland carried Indiana by 7,060. Mr. Bryan received 43,000 more votes than Mr. Cleveland did. In Kentucky Mr. Cleveland received a plurality of 40,000. Mr. Bryan received 43,000 more votes than Mr. Cleveland did, and yet it is claimed he lost the State. The more the matter is examined the more glaring the frauds appear. I am informed by people living in the South that it has recently developed that during the campaign thousands of negroes were taken from different places of the South and distributed in Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, In- diana and Illinois. I know Mr. McKinley will be seated, and so great is the suffering of our people and so strong the cry for relief, that I not only hope that his administration will be a success, but I most fervently hope that 46 722 LIVE questions. he may be able to deliver the good times and the prosperity that were promised. No matter how I might otherwise feel about it, when a great nation is in distress and crying for relief, no political jealousy can be tolerated for a moment. On the other hand, if our institutions are to endure, then steps must be taken to make it impossible to repeat the work of last fall. If corruption and crime can control the elections of America, then the flag has been robbed of its glory, the doom of the toiler is sealed and the future generations will simply be born into sorrow. Very respectfully, JOHN P. ALTGELD. THE CIVIL SERVICE LAW. ITS EVASION AND VIOLATION BY THE REPUBLICANS OF CHICAGO. Managing the details of government is like managing the details of business. Conditions change from time to time, as the country develops, and new methods have to be adopted to meet new condi- tions. Merchants and manufacturers are compelled to employ dif- ferent methods now from those they employed forty and fifty years ago, and the same is true of government. Experience has shown that when the old methods are no longer adequate, or when great abuses have grown up under them, considerable experiment is necessary in order to find the best remedy. Early in the history of our government there were comparatively few employes needed in the public service. The conditions then were very much as they are to-day out in the country and in the smaller cities. The head of a department or the executive of a city knew nearly all of the inhabitants, knew their character and their capacity, and when a clerk or an assistant was needed, he simply appointed him, and that was the end of it. That was the best method for those times. As the population increased, the public business increased, and that method no longer met the requirements of the public service. Instead of there being two or three dozen employes, there were, in many cases, several thousand. Neither an executive or the head of a department could or did know all of the applicants, and therefore could not act upon personal knowledge in making appointments. Again, it was found that the labor in the public service was light, as compared with labor in private employment, also that the salaries THE CIVIL SERVICE LAW. 723 paid, in many cases, were almost double what the recipients could earn in private employment. Consequently these positions began to be sought after. In time, there were from ten to twenty applicants for every position, so that for every thousand positions to be filled there were over ten thousand applicants. All of these naturally tried to see the executive, or head of a department, to urge their claims, not only once, but a number of times. But this was not all. Every applicant, again, got as many of his friends as possible to go and urge his appointment. These friends generally were politicians who were under some obligation to the ap- plicant, or who expected to derive benefit from his appointment, and who were therefore very persistent in their efforts in his behalf. So that we finally reached a condition where it took almost the entire time of the executive to hear applications for office, so that he had scarcely any time left to attend to public business, and even when not thus occupied he was worn out, for nothing so quickly draws the marrow out of a man's bones as the persistent and continuous im- portuning for office. The trouble did not cease when the appointments had once been made. After every place was filled the applications for positions still continued. The pressure in one form or another continued, and there was a constant tendency toward stuffing pay-rolls, a constant tendency toward appointing many more than the service required. A number of years ago our public service became almost a stand- ing scandal, not only to the great detriment of the service, but to the injury of the country. Certain politicians were enabled to form po- litical machines by getting their friends appointed to place, and by means of these machines were able to dictate nominations, dictate party policies, and thus to prostitute political parties to the low and corrupt plane of the spoilsmonger, so that instead of standing for great principles of government and public policy, the political parties were like a hen in the barn-yard, simply scratching for worms. To remedy these evils, various measures were discussed for years. Finally the matter took form, and a national civil service law was passed, which embodied four cardinal principles: First, that every applicant for position should be examined by an examiner or board in order to ascertain his qualifications. Second, that the appointing power should be taken away entirely from the executive or head of department, in all cases except in those important positions in which the appointee must be vested with great discretion and responsibility. Third, that whenever there was a vacancy the place should be filled 724 LIVE QUESTIONS. by taking the man standing at the head of the list of those who had been examined, and giving him a trial. Fourth, that when once appointed the appointee should not be re- moved, except for cause, and the question as to whether good cause for removal existed should be passed on by the civil service com- mission. This law grew out of the necessities of the case. It was absolutely necessary that something should be done, and it was not reasonable to expect that the remedy should be perfect at the beginning. No remedy ever is. But in so far as relates to great cities, the provisions of this law requiring an examination of the applicants, depriving the executive or head of department of the power of appointment, and re- quiring vacancies to be filled by taking the men at the head of the list and giving them a trial, are fundamental and must be maintained. Personally I believe that the principle of making appointees of the public service life officers is not in harmony with republican institu- tions, and I also believe that in time that feature will develop a weak and unsatisfactory service, and produce, in the end, a class of public barnacles who are kept on the pay-rolls simply because it would re- quire something like a lawsuit to oust them. But this provision can be changed when the necessity for it appears. That is a question of legislatipn, and need not be considered at present. Here, in Chicago the public service has become so great that I understand there are altogether in the neighborhood of 14,764 names upon the pay-rolls in the various departments of the city, and the number of applicants for office is perhaps greater in Chicago, in pro- portion to the number of places to be filled, than anywhere else in the world. In proportion to the number of inhabitants, we have more people who want to serve their country by drawing a salary from it than are found anywhere else. The work is light and easy, and the pay is usually about twice what the same amount of work would com- mand outside. When, therefore, all these applicants for place seek to reach the Mayor, and get all their friends, political or otherwise, to go and see him in their behalf, it makes an innumerable multitude, and if the Mayor gives a minute's audience to each, it takes so much of his time that he cannot attend to public business, and it makes such a drain upon his vitality that he will not be in a condition to attend to public business. And here, as it formerly was in the federal service, the fact that there may be no vacancy does not stop the importuning for place. Every alderman, every man who thinks he has influence, has some friend, or some relative, or some political hustler, for whom he must THE CIVIL SERVICE LAW. 725 get a job. Some years ago I went to the City Hall, and I found the corridor packed with men from one end to the other, and the stair- ways were filled with men, all waiting to get in to see the Mayor. I was told that this had been the condition for weeks. The people of this city began to realize that something must be done to meet this situation and to correct this abuse, and various remedies were sug- gested. In my first message to the Legislature, four years ago, I sug- gested that some reasonable steps should be taken in this matter. Two years ago I again urged it. Finally some bills were presented, one of which I was told had been drawn under the direction of the Civic Federation. It was a long bill, and provided for the creation of a great machine. It created a Civil Service Commission of three mem- bers, beside a secretary, each of whom was to get three thousand dollars a year, and it provided for the appointment of a limitless number of examiners, clerks, etc., all to be paid. I objected to the creation of so many new salaried offices, and I suggested to the gentlemen who favored that particular bill that there are thousands of public-spirited, able men in Chicago who would serve as members of that board and perform all of its duties as a matter of patriotism, and without any compensation; that inasmuch as the law contem- plated that the board should hire men to act as examiners and do all that line of work, there was no necessity for paying such high salaries to the commissioners; and that in fact, if men were appointed who acted solely for the honor of holding such a position and from a sense of duty to their country, we would get the very highest grade of service possible. But the gentlemen who represented the bill ob- jected. They wanted it passed just as it was. They wanted a salaried board. Again, the bill provided that it should be submitted to the voters of Chicago at the ensuing spring election, when a Mayor was to be elected, and that if adopted by the people of Chicago, then the newly elected Mayor should, inside of ninety days, issue a proclamation, declaring the law to be in force, and it further provided that he should not issue this proclamation until forty days after he had been elected. I objected strenuously to that provision, and said: "Gentlemen, if the people of Chicago adopt the civil service law at the same time that they elect a Mayor, there is no need of having him issue a proclama- tion. Let the law take effect immediately, so that the new administra- tion will be obliged to carry the law out." But the gentlemen repre- senting this bill were opposed to this. They claimed that the poli- ticians did not favor any bill, and that if the bill were to go into effect 726 LIVE QUESTIONS. immediately there might be such a combination of politicians as would defeat its adoption by the people; that therefore it was neces- sary to let it be understood that the newly elected Mayor could, if he wanted to, make appointments. But they said they believed Mr. Swift was going to be elected Mayor, and that they knew he would enforce the law at once, and would make all of the offices at once sub- ject to the civil service law. They represented that Mr. Swift was strongly in favor of this law. Practically they vouched for him, and that if he were elected Mayor no appointments would be made, except through the civil service commissioners. So strongly were they op- posed to having any changes made in the bill in these particulars, that it became a question of allowing that bill to become a law or having no legislation upon the subject, and feeling that some steps should be taken toward correcting the abuses that existed, I yielded the point, and allowed the bill to become a law. Subsequently another bill was introduced, creating a civil service commission for the county. It also provided for salaries and for a complete establishment. That bill also passed and became a law. At the city election which ensued the civil service law was adopted by the people, by an overwhelming majority. Mr. Swift was elected Mayor by over forty thousand majority. It was therefore to be ex- pected that the merit system would at once be established and all vacancies filled after examination of the applicants. But instead of this being done, the proclamation necessary to make the law in force was not issued until it had to be done, under the law, and every po- sition in the city service, big or little, that had a salary attached to it, was filled before the proclamation was issued and the law went into effect. I am not criticizing Mr. Swift, for he had made me no promises, but, gentlemen, I ask you, are the men who insisted that they knew that Mayor Swift would enforce this law at once, are they denouncing him to-day for not having enforced it? Have they risen up and con- demned him for his course? Not at all. On the contrary, these men are to-day telling us that unless the Republican party is kept in power, the civil service law will be overthrown ! Let us go a step further. After the law had gone into effect, after the places had been filled, the Mayor was asked to have the new ap- pointees submit to an examination by the Civil Service Board. Now, mind you, he was not asked to discharge them. They were to be per- mitted to hold their positions. They were not asked to retire and come in on the same level with others. He was asked simply to require them to go and submit to an examination, but he refused. No doubt THE CIVIL SERVICE LAW. 727 he felt that a great many of the fellows who had been appointed to place could not pass the examination, for many of the Republicans who had crept into position were not of a class that could stand an examination. But no matter what his reason was, did the men who have been talking civil service, who claim that they are the friends of civil service, did they rise up and condemn the Mayor to this com- munity for his action? Did they condemn him for the fact that he not only ignored the law, but kicked it out of his way? Not at all. We hear some of these men now actually telling the people of Chicago that the Republicans established civil service here, and that unless a Republican Mayor is elected, the civil service law is in danger. The newspapers of the city, controlled by the Republican party, have been telling the people that the present city administration has established the merit system in this city. Now, gentlemen, why this hypocrisy? Why this false pretense? They know that this adminis- tration has made a farce of civil service. They know that if this pres- ent city administration had been a Democratic administration, and had done exactly what has been done, the very air would ring with the condemnation of an indignant people. Let us go a step further, and see what the two Civil Service Boards of the city have accomplished, and what they have cost the public. The law went into force the first day of July, 1895, and up to the first day of January, 1897, had been in force a year and six months. During that time the City Civil Service Board had expended $13,709x10 in 1895, and $30,970.00 in 1896. The County Board has published no report, but it has cost the people of Cook County over forty thousand dollars a year to maintain these two machines. For this year the City Board asked $55,000.00 and has been granted $35,- 000.00. I have here copies of the reports of the City Civil Service Board which show that this board held 37 meetings during the year 1896. The minutes are published complete, and show that the ses- sions as a rule must have been very short. Generally the board met at 11 o'clock, and after transacting a very little business, adjourned. Sometimes it met at three or four o'clock, and the record shows that in most instances after a motion or two, on some minor matter, was passed, the board adjourned. Judging from the work done, as shown by these minutes, I should say that the board did not spend one hundred hours during that year, on the civil service, but each member received $3,000.00, or at the rate of $30.00 per hour, for the time he gave the public. Or, if you take it per meeting, dividing $3,000.00 by 37, you find that each of the Civil Service Commissioners got about $81.00 per meeting, that is, each meeting cost about $324.00. So you 728 LIVE QUESTIONS. see that civil service has been a very profitable business for a number of gentlemen. To be sure it will be claimed that they laid awake nights and thought about the civil service — but mind, they hire all the work done, and each of these gentlemen carries on a private busi- ness. The great institutions of the State are in charge, as a rule, of boards that serve solely for the honor, and any one of them calls for more work and time at the hands of the board than this civil service requires at the hands of the commissioners. And I now repeat that these high salaries to the commissioners and to the secretary, are ut- terly unnecessary, and illustrate the general tendency of the Republican party to treat the public like a mule to be ridden or a sheep to be shorn. During the year 1896 the County Commissioners of Civil Service each drew $1,500.00 salary, and they seem to have had so little to do, aside from going once a month to get their checks, that they have not even deemed it worth while to publish a report of their proceedings. Now let us see what are the results achieved. While the law was clearly intended to apply only to cases of clerkships and other offices where the employment is permanent, yet in describing its scope the word "labor" was used in one or two places, and it has been con- strued so as to embrace all labor, skilled and unskilled, and the board has divided the applicants for examination into two classes. One it styles "Official Service," and the other it calls "Labor Service." The first embraces all cases that I think the Legislature intended to cover, as I do not believe it was the intention of the Legislature, or even of the framers of the bill, that laborers, whether skilled or unskilled, who are not permanently employed, who are called in only as neces- sity requires, should be governed by the civil service law. However, the commission has acted upon the theory that they are to be ex- amined. I hold here a report of the commission. This report shows that during the year 1896 the board passed 712 applicants in the official service; that during that time it examined and passed 1,717 persons in the labor service, skilled and unskilled ; that 667 were certified for the purpose of filling positions in the official service and 729 laborers were certified. Taking $31,000.00 which the board expended last year, and dividing it by the number that were certified, it gives $22.25 as the cost to the public for every person, skilled and unskilled, cer- tified by the commission for appointment in that year. Or if you say that is not fair, that it ought to get credit for all that it examines and passes, then divide the $31,000.00 by 712, the total number of those examined and passed for positions other than labor, and it gives TtiE CIVIL SERVICE LAW. 72$ $43.50 as the cost to the public for every person that is examined and passed in the clerical or official service. If you add laborers, it makes $12.75 P er head. It is alleged by the friends of some of these gentlemen who follow civil service as a lucrative business, that the present board should be continued by the new Mayor, whoever he may be. Well, that is none of my business, and I certainly shall not mix in that matter, but let us see where the new Mayor will come out. If the work done by the commissioners last year is a fair specimen of their ability and industry, then in order to fill all of the places that are subject to the civil service, it would take over six years to supply enough men, both in the official and in the labor service. In other words, the new Mayor would serve his term out, two of his successors would serve their terms, and there would still be a host of the politicians whom Kent and Perry Hull succeeded in placing in positions without exami- nations holding office in the City Hall. This is the scheme of the Republicans; the scheme of the men who make a loud pretense of being civil service reformers, who com- plain of the "action of the machine," and yet uniformly give the ma- chine their support and want a course pursued which will keep the machine still in possession in the City Hall, no matter who is elected Mayor. Look around and see from whence the opposition to civil service law comes. Only a few weeks ago, Mr. Grosvenor of Ohio, who seems to be the leader of the Republicans in Congress, arose in his place on the floor of the House of Representatives and fiercely assailed the whole civil service system. Another prominent Republican of the House expressed similar views, and only a few days ago, two of the most distinguished Republican senators arose in their places in the United States Senate and denounced the whole civil service system. That is the way they regard it at Washington. Cast your eye toward Springfield, and you will find that the Republicans in the Legislature ' of Illinois are endeavoring to defeat the operation of the law by the passage of a bill that shall keep all of the appointees that are now in the City Hall in their places for all time, although none of them were examined or hold places on their merits. The cold truth is that the leaders of the Republican party are opposed to the civil service system. They have defeated its operation here in Chicago by simply ignoring and disregarding it. They attack it in Washington. They are seeking to prostitute it at Springfield. Whenever the Democrats are in power, then you hear Republicans talk civil service, but the very moment that they get into power, just fad LWn QUESTIONS. that moment they spit upon it. The action of a number of Republi- cans in this city, ppsing as friends of civil service, and pretending that it will be in danger if Mr. Harrison were elected, is an insult to the intelligence of our people. We seem to have hit upon an era of corruption, hypocrisy, and false pretense. In the early history of the Republican party it stood for principle. There was no false pretense about Lincoln and his sup- porters, but to-day it stands for everything that is destructive of man- hood and destructive of republican institutions. Nothing is sacred in its eyes. It stands for personal advantage and for public plunder. All of its policies and all of its actions are shaped solely with reference to enabling a few to eat the substance of the many, and trnre is not a pore in the entire body politic but what has a dozen Republicans standing around it and seeking to draw blood from it. Last fall this nation witnessed the spectacle of seeing the press bribed, the religious journals degraded, the" pulpit prostituted, and the American flag debauched, all in the name of an honest dollar. That grand old American flag that has commanded the respect of nations and has been looked to by the oppressed of all lands, was dragged in the mud and reduced to a mere advertising sheet. All classes of peo- ple were sought to be deluded and deceived. Every form of deception, every form of coercion, moral, financial and otherwise, was practiced; all for the sake of turning the government over to a class of men who wanted to use it for their private ends at the expense of the people, and who wanted to perpetuate a financial policy that is ruining our coun- try; who wanted to perpetuate a theory of government that exalts the dollar and destroys the man. It was the most gigantic confidence game ever practiced upon the American people, and all this was done in the name of patriotism. When, early in the century, that English- man declared that "patriotism was the last resource of scoundrels," he little thought that he was giving an accurate description of the conduct of the leaders of the Republican party in the year 1896. One of the most noticeable things in our country for some time has been the fact that those men who deliberately plan to plunder the people always shield themselves behind the American flag. We are confronted with a new issue. The time is come for the American people to assert their manhood and to put an end to this detestable hypocrisy. The time is at hand for the people of Chicago to go to the polls and record their condemnation of these efforts to practice a great .confidence game upon them a second time. In about two weeks Carter H. Harrison will be sworn in as Mayor of Chicago, and I believe that the reins of government in this city have THE CIVIL SERVICE LAW. fti never been held by a firmer hand than will control them for the next two years. I believe that Mr. Harrison has more manhood and honesty of purpose in his little finger than you will find in a regiment of those pharisees who fill the air with a pretense of righteousness and then help to foster iniquity. A class of men who tolerate every form of abuse provided they or their friends are getting the benefit of it. The German people have the reputation of being a candid people and upon the whole an honest people, who detest hypocrisy and Pharisaism. There is, therefore, a peculiar fitness in supporting Mr. Harrison, for in so doing you have the satisfaction of knowing that you are not joining in a movement to deceive and gull the people of Chicago, and let me say to those gentlemen who supported Mr. Bryan in the last campaign, that Mr. Harrison is the only man whom you can consistently support at the coming election. By your course in the last campaign, you demonstrated to the world that you are not hypo- crits; that you are not pharisees; that you are not pretenders; that you are not mere birds of prey seeking carrion, for that class of men did not rally to the support of Mr. Bryan, they supported the Re- publican party and its one-eyed, servant girl, known as the Palmer movement. The denunciation and vulgar abuse heaped upon the supporters of Mr. Bryan and the friends of genuine reform, by the forces of corruption and polished rottenness was so great that it re- quired strength of character to stand by him. The weaklings, the hirelings, the hangers-on, the lobbyists and the vultures remained in that camp, which furnished the most fleshpots, and it is gratifying to know that the forces that rallied around the Democratic standard last fall in support of the rights of the great people of this country are standing as firm as the heroes of Thermopylae. I do not wish to say anything unkind of any of the candidates. I do not. care to notice their personalities, but I ask you to look at the men who are back of them. It is true they are divided. It is true they are calling each other names. But, gentlemen, they are the same men who have helped to bring about the conditions we see in this city to-day. Let any of the supporters of either of the other three candidates shape the policies and control the administration and what may you reason- ably expect in the future? It is claimed -that Mr. Harlan is saying some splendid things on the stump. Very well! Whose candidate is Mr. Harlan? The candidate of the newspaper. There is to-day no agency in American politics that is so fiercely hungry, so thoroughly unscrupulous, so absolutely destitute of every principle of honor as the great newspapers of this country, and God has not yet made the 1& LIVE QiiMSTidNS. man who can do anything great or good for this city or this republic while guided by their influence. Again, in recent years there has developed a spirit of political in- dependence among some of our people. This in itself is highly com- mendable, but the Republicans who have shown themselves able to prostitute and pollute everything in this country, from the courts to the pulpit, from the flag down to the school-house, for partisan pur- poses have found a method of harnessing these independent people and in the end tying them to the Republican gate post. They or- ganize associations known first by one name and then by another which pretend to be non-partisan and independent and in which they put about half a dozen men who have called themselves Democrats. This keeps up the appearance of things, but the Republicans always see to it that the management and direction is kept absolutely in their hands, and whenever a campaign is on, this organization moves along the line of independence just far enough to get control of as many independent men as possible and then, by gradual steps and under the claim of emergency, they manage to land nearly the whole net-full of fish into the Republican boat. You have in this city now what is called "The Voters League," which assumes to tell the people who are the right men to elect aldermen, and an examination of its list shows that just about four out of every five of the men whom it recommends are Republicans. It is only here and there that a Democrat is found who is sufficiently mild and harmless to secure the support of this so-called "Non-partisan League." You need not go into an analysis of the work done by these people. A mere glance at its recommendations discloses the false pretense of it all. If the managers of such movements were candid and were to openly declare that they were Republicans and were working in the interests of the party, one could respect them; yea, more, one could admire them for the shrewdness and tact with which they succeed in catching votes that could not otherwise be had. Gentlemen, do not be deceived by that kind of tactics. You are as capable of judging whom you want to represent you as is a man who is placed at the head of a non-partisan league by Republican manipula- tion. If a Democrat were to set himself upon a pedestal and attempt to tell the voters of Chicago just exactly whom they should support and whom they should avoid, he would be covered with ridicule. Now, my fellow citizens, this election is one of the greatest im- portance to all, because it determines what kind of conditions shall surround us here during the next two years. It determines whether we shall have a pharisaical and hypocritical rule, thoroughly rotten, SPEECH AT BROOKLYN, N. Y. 733 or whether we shall have a straightforward, manly administration of public affairs, and to those of my fellow citizens who stood together for the cause of humanity, the cause of the great toilers of this country in the last political struggle, this campaign is of far reaching importance. Great reforms are never won easily. They require many struggles and many hardships. They require constant discipline of the armies that are fighting the battle of justice. This campaign, no matter how it results, should line up the forces of bimetallism shoulder to shoulder and prepare them for the achievement in the years to come of a victory for justice and humanity, a victory which shall put an end to the canonizing of the dollar and the enslavement of the human race. SPEECH AT BROOKLYN, N. Y., JULY 5, 1897. (Established society always supports existing wrongs and denounces every effort at reform as unpatriotic.) Ladies and Gentlemen: For more than one hundred years the American people have cele- brated the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. For years it was a day of universal rejoicing. Gradually, as the country passed through different crises, it became also a day of retrospection; men studied the experience of yesterday in order to meet the problems of to-morrow. To-day a continent is crowning the heroes of 1776. Let us, with uncovered heads, join in that coronation. To-day the most wonderful nation on earth is in distress. Its children are suffering, and its foundation stones are slipping away. May we not ask the reason why? In the affairs of man, as in nature, there is no fixed status. Every- where there is motion; there is either growth or there is disinte- gration. In the economic and governmental arrangements there has been a steady advancement. The forms and appliances of one age being inadequate to meet the needs of the next, man has from time to time had to deal with new conditions. Progress and prosperity rewarded him when he succeeded; decay and death claimed him when he failed. All progress and growth have come from below ; evolution works from the bottom and never from the top. In society and in government there is constantly forming at the top a crust which tends to repress all there is beneath, and tends to check progress. Established wrongs and legalized injustice are always imbedded in this crust. Reform is 734 LIVE QUESTIONS. simply an effort to improve a condition or right a wrong, and every reform ,ever carried out had to force its way through this crust. I am not here to denounce — nothing is so idle or so foolish as mere denunciation. It accomplishes nothing. On the other hand, to shut our eyes to danger means death. We must deal with conditions as we find them, and to act wisely we must know the facts. What is the lesson of our career, and what is the duty of every patriot to-day? Let us glance back oyer the last century, the most eventful in the history of man. Let us read the inscriptions which that century has written on the bulletin boards of the nations. Where were the fountains of patriotism? What were the forces that made us great? Whose were the voices raised for freedom? Whose were the hands that smote for human rights, and whose were the lives that were offered on the altar of liberty? Nearly every nation celebrates the anniversary of its birthday. But as a rule they commemorate only the deliverance from some for- eign oppression. They commemorate only the substitution of a home yoke for a foreign one, and are of little interest to mankind. We celebrate not simply the release from foreign oppression, but the promulgation of a new principle which is destined to lift up the whole human race. For the first time a government was founded on the principle that all men are born equal, and that governments derive their just pow- ers from the consent of the governed, as expressed by the majority. The visions of philosophers, even the songs of the poets, had be- come reality. How did the Old World receive this declaration? With a con- temptuous sneer. Kings denounced it; the clergy condemned it; the wealthy and fashionable ridiculed it; the office-holding class jeered at it. Lord Mansfield solemnly decided that Parliament could rightfully tax the colonies without giving them representation. How did the New World receive it? When the agitation in behalf of independence began in the colonies, the official classes, the clergy, the monied classes, and what was then called "fashionable society," as a rule were tories, and adhered to English interests. The men who advocated independence were denounced as irresponsible agita- tors. The men who were clearing the forests and building a State, were ready to die for liberty, and favored independence; but the influential classes were opposed to it. When Patrick Henry uttered the famous words, "give me liberty Speech at Brooklyn, M. y. 73S. 6r give me death," in the Assembly of Virginia, nearly half of the members taunted him with treason. When the Declaration of Independence was read in the Court House yard in Philadelphia on July 4th, 1776, a writer who adhered to the influential classes was present, and in giving an account of it, he stated with apparent satisfaction that there were very few people of any respectability in the crowd that listened to the reading of the document. It is worthy of note that in all times men who profit by wrong, or seek the smile of injustice, assume an air of superiority. But their names are never stamped on any roll of honor and no tears moisten their graves. Fortunately, the marching columns of humanity go forward ignoring the existence of such men. The reading of the Declaration of Independence to that common crowd in that court house yard was one of the most momentous events in the annals of this world, and when the last sound of thejbell had died away over the hills of Pennsylvania a new era had been born. The common people had spoken, and principle had triumphed. The men who toil had not only founded a new nation, but they had created a light that was to gladden the earth. Had the powerful and influen- tial classes triumphed, this republic would not have been born. Every European nation would to-day be owning parts of North America. No star of liberty would ever have crossed the firmament of the na- tions or aroused the spirits of men. We will not dwell on the long, weary struggle that followed. You are familiar with it. HAMILTON AND JEFFERSON. At the conclusion of the war there were two great political par- ties in the country, the Federalists and the Democrats, then called Republicans. The very wealthy, the powerful and the fashionable, were Federalists, while the great masses of the people who were doing the nation's work, adhered to the Republicans. The Federalists wanted a splendid central government modeled after .the English government, with aristocratic and monarchical features; the Republicans wanted a government possessing all necessary powers, but one that should be free from those features that made European government a curse. They believed that government to be best which interfered as little as possible with the freedom of the individual. Hamilton and Jefferson were the respective representatives of these two opposing forces. The former has been described as a young man of 33, who tried to introduce the English system. He claimed that 1$6 LIVE QUESTIONS. government was an affair of the rich; that government should takd care of the rich, and let the rich take care of the poor. Jefferson said: "Nay, it is the business of the government to do equal justice to all men, and to grant special privileges to none." Hamilton said: "The people cannot be trusted to govern them- selves. Only a special class should be intrusted with government." Jefferson said: "The people can be trusted, and they are capable of governing themselves. Let the same hands that do a nation's work, and create a nation's wealth, also guide a nation's government, and all will be well." Hamilton said: "Hug the shore, and follow the example of Euro- pean nations." Jefferson, with eyes fixed on the sunlit peaks of the future, cried: "Nay, yonder lies the ocean of freedom. Steer out upon it. Keep away from the rocks and the debris which the centuries of ignorance and injustice have strewn near the shore; steer for the haven of human rights, the haven of equal justice; steer for the great harbor of the brotherhood of man, and glorious will be your career." Jefferson was denounced as a demagogue, while wealth, rapacity and privilege applauded Hamilton. Let me say here, that no man, in any country or any age, ever espoused the cause of the toiler or raised his voice for the common people without being denounced as a demagogue. After the Constitution had been adopted, Hamilton trusted that some future crisis might force the government to become more and more like the English model. He favored life tenure in office. Jefferson opposed life tenure, and wanted every official made di- rectly responsible to the people, and with a vision that was awfully prophetic declared that the liberties of the American people were in danger of being ultimately destroyed by the. federal judiciary. Of this he said: "It has long been my opinion that the germ of dissolu- tion of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary, an irresponsible body working like gravity by day and by night, gaining a little to-day and a little to-morrow and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdiction until all shall be usurped." Again, in writing to a friend, he said: "You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional ques- tions. A very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps; and their power is the more dangerous, as they are in office for life, and not SPEECH AT BROOKLYN, N. Y. 737 responsible as the other functionaries are to the electors' control. The Constitution has erected no such tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruption of time and of party, its members would become despots." During the administration of Washington the general policy was Federalistic ; but he prevented excesses. Both Hamilton and Jefferson were in his cabinet. During the administration of John Adams Federalistic theories ran wild. The Declaration of Independence became a string of merely high-sounding but meaningless phrases. Legislation was enacted which gave the President powers not possessed by the King of Eng- land. Small men in office exercised the powers of European poten- tates. It looked as if the end of civil liberty had already come; as if the American people had simply thrown off a foreign yoke to wear a more galling home yoke. The young republic had come to a fork in the road. It was a momentous hour, not only in the history of the government but of the human race. On the one side were the classes, standing for privilege and greed, led by Hamilton and supported by the federal courts. On the other were the masses, representing the toil, the sinew, and the patriotism of the country, led by Jefferson. Jefferson triumphed. It was the second victory for free govern- ment. A victory of the people over those who devour the substance of the people. It was this triumph that determined the course of the republic and gave it its wonderful career. It was this triumph that made our country the hope of the oppressed of all lands, and brought to our shores that brain, and that muscle, that industry, energy and enterprise which helped to transform the continent. It is honest toil that founds States and builds cities. We cannot stop to study the events of the next quarter of a cen- tury, which all teach the same lesson; but we will stop a moment be- fore the figure of Jackson, one of the most heroic of all the nations. The great national bank of that day had its branches all over the land, and practically ruled the country.- The people were at its mercy. Its charter was about to expire and it demanded a renewal. It con- trolled Congress just as the money power controls the legislative bodies of to-day. It controlled the federal courts just as the money power controls the federal courts of to-day. Congress passed its bill ; the court held it to be constitutional. Mr. Biddle, the president of the bank, went to Jackson, who was then President of the United States, and demanded his approval, declaring that the bank could defeat any man for President. 47 73« LIVE Q UESTIONS. Jackson regarded the bank as a menace to the .people, and he vetoed the charter on the ground that it was unconstitutional. He then stood for re-election. The bank charter became the issue. Con- gress and the courts were on the side of the bank. The politicians, the newspapers and that horde of men whom money could reach, were on its side; with few exceptions the rich, the powerful, the fashion- able, were on its side. Every man not for it was denounced as a demagogue and unworthy of respect. But the men who toil with their hands stood by Jackson and triumphed. It was the third great victory for republican institutions won by the common people against the forces of greed and plunder, and it postponed for nearly half a century the paralyzing and blighting grip of the money power over this land. The next great force to control the land was the "slave power." It assumed the aggressive, and not only controlled the government, but all organized society. The President, Congress and the federal judiciary were simply so many conveniences for it to use. The fash- ionable preachers defended it. Scholars excused it and society smiled on it. Although slavery existed in less than half of the land, the men of the other half were under its fatal spell. But the new soil and the new time were bringing forth new ideas. One day there was a riot in Boston. An educated man was pur- sued like a wild beast by an infuriated crowd, made up of eminently respectable citizens, led by men dressed in broadcloth. Do you ask what this man had done to arouse the vengeance of these good people? He had dared to proclaim on the streets of Boston that "no man can have a property right in human flesh and blood." This was a doctrine too dangerous to be tolerated. While mur- derers, robbers and fiends of every kind were left to the law, the safety of society required that this man be instantly suppressed. But the more rigorous the suppression, the more the idea grew. New apostles came forward. They were denounced and persecuted as agitators, who threatened the peace and good order of society. The church condemned them for questioning God's peculiar institu- tion. Business men deprecated their doctrine for fear it might injure trade. The rich and powerful demanded their prosecution on general principles, and society could not tolerate such dangerous people in its drawing-rooms. Wendell Phillips, one of the grandest specimens of noble man- hood New England ever produced, a man pure, lofty, noble and cul- tured, found the doors of society closed to him. SPEECH AT BROOKLYN, N. Y. 739 For a quarter of a century the agitation was carried on. It would take volumes to describe all the outrages committed on these men and women. But day by day the noble band grew; they were im- prisoned, but complained not; they were jeered, but heeded not; they were egged, but went on; they were stoned, but turned not back. While the palaces were closed, the doors of the patriotic masses were open, and by i860 their number was so great as to change political conditions. Mr. Lincoln was nominated for President, and men who have since helped to canonize him, then denounced him as a demagogue and a vulgar clown, with whom no respectable man could associate; he was regarded as an agitator who was endangering our institutions. There were at that time twenty-three preachers of the gospel in Spring- field, Illinois, which was his home, and history has recorded the fact that only three supported Mr. Lincoln. The other twenty thanked God daily for having guided their feet in pleasant paths, and they looked with mingled contempt and pity on this vulgar man who would disturb the good order of society. Mr. Lincoln was elected, not by the monied interests, but by the common people. For the fourth time in less than a century the toiling masses saved the day for liberty. The slave interests would not accept the result. They assumed the offensive, and it was necessary to make sacrifices to save the Union. The business interests held back; the monied classes bought the government's bonds at forty cents on the dollar and went home. Had the government rested on these classes, all would have been lost. But a million men came forward and offered their lives to defend the flag. They came from the fields, the shops, the school-houses; they came from the homes of the husbandmen, from the cottages of the artisans, and from the huts of the poor. Wall Street men smelled the battle from afar. The sharks of the land carried no muskets and faced no bullets. During the war, gold left the country, as it always does in times of need. The government carried on the war with paper money, and then sold bonds. Paper money, being all there was in circulation, became the standard of values among the people. Property and labor were sold on this standard; debts were based on it; business adjusted itself to it. A bushel of wheat sold for two dollars, and all other prop- erty in proportion. When the government sold bonds, it received not specie but paper money, and at times it took over two dollars of this money to buy one of specie. A thousand dollar bond cost on the 740 LIVE QUESTIONS. average $500.00 in specie. Thus the bond-holder got 12 per cent, interest on all specie invested. When the war was over, an effort was made to reduce the volume of paper to a specie basis, and thus greatly increase the value of bonds. On this subject, Senator Sherman, in 1869, used this language in the United States Senate: "The contraction of the currency is a far more distressing operation than the senators suppose. Our own and other nations have gone through that operation before; it is not possible to take that voyage without the sorest distress. To every person, except a capitalist out of debt, or a salaried officer, or an annuitant, it is a period of loss, danger, lassitude of trade, fall of wages, suspension of enterprise, bankruptcy and disaster; it means the fall of all agricultural productions without any reduction of taxes. What prudent man would dare to build a house, a railroad, a factory, or a barn, with this certain fact before him?" Having pictured the ruin that would follow, he turned around and carried out this policy of contraction by which the bond-holders were to get two dollars of specie for every one dollar invested. Ac- cording to the Treasury reports, the volume of money in circulation was reduced more than one-half, and prices of property fell in pro- portion. A bushel of wheat sold for one dollar, and all other prop- erty in proportion. But debts, interest, taxes and all fixed charges remained the same. The farming and producing classes could not stand it. They could no longer buy, and when they ceased buying the mills of America ceased running and business was paralyzed. The picture which the senator had drawn became an awful reality. 'The panic of 1873 was born, and caused more ruin and misery than the Civil War. The war devastated the South; the panic paralyzed the re- public. But we were now on a specie basis. Not content with this, the same forces led by the bond-holding classes of Europe, in 1873, without the knowledge of the American people, got our government to arbitrarily strike down one of the money metals of the world. Most of the European nations gradually followed, until nearly one-half of the world's money was destroyed by the arbitrary acts of government. Having to do twice the work that it formerly had to do, gold became twice as important, twice as many people needed it, and consequently its purchasing power was gradu- ally doubled. A gold dollar would buy twice as much of the property rnd of the products of the earth as formerly, while the debts, interest, taxes and all fixed charges remained the same. This time, the pur- SPEECH AT BROOKLYN, N. Y. 741 chasing power of the farming and producing classes of the civilized world was destroyed. In Europe, the effect of this legislation began to be felt very soon after the panic of '73. Here there were local causes that stimulated and saved us for a few years, but gradually the paralysis caused by falling prices spread over the world, and resulted in the complete break-down of 1893. Like the panic of '73, it has been more ruinous, and has produced more misery than war, and pestilence, and famine combined. To-day it takes four times as much of American products to pay a dollar of interest or principal of the national debt as we received, or as was necessary when the debt was created; and it takes twice as much to pay any other debt, or to pay taxes, or other fixed charges, as it did after we had resumed specie payments. At the close of the war, our national debt was over twenty-five hundred million dollars. Since then the people have paid the interest and about half of the principal. Yet to-day, thirty years after the close of the war, after half has been paid, it will require twice as much of the products of our people to pay what is left of that debt as would have been necessary to pay it all at the beginning. Reflect a moment. A whole generation has paid at that debt and has reduced it by one-half. Yet such has been the governmental policy that to-day it will still require twice as much of our products to pay the remainder as would have been necessary to pay it all when it was created. Being a producing and debtor nation, it was a crime to legislate exclusively in favor of the creditor classes of Europe and thus destroy the purchasing power of our people. I will not enter upon a general discussion of the money question, but will say in passing that every great abuse is intertwined with it, and you cannot ignore it; for it fixes the limitations on enterprise and material prosperity. Has it ever occurred to you that the industry and energy of the human race would transform this world into a garden if not hampered by money? There must ultimately come a system of finance or ex- change that will not depend on chance, will have a philosophic basis, and will not restrict human effort. But until this does come, we demand the restoration of the bimetallic system as it formerly existed in our country, because it was the best thus far given to the world. Effects follow causes in the economic and commercial world as thev do in the physical world. The paralysis of our country has been produced bv certain causes. Not one of these causes has been re- moved, and so long as they exist, they must continue to produce the 742 LIVE QUESTIONS. same effects. We were promised prosperity; it has not come, and it requires no prophet to see that under existing conditions no perma- nent prosperity can come. The forces of destruction are still at work, gathering the substance of the nation into the hands of the few. The country is paralyzed. The patient is told that if he would only have confidence and go to work he would be well. But in spite of these assurances he is unable to rise. Suppose he did. Suppose that a temporary stimulant could create a temporary activity? It would be along the old lines; it would be in harmony with those forces that paralyzed us; it would be simply a continuation of the process of making a few enormously rich and the great masses poor. The patient would soon collapse a second time, and then the case would be hopeless. A spurt of activity under Mc- Kinley conditions means the more certain death of free institutions; it means that the poison of corruption shall go on until every organ in the body is destroyed. Again, after the Civil War, it was found that our industrial and commercial institutions were undergoing a change. The spirit of concentration and enlargement which is shaping the civilization of the century was everywhere active. Little shops gave way to great factories; little stores to great establishments-; little railroads to great lines. Everywhere there was consolidation, and legislation was passed by nearly all the States to further the formation of corporations. In this way limitless money could be concentrated in one establishment as it could not well under a partnership. In one sense this movement was beneficial; it tended to cheapen production and in many ways increased the convenience of the pub- lic, and I believe that it is yet destined to be a blessing to the world. But it brought with it unforeseen evils, for which the world had made no preparation. First, the process of crushing out, or consolidating, was carried so far that in time many of the most important industries were con- trolled by trusts, and all competition was destroyed. A few individuals sitting in a rear room could arbitrarily fix the price of labor or raw material on the one hand, and the price of their products on the other. They could crush on the one hand, and extort on the other. Second, so-called Christian gentlemen eagerly accepted from agents large sums of money made by unscrupulous or corrupt means when they themselves, in their individual business, would have hesi- tated to use those means. Third, money means power, and men controlling vast sums be- SPEECH AT BROOKLYN, N. Y. 743 came impatient of the restraint of the laws, and began to ride over them in some cases and to evade them in others. Fourth, it was found that the shortest road to great wealth was through governmental aid, and accordingly many great trusts and the monied interests made it their business to influence government, na- tional, state and municipal, in order to escape their share of public burdens, and to get advantages and privileges that would make for- tunes. It rarely happens that a private individual has enough interest in any matter to either corrupt a Legislature or to obtain control of all branches of the government. The universal corruption that is to-day destroying our country comes from the concentration of capi- tal; and the alarming aspect is that it is practiced by men who talk patriotism, and who stand high in the estimation of the public. It is idle to talk about purifying the government, so long as men of in- fluence and position, offer vast sums to corrupt it. Cut off the hand that offers a bribe and you will end corruption. We must devise some way of removing overwhelming temptations on the one hand, and of distributing among all men the benefits and advantages flowing from the process of concentration. As power never limits itself, we must find a method of curbing it. Let it be understood, the American people are broad and gen- erous. They envy no man the fruits of superior effort or good for- tune. They heartily applaud the achievements of genius, and in this broad land to-day there is nowhere a voice raised against the man who has honestly acquired a competency; there is no voice raised against the corporations that confine themselves to legitimate busi- ness and legitimate methods. The complaint is against monopoly; against fortunes that have been corruptly made, and are now used to further plunder the public and to destroy free institutions. The pro- test is against laws which enrich some at the expense of others. The indictment runs, not against capital, but the criminal use of it. It is not wealth, but the abuse of it, that is working our destruction. Look at the situation! Lobbyists and corruptionists sit in high places and are accounted the great men of the land. Instead of the government controlling the corporations, the corporations run the government. Greed makes the laws, and labor carries the burden. We hear of assessors being bribed; city councils being owned; legis- latures being bought, while Congress registers the will of the million- aires. Men reach the White House through the portals of banks, and the higher judgeships on a certificate from the corporations. In no country and in no age have the higher courts been on the side of the people, or of liberty. They are everywhere the exponents 744 LIVE QUESTIONS. and defenders of that force which for the time being dominates the land. Since the war the higher courts as a rule have occupied the same position toward the corporations and money power that they formerly did toward slavery, and for thirty years they have been regarded as cities of refuge by the corporations. In some respects they have done more to bring about the present unhappy conditions than has Con- gress, for Congress did occasionally pass a measure intended for the protection and relief of the people. But almost every one of these acts has been killed by judicial construction. At the same time the law has been strained to deprive the humble man of his liberty, to defeat trial by jury, and to destroy the safe- guards which the Constitution has thrown ' around the citizen. The darkest forebodings of Jefferson have been realized. But these things should not discourage our people, for the courts have never yet permanently stopped human progress. The colonies were freed in spite of the Chief Justice of England; Jefferson saved the liberties of the American people in spite of the federal judiciary; Jackson triumphed in spite of the Supreme Court, and slavery went down in spite of the decision of Chief Justice Taney. Again, the powers of injustice and oppression do not relent, and do not reason, but press insolently forward to their own destruction. Their grip never relaxes until cut loose. England not only oppressed but scorned the colonies, and lost them. The Federalists would not listen to reason and were overthrown. The great b&nk insisted on domineering the land, and it went down in awful rottenness. The slave power rode roughshod over protest and principle, and it perished. The growing- insolence of corrupt wealth to-day augurs its speedy downfall. You ask: "What shall we do?" My friends, no mortal can tell you long in advance. The exigencies must be met as they arise. The great purpose is to restore the basic principles of the fathers, and to reverse the present destructive policies; to meet the new needs of the times; to end this corrupt reign of the dollar, and substitute the voice of the citizen ; to have the government control the corpora- tions, instead of having the corporations run the government; to restore a financial system under which the world had prospered, and which will not paralyze America for the benefit of England; to pre- vent the federal courts from becoming mere conveniences for concen- trated wealth; to do justice to the hand that toils; to end monopo- lies, whether of money, land, products, or privilege. In short, the' SPEECH AT BROOKLYN, N. Y. 745 purpose is to maintain free government among men, and make fur- ther progress possible. The first thing necessary is to assert our manhood; to have con- victions and dare to maintain them. Double-headed platforms and colorless men are the instruments by which the abuses of the time are made possible. In 1776 the fathers said: "We do not know just what the gov- ernment may have to do, but whatever is necessary to achieve inde- pendence will be done. We do not know whether there will be a battle of Bunker Hill, or of Yorktown, but we will either fill the graves of the conquered or live the lives of freemen." In i860 the Northern patriots said: "We do not know whether the government will issue paper money, or enact tariff laws, but whatever is necessary will be done. We do not know whether there will be a Bull Run, a Vicksburg, a Gettysburg or an Appomattox, but we will maintain this republic or sleep in Southern graves." To-day, if asked whether the government will take the railroads or establish referendum, say you do not know, but that every step which may become necessary to save free government and restore happiness in this land will be taken; say that if necessary to do so, the government will not only take the railroads, but every monopoly and concentration of property which interferes with either the rights or the welfare of the people. For a century representative government was a success; it repre- sented the people. But new conditions have arisen, concentrated capi- tal offers temptations too great for the average representative to re- sist — whether in the Senate or city council — and we are regularly be- trayed. Some men in both parties seek office hoping to be bribed. Either the power to sell us must be taken away, or the temptations must be removed; either have all important matters submitted to the people, or have the government take all railroads and monopolies, and thus force the briber out of employment. I do not care to discuss remedies to-day. The American people will find a remedy, or a hundred remedies, when once aroused, and no remedy has any merit until the people get in earnest. You hear men say in light speech that we must have reform or revolution. My friends, in this land revolution can offer no hope to the toiler. It simply means more cruelty, more police, and more military. It means a brutal despotism with more flunkeyism and snob- bery at the top and more misery at the bottom. - Let us move along the line of evolution. Let the plant of justice H& LIVE QUESTIONS. break through the crust by natural processes. We have peaceable remedies in our hands; all we need is the courage to apply them. The rescue must be made by the great patriotic masses of the people, by the Democrats of America, by the men who adhere to republican institutions, no matter what they call themselves. From no other source can relief come. They alone have saved our country in every past emergency, and they will do it again. We have now had over thirty years of Hamiltonism — that is, government by the rich, and for the benefit of the rich, and we are reaping the natural and legitimate harvest. Hamiltonism has produced the same results here that it has all over the earth; that is, great concentration of wealth and great distress among the people; and the most destructive form of Hamiltonism this country ever saw, was endured through the two so-called Democratic administrations, the last of which has just closed. Greed flourished, while the hands of industry were held out for the bread of charity. But, fortunately for mankind, the Almighty has foreordained a limit to all things. I say, our country must be rescued by the Democrats. But be not deceived. Lobbyists and corruptionists who debauch legislatures,- or pollute the stream of justice, are not Democrats. So-called leaders who use their position in their party to assist corporations in getting an unfair advantage over the public, are not Democrats. Men who are ready to soil their fingers and sell the birthright of their children for the sake of personal gain, are not Democrats. The word "demo- crat" is one of the most inspiring in the language; it is as broad as humanity, and no man is worthy of it who has no higher purpose than to get a personal advantage. Offices must be filled, and it is better to have them filled by men of conviction and character than by men who have neither. But unless there is a higher aim and pur- pose; unless there is a great principle to support, there is nothing worthy of the ambition of an honorable man. We can only succeed through organization, that is, through party, and it is necessary that- minor differences be yielded in order to advance some great principle. But unless a party stands specifically for something that directly affects the welfare of humanity, it will accomplish nothing. For thirty years our party has been a neutral party; the manip- ulators who wished to use it as a convenience did not want it to stand for anything. There were interests that seemed to control both parties; this was the easiest way of controlling national legislation. Had there been a positive, compact and aggressive minority party standing for prin- ciple, the cry of distress would not be heard in this land to-day, Had SPEECH AT BROOKLYN, N. Y. 747 there been such a party, the Standard Oil trust never could have nominated the same man three times in succession for the Presi- dency. Trading politicians made this possible. Let me repeat that compromisers, traders, and neutral men never correct abuses, never found or save free institutions, and never fight for human rights. They always become instruments for the enemy. Wherever they are in control, the party is unworthy of the respect of mankind. Only men of conviction and courage can save this land. Only the men who stand erect, ever get recognition from that great Speaker who presides over the deliberations of the universe. Unfortunately, we seem to have been slowly and unconsciously losing our personal independence. Through the scramble for the dollar, the longing for position, political or social, the fear of the press and the dread of criticism, we are all becoming cowardly; cow- ardly in conscience, in thought, in speech and in action, and we are losing our birthrights. Cow the nobler instincts of man, and he becomes first a slave and then a brute. Independence is the mother of all human progress. It lifts the human soul; it clears the human mind; it ennobles human speech, and it exalts human action. Independence inspires confidence and elevates purpose; it searches nature; it measures the stars; it spans the rivers ; it tunnels the mountains, and it covers the continents with cities. Restore the independence of the American citizen and this republic will again leap forward on a career of happiness and splendor that will eclipse all the ages of the past. No other country has drawn so much from the storehouses of Omnipotence as has ours.- In all that makes wealth, greatness, or glory, we have been overloaded. In climate, in soil, in resources, and in the energy and character of our people, we have no competi- tors. Two great oceans separate us, not only from the old worlds, but from the old superstitions — and let us hope from the old follies, and the old calamities. Limitless riches are within our grasp, centuries of happiness are within our reach. A kindly father bids us go forth and enjoy the estate He has prepared for us. Meantime, we have fallen into the hands of the despoiler; and the poison of political leprosy is entering our blood. If we submit, all is lost; if we rise in our manhood and crush the enemy, it will give a new inspiration to mankind. It will be a new Declaration of Independence, broader and deeper than that of our forefathers. You ask. is there hope? Without entering too far on the field of ?4& LIVE QUESTIONS. partisan discussion, we may glance at what are now matters of history. Look back eight months, and gaze upon a spectacle that marked the highwater point of corruption. There were arrayed against the people nearly all the banks, the corporations, the trusts, the railroads, most of the great papers, and every influence that money could con- trol. Manufacturers and small merchants were coerced; debtors were forced, and laborers were driven by the lash of hunger. All of the corruption funds that could be raised on two continents were used to debauch the people; the lobbyists, the trading politicians, and the time servers, were on that side. The men who owed their wealth and their position to the fact that they had helped to corrupt legislation, and to pollute the stream of justice, were on .that side. The clubs and the fashionable pulpits were on that side. - False promises of every kind were held out ; every method of defeating the will of the people at the polls was practiced. On the face of the returns, it appeared as if the enemy had won. According to these returns, thirty thousand more votes properly dis- tributed would have changed the result. Only eight months have elapsed, and the people have already discovered that they were made the victims of deception. Only eight months have elapsed, but the harvest is already being reaped. In Illinois we have just had a carnival of official debauchery, such as the world has rarely seen. The living have been robbed; the un- born have been defrauded of their rights, and saddled with unjust burdens; public property, privileges and franchises, worth untold millions, have been given to monopolies; numerous acts striking down liberty have been passed, and the people are helpless. Had corrup- tion burned fifty cities a free people would have rebuilt them in ten years; but the destruction of republican institutions blasts the hopes of man and increases the sorrows of the world. Look where you will, the . conditions are everywhere the same. They are the legiti- mate harvest of that poisonous seed that was sown broadcast last fall. The people see that they were misled, and I do not believe that even a special providence could soon again unite all of the forces that worked together in the last campaign. Disintegration is already at work in the ranks of the enemy. Now, look on the other side. Over six million of intelligent, patri- otic and substantial citizens fought for the rights of man. They were men who had convictions, and dared to act on them. They were men who could not be bought; who could not be cajoled; who could not be frightened ; they were the men who do most of the country's work, and bear its burdens. They had no boodle, but they had manhood. NEW YORK CITY CAMPAIGN. 749 They refused to be Europeanized, but fought for American institu- tions. Look at these men to-day. They stand in solid phalanx, eager, determined, confident. None have deserted; none have laid down their arms. Their line of battle stretches across a continent; their banners are waving; their drums are beating, and they are moving on the enemy. They see the gilded palaces of injustice; they listen to the cry of labor. They hear the wail of free institutions, and with an appeal to the Omnipotent, they resolve that England shall not devour this land. In every State the people are aroused. They see their condition growing worse; they see the hope of their children disap- pearing ; they see poverty hanging over the future ; they see the black flag of hunger floating over some of the richest sections of God's earth, and they are crying for justice. My friends, that cry will free the American people. Even if we should be borne down again and again, the voice of humanity will arise from the dust, and drive the money changers out of the temple, and the traitors out of the land. The Benedict Arnold of 1780 sleeps on English soil. Let the Benedict Arnolds of this age make their graves beside him. THE NEW YORK CITY CAMPAIGN. Mr. Moses Oppenheimer, Chairman Conference Committee, New York City. Dear Sir: — Answering your communication of the 25th inst., I would say that, personally, I am not advised as to the situation in New York city, and I have no desire to interfere in politics anywhere, but I will say that corruptionists, bribe-givers and monopolists are not Democrats, no matter what they call themselves. They are all cov- ered with the slime of "Hannaism," and belong to the ranks of the common enemy, and the election of that kind of a man to the mayor- alty of New York, or the election of any man who would, even in the slightest degree, be subject to the influence or the desire of this class of men would be the greatest calamity that could befall the great Democratic party. A political party must stand for certain great definite principles or it can be of no use on earth to our republic. Whenever a party stands merely for spoils and as a convenience for monopolists and corrup- tionists, then it is a curse to the country. The principles of the Demo- cratic party were enunciated last year, both upon the financial ques- ?50 LIVE 'QUESTIONS. tions and upon other problems that are demanding solution, and every 1 day that has elapsed since the last campaign has demonstrated the necessity of religiously carrying out the principles of that platform if we would save republican institutions in this country. The real Democrats all over the country would hail with delight the election of a genuine Democrat as mayor of New York, and would gladly assist in bringing this about. On the other hand, if a man is to be elected who is a mere convenience for monopolists and corrup- tionists and spoils-dividers, then, in Heaven's name, let him come from the ranks of the enemy, for there is where he belongs. JOHN P. ALTGELD. Chicago, September 28, 1897. SPEECH AT PHILADELPHIA, SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1897, ON CORRUPTION AND USURPATION IN GOVERN- MENT, AND MUNICIPAL AND GOVERN- MENTAL OWNERSHIP. Ladies and Gentlemen: — Aside from the money question, the most serious problem that confronts the people of America to-day is that of rescuing their cities, their States and the federal government, in- cluding the federal judiciary, from absolute control of corporate monopoly. How to restore the voice of the citizen in the government of his country ; and how to put an end to those proceedings in some of the higher courts which are farce and mockery on one side, and a criminal usurpation and oppression on the other. Corporations that were to be servants and begged the privilege of supplying cities with conveniences, or of serving the country at large, have become masters. We have had thirty years of colorless politics in which both of the political parties were simply conveniences for organized greed. There was "nothing to arouse the deep, slumbering patriotism of the masses and a race of politicians came to the front, most of whom had no convictions and many of whom straddled every proposition and then waited to be seduced. They were men who made every promise to the laborer, and then betrayed him. These men became the in- struments through which the corporations worked. Having learned what vast sums can be extorted from the American people, the monop- olies used a part of the wealth they got from this source to corrupt the people's representatives, and thus obtained unlimited privileges of plunder, until almost every great city in this country is tied and SPEECH A T PHILADELPHIA. 75 1 gagged, and cannot even enter a protest while being robbed. All of this falls with crushing force on the laborer, for his hands must earn the taxes the landlord pays — he is forced to depend on the public con- veniences, and always suffers under bad government. An individual rarely has interest enough, or money enough, to bribe a city council or buy a legislature. But the corporations have both, and, as the money all comes off the public, they offer temptations that are too strong for average man to resist. Inasmuch as no government can endure in which- corrupt greed not only makes the laws, but decides who shall construe them, many of our best citizens are beginning to despair of the republic. Others urge that we should remove the bribe-givers — that is, destroy this overwhelming temptation by having the government take all these monopolies itself and furnish the service which they now furnish, and thus not only save our institutions, but have the great profits which now go into the pockets of private corporations turned into the public treasury. But the corruptionists, the monopolists, and all men who are fat- tening on the existing rottenness and injustice cry angrily, "Why, that would be socialism, rank socialism, and we are opposed to it!" Some of these men know the meaning of socialism and some do not, but they control all those men who cling to the skirts of wealth. Socialism has been defined as a system of government in which the competitive system is entirely abolished and the principle of as- sociated effort is applied to everything. According to the standard authorities, socialism is an ideal state founded on justice, and in which the' benefits of modern invention and of monopoly shall be shared by all the people instead of being controlled by the few and used by these few to make themselves the absolute masters of the many. The word "socialism" is used as a term of derision only by the ignorant or the servile. However, the world is not ripe for the application of socialism. There are, as yet, hundreds of things that cannot be done successfully by the State and that must be left to the individual. But this fact certainly does not deprive an association of men from pursuing the best business policy — does not deprive government from doing what- ever may be necessary to preserve free institutions. During the former administration of Lord Salisbury as Premier of England, it was once charged that the tendency of the government was socialistic; that there was a tendency for the government to do those, things which always had been left, and should be left, to the individual; that most of the great cities of the empire had not only 752 UVn QUESTIONS. assumed the functions ofs supplying their inhabitants with water, gas, electric light and street railway service, but that they were going a great deal farther and were even building and renting houses and doing a host of other things that were not within the province of government. He was reported as saying, in answer to this criticism, that it was not a question of socialism at all, but simply a question of business; a question whether a given community can secure certain advantages and supply certain needs common to all of its people more cheaply or in a more satisfactory manner, when acting collectively, than by leaving everything to individual effort; that a collective body has the same right to pursue the best business methods, and do all things necessary to its welfare, or the welfare of. its members, that an indi- vidual has; that the best interest of the community must be the cri- terion by which to decide each case; that there was a time when private individuals carried the mails and charged what they pleased, there being no government postoffice; but, as the world advanced, every government took the postal business into its own hands, and no intelligent man would have it turned over to a private corporation. That government, whether State or local, has found it necessary to make the roads, and where private companies have built roads and are charging toll, the public is acquiring them; that there was a time when education was an individual affair, but, as the world advanced it was found to be a matter of such importance to the State that every enlightened government makes provision for educating all. That it was a question of development, and each age must not only sup- ply its own needs, but must determine the method for doing it. This lays down an indisputable principle. For it would be absurd to claim that an association of men cannot employ the best business methods to supply its wants, and promote the health, the life or the physical, moral and intellectual development of its members. On the other hand, there are hundreds- of things which, in our age, cannot be done successfully by the municipality or the govern- ment, but must be left to individual effort. Let us see what civilized man is doing elsewhere. Take the cities of Great Britain first, for they have the same power of self-government that American cities have. In all that pertains to the comfort and enterprise of the individual we are far in the lead; but in government of cities we are far behind. Glasgow has, to-day, nearly one million inhabitants and is one of the great manufacturing and commercial cities of the world. Thirty years ago there was scarcely a city that was in a worse condition. Private corporations SPEECH AT PHILADELPHIA. 753 furnished it a poor quality of water, taken from the Clyde River, and they charged high rates for it. The city drained into the Clyde, and it became horribly filthy. Private corporations furnished a poor qual- ity of gas, at a high price; and private companies operated the street railroads. Private companies had the same grip on the people there that they have in most American cities. Owing to the development of great ship building and other industries in the valley of the Clyde, the laboring population of Glasgow became very dense and the means of housing the people were miserable. Poorly lighted, poorly ven- tilated, filthy houses brought high rents. In many cases two families lived in one room. Cleanliness was impossible; the sanitary con- ditions were frightful and the death rate was high. As for educational facilities, there were none worth mentioning for these people. The condition of the laboring classes was one of degradation and misery; children were growing up mentally, morally and physically diseased; a generation was coming which threatened to be an expense and a menace to the country. It was a great slum city. But patriotic and public spirited men came to the front and gave the city the benefit of their services, free. In fact none of the highest city officials in Great Britain received any pay other than the well being of humanity and the good opinions of their country. The city rid itself of the private companies by buying them and then brought fresh water from the highlands, a distance of sixty miles. It doubled the quantity of water furnished the inhabitants, and reduced the cost to consumers by one-half. And yet the department now yields over $200,000 a year net income over all fixed charges. The municipality, after much difficulty, bought the private gas plants and gradually reduced the price of gas from $1.14 to 58 cents, and it now illuminates not only the streets and public places, but all passageways and stairways in flat buildings, experience having shown that a good lamp is almost as useful as a policeman. The total debt of the city for plants, extensions, etc., to perfectly illumine all the city had reached nearly five and a half millions of dollars. Notwith- standing the low price at which gas is sold, this sum has gradually been reduced to less than two and a half millions of dollars out of the earnings of the system, and it will soon be wiped out and the entire revenue go into the city treasury. The street railways were owned by the city, but, until 1894, they were leased out under an arrangement which paid the city full cost of construction, with interest, besides a yearly income of $750 per street mile. In 1894 the city began to operate the lines itself. The fares were reduced 33 per cent., besides special tickets to laborers, 48 754 LIVE QUESTIONS. so that the average is under 2 cents, and over one-third of all fares are 1 cent each. The private company had worked its men 12 and 14 hours a day and paid irregular and unsatisfactory wages. The city at once re-, duced the number of hours to ten, and fixed a satisfactory scale of wages. And, compared with what it formerly was, the service has been greatly improved. In spite of all these acts for the benefit of the public, the roads which had cost the city nothing, now net, over all charges for improvements, etc., one-fourth of a million annually. In 1892 the city bought out a private electric light company, and now has the monopoly of furnishing electric light and power. This promises to be a source of enormous revenue for the city. For sanitary reasons, the city built a number of public wash- houses, with all modern conveniences, so that a woman living in a , small apartment can take her basketful of clothes to a public wash- house, and for four cents an hour can have a stall and use all the machinery for washing and drying, and at the end of an hour take her basket of clothes home, washed and dried. For the same reasons, public baths and parks or pleasure grounds were established; and the city condemned a large amount of "poor tenement property and tore the houses down and built whole rows of apartments, airy and well lighted, which it now rents to laborers and which, in time, will pay for themselves and will then be a great source of revenue. The city had become filled with cheap lodging houses which were overcrowded and were filthy and prolific of both disease and crime. On sanitary and police grounds combined, the. municipality built a number of airy and well-lighted lodging houses, some for men and some for women, where, for from 6 to 9 cents, a person can get a bed in a small, separate room, with the use of a large sitting room and the privilege of cooking his own food at the kitchen range. The city has acquired all the docks and dock privileges and fur- nishes all the labor in managing them. It also has the exclusive ownership of all the markets and slaughter houses and derives a large income from them. Instead of draining into the Clyde, large settling works have been established, in which the solid matter is all taken out of the sewage and is pressed into cakes and loaded automatically onto cars and then taken to the country, where it is used as manure on a farm belonging to the city, and where all the food for the city's horses is raised, while the liquid sewage is run through filtering beds and made clear and odorless. Manchester has within its narrow limits only a little over half a SPEECH AT PHILADELPHIA. 755 million people, but within a radius of twenty miles from her city hall there are over three million inhabitants. These have to be considered in discussing Manchester, which is essentially a manufacturing and commercial city. Its history is in many respects a parallel of that of Glasgow. It seemed to be a great city of slums, degradation and misery, and was in the grip of private monopolies. To-day the city furnishes all the service that is furnished here by private corporations, and does it at about one-half the cost. It fur- nishes gas at 56 cents a thousand, and, after deducting all that is used to perfectly illuminate the streets, and after applying $200,000 a year on the original cost of plants, etc., it still turns $300,000 a year into the public treasury, although the aim in nearly all English cities is not to make money, but to serve the public. The city constructed, an aqueduct ninety miles to secure pure water and furnishes this for a little more than half what the private company had charged for a poor quality of water. It owns the street railways, and besides giving greatly reduced rates and giving half- fare tickets to workingmen, the city derives a large revenue from this source. Like Glasgow and Birmingham, the city owns large cemeteries in which there are separate sections for the different religious denom- inations, and prices are so arranged that while those who desire to do so can get lots costing from ten to thirty dollars, yet, "a decent burial with inscription on stone over a grave can be had at about four dollars for adults and three dollars for children. This charge including all cemetery fees and expenses." The city owns the markets and slaughter houses. It has provided parks and swimming baths and, like Birmingham and Glasgow, it maintains large technical schools in which thousands of young men are instructed in the industrial arts and sciences, so as to be able to maintain Manchester's greatness. Birmingham has over half a million of people, and its experience resembles that of Glasgow and Manchester. Formerly private cor- porations controlled almost everything and charged very high rates for very poor service, and the sanitary conditions were frightful. But here again, municipal statesmen came to the front, the most promi- nent among whom was the Honorable Joseph Chamberlain, who has since been conspicuous in the British government. He gave his time free and was three times elected mayor. Under his guidance the gas works were purchased of the private companies for $10,000,000. There are about two thousand men employed in connection with the gas works; they work only eight hours a day; the price of gas has been 756 LIVE QUESTIONS. reduced to 58 cents; the streets have been better lighted than ever before, and the net amount now annually turned into the city treas- ury, after deducting all fixed charges, is over $300,000. The water works were purchased of the private companies for $6,750,000. The system was greatly extended, the supply doubled and the cost to consumers very much reduced. The city has condemned the worst section of the slums and thus acquired the ground at a cost of about $8,000,000, and upon this ground it has built modern houses which it rents, and the death rate in this section has been reduced from an average of 80 to the thou- sand persons down to an average of 20, and it has now been demon- strated that in the end this property will pay for itself and thereafter go far toward defraying the annual expenses of the city. Not going further into detail, let me say there are at present in the United Kingdom 185 municipalities that supply their inhabitants with water, with gas and electric light, and one-third of the street railway mileage of Great Britain is owned by the municipalities. Leaving out London, it amounts , to two-thirds. And in most in- stances in which they do not own the street railways, they have com- pelled the companies to grant low fares and divide profits. Everywhere the tendency is toward collective ownership and en- terprise, and so satisfactory has this been found that, where once tried, the public will tolerate no other method. It is objected that in some of the English cities the street railway service is not as good as it is here. But this is not the question. The question is: How does it compare with the service formerly given by the private com- panies? On the continent, the awakening of the cities toward a higher life is as marked as in Great Britain. About two-thirds of the large cities of Germany own and operate their own gas and electric light works. This movement has been so rapid that it will not be long until there will not be a private gas plant in Germany. Wherever street railways are not owned by the municipality, they are oper- ated under strict regulations, giving reduced fare to workmen, and they have also to divide profits with the government. This is true in nearly all continental cities. Most of the German municipalities run savings banks for the com- mon people, and the public pawnshops protect the poor. They issue fire insurance and sick list pensions, and the government is now providing for an old age pension or insurance. The principle acted on is that the collective body can only prosper by first improving the condition SPEECH AT PHILADELPHIA. 757 of each of its members, and that no community can be happy so long as it has a large ignorant or pauper population. Besides making general education compulsory, nearly every city on the continent, like the cities of Great Britain, maintains technical or trade schools in which thousands of the young are trained in the technical knowledge pertaining to these industries for which the municipality may be noted. The cities of England hold that they need no other protection than that which this superior knowledge and training gives them. The cities and governments of Europe simply did what common business sense suggested. They did not attempt to establish a social- istic State — the governing forces there are opposed to socialism and try to crush it wherever possible — but they appear to have been driven to the conclusion that all of those things that are the subject of monopoly can be managed by government and that this is the only way that a government can protect its people against robbery. While these things are taking place in Europe, the private cor- porations in America are bribing legislatures and city councils, re- ducing wages, charging higher rates, and collecting dividends on millions and millions of watered stock. According to legislative in- vestigation, the stock in the Boston Street Railroad is over half water; in New York, in Brooklyn and in Philadelphia the ratio is 4 to 1. Every business reason applicable to the municipalities and gov- ernments of Europe is applicable here. We want as pure water, as good drainage, as cheap service as they have, and we want the same privilege of supplying ourselves as they exercise; and when it is apparent that, by acting collectively, we can do business more success- fully, can serve ourselves better in every way, and can secure for the public treasury these millions which now go into the pockets of grasp- ing individuals, have we not a right to do it? If we find that, in this manner, we can give steadiness to labor, and can elevate its standard and improve the conditions of all our people, dare we not do it ? Every one of the reforms carried out in England and on the continent met with fierce opposition from the same classes that oppose them here, but the business sense and patriotic impulse of the people prevailed, and I believe, will prevail here. Even if private corporations were to serve us cheaper and better than we could serve ourselves, we will be forced to take the corporations in order to prevent free institutions from being overthrown by corruption. This reason did not exist in Great Britain, yet the people took the corporations. It is objected that the cities dare not take the corporations because of this rottenness, but we find that in so far as this corruption related 758 LIVE QUESTIONS. to legislatures, city councils, etc., as well as to the higher officials, the most of it is due to the temptations offered by the corporations, and it will continue just as long as the corporations exist; while the rottenness in departments is mostly due to the absence of a proper civil service system. With the gradual introduction of an improved civil service system, most of the little peculations will end. But let us suppose that municipal governments will not improve. As things are now, the people have to bear the burden of corruption among officials, have to fatten a lot of politicians, and have to fill the coffers of insatiable corporations besides, while, if these corporations were wiped out, the sums which they now get could go into the public treasury, and the people themselves would again get control of their government, and they would no longer be sold by their own repre- sentatives, nor defeated in their purpose by a horde of rotten lobbyists, hired by corporations, with money which had been extorted frpm the people themselves. So long as there was competition, our people preferred to let it regulate everything; but competition is being entirely wiped out by pools and trusts and our people will be devoured by vultures unless the government comes to their rescue. POSTAL SAVINGS BANKS. In Great Britain and in many of the continental countries the gov- ernments maintain postal savings banks, in which the poor can de- posit their little savings from time to time and get a low rate of interr est on them. In England, this postal savings department, run in connection with the postoffice, performs a variety of service that is of the greatest benefit to the people. It provides a system for re- ceiving the small deposits, even of children, a cheap and safe system of sending small sums of money from one to another point, and it issues life insurance policies for small amounts. In this way poor people are encouraged to form habits of economy and thrift and also to make provision for sickness, accident, and for old age, and can do this at a very nominal expense, and are never in danger of losing a life's work by a bank failure, or of having the insurance company break, after paying it premiums for years. In our country the poor people are left at the mercy of private individuals and private companies. The history of both, in banking as well as in insurance, has been tainted with failures, bankruptcy and even frauds, and, owing to the high charges, our poor people are de- prived of the benefit of life insurance. The total amount which any individual can deposit in a savings bank is not large, and consequently SPEECH AT PHILADELPHIA. 759 it does not interfere with the general business of the country, and, instead of paying interest on bonds held by the rich of foreign coun- tries, the government pays interest to its own people. Recently a banker, in addressing a banker's convention at De- troit, in opposition to postal savings banks, said: "I am confident, therefore, that in the future, as in the past, the people will view with misgiving any movement in that direction. Besides, this scheme is not consistent with the spirit of our form of government. "With nations abroad, the tendency and policy is to make the peo- ple subservient to the government. Our theory looks to making the government subservient to the people. The spirit of individual in- dependence runs through our whole governmental system." This is beautiful language and beautiful theory, but, unfortunately, in our country to-day both government and people are subservient to the corporations, and one argument in favor of postal savings banks is that it would help to free both government and people from this domination. Four-fifths of the people favor it, and it is safe to predict that the class to which the gentleman belongs will not only oppose it, but will use corruption funds to defeat it. TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE SERVICE. Nearly every government in the world, except ours, owns and operates its own telegraph and telephone lines, to the great advantage of its people. But we still give all the benefit to the corporations. An examination shows that the total cost of the construction and equipment of the Western Union Telegraph line has been only be- tween twenty-five and thirty millions of dollars and that, owing to wear and tear, etc., it is now not worth over twenty millions of dol- lars; yet it has issued stocks and bonds amounting to over ninety- seven millions of dollars, and it is paying interest on this sum. In other words, it is now paying twenty per cent, on what the plant has cost and what it is now in reality worth. During the last twenty-five years it has paid one hundred millions of dollars in dividends. All of this money has come out of the pockets of the American people. If the government were to take the telegraph at fair price and make it part of the postal system and issue three per cent, bonds for it, and were to maintain the present charges, the net earnings, after paying interest on the bonds, would pay for the entire system in about five years. On the other hand, if it should decide to do as Great, Britain has done, that is, reduce the charges so as to bring the service 760 LIVE QUESTIONS. within the reach of all the people, the charges could be cut in two and the system still be self-supporting. When Great Britain took charge of the telegraph lines, the rate was two and a half shillings per shortest message. The government has reduced this rate to sixpence, or twelve cents, a reduction of eighty per cent. And now, for twelve cents, a man can send a message from any part of Great Britain to. any other part, yet last year the deficit in this department was only $150,000. In France the rate is one cent a word to any part of the republic. In most of the other countries, the rates are about the same as in France, except where the government seeks to make the telegraph a great source of revenue. In Great Britain there are twice as many telegrams sent per capita as there are in the United States, and in Switzerland there is an excess over our country of thirty-three per cent, per capita. In the United States the rate for the shortest distance is twenty- five cents for ten words, and to some points of the country over a dollar. That is from two to ten times as high as in Great Britain or France. TELEPHONES. In England the government does not yet furnish telephones to private subscribers, but it furnishes public telephone service at the rate of six cents of our money for every twenty-five miles of distance, while here the charge is ten cents for connections at the central office and generally one cent a mile to outside points. That is just four times as high as in England. Prior to 1894 the United States government hired its telephones of the Bell Company at $75 per year. Since that time it has operated its own telephones at a yearly cost of only $10.23 each, and has had far better service. If the government owned the telephones, a farmer could go to his neighborhood postoffice and, for a few cents, use the public telephone and communicate with any of the great cities, and thus be brought into closer relations with the world. It would bring the most remote neighborhoods in closer contact with the centers of intelli- gence, and the effect upon the whole people would be to the highest degree beneficial. COAL MINES. In the spring of 1894, there was a strike on the part of the coal miners, which extended nearly all over the United States, and which . was so protracted that a coal famine ensued and many of the largest in- dustrial establishments were obliged to shut down ; and laboring men, SPEECH AT PHILADELPHIA. 761 who had no connection with that industry, were thrown out of em- ployment and there was much derangement of the business of the country. The strike was for living wages; the condition of the coal miner had, for years, been getting steadily worse; spasmodically he had struck against the hand that was crushing him and crushing his fam- ily, but all to no purpose; his wages were reduced from time to time, and, as the business depression spread over the country and industrial establishments became idle, there was a reduction in the amount of coal consumed and many miners were unable to do more than get half time, while others were entirely idle. During the strike in 1894 one of the largest operators in Illinois stated that he had some excellent men in his employ, who had families to support, who were sober and industrious, and who had not been able to make over eight dollars a month for a year past. The majority of the operators were not to blame; they had to compete in the market in order to sell their coal; they had their money invested in mines and in mining machinery; they found that a few unscrupulous and conscienceless men had taken advantage of the hunger of miners and got them to go to work at starvation wages, and were thus able to put their coal upon the market at greatly reduced prices. This forced the honest, humane, honorable men engaged in the mining business to sell their coal at a similar price, or go out of the business, and the result was they likewise had to reduce wages. So that it was the unscrupulous and conscienceless men who fixed the wages. Already in 1894 the mining population had been reduced to a state of misery and degradation. The miner could not educate his chil- dren, he could not respectably clothe his wife and, in many cases, he could not furnish bread, and he struck. He felt that his condition was already so bad that it could not be made much worse, and that he had nothing to lose by striking; but, although the struggle was protracted and bitter, no substantial good came of it. Since that time the conditions have been getting steadily worse, and finally, in a spirit of desperation, only three years after the last destructive strike, the miners of this country struck again — struck against hunger and struck against nakedness — and they have again made an honorable and heroic struggle to improve their condition. Considering the extreme poverty to which they were reduced, the fact that there was no hope for themselves or their children, that they were slowly passing into slavery that was worse than chattel slavery (for the new masters refused to feed, or clothe, or bury them, as the old masters of negro slavery had done), considering these jte 'Live QVESfiQtfS. things, the conduct of the miners in maintaining the law, in keeping the peace, has been of a character to arouse the admiration of man- kind. No assembly of millionaires or of corporation agents ever submitted to such suffering, or ever displayed such high patriotism or nobility of character. The great majority of operators this time actually sympathized with the miners who had struck and wished them success. They complained of the fact that a few great corporations, owned by some of the wealthiest men of the. country, were pursuing a course that must not only lower the social status of the miner and his children for all time, but that was calculated to bankrupt all those operators who wished to act honorably by their employes. Among other companies of this character, which they named, was the New York and Cleveland Gas and Coal Company, managed by Mr. De Armit and chiefly owned, it was said, by Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Rockefeller and a few other gentlemen of great wealth; that this corporation had used its great power to crush out all organization among its laborers, and had so crushed the spirit of its employes that it could mine its coal more cheaply than the other companies, and could force the others to cut wages or get out of the market. This strike has interfered with the regular operations of the coun- try upon which the welfare of society depends. The struggle has been protracted and does not promise to settle anything definitely nor to furnish protection to the country against further disturbance of this character. True, the miners have lost nothing, for they had nothing to lose; and, should the struggle go against them, at the end of it they will be just as well off as they were at the beginning. Mr. De Armit has the satisfaction of knowing that, with the great power placed in his hands, he has been able to force the weaker class a notch lower in the scale of misery and degradation. The fact that the labor of this weaker class had created the wealth which was thus used to crush them did not help them; and if Mr. De Armit, Mr. Car- negie and their rich associates exult over success, they should feel as proud as a man who has whipped his wife or as a son who has thrashed his mother. But these things are now matters of history. The only question of interest to-day is, how long shall this go on and where will it end? Hyenas are sometimes satiated and lie down to rest, leaving the world to others; but recent years have demonstrated that the hunger of corporations grows fiercer with the feeding, and that, if left to have their way, the contest must become fiercer and the public will, at all times, be in danger of a fuel famine and a general disturbance of its speech At Philadelphia. 763 industries. On the other hand, if the miners are to be reduced to such a state of helplessness and degradation that they will not have the spirit to strike, if hunger and nakedness are to become natural con- ditions among the adults and ignorance and crime are to be the en- vironment of the children, then we will soon have in our country a large population that will be a constant menace to free government and republican institutions. Now, suppose the United States government should say: "The constant recurrence of these disturbances of industrial and economic conditions of the country growing out of disputes between the mine owner and the miners cannot longer be endured; neither can I permit a large portion of the most industrious of my people to be re- duced to such a low condition that they will be unfit to maintain free institutions. These people should have living wages, so that, by industry, economy and prudence they can support their families and educate their children. On the other hand, the owners of the coal mines should have a reasonable income from their property. I will take these mines myself. I will buy them where I can, and where I cannot I will have their value ascertained by fair trial and pay the owner; so that every man will get a good, fair compensation for his property. I will issue bonds bearing a low rate of interest for these mines, and I will operate these mines as I now run the postoffice. I will fix a scale of wages which will give every man a fair wage for his work, as I now pay other government employes. I will fix the price of coal, so that every man will know what it will cost him. I will fix this price so low that all the people of America can get their fuel at the cost of production and such slight addition as will pay the low interest, and, in the course of years, reimburse the purchase price, so that the mines will cost the public nothing. I will, in the same manner, take the anthracite coal fields, which are now operated as a monopoly, the price for such coal being arbitrarily fixed without reference to competition. I will sell that coal to the American peo- ple at the cost of production, with slight addition for the payment of interest and the ultimate payment of the purchase money; thus enabling the people to get anthracite coal for much less than they now get it. This will give stability to the coal supply; it will elevate that large population that now depends on mining for a living, make of -it a higher grade of citizens; it will reduce the cost of living to every American citizen, and will be a blessing to the country." Having heard the government thus express itself, what would be the response of the country? I imagine that I hear, coming from the great laboring masses, and from the manufacturers, and from the 764 LIVE QUESTIONS. millions of citizens who love their country and want it to reach the highest plane of civilization, an enthusiastic voice of approval. But I also hear the insolent voices of the monopolists and their followers, protesting that the government dare not do anything ex- cept furnish courts, sheriffs, marshals and bayonets with which to crush the miner, and silence every man who dares to insist that humanity has rights. RAILROADS. Fifty-four of the governments of the earth own and operate their steam railroads. In the United States the roads are owned and oper- ated exclusively by corporations. Governor Larrabee of Iowa, after careful research, estimated that the average cost of construction and equipment of the railroads of this country was only from $25,000 to $30,000 per mile, whereas they are bonded and stocked for more than double that sum, and a constant effort is made to compel the American people to pay interest on this large amount, over half of which is water. Other authorities have estimated that the people of this country have been compelled to pay interest at the rate of eighteen per cent, on the amount which the railroads and their equipments have actu- ■ ally cost, or are now worth. It appears that there are now about six hundred railroad presi- dents, with their staffs, in this country who are drawing high salaries, while the legal expenses growing out of contests between the roads themselves run far up into the millions, so that several of the ablest statisticians of this country hold that if the railroads were all con- solidated and run by the government, there would be so many large items of saving that it would amount to several hundred millions a year and would soon pay for the roads. One of the large items in the present expenses of the railroad com- panies is the corruption fund, that is, the fund with which they bribe legislatures, bribe city councils, carry elections and otherwise debauch the public. It is apparent that the railroads of this country must charge higher rates than would be necessary if they were operated by the government; and it is found that, on the average, they are just about twice as high for the masses of the people here as they are in Europe. In most of the European countries there are three and sometimes four classes of passenger rates. There is a first class rate for those who wish to be exclusive. This rate is only a trifle higher than the general rate in America, and only about four per cent, of the total traffic belongs to this class. The second class is somewhat of the same order, and only ten per cent, of the traffic belongs to this. SPEECH AT PHILADELPHIA. 765 The third class is the one used by the public at. large and corresponds with our regular service; and over one-half of all the traffic belongs to this class. While the fourth class comprises thirty-six per cent. of the traffic, it is but little cheaper than the third class. Taking the third and fourth classes together, they embrace about eighty-six per cent, of all the passenger traffic in Germany, and the rates for these two classes are but little more than half what they are in this country. According to the report of the United States Railway Commission the average cost per mile on our roads for each passenger was 2.26 cents per mile, while the average rate paid by eighty-six per cent, of the travel of Germany is but little over half this amount per mile, the exact third class rates per mile in Europe being: Germany, 1 29-100 cents; France, i\ cents; Belgium, 1 1-5 cents; Austria-Hungary, 66-100 to 116-100 cents; Sweden, 1 1-5 cents; Russia, 94-100 cent A careful analysis shows that it costs our people a great deal more to have their freight moved than it does the people of Europe. It is true that an effort is sometimes made to show that it costs more per mile to move a ton in Europe than it does here, the long distance here helping this theory, but railway officials now, themselves, state that distance adds but little to the cost of moving freight, except in cases where that distance is very great; the chief expense in handling freight being at the terminal stations; that, when once in motion, a freight train can be moved five hundred miles for very little more money than it can three. Taking the same grade of goods, it is found that the freight charges here are much higher than in Europe. Comparing the protection of human life on the European roads with that on our roads, and taking the year 1894, we find that the number of passengers in the United States who were killed or injured amounted to one passenger in each 203,064; while in Germany it was one in each 1,805,323; and in Austria one in every 1,291,300. It has been estimated by some of the ablest authorities we have that, if the government would take the roads at a fair valuation and issue three per cent, bonds for them, these bonds would be taken up at once by the people and that the actual saving effected, in the rate of in- terest and in the operation of the roads, would pay for them in a com- paratively short time, so that they would not cost the government a cent, and would ultimately become the source of such great revenue as would alone support the government, and thus solve the problem of keeping the treasury supplied. 766 LIVE QUESTIONS. RAILROAD OWNERSHIP. For years I was opposed to railroad ownership by government. I felt that private enterprise could manage them better than the pub- lic and, further, that the addition of such an army of men to the patronage of the government would be giving a dangerous power to any federal administration. This last objection has been partially removed by the application of the civil service law, and it is now settled that a system of railroad management could be established which would not interfere in politics — certainly not so much as the present systems interfere in politics. During the last campaign, millions of dollars were collected from the railroads with which to debauch the public, and the employes of almost every railroad in this country were forced not only to march, but in many cases to vote against their will. But in recent years the question of railroad ownership in this country has changed and now presents entirely new problems. First. — The colossal over-capitalization of the American railways and the persistent attempt to pay dividends on watered stock places a burden on the American people which they cannot and should not bear, and would not need to bear if the government owned them. Second. — The roads have been used by unscrupulous men as a convenience in great stock-jobbing operations, sometimes managed on purpose to force them into bankruptcy, in order to reduce the value of stocks, and sometimes managed in a method equally dishonest for the purpose of raising the value of stocks, with the result that millions of honest Americans who had invested their little for- tunes in railroad stocks were ruined, which would not have happened had the government owned them. Third. — A system of favoritism has grown up and is practiced by all the roads, by which rebates and special rates are given to some shippers and not to others. Under this the favored business man or manufacturer, or other shipper, gets an advantage which enables him to crush his rival, who does not get the same favor. Especially is this true of certain large dealers who, from handling large quan- tities, are able, in many cases, to absolutely name the sum they shall pay, and are able, by this assistance, which they receive from the rail- roads, to utterly crush out the smaller dealer. Many of the large establishments of this country, whether in pork packing, iron manu- facturing or other industry, owe their greatness almost entirely to this species of favoritism. Railroad service is in a sense public service, and it is the duty of the SPEECH AT PHILADELPHIA. 767 government to see that all of its citizens enjoy equal privileges in so far as relates to public service. The business man with limited means gets his letters carried by the government for the same price that his great competitor has to pay, but here the parallel ends. In almost all other respects he is discriminated against, not only to his injury, but to his destruction. This would not be so if the government owned the roads. Fourth. — While private management of railroads pays enormous salaries to the few at the top, there is a constant tendency to shorten the wages of the men at the bottom; whereas, if the government owned the roads, it would reduce the salaries at the top and raise the wages at the bottom. Some great railroads of America have been periodically robbed by stock jobbers and then, under the pretense of economy, the laborers who operated the line and made it capable of earning money, had their wages reduced. All of which would not have happened if the government had owned them. Fifth. — If there were municipal and governmental ownership, it would take so large a number of men out of the competitive labor column as to give steadiness and a more healthy condition to the whole labor world. Sixth. — The business and even the social affairs of this country have all been adjusted with reference to the regular operation of the railroads, and any interruption of this service causes inconvenience and loss and brings ruin if long continued. Yet, owing to disputes between the railroads and their employes, this country is at all times in danger of suffering from a strike or a tie-up. Seventh.— But the fact which overshadows all others is that of corruption. With the concentration of capital have come the interest and the money to debauch and control government. Surrounding every legislature, whether city, State or national, there is a corrupt lobby working for the corporations. As a result, the people are be- trayed by their own representatives. The public is made to pay every form of tribute to these new masters, and is helpless. During the last six months corruption has done more to destroy republican government in Illinois than a hostile army could have done, and the money used for this purpose was wrung from the people themselves. In almost every city and State capital, as well as at Washington, the conditions are the same. Some years ago, before an investigating committee, Mr. Gould testified that he contributed money to control the legislatures of four States, and it was proven that the Erie Railroad had spent one million dollars in a single year, under his management, to get legislation and 768 LIVE QUESTIONS. carry elections; while the New York Central Railroad had paid $205,-. poo in one year for the same purpose. However humiliating it may be to our people, it is nevertheless true that they are obliged to furnish the funds with which corporation managers debauch and corrupt pub- lic servants. Several years ago a committee from the New York Board of Trade, after an investigation into the question of transportation, said in its report: "The railroads control absolutely the Legislatures of a majority of the States of the Union. They make and unmake gov- ernors, United States senators and congressmen, and, under the forms of popular government, they dictate the governmental policy of the United States." The question of putting an end to this wholesale corruption, put- ting an end to the selling of legislation, putting an end to the control of government by corporations, is a question that will determine the existence of this republic. Unless we can check it, there is no hope for this country. The only way by which we can stop this corruption at present is to remove temptation; and from present appearances, the only way this can be done is to have the government take all these corporations and monopolies that are now destroying it. Every effort to enforce the criminal law against these great Offenders has ended in a farce. It is no longer a question of economy, it is not a question of policy, it is a question of existence. We are face to face with the ques- tion as to whether the government has the right and the power of self-preservation. If what is called the referendum in legislation should be adopted, it will tend to protect us from further corrupt legislation, but it could not remove the monopolies and the injustice that now exist in our industrial system. GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION. The corporations discovered years ago that to control the con- struction of the law was even more important than to control the making of it, as the federal judges hold office for life, are independent of the people and surrounded by monied influence, the corporations have constantly labored to secure the appointment to the federal bench of men whom they believed would be their friends, that is, men who, by nature, education and environment would be in sympathy with them, and they now fly to these courts like the ancient murderers fled to cities of refuge. They do not buy these courts because it is not necessary. Some years ago Congress passed the Inter-State Commerce Law SPEECH AT PHILADELPHIA. 769 for the purpose of protecting the public against overcharge and unjust discriminations. The corporations opposed this law and have suc- ceeded in getting the federal courts to destroy it by construction. Again, Congress passed an income tax law, to compel the con- centrated wealth of the land to bear its share of the burdens of gov- ernment. For a hundred years such laws had been held to be consti- tutional by the Supreme Court; but this time the great corporations objected and the Supreme Court at once came to their rescue and held the law to be unconstitutional. The favor or the opposition of the corporations has come to be almost the sole test of the constitu- tionality of a law. Congress has passed some anti-trust laws for the protection of the public, but they are simply sneered at by the federal courts and to-day the formation of trusts is almost the only industry that pros- pers in this country. Nearly all efforts to curb corporations or to bring great offenders to justice have been failures. In many cases the law and the courts seem to assume an apologetic attitude when facing men whose forms have been made rotund by ill-gotten millions, while in many other cases both the law and the courts become terrible in their majesty when dealing with men whose forms are bent, whose clothes are poor and whose stomachs are empty. The fact that the bony and indus- trious hands of these men helped to create the capital that is now setting its heel on their necks and crushing their families does not help them. Not content with the law as they found it, the federal courts, in their eagerness to serve the corporations, have usurped the functions belonging to the legislative and executive branches of the govern- ment and have invented a new form of tyranny, called "Government by injunction." During the entire century in which this continent was developed, when our railroads, our factories and our cities were built, no govern- ment by injunction was heard of, nor is it heard of in any other country to-day. The law of the land was ample for all purposes. Life and prop- erty were protected, ( order was maintained, law was enforced and our nation became the wonder of the earth. And the law of the land, as it existed for over a century, is ample for every purpose to-day. But when the great leaders of industry began to pass away then there came to the front a class of manipulators who knew nothing about the art of building, but who had learned the art of legalized robbery, and these manipulators and plunderers demand a new form of government. The former leaders allowed the laborer a little of 49 770 LIVE QUESTIONS. the bread he toiled for, but the new manipulator wanted it all. The laborers were entirely at the mercy of these men. They first got hungry and then restive, a whip was needed to restore contentment, and the federal courts promptly furnished it. Government by injunction operates this way : When a judge wants to do something not authorized by law he simply makes a law to suit himself. That is, he sits down in his chambers and issues a kind of ukase which he calls an injunction against the people of an entire community, or of a whole State, forbidding whatever he sees fit to forbid, and which the law does not forbid, and commanding whatever he sees fit to command, and which the law does not command — for when the law forbids or commands a thing no injunction is necessary. Having thus issued his ukase, the same judge has men arrested and sometimes dragged fifty or a hundred miles away from their homes to his court, on a charge of violating the injunction — that is contempt of court. And the men, after lying in prisons a while, are tried — not by a jury, as is required by the Constitution, when a man is charged with a crime — but they are tried by the same judge whose dignity they are charged with having offended, and they are then sentenced to prison St the mere pleasure of this judge, who is at once legislator, judge and executioner. When the Czar of Russia issues a ukase, he leaves it to other men to enforce, but not so with these judges. Let us cite just a few examples out of a number. Several years ago it was charged that the Northern Pacific Rail- road had been robbed by the men who controlled it of over sixty millions of dollars. These same men went before Judge Jenkins, of Milwaukee, and got him to appoint three of their friends receivers of the road, and these receivers, instead of collecting the money al- leged to have been wrongfully abstracted, proceeded to cut down the wages of the operatives, without any notice to them, and for fear these operatives might get restless, these receivers went before this same Judge Jenkins and got him to issue an injunction forbidding the operatives from leaving the employment of the railroad. About the same time a large number of employes on a California railroad refused to go to work because they were not paid and a Judge Ross, who was operating the road through his court, issued an order com- manding them to go to work and threatened to send them to jail if they refused. Since that, almost everything that a corporation lawyer could think of has been covered by these injunctions. Recently a judge in West Virginia issued an injunction forbidding the exercise of free speech and actually forbidding men from march- SPEECH AT PHILADELPHIA. 771 ing on the highway, no matter how peaceable they might be. There are a few noble men on the federal bench who have refused to prosti- tute their courts at the bidding of corrupt greed but they will, in time, have to follow the precedents set by the others. It will be noticed that these injunctions are simply a whip with which to lash the back of labor. It is also apparent that if they suc- ceed, they must ultimately destroy the interests in whose behalf they are now issued, and that they are, therefore, short-sighted. For if the laborers of this country are ever reduced to the helpless condition of the laboring classes in some European countries (a condition in which they will have no purchasing power) the great American mar- ket must disappear and our great railroads and industrial properties will not be worth fifty cents on the dollar. Glancing at this proceeding, we find that it entirely supersedes government by law and according to the forms of law, as guaranteed by the Constitution, and it substitutes government according to the whims, caprice or prejudice of an individual, and is, therefore, a clear usurpation of power and a crime. Second: When the law forbids or commands something, no in- junction is necessary. When, therefore, an injunction forbids or com- mands something that is not forbidden or commanded by law, it is legislation pure and simple, and, therefore, a usurpation of power and a violation of the Constitution, and is high crime, within the meaning of that instrument. Third: It is the function of the Legislature to define crime and to declare what acts shall be punishable, and also to fix the punishment; and when, therefore, a judge undertakes to do these things, he usurps the functions of the Legislature. Fourth: The law has created special tribunals and special machi- nery to enforce the criminal law; and courts of chancery have no power to arrogate this to themselves and substitute contempt pro- ceedings for the forms prescribed by law. In those cases in which an injunction is made to cover what is already forbidden by law, it is simply a device to rob a man of a trial by jury, for when he is charged with violating the law he must be tried by a jury according to the forms of law; but when charged with violating an injunction he can be railroaded to prison without any ceremony. Fifth: All of these proceedings in the federal courts are an at- tempt to do things that belong exclusively to the police powers of each locality, in the administration of which these courts cannot inter- fere without being guilty of usurpation. Sixth: But depriving men of a trial by jury and robbing them of 772 LIVE QUESTIONS. their liberty and imprisoning them without a trial, according to the forms prescribed by law, is a violation of the Constitution and a high crime. It is not necessary for me to say to you that republican institutions and government by injunction cannot both exist in the same country. They are exactly opposite in character and one or the other must die. If a hostile army should burn half our cities, or if a pestilence should carry off half our people we would soon rally, and under free institutions our nation would be happy again. But by brushing away the very foundations of liberty, these courts are committing a crime which, if unchecked, will cast a gloom over many generations and increase the sorrows of unnumbered millions of the human race, be- cause it tends to wipe republican government from the earth. Even in conservative England they recognize the rights of the laborer. They recognize the fact there that the days when competi- tion regulated wages are past. By reason of the great concentration of capital, there are com- paratively few employers and these arbitrarily fix wages, because the men are at their mercy, and it is mockery to tell the men to look for other jobs if they are dissatisfied. They also recognize the fact over there that corporations have no conscience and that, if the la- borer is left to their mercy, his status as a man and a citizen must get lower and lower, and that the only way in which he can prevent himself and his children from being ground into atoms is to combine with his fellow laborers, so as to meet combination with combination, and by concert of action, in refusing to work, that is, by a strike, can he secure anything like fair treatment. They also see that when organized laborers strike for the purpose of securing a raise in wages or improving their condition, all laborers, whether organized or not, will derive a benefit from it, if successful, and that, consequently, when some men in the midst of a strike are induced to go to work so as to defeat the purpose of the strike, such men not only harm all their fellows but also the condition of them- selves and their children, although they may get temporary bread by doing so. Recognizing all these things, the governing forces of England permit the laborer to use all peaceable means to induce other laborers to join in the strike. He is simply forbidden to use violence, or to break the peace. The practice of "picketing," that is, of sending men to induce other laborers to quit work through persuasion, or any other peaceable means, is recognized as perfectly lawful. SPEECH AT PHILADELPHIA. 771 Courts there disdain to use their machinery as a mere convenience for corporate greed. The government of England is monarchical. Here we boast of republican government and free institutions. Shall we allow the in- dividual in this country to be robbed of even such rights and protec- tion as a monarchy would give him? Shall the corporations of this land be permitted not only to devour our substance, but also to de- stroy our liberties? My friends, let us save our institutions; gov- ernment by injunction must be crushed out. If the government takes some of the great corporations, then there will not be so many corporation men appointed to the bench. But the Constitution has pointed out a way to end these usurpations without having the government take the corporations, and that way is by impeachment. Every one of these judges, whether of high or low degree, who has been trampling on the Constitution and usurp- ing power not given him, is subject to impeachment. The American people can remove every one of them and consign "them to that infamy which is now embalming the memory of Jeffreys. But this cannot be done so long as Congress is made up largely of men who are mere corporation conveniences. It will be necessary to send men to Congress who will be true to the people. This may not happen at the next election, nor yet at the next; but it must come and must come soon. Providence has ordained that nothing shall go on forever. Our fathers said that every lane had a turn. We have been traveling in a lane that has run in the same direction for thirty years, and we are approaching a turn. Yea, my friends, do not despair. A turn in the road is already in sight, and if the American people are but true to their nobler instincts they will soon be restored to their inheritance, while justice and liberty, equal rights and equal privileges will cover our land with a halo of glory and give our people a new < century of prosperity and happiness. But if they do not rise in their manhood and stand for the prin- ciples of eternal justice, then all is lost. This is Labor Day throughout the United States, and many beau- tiful things will be said about the dignity of labor, but I want to say to you that if our government is not rescued from corporations and if the snaky form of government by injunction is not crushed, then it would have been better for your children if they had never been born. 774 LIVE QUESTIONS. PROBLEMS THAT CONFRONT US. Editor Cleveland Recorder: September ist, 1897. Dear Sir: Answering your favor I will say that three great ques- tions confront us. First, the question of government by injunction, by which some corporation creatures, acting as federal judges, run their courts as if they were mere clerks for corporations and, in their eagerness to assist corporation managers in crushing the spirit of labor they usurp the function of both legislative and executive branches of the government and strike at the very basis of our liber- ties. Second, the question of removing the bribe-giving and debauch- ing corporations, which offer temptations too strong for the average man to resist and thus induce some of the representatives of the people to betray their country and their race. I say removing them, because this debauchery will last just as long as these corporations last and they must, therefore, be removed or the government must go down. Third, how to secure for the great toiling masses of the world their fair share of the products of their own labor and also of the benefits which machinery and invention have given to the world. Government by injunction must be stopped by impeachment. Every one of these judges who has robbed a citizen of the right of trial by jury, or has otherwise usurped a power, is subject to impeachment; and all that is necessary to drive them from office in disgrace is that we should have a Congress that will be jealous of its own rights and will protect the people in their liberties. The only way that is now feasible of putting an end to the overwhelming temptations offered by the corporations is to have the government itself take all these corporations which are destroying it and then furnish the service which they were intended to furnish. To secure for the laboring people their fair share of the products of their own labor, and to secure for all of our people their fair share of the blessings and advantages that flow from invention and modern enterprise, it will be necessary to bring about some changes in the industrial and economic conditions of our country; and inasmuch as most of the injustice and wrong that exists to-day in this connection is the direct result of monopolistic legislation, it will be necessary to wipe out much of this legislation. It will be seen that all of the above remedies call, in a degree, for governmental action, consequently the laborer must exercise greater care in the selection of men to represent him; and it will be neces-. RESTRICTING FREEDOM OF SPEECH. 775 sary for the laboring people in this country, both those that are out- side and those that are inside of unions, to stand together. They suffer now because of .the fact that they do not stand together. The laboring classes have allowed themselves to be divided by unscrupu- lous men and they have thus frittered away their strength. Instead of having to stand at the outer gate, as they now do, and beg and plead for justice, they could be in a position to administer justice themselves. They have gone on year after year supporting rnen who were mere tools of corporations and never in their lives made an honest effort to help the laborer. Let the laboring classes of America only stand together for a few years ; they can drive every tool of the corporations off the bench ; they can put an end to that legislation which robs the American peo- ple to fatten the trusts; they can put an end to those conditions under which honest and industrious men become more helpless than slaves and they can build an entirely new sky over the future of their children. RESTRICTING FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN COLLEGES A USURPATION OF POWER. Chicago, 111., Sept. 25, 1897. Dear Mr. Shibley: Answering your favor I will say that freedom of thought and freedom of speech in our great institutions of learn- ing are absolutely necessary for the preservation of our country. The moment that either is restricted, liberty begins to wither and die and the career of a nation after that time is downward. I believe that the men, who in the past gave their money to endow colleges and univer- sities, did so for the purpose of aiding in the search for truth, and as this can only be secured by free investigation and free discussion, it is evident that when any set of trustees attempt to prevent this they are exceeding their authority. If any institution was not founded for the purpose of aiding in the discovery of the truth, then it is un- American and should be forbidden to issue diplomas of the kind they now issue. It is safe to assume that when trustees fear the effect of free discussion they feel that truth is not on the side they wish to have favored, and institutions that are run by such narrow or such bigoted men cannot become the correct standard of American edu- cation and they should be restricted in regard to the character of diplomas they are authorized to issue. Very truly yours, George H. Shibley, Esq. JOHN P. ALTGELD. 776 LIVE QUESTIONS. MEMORIAL ADDRESS ON HENRY GEORGE. (Delivered at the Auditorium, Chicago, Dec. 5, 1897.) Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen: We have seen men of wealth and influence pass away; we have seen men of power called home, and the world scarcely looked at the bier of the one or glanced at the coffin of the other. But to-day we behold the American people bringing their flowers and their tears to the grave of a poor, unpretentious private citizen. Men of varied walks and professions, men of varied creeds and convictions, men who approved, and men who dissented have stopped to express a regret and to say a kind word for the spirit that has gone. Seldom, indeed, is the heart of this nation moved by the taking off of one man. No one man is necessary to its existence, and new men press so quickly to fill the gap that the column seems forever unbroken. Men who have been governors, senators or congressmen are num- bered by thousands, and although each is impressed with his own importance, yet when the end comes a brief notice in the local papers closes the chapter. We have eighty-eight United States senators, and perhaps a million of men who want to be senators, and yet if the whole eighty-eight were wiped out there would be more talk about successors than grief for the departed. Their places would be filled, and they would scarcely be missed. Why is this so? It is because few men touch the heart of man- kind; they serve only the material, and matter has no soul that can rise up and bless their memory. Why, then, do we linger around the grave of this private citizen who lived and worked a thousand miles away from here, who held no office, who possessed neither wealth nor power, whose life had been one long, hard struggle; who had eaten the crust of poverty and drunk the bitter waters of distress? What charm had this man for us? We are told that he was a scholar; that his literary style was so superior as to give him a world-wide fame; that after the appear- ance of his first great book the scholars of England delighted in doing him honor. But something more than this was needed, for, as a rule, scholars like to sup at rich men's tables; as a rule scholars are de- pendent, and have to curb their tongues and put a jacket on their ADDRESS ON HENRY GEORGE. 777 consciences, or else look for another job. Then, too, human nature is so constituted that we look with kindly eye on the hand of a patron. As a rule the scholars of the world work with old or neutral straw or else they mildly defend existing wrongs. To be sure, there have been glorious exceptions, but in almost every instance the exceptions became martyrs who not only bore the taunts of their fellows but went forth with bleeding feet to push the car of civilization. The passing of a mere scholar or literary man does not necessarily -moisten an eye or quicken a heartbeat. There must be something more. We are next told that Mr. George was a great political economist; that he dug deeper into the principles of government, that he got nearer to the foundation stones of justice than any other man; that he not only gave to the world new ideas, but presented old ones in a stronger light; that this work alone must give him an enduring fame and must ultimately bless the human race. Let us grant it. To my mind, he made almost as great an im- pression on the economic thought of the age as Darwin did on the world of science. The utterances of both men have been fiercely de- nounced by men who predicted that the new theories would bring all manner of disaster. But to-day you have to go far into the forest of prejudice to find a man who denies the doctrines of evolution and of natural selection. And instead of religion having been overthrown, it has simply stepped into a higher plane, where it breathes a purer atmosphere and is more vigorous than ever. And already the thinking world is recognizing the great principle that no man or set of men can be given a perpetual monopoly of the lands of the earth or of the resources of nature. For if they can, then they can drive everybody else off of it, or they can prescribe the con- ditions upon which others may remain, and that moment the relation of master and servant is created. So, also, do men already admit the proposition that if a thousand men by their industry build a city around a piece of land that is worth only $1,000, and thus make it worth a million dollars more than it formerly was, this extra million should in equity and good con- science belong to the public that made it, and not to the man who did nothing toward creating it. And experience has already taught the world that all policies of government that enrich the few at the ex- pense of the many are not simply unjust but are pernicious, and in the end spread suffering and misery among the weaker classes of society. J7§ LIVE QUESTIONS. How far the theories of Mr. George can be put into operation is" a question for the future — economic theories that do not offer advan- tages to the few and therefore have no paid lobby to push them — ■ have to stand on their own merits and must possess not only the element of justice but must be capable of application. The institutions of society cannot be easily changed. Those interests that profit by existing wrongs will fight to keep their advantage. But let us assume that in "time these theories will be adopted and will result in elevating the race and greatly reducing human misery. This would bring fame and the gratitude of the world; but there would yet be something wanting. There have been many great economists who won fame, and whose doctrines were adopted and helped to shape the destiny of the world. Aye, some of them helped to bless the race and yet no tears moistened the graves of their authors. What, then, draws the world to this man? It is the broad sympathy for suffering mortals which he possessed. Henry George's soul went out toward all that were in distress. His ear caught the cry of sor- row that has saddened the ages from the time that the children of Israel sat down by the rivers of Babylon and wept. In writing Progress and Poverty he dipped his pen into the tears of the human race, and with a celestial clearness wrote down what he conceived to be eternal truths. When he died there was nowhere a soul that cried out, "There is one iron hand less to grind us, one wolf less to tear our flesh," but everywhere a feeling that a friend of the race had gone. He recognized the great fact that a governmental policy may deter- mine not only the political but the moral and physical conditions of a people, and that most of the governments of the past and many of the present were simply powerful machines controlled by criminal selfish- ness, which not only crushed the aspirations of man but robbed him of his substance and enslaved his children; that while there are here and there individuals of such exceptional strength as to overcome their environment'the mass of men have to bend to the conditions around them; that while intemperance and shiftlessness will destroy indi- viduals in any station, it is possible to reduce a whole people to such poverty, hardship and exposure as to beget intemperance, degradation and misery. Recognizing these great facts, he strove to educate the World to the necessity of a change of policies and governmental theories. In doing this he fixed his eye on the pole star of justice and tried to bring every sentence into line with that vision. Never once did he falter. Other ADDRESS ON HENRY GEORGE. 779 so-called thinkers might be influenced by social, financial or political considerations, but to him the rays of justice were like rays of light — they would not bend, and he wanted them to shine on all mankind. Labor was at the base of his fabric. He wanted every man to earn what he got and was opposed to all systems that enabled one man to devour the fruits of another man's toil. He believed that tainted dollars eat the soul of the owner and that polluted wealth rots down families. The world has decided that modesty is indispensable to greatness. In nature the shallows murmur, while the great depths are dumb. The late Professor Swing once said in a sermon, "We leave the lofty bear- ing and the high stepping to salaried servants. A man has something else to do." And, my friends, when one turned from the multitude of lofty bearing, high stepping and self-important men, it was like entering a morning in June to meet the quiet, unpretentious and sincere Henry George. I last saw him during the summer. He looked feeble and worn. He seemed like a man who felt that his career was over and who calm- ly watched the shadows grow longer and had nothing to regret. He had been visited by a great family affliction, but he did not refer to it. He seemed much alarmed over the dangers that are threatening our country. He had been a Democrat of the kind that Lincoln and Jefferson were, and he felt that corruption was eating the heart out of this nation; that political bossism was one of the instruments through which corruption worked; that party names were often used to conjure with for the purpose of helping dishonest men to further their schemes. As I took leave of him I felt that he could not do much more for his country. But I was mistaken; for soon thereafter the mayoralty campaign opened in New York City. He determined to register a protest against the two political machines that had no inscription upon their banners except corruption and spoils. There was no prospect of being elected, but he hoped that the country might profit by his example. His friends tried to dissuade him; his physician told him that it would be fatal, that he could not survive the campaign. "Well," he replied, "I cannot die in a better cause." That moment Henry George stepped into the charmed circle of the world's heroes. A readiness to give up life for a principle is the highest form of heroism known to man. You remember the fight he made. The American people looked on in amazement. This one earnest man with his assistants was ^8o LIVE QUESTIONS. stirring the. great city to its depths; the people were arising and flock- ing to him. There seemed to be a political ground swell until within a few days' of the election, when suddenly a hand reached out from behind the great curtain and took him away. The chapter closed, and Henry George was dead. He had shown what one earnest, patriotic man can do toward restoring the people to their inheritance and then gone home. He is gone, we are here. Have we the patriotism, the courage, the character, the manhood to carry out his work? Approve of his doctrines, if you like, or reject them; but on the necessity of rescuing our institutions from the slimy hands of the corruptionist, there can be no difference of opinion. Jackson sent word that if any man pulls down the flag shoot him on the spot. My friends, polluting the flag is a thousand times worse than pulling it down, for it destroys the peo- ple over whom it floats. Therefore, let the word go over this land, "If any man pollutes the flag, hang him on the spot." Great as were the services of Mr. George as a scholar, as an economist and as a patriot, the example he has set the young men of this country is still greater. He has shown how to pass through those long, dark days; aye, years, during which neither friends nor sunshine nor dollars draw near, and during which the road to perdi- tion seemed so alluring. He has shown that labor, lofty purpose and untiring perseverance will surely win, and that without them there can be no honorable career. He has shown that the road to achievement rarely runs along the line of office holding. In fact very few of the great men of the country ever hold office. How sad it is to watch the multitude of well meaning young men coming in endless procession; having kind parents, good homes, a fair education, but imbued with the mistaken idea that the way to win glory is to hold office. And instead of struggling up the hill, they commence work in the underbrush where many of them spend their lives. They breathe the poisons and learn the tricks that prevail there, and soon the bleared eye tells the story of a life that is being thrown away, and there follows financial, mental, moral and physical disinte- gration. Even if they succeed for a time, the hands of the fates soon push them over and the waters of oblivion swallow them up. There is nothing more honorable than to conscientiously serve one's country, in public office or out of it. But those cases are getting to be entirely too numerous in which extraordinary powers of manipu- lation, coupled with a want of conviction, keeps some men in hi°b. office for many years, and then, instead of an old age that is glorious with good deeds, they are simply bent with the wrinkles of duplicity 'LETTER TO ST. CLAIR McKELWAY. 781 and they finally sink into graves which the kindly grasses hide from a deceived and betrayed people. The life of Henry George tells the young men that if they would render great service to their country they must be conscientious and independent. They must be able to "go it alone." If they would breathe the purer atmosphere that inspires the souls of men they must struggle up the steeps, they must travel a road that is a lonesome road — a road that is rocky and dusty and that has neither springs nor shade trees beside it. But that is the road along which are found the foot-prints of genius and the finger-boards that point to immortality. "Let the breeze blow up or the clouds blow over Nothing cares he for the clouds or the clover; But he welcomed the grave which was -just at hand, And which gave him a share of his Father's land." LETTER TO ST. CLAIR McKELWAY. Coronado, Cal., January 10, 1898. Hon. St. Clair McKelway, Editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, N. Y.: Dear Sir: In reply to your favor of the 28th ultimo, relating to the question as to whether the number of delegates in national con- ventions should be decreased, I will say that much can be urged on both sides. There is no doubt but that conventions would be more wieldy and more orderly and could therefore be much better reported if they were smaller in size. Still, as a rule, it is not the delegates who create the confusion but the vast audience of non-delegates. At first blush it would seem desirable to have smaller conven- tions, but experience has shown that corruptionists and manipulators can always handle a small body of men more easily than they can a large one. You have no doubt noticed that the corporations and trusts and other corrupting agencies always address themselves first to the Senate in the various State Legislatures as well as in the United States Congress. These influences generally try to run con- ventions also, and I have no doubt but that they will all be in favor of smaller conventions. It is true that even large conventions have been repeatedly manipulated and controlled in the past by a few indi- viduals. For example: Mr. Whitney, representing the Standard Oil Trust and other corporations, went to Chicago in 1884 and forced the nomi- nation- of Mr. Cleveland in the Democratic convention; he went to 7%2 LIVE QUESTIONS. St. Louis and forced the nomination of Mr. Cleveland in 1888, and again he went to Chicago in 1892 and forced the nomination of Mr. Cleveland in the Democratic convention of that year. In that year the Illinois delegation was against Mr. Cleveland when it was chosen, and yet, under the peculiar influences which then controlled conven- tions, Mr. Whitney got them all. Again in 1896 Mr. Hanna went to St. Louis and forced the nomination of Mr. McKinley and did it against what seemed then to be the majority sentiment of his party; but in all of these cases there was no compact, organized and deter- mined opposition to fight. In each case there was some opposition but it was of a scattered character and stood for nothing definite. Had there in any of these cases been a compact, aggressive and determined opposition standing for a great principle the result would probably in each case have been different. Personally, I never attended but one political convention, big or little, as a delegate in my life; that was the convention of 1896, and I am not an authority on this question, but I have observed repeatedly that the interests of the people are less liable to be bartered away by a large number of representatives than they are by a small number and in these days this is a question which rises far above the con- siderations of order and decorum. In regard to limiting the number of spectators in the convention I will say that this has been tried repeatedly and is always found to be a difficult thing to do. In the first place it requires a great deal of money to prepare for a convention and generally a large portion of this is raised by selling tickets in bunches; second, there are of necessity in this country a great number of substantial and influential people who want to witness the proceedings of the convention and who, as a matter of fact, have a right to witness the proceedings of any convention in which men are to be chosen or nominated who may possibly have to rule over the country. The convention is supposed to represent a portion of the American people attending to their own business, namely, the business of governing and they have a right to conduct their proceedings in any manner they see fit, and while a National Committee could refuse to provide seating capacity and thus shut out the public still this would hardly come within the proper functions of the committee. The committee does not conduct the convention, it simply makes preparations for the people's representa- tives to come together, and as the people have a right to witness the proceedings of their representatives a National Committee would natu- rally hesitate to deprive them of this privilege. It is true that the line must be drawn somewhere, as in fact only JEPPERS6N AND CLEVELAND. 7^3 a small number can witness a convention as spectators, still it would seem to me to be better to draw the line at that point where nature fixes the limits — that is the point beyond which it is impossible to hear well. Any other limitation must of necessity be arbitrary and give rise to much dissatisfaction. I will not dwell on the fact that in most cases the men who propose to keep spectators out of the con- ventions assume that they themselves will of course be admitted, but they can see no reason under the sun why the other fellows should be let in. Very truly yours, JOHN P ALTGELD. JEFFERSON AND CLEVELAND. THE FIRST THE FOUNDER AND THE OTHER THE DESTROYER OF DEMOCRACY.— "COMPARISON IS IMPOSSIBLE, BUT CONTRAST IS INSTRUCTIVE."— THOMAS JEFFERSON WAS THE GREAT DEFENDER OF HUMAN LIBERTY.— HE EN- TERED PUBLIC LIFE RICH AND LEFT IT A POOR MAN- CLEVELAND BEGAN HIS PUBLIC LIFE WHEN VERY POOR AND LEFT THE PRESIDENCY A WEALTHY MAN.— SOME INTERESTING CHAPTERS FROM THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES AND OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. (Speech at Central Music Hall, April 13, 1898.) We have met to celebrate the birthday of the first President elected by the Democracy of America, and inasmuch as the last President elected by the Democracy is to be brought to our city to define na- tional honor and give us instruction in morals, it has occurred to me that this fact taken in connection with the unhappy conditions of our country, as left by the last President, and as we find them to-day, makes it proper to say something about both of these men — the one the founder and the other the destroyer of the Democratic party — comparison is impossible, but contrast may be instructive, especially to the young men of the land. While Virginia was yet a British colony a young man named Thomas Jefferson, who hailed from the landed gentry, was a mem- ber of the Legislature. He had been highly educated, was a student of all human affairs, and was a member of the bar. Although born an aristocrat he saw that all civilization rests on the hand that toils. He saw that all of the governments of the earth rested on restrictive policies which cowed the nobler instincts and higher activities of men. He felt that if man were given his freedom he would work out a 784 LIVE 'QUESTIONS. higher destiny. He saw that all men came into the world equal and that institutions which created inequality were a curse to the race, and he devoted his life toward securing equality for mankind, liberty and justice. The agitation in behalf of independence had begun. Nearly all the rich — the powerful — the fashionable and all that hang to these classes were tories who looked with contempt on those men who talked of liberty and independence; the latter were called a rabble of demagogues and agitators. Jefferson did not do like some men who subsequently became dis- tinguished; he did not allow others to do all of the earlier, unpopular and dangerous work of educating and formulating public sentiment, but he became the guiding spirit of this movement. THE GUIDING SPIRIT OF TRUTH. He assisted in forming the celebrated committee of correspond- ence for disseminating intelligence among the colonies and bringing them into closer relationship. In 1774 he was elected a member of the Continental Congress and drew up the famous "summary view of the rights of British America," which, though rejected then as being too radical, was adopted by some colonies and was extensively, pub- lished here and in England. He helped to draft every important doc- ument issued by the Congress, and especially the answers to the Eng- lish government. And when the cause of independence had ripened, his brain conceived, his heart shaped, and his hand wrote the Declara- tion of American Independence; a document which has given immor- tality even to those who did nothing except sign their names to it — a document which was the greatest charter of human rights ever given to mankind. The colony of Virginia had, in the meantime, adopted a new con- stitution, for which he had written the preamble, and in October, 1776, he resigned his seat in Congress and devoted himself to bringing about a radical revision of the laws of the colony. Virginia had an established church, and any man who did not adhere to it and at- tempted to worship God according to the dictates of his own con- science was not only prosecuted but persecuted. CHAMPION OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. He secured the establishment of religious freedom in the colony. He secured the abolition of the feudal and aristocratic system of primogeniture and entail — that system under which the eldest son took all the land, which then meant nearly all the property — and he founded a free common school system which was subsequently copied in most JEFFERSON AND CLEVELAND. 785 of the States. For his courte on each of these questions, he was angrily denounced by those who co'nsidered themselves the better classes, consisting of the rich, the influential and the powerful, as a dema- gogue, an agent of Satan, an enemy of Christian institutions and a dangerous man. But he never wavered, and succeeded in bringing the laws of his colony more nearly in line with the spirit of justice. He hoped that he had eradicated every fiber of ancient or future aristoc- racy. He considered slavery a moral and political evil and said concern- ing it that he trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just. After the Revolution, he founded the University of Virginia, which has given this country hosts of great men, and it is still one of our greatest institutions of learning. The services he rendered his colony alone entitle him to an enduring fame and the gratitude of mankind. He served two years as Governor of the colony, and then declined a re-election, and retired to private life, but re-entered Congress in 1783, and reported the treaty of peace with Great Britain acknowl- edging the independence which had been declared in '76. He next secured the establishment of the decimal system of coinage, abolishing the English system of pounds, shillings, etc. Subsequently he was sent abroad to assist in negotiating treaties of commerce, and then was made resident minister to France, where he spent about four years. Here he published his famous "Notes on Virginia." ALWAYS A DEMOCRAT. One feature of his character at this time is especially noticeable, i. e., he was always a Democrat. In recent years we have sent men abroad who knelt before and tried to ape the aristocracy, some of them even denouncing the country which had given them a commis- sion, but in every line of Jefferson's utterances during that time, in all of his letters, there was that bold expression of his opinion, that aristocracy and absolutism were a curse to the world, and that the hopes of humanity lay in a broad and free democracy. He was still abroad when our federal Constitution was adopted. He expressed his hearty approval of most of it, but felt alarmed over the provision which created the federal judiciary. Here was a branch of government that was unrepublican and undemocratic, that rested upon an aristocratic, or rather a monarchic basis. The judges, who would have all the prejudices and weaknesses of other men, were not to be selected by the people, they were to hold office for life and would not understand the needs or the wrongs of the people, but So 786 LIVE QUESTIONS. would be influenced by class interests, with which they came more con- stantly in contact. He urged with great earnestness that such a tribu- nal would go on extending its jurisdiction by day and by night until it should absorb the whole field and become the tomb of liberty. I am sorry to say, my friends, that it has already been demonstrated that these forebodings were prophecies. JEFFERSON AND HAMILTON. After the Constitution was adopted and Washington was elected President, it became necessary to have the young republic establish as friendly relations as possible with the different governments of the earth. As we were then weak and unknown and as our government was considered but an experiment,, and was sneered at by the in- fluential classes of the world, it was a most delicate and difficult task to secure for us even respectable treatment, from foreign governments. Mr. Jefferson returned from Europe and President Washington ap- pointed him to the office of Secretary of State, the one which at that time was the most difficult to be filled. Hamilton was also in Wash- ington's cabinet and except as to bimetallism stood for exactly the opposite of all of those principles, convictions and theories of govern- ment which were represented by Jefferson. Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury and made an able and exhaustive report on the finan- cial question. He submitted a copy of it to Mr. Jefferson, and in referring to that feature of it relating to the two metals, said: "To annul the use of either of the metals as money is to abridge the quan- tity of the circulating medium and is liable to all the objections which arise from a comparison of the benefits of a full with the evils of a scanty circulation." In answering this letter Mr. Jefferson wrote to Hamilton as follows: "I concur with you that the unit must stand on both metals." Jefferson was opposed to the funding and other financial schemes of Mr. Hamilton because they would load the country with unneces- sary burdens and appeared to be in the interest of stock jobbers and speculators. He abhorred a bank of issue as being destructive of the welfare of the country and especially did he oppose the creation of a United States bank. In a letter to Adams, in 1814, lie said: "I have ever been an enemy of banks, not of those discounting for cash, but of those foisting their own paper into circulation. My zeal against those institutions was so warm and open at the establishment of the bank of the United States that I was derided as a maniac by the tribe of bank mongers who were seeking to filch from the public their swindling JEFFERSON AND CLEVELAND. 787 and barren gains. The evils they have engendered are now upon us and the question is how we are to get out of them." BIRTH OF DEMOCRATIC PARTY. At this time the American people became divided into two parties ; one called Federalists were headed by Hamilton and were strongly in favor of American independence, but did not comprehend or under- stand democratic government, or democratic principles. They believed in following the example of European governments; they believed in the government by wealth tinctured by corruption and with them the Revolution simply meant the overthrow of the foreign aristocracy and ruling force and the substitution of a home aristocracy and ruling force, and they had the impudence to denounce Jefferson as a dema- gogue. They believed in having government control nearly all of the affairs of the citizens. Under their theory the citizen existed by per- mission of the government. The other party consisted of the Demo- crats, then called Republicans, headed by Jefferson, and believed in a system of government that should interfere as little as possible with the affairs of the private individual; they believed that all power rested in the people, that instead of the people existing by permission of the government, the government was the creation and the agent of the people. They were bitterly opposed to anything like a ruling aristoc- racy, or governing class. They believed that mankind were capable of self-government and that the highest development of man could only be attained in free institutions. When Washington retired from the presidency, he was succeeded by John Adams, a Federalist of the narrowest type. During his administration the principles of the Fed- eralistic party began to take form. The whole tendency was against the masses of the people and in favor of the central power. The in- famous alien and sedition laws were passed during this administra- tion. Frightful strides were made towards strangling the spirit of democratic institutions and establishing in their stead the aristocratic principle. Had this policy become permanent, the whole career of the new republic would have been different, the oppressed and the liberty-loving of all lands would never have sought our shores. JEFFERSON TO THE RESCUE. But the people of the young republic had not thrown off a British yoke simply to wear a more odious home yoke, and in 1800 they rallied under the leadership of Jefferson and overthrew the odious ad- ministration of Adams and the unrepublican policy of the Federal- ists. Jefferson was elected President and the objectionable legislation 788 LIVE QUESTIONS. of the prior administration was wiped out at once, the whole policy of the government was reversed, the face of the nation was turned toward the morning. Liberty and progress, humanity and justice became the watch-words and they brought to us the best muscle and brain of the world. The spirit of man, being thus unchained and encouraged in its aspirations and efforts, leaped forward and gave the republic a career that was without a parallel in all history. Jefferson's far-seeing eye perceived the advantages of extending our domain, and under what was known as the Louisiana purchase we acquired that vast territory lying west of the Mississippi and stretching from New Orleans north- west to the Pacific ocean. This was fiercely opposed by the Federal- ists. But it at once changed our character. Instead of being a republic on the Atlantic coast of North America, we became the great Ameri- can Republic. It was during the eight years of Jefferson's adminis- tration that the foundations of our greatness were laid and that our destiny was shaped. The great mass of men who do the world's work, who love freedom and hate oppression, who love justice and despise , hypocrisy, had been cemented together. The great Democratic party was founded. That party guided the republic for twenty-four years, Jefferson being succeeded by Madison and he being followed by Mon- roe. The Monroe doctrine that we hear so much of in recent years was first officially promulgated to the world by President Monroe, who was a pupil and disciple of Jefferson. JEFFERSON LEFT OFFICE A POOR MAN. My friends, find a principle of government that has helped to make us distinctive and great and you will find it was of democratic and Jeffersonian parentage. Glancing at this quarter of a century during which the breath of Jefferson was animating the nation, we find that none of these great men indulged in political huckstering or trading. They stood for definite principles and resolutely carried them out. Office came to them incidentally, there was no deception of con- stituents, no false promises made before election and broken after- wards, no efforts to mislead and no betrayal. Jefferson entered public life wealthy, and served his country faithfully. He retired from the presidency poor and died in poverty. In the light of more recent events I am impelled to declare, "Thank God this great man retired from office poor." There was nothing to sully his character, nothing to dim the luster of his star. JEFFERSON AND CLEVELAND. 789 CLEVELAND VS. DEMOCRACY. We now turn to a darker picture. In 1863, Mr. C. C. Torrance was the* Democratic district attorney of Buffalo, N. Y. A young man came to him and asked to be appointed assistant, pleading that he was much in need. After hearing his appeal, Mr. C. C. Torrance appointed him assistant state's attorney. Toward the end of the term Mr. C. C. Torrance was a candidate for re-election and asked to be renominated by the Democratic convention, when he found to his astonishment that the young man whom he had befriended had undermined him and managed to get the nomination himself. The name of the young man was Grover Cleveland. This was his first effort in politics and he here gave the world a key to his character, he here exhibited those traits which he, in later years, showed in dealing with the Democratic party. But the people of that county refused their sanction, and as a result Horace Boies, who was then a Republican, and later became Gov- ernor of Iowa, was elected state's attorney. Years after the time came to nominate a sheriff. The prospects of the Democrats being poor, there were no aspirants. Ordinarily lawyers take pride in their pro- fession and even if poor would regard it as an insult to be asked to act as sheriff, honorable as the office may be for a layman, but Grover Cleveland came forward and asked the nomination, and, in the ebb and flow of politics, he was elected. The personal conduct of men is frequently referred to as furnishing a key to their public career — by showing their nature and mental qualities. The course of Mr. Cleveland through a number of years at this period furnishes such a key, but we pass it by. FRIEND OF CORPORATIONS. He was next elected Mayor of Buffalo and he had not long been in office until it became apparent that the corporations were carrying away everything but the city hall; that the corporations were on horseback and did not even take the trouble to dismount when enter- ing the Mayor's office. In the meantime the common council had passed some ordinances relating to street cleaning. The corporations that were influential with the Mayor had no interest in these ordi- nances. The Mayor vetoed them and charged in effect that the men who supported these ordinances were scoundrels. These messages attracted attention. There were at that time, as there are now, certain papers in New York and elsewhere that called themselves reform pa- pers. These reform papers loudly praised the Mayor's veto. A syste- matic effort was made to hold the Mayor up to the country as a great 790 LIVE QUESTIONS. patriot. The country did not know that these so-called reform papers were mostly owned, and are entirely controlled, by corporation and syndicate influence, influences that despise little thieves but watch their opportunity to filch millions from the public. PLATITUDES AND PLUNDER. Here was a man who could feed platitudes to the public and plun- der to the syndicates. The latter decided to make as much out of him as possible. They secured his nomination by the Democratic conven- tion for Governor of New York. It happened to be a year when one wing of the Republican party determined to punish another wing. By this means Judge Folger, the Republican candidate, was defeated by an unprecedented majority and the ex-mayor of Buffalo was made Governor. Here the corporations became still more aggressive; they assumed absolute control. The records show that every measure in their interest, of which there were many, had the prompt support and approval of the Governor, while every measure which they did not favor and every measure framed in the interest of the men who toiled with their hands, of which there were a number, was promptly vetoed. Monopoly guarded both the front and the rear entrances of the exe- cutive mansion, while the toiler was not permitted to even look at the gates that led to the executive grounds. But the managers who profited by this condition of affairs determined to operate on a larger scale. The control of the federal government promised millions where the control of the State government meant but thousands. NOMINATED BY THE TRUSTS. In 1884 the national Democratic convention was held at Chicago and there came from the East some gentlemen representing those trusts and corporations that had the New York Governor in training. Mr. Manning represented the bankers of Wall Street. Mr. Whitney represented, not only the great Standard Oil Trust, but a combination of trusts and syndicates. These men, by appealing to similar inter- ests elsewhere, succeeded in forcing the nomination of the New York Governor for President. Men who did not belong to these interests declared that the Governor was not a Democrat and that it would ultimately destroy the party to take him up, but they were overruled. The nomination was made and sufficient funds were raised among the parties interested to secure his election. No sooner was he in- augurated than certain characteristics became painfully prominent. He knew nothing about the affairs of the government or the condi- tions of the country. He looked upon trusts and syndicates as the JEFFERSON AND CLEVELAND. 791 embodiment of righteousness and regarded all men who did not belong to these concerns as being unworthy of consideration. He showed a liking for the dilettante. It became a mugwump administration, which took for its guidance the swamp lights of Hamiltonism. The Demo- crats of the land who adhered to the doctrines of Jefferson became sick at heart and retired, and the administration became contemptible. FIRST FOUR YEARS OF CLEVELAND. The National Democratic Convention of 1888 was held at St. Louis and men shrugged their shoulders when they saw Mr. Whitney, who still represented the Standard Oil Trust and a combination of syndi- cates, accompanied and assisted by other representatives of concen- trated wealth, go to St. Louis and again override the democratic spirit of the country and again force the nomination of Grover Cleveland upon- the Democratic party. The election came. The honest Demo- cracy remained in its tents and the mugwump administration ended. During the four years which followed, the iniquities of the McKinley law had disgusted the American people. Then the Eastern manipula- tors of politics again saw their opportunity. TRUSTS AGAIN TO THE FORE. In 1892 the national Democratic convention was held in Chicago and good men sighed for their country when they, for the third time, saw Mr. Whitney, still the representative of the Standard Oil Trust and of other syndicates and corporations, assisted by other men rep- resenting similar interests, coming on to the ground, overriding the 'honest sentiment of the Democratic party, and for the third time forc- ing the nomination of their protege upon the Democratic party. During the campaign the candidate gave assurances to various prom- - inent Democrats that if again elected he would be a Democrat and would give the country a Democratic administration. Relying on these assurances, many Democrats gave him their support who other- wise would not have. The election which followed was a protest by the country against McKinleyism. The Democratic ticket triumphed, as a result of this protest. When the inauguration was over, the syndicates stepped into the open and proceeded to claim their own. They determined to reap a harvest while their sun was shining. At the elections the country had expressed itself clearly and explicitly upon the subject of tariff reform, but they felt no interest in this. As a preliminary step to subsequent bond operations, they demanded the more complete establishment of the gold standard and the final oyerthrow of silver, knowing that this would force the government 792 LIVE QUESTIONS. along a line that would enrich the speculator. The Democratic party which had just elected the President was opposed to this policy. All of its conventions had emphatically declared against a gold stand- ard and in favor of the re-establishment of silver. The same was in fact true of the declarations of the Republican party. The masses of the American people were opposed to the demands of the money power, but they were entitled to no consideration, and the new Presi- dent, instead of carrying out the policy upon which the country had spoken, instead of proceeding at once to carry out reforms which the Democratic convention that nominated him had promised the country, simply listened to those people in whose wagon he had ridden from Buffalo to Albany and from Albany to Washington. He immediately convened Congress in special session, he entirely ignored the reforms to which he was pledged and he demanded of Congress legislation that should administer the final death blow to the silver cause, that should still further enhance the purchasing power and influence of gold, further reduce the price of commodities and of labor, and par- alyze industry. At that time the government was annually issuing about fifty million dollars of silver certificates based upon silver bullion in the treasury. A REVOLTING SITUATION. It was that much addition to the currency of our coun- try every year; while utterly inadequate, it still did some- thing toward having the volume of money in our country keep pace with the increasing population and the increas- ing business. To put an end to this, therefore, meant greater strin- gency and greater distress. The Wall street brokers, who handled English capital, forced the Republican congressmen to support this measure. The majority of the Democratic congressmen hesitated to thus betray their constituents, but the administration was deter- mined. As the Democratic congressmen were expected to secure more or less offices for their constituents, the administration took advantage of this fact. Although the President had talked loftily about civil service, there followed such a prostitution and such an abuse of the patronage of the American government as had never been seen at Washington from the time the capital was located in the valley of the Potomac. Congressmen were given to understand that the only way in which they could secure even a hearing in behalf of their constituents was to yield to the demands of the President. By this usurpation men were whipped into line against their convictions and the Wall street measure was forced through Congress against the JEFFERSON AND CLEVELAND. ^93 protests of the honest Democrats all over the country. Instead of this measure giving the country relief, as was promised, it helped to further paralyze the industries and business of the land. Soon there- after there was a vacancy on the Supreme bench. The President had some favorite whom he wished to place there, and he sent first the nomination of one, and when that was rejected, the nomination of another of his friends to the Senate for confirmation, and while each of these nominations were pending the papers were filled with accounts of cabinet ministers riding over the city of Washington at midnight, pleading with different Senators and offering anything in the shape ,of patronage if the latter would but vote for confirmation, but the Senate stood firm and another man had to be selected. At the next session of Congress a tariff bill was introduced. The President talked loftily against community of pelf, and then it developed that the ad- ministration through its treasury department had helped the great Sugar Trust get the law framed to suit .itself. From that time on the honest Democrats of the land avoided the White House and looked with pain and sorrow upon the spectacle of a horde of trusts sleeping in the council chambers of the President, and dictating the policy of the American government. CLEVELAND THE ENEMY OF LABOR. In 1894 there occurred what was known as the great railroad strike. Its center seemed to be Chicago; reports of it were simply exaggeration and fabrication. After it was over a commission was appointed by the federal government to make an inquiry in regard to the cause and extent of the strike, the damage which had been done and when it was done. The records of the fire department show the exact dates on which any property was destroyed and the amount that was destroyed. The records of the police department also show the dates of disturbances, their locality and extent. We have now exact information upon all these questions, and this information shows that ten days prior to the rioting, prior to any disturbances, the cor- porations asked the President to send federal troops into Chicago and the President without any inquiry of the local authorities as to the conditions or whether they needed assistance, without any inquiry of the State authorities as to whether any assistance would be needed, and three days before there was any rioting, ordered United States troops into Chicago, and made them subject to military orders from Washington, and not to the civil authorities, federal or State, as re- quired by law, thus establishing military government. ?94 £1V£ QUE$fidM$. MISUSE OF FEDERAL TROOPS. To guard the postoffice or subtreasury would have looked ridic- ulous, there being no unrest in that part of the city. It was in the railroad yards on the outskirts of the city where the trouble subse- quently came. After the trouble began some of these federal troops were sent out to one of these railroad yards to quell a riot, but they soon retired. Thereafter they scarcely made another effort. They did not prevent the burning of a single car or the ditching of a single engine. The disturbance was quelled by the regular constitutional authorities. At the suggestion of the governor the mayor applied, for assistance from the State, according to law, and within a few hours thereafter so large a force was put on the ground as to completely control the situation. There had been many strikes in Chicago which were more formidable than this one promised to be, and the situation was con- trolled by the local authorities. But the great corporations of the country wanted a precedent set for having the federal government take them directly under its wings so that they would not, in any case, need to apply to any local government; in fact so that they could in every case not only ignore but even defy the local governments. Under our Constitution federal supremacy and local self-govern- ment must go hand in hand. This principle forms the basis of our institutions. But the voice of the corporations was potent and al- though it was necessary to violate the Constitution and the law of the land, and although it was necessary to trample every principle of Jefferson in the mud, this illegal precedent was set by a President who had been elected by Democratic votes. CLEVELAND AND CUBA. During his term the sad cry of starving and bleeding Cuba was heard by the world. All she asked was recognition which would give her belligerent rights and enable her to buy in our markets. She would fight her own battles and needed no intervention. This nation spoke in tones of thunder that the Spanish assassin must not be helped by us and that Cuba must be recognized. Congress promptly passed such a resolution. Had this been acted on there would to-day be no Cuban question, for once able to buy supplies in our market on the same footing with Spain, the brave Cubans would long ago have driven every Spaniard off of the island. But then, as now, the voice of the money changer silenced the voice of statesmanship — of com- mon sense and of justice. The President sneered at the people and JEFFERSON AND CLEVELAND. 79$ ignored a co-ordinate branch of the government, and the great navy of this proud and free republic was made to perform the service of a policeman for the convenience of Spain. Thank God the time is at hand which will end Spanish barbarities on American soil. FORCING BOND ISSUES. But while the corporations were in full control of the White House, they had not yet reaped their great harvest. To make vast fortunes by the turn of the hand it was necessary to have the government issue bonds. This was the purpose they had in mind when they got the administration to convene Congress in special session and administer the death blow to silver. They understood their business perfectly. They knew that the administration would now be obliged to issue bonds, and during the four years constituting the last administration Mr. Cleveland issued two hundred and seventy millions of bonds, and according to the statement he sent to Congress this was not to meet the expense of the government, but simply to maintain the gold stand- ard. Reflect a moment: In times of profound peace, when, accord- ing to his statement, there was ample money to defray the expenses of the government, the burdens of the American people were increased two hundred and seventy millions, simply to satisfy the moneyed power and maintain a system which is paralyzing our nation. Debts have ultimately to be paid with the things that are made in the shop, or raised in the field, they have to be paid ultimately with human labor; speculators pay none of them. This debt means that the toilers of America must give that much more sweat, that much more blood, that much more toil for which neither they nor their children will ever receive one penny's worth of benefit. Altogether the bond •speculators are said to have made between thirty and forty millions of dollars, clear profit, out of these bond transactions. You remem- ber the bonds were sold in batches at different times, and in one in- stance, when a batch of about seventy millions were to be sold, they were not advertised, they were not offered to the highest bidder, they were not put upon the market, but Mr. Cleveland secretly sent for his former law partner and this man made a secret arrangement with a man who represented a syndicate of bankers. By this arrange- ment this batch of bonds was sold to this syndicate for nearly ten million dollars below their value. Glance at this transaction a moment. The head of the mighty American republic sent for a con- fidential friend and through this confidential friend secretly sells the United States bonds to another man with whom they had occupied confidential relations, and sells them at a price which causes the gov- 79$ 'LIVE QUESTIONS. eminent to lose in the neighborhood of ten millions of dollars. I will say to you that if the mayor of Chicago were guilty of such- a transaction, he would be indicted by the grand jury and sent to the penitentiary of Joliet inside of a fortnight. WANTED GOLD BONDS. On another occasion when he was about to sell bonds, he sent a message to Congress, asking permission to issue gold bonds, stating that he could sell those for a specific sum in excess of what they would bring if issued under the law as it then stood, that is the law under which practically all of the government bonds had been issued and under which law the bonds were payable at the option of the govern- ment in silver, but Congress refused to allow him to execute a gold contract. Thereupon he issued the bonds and sold them in the mar- ket for a specific sum less than he claimed he could have gotten had they been payable in gold. But now he is to be brought to the West by men who pay not a dollar of the national debt, to tell the toilers of the land, who do pay these debts, that if they do not pay these same bonds in gold that then they are scoundrels. CLEVELAND A STOCK SPECULATOR. While all these transactions were going on the country heard, ■with a blush of shame, the reports that some of the Wall street stock speculators were carrying the President of the United States on their books, apparently as a silent partner, in some of their transactions, one speculator frequently boasting that he had set aside certain blocks of stock in pending schemes for his friend, Grover. Time passed, and as his administration began to draw toward a close and its real char- acter began to be understood by the public, and the disgust and con- demnation of the American people was everywhere heard, the coun- try was startled with a proclamation issued by the President, threaten- ing war with England. It came so unexpectedly that people could not understand it. There had for twenty-five years been pending a dispute between England and Venezuela in regard to the boundary line between the territory of the two countries. There was nothing new in the situation. It had been, and was still, the subject of cor- respondence between those two governments, but the President, with- out ascertaining the facts in the case, issued his proclamation promul- gating the Monroe doctrine. Our people believed in the Monroe doctrine and were at first pleased to hear it referred to, but when the astonishment subsided, they began to ask what it was all about, then the absurdity of the whole performance, the French opera-like states- f EPPERSON AND CLEVELAND. 797 manship of it all became apparent, the President not knowing what the facts were, did not know whether the Monroe doctrine was involved. Congress let him down easy by providing for the appointment of a commission, to find out whether there were any facts in the entire case which were of interest to us. That commission was appointed, it has not yet reported and it is doubtful whether it ever will, and the entire episode is almost forgotten. LAST ACT. OF INFAMY. But many people felt that the situation was too ridiculous and that there must have been some other and ulterior purpose in issuing the proclamation. These people studied the situation and ascertained that the proclamation which threatened war had had a tremendous effect upon the value of stocks in Wall street, and that about $100,- 000,000 changed hands in consequence of that proclamation. That amount of money being lost by the speculators on one side and made by the speculators on the other side, and so far as could be learned the stock brokers who had been the President's friends were not among the losers. The second purpose appeared to be this: The managers of the administration, seeing that the country was condemn- ing its policy and seeing that their saturnalia of bond jobbing and money making by the aid of the federal administration must come to an end unless something was done, and knowing that the American people favored the Monroe doctrine, hit upon the brilliant idea of having the President issue this proclamation, believing that it would arouse the patriotism of the country, cause a movement among the people in his favor, so as to enable these managers to re-nominate him for the fourth time, and re-elect him for the third term. But the patience of the American people had run its limit and the scheme failed. The term drew to an end and Mr. Cleveland, who originally entered the White House poor, now retired the possessor of great wealth. DEMOCRATS ROSE IN THEIR MIGHT. He had thrice been nominated and twice elected President by the great Democratic party of this country. He had spit upon every one of its tenets. He had trampled every one of its principles into the ground and he had succeeded in destroying its hopes. A year be- fore his last term ended, when the Democrats began to cast about, they found that everything they held sacred had been turned over to the enemy, the country was weary and the situation was hopeless. Many stalwart Democrats doubted whether they could carry a single 798 LIVE QUESTIONS. township in the United States. Hamiltonism had been put on horse- back by the so-called Democratic President, and we were being cursed for it. In their despair the Democrats of America rose in their might and overthrew this false god with all of the money making priests who hung about his altars. Then they kindled new fires upon the altars of liberty, they raised again the banners of Jefferson, and they went forth and fought the greatest battle for justice and humanity ever fought on this continent, and to-day you see their tents all over this country. They are in the field, they are eager and anxious for the fray, they are determined to redeem this land and in this great fight we 'behold Grover Cleveland joining hands with Mark Hanna for the destruction of the party that made him. We see him joining hands with the forces of corruption and debauchery that are ruining our country, but the carousal of the stall-fed classes, the long night of dis- sipation is nearing an end. Day is dawning and the Democracy will soon enter upon the morning of a new and glorious career. SUM OF THE CONTRAST. Glancing now at the administrations of Mr. Cleveland, we see the palsied hand of greed shaping the policy and marring the destiny of a great nation ; we see golden gods, bonded altars, syndicate priests and interest bearing gospels; we see the dollar made the master and man made the slave; we see toil disheartened and humanity weary; we see hypocrisy enthroned and false pretenses sanctified; we see patriotism sold and find honor on the market; we see the people betrayed and Democracy crippled, and finally we see it all end amid the contempt of the honest and the curses of the poor. But when we turn to Jeffer- son we breathe a different atmosphere, we stand beneath a different sky and gaze on a different sun. Here are the altars of liberty — equality and justice — from which radiate those forces that encourage the toiler, that cheer the patriot, that ennoble a people and that build a State. Here we see a man who courted not the rich, who served humanity, who faced obloquy, who stood for principle, who betrayed no con- stituency and who shirked no duty, and finally we see him loaded with benediction, his memory encircled with glory, and his name enshrined in immortality. Oh, my countrymen, comparison is impossible, but contrast is instructive. Since his day generations of public men equally learned, equally able and equally industrious, have lived and have gone, whose names are forgotten and whose ashes are lost. They did nothing for humanity; they traded in influence, they juggled in politics and they lost a career. THE WAR AND EXPANSION. 799 Mow, my friends, for nearly two thousand years the true disciples Of Christ have gone to His altar to get a new inspiration — a stronger faith — a higher purpose and a loftier ideal, and they have come away with a firmer resolve to maintain His standard and to carry His gos- pel to the ends of the earth. So, after seeing the desolation wrought in our country by the precepts of Hamilton and the acts of Cleveland, we gather again at the altars of Jefferson to get a new inspiration, a stronger faith, a loftier purpose, and let us go away with a firmer reslove to maintain his standard and to carry the principles of Demo- cracy, not only to the ends of the earth, but to the end of time. THE WAR AND EXPANSION. (Published in the Democratic Magazine for July, 1898.) Actuated by the higher humanities and moved by the spirit of the age, the Democratic party — assisted by a few Republicans who had not yet lost their independence — compelled the administration to interfere in behalf of the struggling Cubans and to declare war against Spain. The object was, first, to save the lives of over half a million of human beings whom Spain was purposely starving to death. Second, to put an end to conditions which had been a disgrace to civilization for more than a century and a constant annoyance to us, and third, the purpose was to put in practice and thus force recognition of the principle that- no government has the right to rob and murder its citizens, and that when it does so, it is the duty of other nations to interfere. The men who had made the present administration, and who support government only because through it they can carry on great schemes of plunder, were violently opposed to any interference. But the conscience of the nation could not be trifled with. In sheer fright and with, trembling knees the administration began to obey the will of the people. The minority party, true to its great principles of liberty and jus- tice, had forced a forward movement — a movement of such a high character that it will add luster to the close of this century. We have assumed responsibilities and created new conditions; and we must now be prepared to promptly face the one and deal with the other. 1st. What shall be the policy of this republic when the war is over; §oo LIVE QUESTIONS. 2d. What shall be done with any territory that may fall into out hands; and 3d. Shall we form an alliance with England? While we can avoid and must avoid wild schemes of conquest which would only debauch us and ultimately destroy our career, we must move forward and follow the lines of our natural development. We must recognize the fact that new conditions have been created and pursue a policy that will give us the largest growth and the great- est power and usefulness. We expect soon to put an end to the economic follies and govern- mental rottenness which have paralyzed us ; but if we were to fail and these causes were ultimately to reduce us to the exhausted condition of European nations, still the energy and force of this country will find a vent; and it is important that they move along the line of a greater natural development, and not along the line of wild and de- structive adventure. Shall we direct them, or let the enemy do it? The energies of our people are stirred, and owing to our paralysis at home, they are running in irresistible currents toward a broader foreign policy. To stand in the way of these currents would be like standing in the way of a river — and the party that attempts to hold them back will be left on the sands. Consequently, it is simply a question as to who shall hold the rudder while on the voyage, and what principle shall be nailed to the masthead when we reach the sea. Shall we be guided on the way by national and international scoundrels who make patriotism an asset and national honor a thief's weapon — who debauch everything they touch, and whose slimy hands pull down the whole structure of free institutions? Shall the toiler go on being robbed of his bread and despoiled of his liberty, and finally shall we turn pirates and sneer at the world's cry for freedom? Or shall we be guided on the way by the higher justice of Jeffersonian principles, and make the broader activities of this republic a blessing to all mankind. These are the basic questions, and, properly solved, render all others simple. COMING CHANGES IN OUR DOMESTIC POLICY WILL CHANGE OUR FOREIGN POLICY. Our people are slowly learning that a rapidly increasing popula- tion for the world and a slowly increasing volume of money means a steadily appreciating dollar and a steady lowering of the price of property and the products of labor when taken on the average — and THE WAR AND EXPANSION. 801 that this means an ever increasing paralysis. They are beginning to see that under the gold standard neither our country nor the civil- ized world can be prosperous, and that until this is overthrown the toilers of the earth must dwell in sorrow. This colossal iniquity will be destroyed. In fact it required all the corruption funds that could be raised on two continents and the commission of unparalleled frauds and crimes at the polls to prevent its being overthrown two years ago. With the overthrow of this system will come a period of activity and of production such as our country has never seen; and while it is true that our home consumption will at the same time increase, still our people will look to the other quarters of the globe for opportuni- ties of exchange, and we will want access to the harbors of the earth. Again, this country is thoroughly weary of a high protective tariff, which has not only proved to be a delusion but a fraud. For over thirty years we have had an ever increasing tariff, and it simply cre- ' ated millionaires and trusts on the one hand, while the conditions of labor were steadily growing worse on the other. The very pauper countries of Europe against which we legislated had high protective tariffs, and had had for centuries, and the tariff produced here the same conditions it had there. For while we stopped the importation of goods, the manufacturer was able to fill his shop or mines with the pauper labor of these very countries. Our people found that the famous McKinley law produced a deficit in the treasury for the year 1894 of $70,000,000, because it had tended to stop importations; yet- within a few weeks after the President had signed the bill, over three hundred of the great manufacturing companies of this country re- duced the wages of their men, and others filled their shops with importations of pauper labor from Europe, until, according to Mr. Powderly, there was scarcely an American laborer left in Pennsyl- vania; at the same time the price of goods was advanced. The people became disgusted with the McKinley law and overthrew it. The elec- tion- of 1896 was not a declaration for a high tariff. The hard times had caused so much distress that many people demanded a change, a change of any kind — and this added to the frauds committed at the palls through -Mark Hanna's boodle, elected the Republican ticket — but only by a majority so narrow that thirty thousand more votes properly distributed would have changed the result. As soon as Mc- Kinley was declared elected, the great trusts that had helped to raise the forty odd million dollars of corruption funds to elect him demanded a new chance to plunder the American people. Congress was at once Si 802 LIVE QUESTIONS. convened for their benefit. The so-called Dingley bill was passed at their dictation. One illustration shows the general character of this measure. The great sugar trust was allowed to dictate the sugar schedules — it had control of the sugar trade of America. The price of sugar went up 20 "per cent., and the public had to pay the increase, and during the first year the sugar trust cleared over $20,000,000 above what it could make under the former law. Not a cent of this went into the public treasury. Other trusts and corrupt combina- tions of capital fared equally well. The burdens of the people were increased, while the deficit in the treasury promises to become equal to that under the McKinley law, and the laborers of the country have not been benefited to the extent of one farthing by this Dingley law, although the cost of living has been increased. The fate of this Ding- ley law is already sealed. It will be wiped off of the statute books. Our country will settle down to a tariff for revenue, and when it does, our commerce will become the greatest on earth. Then we will want access to all of the world's harbors. COMMERCIAL ADVANTAGE. Commercial advantage, rather than political," is now the aim of the powerful nations. Africa has been divided up by the nations of Europe in order to monopolize trade, England alone pursuing the policy of opening her harbors to the world. The same nations are now forcibly dividing up China for the purpose of monopolizing trade. By reason of our position' and ability, we should get the benefit of most of this commerce; but in order to do so we must be able to offer reciprocal advantages, and must have a force on the seas that will make us respected. We must put ourselves in a position to demand the privileges that are enjoyed by "the most favored nations," and it will always be easy to secure justice if we can say, "Here is our navy to argue this question." Therefore, while we do not need an army at home, and the maintenance of one would simply be a menace to our own people, we do need a navy on the foreign waters of the earth. Such a navy will assist our growth and firmly establish our future. . NICARAGUA CANAL. The war has forced upon our attention the extreme absurdity of being obliged to sail clear around South America when we want to take our vessels from one part of our own country to another part of our own country — and the great danger it leaves us in if we should suddenly be attacked by a powerful enemy on the sea. It is mani- festly the duty of the American government to absolutely own and con- THE WAR AND EXPANSION. 803 trol this canal ; not to assist a private company to dig it, but to dig and own the canal itself. The shipping of our own vessels would soon pay for it. Further, our commerce on the Pacific will soon be great, and if we do not have this canal it will be necessary to maintain almost twice as large a navy as would be needed if vessels could be speedily taken from New York to San Francisco. The slimy hands of the Pacific railroads should not be permitted to longer control the situa- tion. CUBA. The war has again brought to our attention the fact that if Cuba were held by a great hostile power having a strong navy, we would be constantly nervous and feel a sense of insecurity which we now do not feel. We dare not allow a foreign or a hostile power to have this island. In fact, when viewed from a geographical, a political, a com- mercial or a military standpoint, Cuba belongs to this republic, and is necessary to properly round off our southeastern boundary. The people of Cuba would gladly join us now, but if it is not ripe for an- nexation, or if the assurances we gave the nations in declaring war forbid our taking it now, then let the Cuban republic be placed under our protection. This done, the island will soon be overrun with American people and American enterprises, and in a short time it will ripen and knock at our door to become a member of the Union. This would not be a conquest because it would not be forcible; and it would not be founding a colonial system, but would be simply following the law of our development and increasing our safety. HAYTI AND SAN DOMINGO. While the time may be very remote when it would be desirable to annex this island, yet we cannot afford to let it pass into the hands of a foreign or an unfriendly power. It is to our interest to see that the present republics are maintained. PUERTO RICO. This island is situated almost in the center of the Atlantic Ocean, and is only a few days-' sail from any point on either side of this ocean. Consequently, it would be invaluable as a naval station; especially would this be so if we build the Nicaraugua canal. Viewed from any standpoint, we should have Puerto Rico as a naval station; and as it is small, and it would not involve the establishment of a colonial policy. When this war is over, our government will probably demand a war indemnity. As Spain has no money and scarcely any other assets, 804 'LIVE QUESTIONS. she will probably offer us Puerto Rico; and if she does, we must take it. HARBORS. With our prospective increase of commerce and of shipping, and the necessary increase in the navy, it is manifest that we need harbors in every quarter of the globe as coaling stations, and as a conven- ience, yea, a necessity, for our trade and for our navy; not harbors floating the flag of some other nation, and granting us some privileges, but harbors owned by us and floating our flag, where our vessels can lie as long as they choose. We must have, if possible, a number of the best harbors of the Philippines and any other good harbors we can get. This will not be conquest, nor will it be establishing a colonial policy; it will simply be making provisions for the more complete development of our own country. THE PHILIPPINES AND A COLONIAL SYSTEM. To establish a colonial system and to attempt to rule great coun- tries in another hemisphere, countries requiring complicated machin- ery of government, is an entirely different question. There are many hundred of the Philippine Islands, and they are nearly three thousand miles in extent; they are over 12,000 miles from Washington, and they have a population of about 10,000,000 people who belong to a different race — a lower civilization — have different laws and different traditions from our own. They form a country and have a population large enough for an empire. To attempt to govern this vast area and this numerous people from Washington would be a perilous undertaking, and be almost certain to beget injustice and outrage. Considering the corruption existing in our government even at home, it is fearful to contemplate the conditions that would soon exist in a great and powerful machine 12,000 miles away — a machine which would raise great revenues and would have unlimited opportunities of corruption and oppression. The American flag would simply suffer under these conditions. Besides, we would soon be involved in all manner of com- plications and disputes with other nations, and become entangled with the Eastern question. But even if successfully governed, it is difficult to see what we would gain by pursuing this policy, over what we would get by simply securing permanent access to all of these harbors, so as to be able to compete on equal terms for their trade. This would involve no responsibility of government, no scandals and no injustice. Besides, the acquisition of vast territory on another continent would be inconsistent with the farther maintenance of the Monroe doctrine. For if we appropriate vast territory on a foreign continent, we cannot THE WAR AND EXPANSION. 805 consistently object to foreign nations acquiring territory on this con- tinent; and it is a thousand times more important to us to keep for- eign powers off of this continent than it is for us to have a lot of foreign territory which in the end would do us but little good and would in- volve us in scandal. WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE PHILIPPINES IF THEY FALL INTO OUR HANDS? Let us do exactly what we would have done if the inhabitants had achieved their independence by their own arms, as they came very near doing and may do yet. To call these people ignorant barbarians simply because in the mountain regions of a few of these islands there are yet small tribes of savages, would be like calling the people of the United States savages because in the mountains of the West we have yet a few tribes of Indians. The inhabitants of these islands, estimated at about ten millions, appear to be industrious and steady. According to the authorities, they have a compulsory system of education, and have newspapers, daily and weekly, in every important point. While we cannot expect a superior educational system under Spanish government, it does seem to be true that these people possess more than average intelli- gence. They have regularly organized industries, and have for over a century carried on a great commerce with foreign nations. They also appear to have had some experience with the elective system, being allowed under the Spanish regime to elect their local officers. Although the great majority of their population is of Malay origin, there is a very large element of Europeans who are permanent resi- dents and take an interest in everything relating to the islands, and the Malays themselves seem to be bright and active. For over a century the Spanish officials sent to these islands were like those sent to Cuba; they came to make fortunes in a few years and then return to Spain. The inhabitants were robbed, plundered and murdered; estates were confiscated; blackmail was levied, and private business, in many cases, destroyed. Every method that devil- ish ingenuity could invent for extracting money from an unfortunate people was applied. In addition to what was thus extorted from them, they raised a revenue through the regular channels of taxation that would almost support an empire. When they began this last effort to throw off the Spanish yoke, they raised and maintained larger armies than were commanded by George Washington, having at one time fifty thousand men in the field. 806 'LIVE QUESTIONS. Although they had to smuggle in all their arms and munitions of war, and labored under every conceivable disadvantage, they have carried on this war, with a very brief interruption, for two years and are now winning victories. Unlike the Cubans, they do not confine themselves to a guerrilla warfare, but conduct great campaigns, besiege and capture fortified cities, and fight stubborn battles; they build fortifications and conduct war very much as the civilized nations do, showing that they have a fair degree of discipline in their armies. Apparently the Philippine Islanders are much better prepared to establish and maintain a republic than are the Cubans, and if they wish to take this step, we have no right to prevent them. Even a poor government would be a thousand times better for the islands, and for the nations that trade with them, than the system of plunder and assassination which Spain has maintained there. To be sure there are men who, with an air of superiority, declare this or that people are incapable of self-government. But it must be borne in mind that every republic that exists on earth to-day, including the great American republic, was founded in spite of the protests of these men. CANADA. It is probable that in the future Canada will ask for admission into our republic, and when she does we must admit her. We will then have nearly all of the North American continent — will be bounded by the three oceans and the gulf — with a very short land boundary to our southwest, easily protected. With Cuba in our possession we will then have arctic, temperate and tropical climate, and will have all the territory, all the resources and all the fields of activity that the wildest dreamers of empire could covet — and it would all be on one continent, under one government and occupied by the same people. JOBBERY. It is objected that to even build the Nicarauguan Canal would in- volve so much jobbery and rottenness that it should not be under- taken. Unquestionably it will involve great jobbery, but so has every great movement in this country. The revolution was full of jobbery, the war of 1812 was full of jobbery, and the war of the rebellion stag- gered with corruption, yet the country moved forward in each of these wars, and the world was made better. This canal will be filled with jobbery, yet necessity will compel us to dig it. Honest and pro- gressive humanity cannot fold its arms or stop the onward march THE WAR AND EXPANSION. 807 simply because there are vampires that suck human blood by night, and vultures that devour human flesh by day. TRADITIONS OF DEMOCRACY, LOUISIANA PURCHASE. During the first fifteen years of our existence, the mouth of the Mississippi was under foreign control, which caused us much annoy- ance. Although the great Mississippi valley was yet a wilderness, it was already apparent that we would soon have a mighty commerce on this river. In 1803 Jefferson secured by purchase not only the mouth of the river, but secured with it that vast territory called "The Louisiana Purchase," stretching from New Orleans northwest to the Pacific Ocean and to the British possessions. A territory which has since been divided into seventeen States. The acquisition of this ter- ritory changed the character of the republic from a republic on the east coast of North America to the great American republic. This act of Jefferson's was fiercely opposed by the whole Federalistic party. He was charged with violating the Constitution. Jefferson did not claim that the power to take this territory was expressly written in the Constitution; but he claimed that it was written in the law of our natural development, which underlay the Constitution, and no sane man to-day questions the wisdom of his act. FLORIDA. Up to 1819, Florida was under foreign control and was a source of constant annoyance, even warfare. In that year President Monroe, by purchase, secured Florida for the Unio'n, and thus gave the republic the Gulf and the Atlantic Ocean for our southeastern boundary. This act was again denounced by the Federal party, and Monroe made the same answer that Jefferson had made. TEXAS. After winning her independence from Mexico, Texas applied for admission into the Union, and in 1845 was admitted under President Pierce, against the bitter opposition of the forces that opposed the Democratic party. This acquisition gave us the Gulf and the Rio Grande for a southwestern boundary. In 1848, during the adminis- tration of President Pierce, by two separate treaties we secured New Mexico, Arizona and California. This gave us not only great States, but a scientific boundary to our far southwest. It made the republic symmetrical and gave us the best part of the continent. While every one of these steps was bitterly denounced at the time, no man would favor the dismemberment of any of this territory to-day. 808 LIVE QUESTIONS. It was during Democratic control that our navy was respected by all the nations, and it was during Democratic control that our flag floated on all the seas, and although our country was young our shipping surpassed that of all countries except England, and under genuine Democratic control these conditions will come again. During all these years the Democratic party was an aggressive party; it recognized new needs and new conditions and met them. It was this fact that kept it in power and enabled it to shape the early career of the nation. If the Democratic party is to perform its mission, it must assume the aggressive; it must recognize new conditions and must sail with the new currents of destiny, and see to it that the great principles of justice and liberty and of equal rights are not destroyed, as they will be if the Mark Hannas of the age are permitted to control. Let it be remembered that the acquisition of vast territory at home under Jefferson, under Monroe and under Pierce did not weaken the principles of the republic nor change the doctrines of Democracy. Those policies which have destroyed our shipping, paralyzed our people, loaded them down with burdens and created an oligarchy in our land are of Republican parentage. DIVERTING ATTENTION. Some good people fear that the enlargement of foreign policy will divert attention from home affairs and enable the corruptionists to continue their criminal work. But if the Democrats, while fighting plutocracy at home,' take the 'lead in broadening our foreign policy, they can get the benefit of any diversion and get control of the gov- ernment, and in that way carry out great reforms and put an end to the corrupt regime that is now destroying us, while if we assume a negative position, the great criminals may be kept in power, solely because of this irresistible movement. SHALL WE FORM AN ALLIANCE WITH ENGLAND? This nation is too great, its past is too glorious and its future too promising to go into partnership with any nation on this globe. We must go on growing in power and in grandeur and must exert an in- fluence wherever the sun shines, as we have done for a century; but we must have no entangling alliances anywhere. So long as we rely absolutely on ourselves and follow justice, so long will the heavens be bright; but the moment we go into partnership with any other nation, that moment will our constellation be eclipsed. Besides, such an alliance would increase the opportunities of the international vul- SPRINGFIELD SPEECH, JULY 12, 1S98. 809 tures that now prey upon us. It is our destiny to be the supreme mistress of the Western hemisphere, commanding the respect of all the nations. It is our business to protect the interests of our people everywhere — to secure equal opportunities for them, but to keep out of those miserable European disputes that are unworthy the notice of free men. If we are true to the great principles of Democracy, then we will move forward and meet new conditions, and our career will gladden the children of men; but if we hold back and thus surrender control to this modern order of statesmen who sell their country and betray their race for pelf or political preferment, then will our downfall come soon and the last clays' of the republic will be as dark as its first were glori- ous. JOHN P. ALTGELD. SPRINGFIELD SPEECH, JULY 12, 1898. DELIVERED BEFORE THE DEMOCRATIC STATE CONVEN- TION.— HOW THE STATE IS BEING PLUNDERED BY RE- PUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION. NATIONAL ISSUES. WHY DEMOCRACY LIVES. Why have we gathered here? What is the meaning of this large assembly? Is it merely a gathering for spoils, or is there a lofty pur- pose behind it? You tell me that this is a convention of the Demo- cracy of Illinois — that you are delegates representing half a million free men — that you have left your affairs and traveled to this city to attend to the business of that great party. But what does that party stand for? What has it done that entitles it to be called great? What is its mission? Has it any purpose now that is worthy of an honor- able ambition? Has it undertaken to do any great thing for humanity and for this republic? If so, what qualifications does it possess for that work? MOVING FORWARD. Government is a serious business which directly affects the happi- ness or misery of a people. All forward movements require a strug- gle. Every forward step by the human race has been made red with human blood. Two centuries ago the world made its great struggle for freedom of religion and freedom of thought ; a century ago it made its struggle for political freedom and for freedom of speech, and pro- 8iO LIVE QUESTIONS. claimed the great principle that all men are created equal and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed as expressed by the majority. RIPE FOR A GREAT STRIDE. We have moved a century forward and the world is again ripe for a mighty onward stride. It is now demanding financial and industrial freedom with all of those social changes which these conditions must bring. A crisis is again nearing; and in a crisis neutral men, policy men, trimmers, traders and tricksters become contemptible. Only those men who are willing to make sacrifices, only those men who have the courage to stand erect and defy the hosts of oppression can command respect. I ask, what qualification has the Democratic party to lead this mighty contest? Has its past been of such a character as to give assurance for the future? Let us glance back for a moment and see. DEMOCRATIC PARTY FIRST TO ANNEX TERRITORY. It was the mighty Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Inde- pendence, who organized the Democratic spirit of that time, and who founded the Democratic party. In 1800 this party prevented the es- tablishment of an oligarchy or ruling class in this country and deep- ened the foundations of Republicanism. In 1803 this party secured for us not only the mouth of the Missis- sippi river, but all that territory stretching from Xew Orleans north- west to the British possessions and the Pacific ocean, out of which seventeen states have been formed, thus extending our republic from the Atlantic to the Pacific. And it did this against the protest of Fed- eralism. THE PARTY IN 1812. In 1812 the party humiliated England both on the land and on the seas, and forever destroyed her pretensions to the right of searching American vessels and impressing American seamen. In 1819 this party secured for the republic the State of Florida, and at the same time declared that no foreign power should get another foot of this continent, and in 1833, when corrupt wealth had made itself master of the country, and was seeking to reduce the American people to a state of vassalage, when it controlled Congress and the federal courts, just as it does now, there was a Democrat in the White House who rose up and said: "By the Eternal, the money power shall not rule this land." And by that one act he saved a whole generation of Americans from the destructive policies that are to-day ruining our country. SPRINGFIELD SPEECH, JULY 12, 1898. 81 i THE PARTY IN 1845. In 1845 the Democrats secured for the republic the State of Texas, and gave us the gulf and the Rio Grande for a southwest boundary, and later they carried the American eagles up the heights of Chapulte- pec, and planted the stars and stripes over the palaces of the Monte- zumas. In 1848 they secured for this republic New Mexico, Arizona and California. It was Democracy that founded this republic, and it was the Democratic party that secured for it the North American conti- nent. While the Democracy was guiding the nation we had a navy that commanded the respect of the naval powers. And although we were young our shipping surpassed that of all other nations except England. Our flag was seen on all the seas, floating over American ships that were carrying American cargoes. All this shipping has been destroyed by the policies of the Republican party. Turn to the history of the first half century of our republic, and every brilliant page of it was written with the finger of Democracy. THE PARTY IN 1863. Then came the Civil War, and from the nature of the situation the Democratic party had to divide; but it was the spirit of Democracy that saved the Union and wiped out slavery. The one million men who marched to the front to save the flag were Democrats in the highest sense of the term, and over one-half of them actually belonged to the Democratic party. The records at Washington show that. Even the Democratic slave State of Missouri sent over two hundred thousand men to the Union army. Illinois, which had before been a Democratic State, supplied more men in proportion to its population than almost any other State, and the same was true of all the great Democratic States. Those interests which have profited so much by that war and kept themselves in power on the memory of it, were at the beginning opposed to it. They cared nothing about human sla- very, but took advantage of the patriotic sentiment which the war had aroused, and they inaugurated policies which are destroying us — policies which plunder the many and fatten the few. REPUBLICAN MISRULE. The American people have been paying at the national debt which the war created, for thirty-three years, and yet, such have been the industrial and financial policies of the Republican party that to-day it will take nearly twice as much of American products, nearly twice 8i2 LIVE QUESTIONS. as much of American labor, to pay what is left of that debt as would have been necessary to pay it all at the conclusion of the war. This is only a sample of all of the acts of that party. Although we were a mighty producing as well as debtor nation, and were therefore in- terested in keeping up the price of property, and in keeping steady the exchange value of money, this Republican party controlled by foreign influence legislated in the interests of the few and struck down the value of American property and American products by nearly one- half, thus practically doubling the amount of labor and sweat that was required to pay a dollar of debt. It is the great mortgaging party of the century. It mortgages the property made by the toil of others; it mortgages the inheritance of the American people ; and not content with this it has reached out and mortgaged the generations yet to come — generations whose fathers are yet unborn, generations whose bread will be shortened to pay mortgages created by this political party. And the vast sums of money thus raised at the expense of the coming toilers of the earth have been spent in riotous living and in the enrichment of manipulators and corruptionists. PARTY'S EVIL PERIOD. The Civil War brought not only an eclipse for the Democratic party, but it brought a change of character. From being the powerful champion of the human race it was reduced to the humiliating condi- tion of being a convenience for men who knew not Jefferson, who cared not for humanity, and who used government for personal en- richment. Owing to invention, there took place after the war great concentration of capital, and there were first formed great corpora- tions, but subsequently these combined and formed trusts, and wiped out competition. These corporations soon discovered that by con- trolling the government and its policies vast fortunes could be rapidly drawn from the pockets of the American people. And there came forth in the East shrewd manipulators who controlled both of the great political parties and prostituted both to their base purposes. These men got control of the Democratic party and made it a spoilsman's convenience. Our party was robbed of its mission; it was robbed of a voice in human affairs ; it straddled everything and concentrated on nothing. Although the spirit of Democracy had founded this re- public and the Democratic party had shaped its destiny for more than half a century, there followed a period of about thirty years upon which no Democrat can look with pride. Having no definite purpose to serve, our people devoted themselves to compromising and trading, 'SPRINGFIELD SPEECH, JULY 12, 1898. 813 and instead of carrying- out a great mission, we spent our energies in the lowlands and played tricks in the underbrush. GOD'S INSTRUMENT TO-DAY. .But a new time was dawning; a new century was approaching; and the Almighty decided to make preparation for its advent. The human family was again to move forward. An aggressive army was needed. He looked upon the party of Lincoln and found that it stood for exactly the opposite of all the principles for which that great man had stood. He found that the men who now control the conven- tions and the councils of that party had won their position by brib- ing legislatures, by polluting the stream of justice, by undermining free institutions and by debauching everything which they touched with their soiled fingers. They formed an association of banditti, op- erating in the name of law, and giving to the children of toil a stone whenever they called for bread. GOD WITH DEMOCRACY. Then the Almighty turned to the Democratic party. He was fa- miliar with its great achievements, familiar with the great purpose for which it had been organized. He found that a majority of this party were earnest, patriotic men, and as ready as ever to make sacri- fices. He found that it had for years been ridden and weakened by parasites. He found that the poison of corruption had also to some extent entered its veins, but He also saw that if the parasites were drawn off, and if the trimmers and deadheads were cast aside, the poison could be cast out, and that the party would then be capable of moving forward and fighting greater battles than had before been witnessed. Then there spread over the land a demand for reorganiza- tion, and although the party had been betrayed and its future looked hopeless, there was a demand by the masses that it should be taken up out of the swamps in which it had wandered and come up again on to the high lands. CASTING OFF THE PARASITES. In 1896 there was a new battle cry, and the scattered and dis- couraged Democracy rallied and held the greatest assembly of freemen that ever met on this continent. The party cast off the parasites. It cast off the deadheads, which had long ridden it and fed it only on false pretenses. It flung new banners to the breeze. Then it went forth and fought the most gigantic battle ever waged. Its great leader lifted the issue on to high intellectual and moral planes, and made 8i4 LIVE QUESTIONS. a campaign that was without a parallel in all history, and the party which only a few months before was considered dead polled one mil- lion more votes for President than ever before cast for a Democratic candidate. When that convention adjourned we suddenly discovered that all of the corporations of this country had combined against the people, and what was remarkable, all of those men who had estab- lished reputations as corruptionists and debauchers of public morals suddenly appeared as great high priests of national honor. Wherever twenty scoundrels were gathered nineteen shouted for McKinley and the twentieth declared he could not stand 16 to i. All of the money that could be raised on two continents was used for the pur- pose of debauching the American people. Yet as the campaign pro- gressed so great was the enthusiasm, so powerful the demonstration of the intelligent American in our favor, that it was apparent that a majority of them were with us. Especially was this the case in the strictly American communities. It was in communities having a large purchasable vote and a large ignorant foreign vote that the Republi- cans made their gains. REPULSE OF 1896. When the election returns came, they were against us. The re- ports from the polls show that the Republican party had been sup- ported first, by the negroes; second, by the very ignorant foreign vote, which could be controlled by bosses; third, that all of the pur- chased votes were given to that ticket, for there was no fund on the other side; fourth, that all the fraudulent voting had been done in favor of that party; fifth, that every laboring man that could possibly be coerced or frightened by his employer had voted that ticket; sixth, that the entire hanging-on class, which has forever clung to the skirts of wealth, had voted for that party. But even then it appeared that thirty thousand more votes properly distributed would have changed the result. When the facts came more completely to light, then it appeared that gigantic frauds and crimes against the ballot had been committed. PROOF OF FRAUD. For example, Mr. Cleveland had carried Kentucky in 1892 by 40,000 majority. In 1896 our candidate for the Presidency received nearly 50,000 more votes than Mr. Cleveland received, yet the State counted for McKinley. Mr. Cleveland carried Indiana by 7,000. Our candidate in 1896 received 43,000 more votes than did Cleveland, yet the State was counted for McKinley. SPRINGFIELD SPEECH, JULY 12, 1898. 815 In Ohio there were apparently 90,000 more votes returned than they had male inhabitants over 21 years of age. A year later, in 1897, in the senatorial contest in that State the campaign was one of the most intense ever held and there had been one year's increase of popu- lation, yet there were 150,000 less votes polled than had been returned in 1896 in that State. And the same conditions were found to exist in some of the other States, which made it conclusive that had there been honest counting the results would have been different. In this city of Springfield, prior to the election, there was such a heavy regis- tration as to lead to the conviction that fraud was contemplated, yet in the second precinct of the First ward there were on election day 182 men sworn in whose names had not ever been registered. These men were, nearly all negroes. Nobody knew anything about them. Their votes were challenged but the Republican election officials sim- ply laughed at the challenges and accepted the votes of these strangers. At how many other precincts they voted in the city I do not know. When the election was over they disappeared. Six months after the election there was a census made of the population of this city, and it was found that they lacked 1,800 of having as many legal voters as there had been votes returned at the previous election. From nearly all sections of the State came reports showing that every conceivable method of fraud had been practiced at the polls. In Chicago alone there were upwards of 70,000 votes returned that were never legally cast. No honest man can examine the reports of that election without being convinced that our candidate for the Presidency was elected and that by a large majority. HARD TO PUNISH. A practice has grown up in Chicago and in counties where Re- publicans control the selection of grand juries and the prosecuting machinery, of bribing election officials in certain precincts and promis- ing protection against prosecution, and thus getting false counts by which certain candidates are given from twenty to one hundred votes that were not legally cast. There are three thousand precincts in the State, and when this method is added to the other methods of fraud, it is in the power of criminals who are supplied with sufficient money to defeat the people in every case. After the election of 1896 con- clusive evidence of crime at the polls was presented to certain grand juries, but the grand juries were Republican and had been selected by Republican boards and they simply laughed at the evidence. 816 LIVE QUESTIONS. WHERE DANGER LIES. I am making no complaint. We have accepted the result, and I have referred "to these things only for the. purpose of showing you where the danger lies in the future. I am satisfied Mark Hanna can never again raise the amount of corruption fundsthat he did two years ago. I am satisfied they can never again so extensively and so thor- oughly debauch the people and secure false reports as they did then. But the great trusts which are fattening off of the country by govern- mental aid will try to carry elections in the future by the same methods by which they carried the election in 1896, and we must be prepared to meet them, or the election will be a farce. In 1892 I had the honor of conducting a campaign in this State, and I told our people not to try to make a single convert, but to devote every energy to getting the existing sentiment crystallized into the box where it could be counted. And I want to say to you do not waste any time in efforts to make converts to our side. More than 85 per cent, of the people are opposed to the gold standard now. Direct all your energies and all your efforts to get that sentiment which now exists crystallized into the ballot box; direct all your energies toward securing a fair election and an honest count. If you can ac- complish this, if you can prevent frauds and secure for every man an opportunity to vote his convictions, we will carry this State by a large majority. DUTY OF THE INDIVIDUAL DEMOCRAT. But my friends this is no small task. Money can be used in so many ways to defeat the right. You must not rely solely upon your committees. It is too large a task for them to do alone. Besides they are frequently tampered with. Every Democrat must feel that it is his duty to find out who the legal voters are in his neighborhood and make the necessary preparations to arrest every scoundrel who at- tempts to commit crime at the polls whether he be an election official, or whether he be a wretch who casts his vote for a sum of money. A manila rope long enough to stretch from Cairo to Chicago with firm hands enough on it to hang every dishonest election official and every fraudulent voter will carry this State. WEARY OF HYPOCRISY. The country is becoming weary of the hypocrisy which surrounds the McKinley administration, weary of the cant which has made the term "Christian gentleman" a by-word and a reproach among honor- SPRINGFIELD SPEECH, JULY is, 1898. 817 able men. The country is getting weary of that pretense which would have us believe that the Almighty was a partner with Mark Hanna in debauching the Legislature of Ohio. Those men who were coerced into voting the Republican ticket in 1896 on the promise .of prosperity have discovered that they were betrayed. Only those men who de- vour the substance of others are prospering. The great toiling masses of the country are in distress. To be sure, newspapers insist that you are prospering; they insist that the Republican party has made good its promises. Well, now, my friends, we will have no argument over that ques- tion. We will take them at their word; let us assume that they de- livered all that they expected to deliver, and all that they can deliver. Then the question is simply, Are you satisfied with the goods? And I will say to all who are satisfied with the existing conditions, "Go, vote the Republican ticket." PROSPERITY NOT HERE. On the other hand, it is the duty of all those who feel that the prosperity which was promised to the great laboring and producing people of this country has not come, to vote the Democratic ticket, because we have seen all that the Republicans can deliver; we have seen all that can be expected from that party. In fact, it has had the , benefit of accidents. The failure of crops upon three continents, which raised the price of wheat, the loss of over sixty million head of sheep in Australia and other countries, which raised the price of wool, are not signs of returning prosperity to the farmers and wool raisers. They have no connection with the Republican platforms or policies in any way. DEMOCRACY AND THE WAR WITH SPAIN. Now, my fellow citizens, we are engaged in a war, a war almost as holy as that which we fought for our own independence. This is a war for humanity. The Democratic party, true to its mission of es- pousing the cause of the oppressed, forced the present administration to take this step. It is our war, a Democratic war, and it will add not only to the glory of our country, but to the mighty achievements of the Democratic party. By taking this step, the party will add luster to the close of this century, as it did to the beginning. The fact that it may be prostituted by the present administration for selfish and cor- rupt purposes cannot be helped. Even if it should succeed, by means of this war, in escaping the immediate and angry condemnation of our people, it does not matter. To serve mankind is the highest mission 5? 818 ' LIVE QUESTIONS. known. Our army and our navy have shown a heroism that makes every loyal heart swell with pride, and we send them our congratu- lations. BUILD NICARAGUAN CANAL. But this war is creating new conditions. , It is starting new currents which we cannot stop, and upon which we must launch our boat if we would not be left behind. The man who launches his boat upon the river will be carried to the sea; the man who refuses to do so will remain behind. This mighty nation is stirred, and is going to move along the line of its natural development toward the goal of the greatest usefulness and the greatest power. Providence designed this nation to be the supreme mistress of the western hemisphere, and we must steer our vessel toward this haven. While the Democracy shaped the policy of this country we had close commercial relations with all people, and the -time is near at hand when this will again be the case. We must dig and absolutely own the Nicaragua canal. It is essential to our progress, to our safety, and to our convenience. For our own safety and advantage we must, in the course of time, as they become ripe for such a step, acquire the West Indian islands, to round out our southeastern boundary and perfect our republic. We must have harbors all over the earth for the accommodation of our fleets, of our navy, and of our shipping. MAKE THE REPUBLIC SUPREME. These things are in the line of our natural development and pro- gress. They dft not involve the establishment of a corrupt colonial system. They will be in line with the policy pursued by all of the great Democrats who gave this republic the American continent. On the other hand, we must prevent those wild schemes of conquest and plunder which contemplate the establishment of a colonial empire on another continent and under conditions which must result in injustice and in gigantic scandals, schemes which, instead of adding honor to our flag, would pollute it in the estimation of mankind, schemes which would involve us in endless difficulties and wars, and which in the end could not give us any advantage over and above that which we would get by simply securing intimate commercial relations with these countries. Our motto must be "the natural development and suprem- acy of this continent, but opposition to spoliation and conquest." "A mighty Anglo-Saxon republic, not a mongrel conglomeration." -SPRINGFIELD SPEECH, JULY 12, 1898. 819 STATE ISSUES. ONE RESULT OF WALL STREET'S OBJECT LESSON. Let me say a word about local matters. The hard times following the panic destroyed many securities that had once been valuable, and as a result many men in business, and especially in the banking busi- ness, who had acted on mistaken judgment, suddenly found themselves ruined, found themselves with a mass of paper that was no longer of value. They had shown poor judgment, and without intending to wrong anybody, they entailed loss upon others, and it happened dur- ing the last State administration that two custodians of public money belonged to this class, and entailed for the time a loss upon the State. Both of these men have been prosecuted and convicted, and both are in prison. The Democratic party made no effort to prevent their pros- ecution. It believes in a rigid enforcement of the law, no matter whom it hits, and especially so when it comes to matters affecting the public. The probabilities are that the State will lose nothing in either case. It has already been once decided that the park funds now claimed by certain banks must be returned in toto, so that there will probably be no loss there. In the other case, securities to the amount of several times the sum claimed by the State have been turned over. This, added to the liability of the bondsmen, makes it seem reasonably cer- tain that the State will get every cent of its money. Contrast this speedy and even technical punishment with the utter failure to enforce justice against the brigands of the Republican party. The men who betray their constituents and who have helped to rob the people of this State of unnumbered millions of dollars, who have literally sold the mighty city of Chicago to the wolves and birds of prey that fatten on public plunder. STATE INSTITUTIONS. During the latter part of the last State administration the Republi- cans made a thorough examination of all the institutions of the State, and they found them in such an excellent condition that hostile papers were compelled to praise them. After the beginning of the present administration, a crowd of men with fierce appetites and sharpened teeth who were planning the most gigantic schemes of spoliation, and were determined to suck blood from all the pores of the public, and who felt it necessary to divert attention from their criminal schemes, raised a furious cry against the conditions of the State institutions. It was the old cry of "Stop, thief!" It has died away, being without any foundation. Nothing came of it, but the crowd that raised it car- 82o LIVE QUESTIONS. ried out its purpose, and besides selling to the trusts everything there was in sight except the dome of the capital, they proceeded to l'oot the treasury, and when there is again an examination into public affairs in this State, the public will be astounded, and those Republicans who can speak both the German and the English language will be fortu- nate, for they will need all of the expletives that there are in both languages to do justice to their feelings. From all over the State come reports from the lips of Republicans of the selling of offices and of different appointees having to divide salaries with outside politicians. In the end the people must pay for all this. Let me give you just one illustration. In 1892 the Democrats declared against the .contract sys- tem in our penitentiaries, and in favor of having enough industries in the institution so that not more than one hundred prisoners should work at any one trade, instead of three or four hundred, as was for- merly the case, and that the State should work the prisoners. ' This system was carried out, and notwithstanding the hard times, the peni- tentiary at Joliet was made self-sustaining, and in January, 1897, the commissioners reported to the State government and to the Legisla- ture that they did not require any appropriation whatever, that they did not need one dollar from the State, that the,y had on hand good accounts, manufactured goods and material amounting to several hun- dred thousand dollars, over and above unpaid bills. Yet, notwith- standing that report, the Republican Legislature made an appropria- tion of two hundred and sixty thousand dollars to that institution. Every dollar of this is disappearing. In addition thereto, the commis- sioners have practically gone back to the contract system, where they have practically nothing to -do with the prisoners, and as nearly as can be ascertained, they have collected the accounts and sold the goods and material on hand and have spent that money also. STEALING HALF A MILLION. Nearly half a million of dollars will have disappeared before the end of the two years, and there will be absolutely nothing to show for it. Similar conditions are reported from nearly all of the institu- tions. Some of these people have had the assurance to talk about there being a deficit in the State treasury at the end of the last admin- istration. Now, my fellow citizens, you remember that in the spring of 1895 the Republican Legislature made a great many large appropria- tions, and then was mean enough and small enough to refuse to au- thorize the Governor and the State officers to make a tax levy suf- ficiently large to meet these appropriations which the Legislature had itself made. It left a shortage, as was subsequently developed, of near- SPRINGFIELD SPEECH, JULY 12, 1898. 821 ly two million dollars. I, as Governor, was obliged to reconvene the Legislature in special session for the purpose of authorizing a t?x levy that should be large enough to meet the bills which they had them- selves created, and even then they authorized an additional levy of only one million dollars, leaving still a shortage that ran up nearly to a million. This was Republican statesmanship. They thought it a smart trick to provide insufficient money to pay the State's bills and now when they came into power and were confronted with the deficit which they had themselves created, they were mean enough to try to charge it to a Democratic administration. STATE ISSUES THIS YEAR. Again, my friends, in 1892 there was a local issue in 'this State which helped us to overthrow Republican supremacy. This year we have again a local issue which is broader and deeper than that of 1892, which is influencing far more people than were influenced in 1892, and which will enable us to sweep this State with a far greater majority than we did in 1892, if we will only avail ourselves of it, and that issue is boodleism. The infamous legislation of every kind and character of the last Legislature is being resented by the people of this State. They see that unless this corruption can be stopped, the foundations of liberty will be undermined, and law-making, law-construing and law-enforcing will be on sale, and this republic must go down in utter rottenness while the men who toil, who do the world's work in the field, in the shop, in the schoolhouse and in the counting-room, the men who make our civilization possible, will be devoured. All of. those Republicans who honor the memory of Lincoln are anxious to register a protest against these conditions. They see that they cannot do it effectively in their own party, that their party is headed, is officered, is marshaled and is absolutely controlled by men who seek to make for- tunes out of these very conditions. If the Democratic party will give these Republicans a chance, they will strike a blow that will send boodleism reeling off the stage. But ,in order to do this, we must demonstrate that our party is not controlled by these fatal influences. We must purge ourselves of the element that would load us down. The nomination of a single man who has a reputation as a boodler will cost the party from twenty-five to fifty thousand votes, because it will create the impression in the minds of honest Republicans that they can expect no more of our party than they can of theirs. 822 LIVE QUESTIONS. NO BOODLERS NEED APPLY. Now, my friends, the Democratic party owes these men nothing. It gave them an opportunity. It honored some of them with its con- fidence, and when they saw fit to betray that confidence and to put their party on the defensive, they forfeited all claim which they other- wise might have had to further consideration, and to take up any of them now and run the risk of losing the State would be a crime. It is a sad sight to see young men with kind hearts and good intentions, men of education and of good family, men gifted with abilities of the highest order, men who, if they had moved along a different line, could have become among the greatest of this nation, could have made their names lustrous in this republic, and have been a blessing to man- kind, but who, in an evil day, met the so-called "good fellow" (and the briber and the go-between always plays the role of a good fellow) and they, got into bad associations, they fell into dissipation, they contracted extravagant habits, they began to weaken in character, and they began by degrees to accept money which could only soil their fingers, and the poison having once entered their blood, the fever set in, and by degrees they reached the point where they did not wait at the capital to be seduced, but went out into the highways of the State, like hungry wolves, in search of interests upon which they could levy blackmail. I feel that our age and the sentiment of the time is partially responsible for these conditions. We have been passing through a period of cor- rupt money-making. The only god we have had for a number of years " has been the dollar. There was a glamour and a glitter about this which . caught the young. PALSYING HAND OF CORRUPTION. Our people are just beginning to realize that fortunes corruptly made not only rot down and disappear, but that they rot down the men and the families that have them, that God's moral law is immu- table and as directly effective as are his physical laws, that fortunes tainted with injustice in the end will destroy the men who have them, and not only this, but will destroy their families. A moral leprosy will rot them down. Our people are beginning to more clearly realize that tainted dollars soil the fingers and give a poison to the blood which first intoxicates and makes a demonstration in the way of extrava- gance and high living, but which soon produces a relapse, and then shoves the victim into a premature and dishonorable grave. But while we may have the deepest sympathy for young men who may thus destroy their usefulness, we must not jeopardize or sully the honor of SPRINGFIELD SPEECH, JULY 12, 1898. 823 the mighty Democratic party in order to do a personal favor to one of these gentlemen. I am told that there are a few districts in the State in which these gentlemen, with the aid of a few local bosses, local machines, and local traders, can force themselves upon the ticket, in minority districts, and thus defy the great party of the State and secure an election, as they imagine, because there will be no opposition. BOLT DISHONEST CANDIDATES. Gentlemen, the interests of the half million Democrats of this State are greater than those of any individual, and while it is necessary that the majority shall govern, that Democrats shall support their ticket, when it is put up. according to Democratic methods, it is also a fundamental principle of Democracy that the voters shall have a voice in selecting candidates, and wherever they are deprived of a fair op- portunity to express that choice, there the nomination is not a Demo- cratic nomination. And it is another fundamental principle of Demo- cracy that no party can compel a man to support a criminal for office. I do not for one moment dispute the fact that if the Democrats of any legislative district want to elect a boodler to the Legislature it is their privilege to do it, but they must not be compelled by any trickery to submit to having a representative who is not their choice. The law has provided, in every case, that where the voters of a party are not satisfied with the nomination that has been made, they can put up another candidate by petition, and I want every Democrat in this State to hear me, when I say that in every case in which a man who is regarded by the public as a boodler forces himself upon the ticket, through machinery or trickery, there the Democrats must be given an opportunity to say at the polls whether they want him or whether they do not want him. And in every such district it is the duty of men who want to perpetuate free institutions, who want to save the founda- tions of liberty, who want government to be something more than a mere machine to rob the people, it is the duty, I say, of all such men to see to it that this boodleism is brought to an end. Two years ago in forming our lines we threw off the parasites and the deadheads, and the more we threw off of this element the more vigorous and powerful we became. We have a little poison in our blood yet. POISON OF BOODLEISM. The poison of boodleism, which will give us rheumatic knees and neuralgic elbows if we do not cast it out. This poison, when you examine it, is a gold standard poison. The whole horde of boodlers either openly advocate the gold standard or secretly favor it, for that 824 LIVE QUESTIONS. is the source from which the spoils come. The men fighting for the cause of silver get stronger every time a drop of this gold standard poison is cast out. Men have come to me and said, "Governor, you would better not say so much against these boodlers, lest you injure your chances of going to the United States Senate." Well, now, in the first place, it is hard to injure chances that do not exist. In the second place, do not be uneasy about the senatorship. There will be plenty of men to choose from when the time comes. We have Demo- crats in Chicago, we have Democrats all over this State, from Cairo to Wisconsin, any one of whom would honor the party and honor the State in the United States Senate. But I do hope that we have not a Democrat in this great State who would be willing to go to Washington with a certificate in his pocket that should send him to the penitentiary. Give the Republicans a monopoly of that business. Boodleism is a crime, conniving at it and thus making its success possible is conniving at crime, and morally makes a man a party to that crime, and fits him for a prison rather than for a toga. But I want to say more: I would rather have it chiseled upon my tombstone, "He helped to break up boodleism in Illinois," than to have it said, "He served fifty years in the United States Senate." Let me add another word here: Office-hunting has for many years been a mania, like money-getting, and it has lowered character. It has weakened manhood, it has created an army of neutral men, of wire-pullers, of straddlers, and of tricksters, an army of men who are incapable of doing anything great for their country and who have become a curse to this republic. Nothing in the end makes a man look more contempt- ible or will more certainly win him the scorn of mankind than to hold high office and be too weak or too corrupt to meet the highest de- mands of his country. You need not go far to look for examples. You will admit that while there are some men of honor and ability in the Senate, it is not an especial honor to sit in a body in which Mark Hanna can buy a seat, and it is not an especial honor to sit in a body that has a host of members who require a stepladder to get into any chair that was made for either an honest man or for a statesman. It is personal achievement, not office holding, that the world admires. Be a great preacher, and men will come to hear you. Be a great lawyer and your fame will go over the land. Be a great farmer, and you will wield influence and power in the community. Be a great manufac- turer, be a great merchant, and you will be respected. Be a great orator, and the world will be at your feet. SPRINGFIELD SPEECH, JULY 12, i8p$. §25 TO THE YOUNG MEN. Let me now say to the young men, Never before was there a time that offered such grand opportunities as the time upon which we are entering. Never before did the world call so loudly and so earnestly for men, who will make honor the pole star of conduct. Never before did this republic call so loudly for men who love free institutions and are willing to die for them. Never before did the country call so loudly for leaders as it does to-day. We have some very able men devoting their lives to a principle and doing heroic service, but we need a multitude more; we need more orators, we need more writers, we need more men of judgment, we need more men of unselfish devotion. Never before did Fame's bright temple beckon from afar to the am- bitious young men as it does to-day. We are entering upon a new era, we are entering upon not only a new century, but upon a new time; the human race is about to make another march forward, it is about to camp on a higher plane. The great principles we fought for two years ago are growing in strength. There will be a mighty strug- gle, but do not forget that the cause of humanity has always triumphed in the end. But we must be in earnest. When a century ago men faced the gallows by declaring for liberty they were in earnest. When the Continental troops traversed the ice-covered hills with bare feet and wrote their cause in letters of blood, they were in earnest. At every step in the great career of the Democratic party through the first half of this century, it was in earnest, it had a grand, definite pur- pose, and I want to tell you now that the men who are to lead the great hosts of Democracy for the next decade must be in earnest. They must have the souls of heroes and the spirit of martyrs. And that army which the Almighty has chosen to fight his battles and to conduct the great Jefferson of to-day from the Platte River to the White House must be in earnest, and it must have no rheumatic joints, it must have no boodle poison in its blood. A STRONG APPEAL. I appeal to you, young men, prepare yourselves for the great work before you, for upon you it must devolve. Most of us who have been laboring in the vineyard, doing the little we could, now find that we have passed the zenith. We find that our shadows are growing longer, we find that our endurance and our activities are growing shorter. We can still work at clearing away the rubbish, we can still chop down the underbrush, we can still help to make the road over which the army shall pass, we can still stand guard at strategic points, but advancing 826 LIVE QUZSTiOttS. armies, conquering armies, must be led by young men, men who have their careers before them. Rise to the occasion. Meet the demands of the time. Respond to the call of the age. Respond to the cry of humanity, and you can write your names against the skies in letters of glory, and win the blessing of all the generations to come. CRIMES AGAINST THE STATE AND NATION EXPOSED. (Auditorium Speech, September 24, 1898.) SELLING LEGISLATION TO CORPORATIONS AT SPRING- FIELD.— REPUBLICAN STATE ADMINISTRATION AND THE ELEVATOR TRUST.— THE GAS AND STREET RAIL- WAY TRUSTS.— REPUBLICAN MACHINE POLITICIANS SUD- DENLY BECOME WEALTHY.— ABUSES IN ARMY AND NAVY THE RESULT OF GREED AND APPETITE FOR SPOILS.— WILL THE PEOPLE INDORSE IT? TWO ADMINISTRATIONS. ABOUT ENDORSING THEM. We are approaching an off-year election, in which only congress- men and local officers are to be chosen. Neither the State nor the federal administration can be changed for two years. But both admin- istrations have, during the last two years, done things of a most ex- traordinary and dangerous character, and both are asking for an in- dorsement. While the election is for local officers only, its result will be accepted by both administrations as either an approval or a con- demnation of their acts. This presents at once the question: "Do you approve of the course of both of these administrations?" Let us con- sider the, State administration first, and let us examine only one ques- tion which overshadows all others. That is corruption — the selling of legislation, the selling of privileges for the spoliation of the citizens of this mighty State. DEFICIT IN STATE TREASURY. But first let me say a word about a deficit in the State treasury. In 1895 the Legislature of Illinois was overwhelmingly Republican in both houses. Senator Dunlap, a Republican, was chairman of the revenue committee in the Senate, and the Honorable Thomas Needles, a Republican, was chairman of the same committee in the House. That Legislature made appropriations amounting to about $10,400,- 000, and then it refused to authorize a tax levy sufficient, when added to other State revenues, to pay this sum. It left a shortage of about CRIMES AGAINST STATE AND NATION. 82; $2,400,000. I reconvened the Legislature in special session, and asked that it authorize a tax levy, which, when taken in connection with all revenues of the State, would be sufficiently large to meet the bills which the Legislature had itself created. It then increased the tax levy $1,000,000, still leaving a shortage of about $1,400,000, and ad- journed. When, in 1897, the new Republican administration had taken hold and had found that the deficit which the Republicans had them- selves created was coming home to roost, Senator David T. Littler, the leader of the Republicans, arose in the Senate on Feb. 4, 1897, anc ^ among other things said : REPUBLICAN CONFESSION OF GUILT. "The present depleted condition of the State treasury is due to the stubbornness and lack of qualifications of the appropriations com- mittee of the last Senate (meaning the Republican Senate of 1895). The consequence is we have a bankrupt treasury, and we are to-day asked to authorize the Governor to borrow $250,000 to supply the deficiency in the treasury, and I am authorized by the Governor him- self to state from my seat in the Senate that the chairman of the committee on appropriations, Senator Dunlap, is more responsible for the depleted financial condition of the State than all others put to- gether, and I charge that his willful disposition against correcting the tax levy is the reason for our financial condition to-day." A few days after this speech Governor Tanner submitted to an interview upon this question, in which he used the following lan- guage: "During the legislative session in 1895 I went to Senator Dunlap, Speaker John Meyer and Representatives Cochran and Needles, and begged them not to disgrace the old commonwealth. I pointed out to them that they had appropriated $10,400,000, and by their levy had only provided for $8,000,000 to pay it. I told them when they cut down the tax levy that Governor Altgeld would be obliged to call a special session of the Legislature to correct their mistake. I knew this would have to be done, and on the gentlemen I have named was the responsibility for the extra session. The tax levy as passed in 1895 was $2,400,000 short of the appropriations. The extra session called by Governor Altgeld in 1895 raised $1,000,000 more, but it has still left a deficit of $1,400,000. This I then considered and now consider an inexcusable blunder." Gentlemen, what do you think of statesmanship which was willing to trifle with the credit of this great State, for the sole purpose of em- barrassing the State administration? And what do you think of states- 828 LIVE QUESTIONS. men who, having done this and having seen the disastrous conse- quences, now try to shirk the responsibility of it? There are men who need longer memories. SELLING LEGISLATION. HOW REPUBLICANS DO IT. For lack of time I cannot on this occasion deaf with the criminal extravagance, stuffing of pay-rolls and the consequent demoralization of service now prevailing in this State, nor can I discuss the fact that a corruption fund of nearly $100,000 is now being raised by assessing the employes of the State to carry the election, nor the fact that the great Jbliet prison has been practically put back under the old contract sys- tem. All of these things call for severe condemnation, though they do not so directly strike at the foundation of free institutions as does the question of buying and selling legislation. For want of time I will be able to consider only three measures under this head, out of the large number that should be examined. THE ELEVATOR TRUST. Chicago is one of the greatest grain centers of the world, and con- ditions here frequently affect prices everywhere. We have here a large number of grain elevators, with a storage capacity of about 90,000,000 bushels of wheat. They are chartered by law and the own- ers act as trustees or custodians of other people's grain. The grain is inspected by an officer of the State, and is graded No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, as the case may be, and generally is sold by this grading, and all grain of the second grade is then poured together, the warehouse man giving a receipt for so many bushels of that particular grade. And when this receipt is again presented, he does not give back the same grain, but simply so many bushels of that grade. It was soon found that all grain of the same grade is not equally good — there will be No. 2 wheat almost equal to No. 1, and there will be No. 2 wheat falling close to No. 3. And in all those cases where wheat is sold, not by the grading, but rather by sample— as for milling purposes— the best quality sometimes brings several cents a bushel more than the poorer quality, though of the same grade. The warehouse men saw that they could sell by sample the best quality of a particular grade and supply its place by a lower quality of the same grade and pocket the difference. This would reduce the average quality of the whole pile, and in case the owners of any of the pile should wish to sell by sample they would suffer in consequence. The elevator owners went into the business of buying and selling grain and mixing it with that of their CRIMES AGAINST STATE AND NATION. 829 customers'. A suit was brought to enjoin them from doing this. Much evidence was taken, and after a full hearing Judge Tuley, the Nestor of the bench of Chicago, granted the injunction on the grounds, among others, that the elevator owners were trustees or custodians of other people's property, that the interests of the public demanded that these custodians should be disinterested, and that it would be contrary to public morals to permit them to stand in a position where there would be a constant temptation for them to change the character of the prop- erty they thus held in trust; and, second, that if the elevator men were permitted to act in the dual capacity of trustees and dealers in grain they would possess such advantages, as would enable them to soon drive all other buyers out of the market and thus give to themselves a monopoly of the grain trade of Chicago, and enable them, to a certain extent, to fix the price of grain in the Chicago market ; for they could then, by combination, agree on the price, and by reason of their enor- mous storage capacity they could withhold or throw on to the market at any time vast quantities of wheat, and thus depress or raise the market at pleasure, which would not be so if there were many own- ers. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, and that court sustained Judge Tuley, and, in a long and able opinion, expressly held that it would be against public morals and against public policy to per- mit" the public warehouse men of this State to carry on a grain business in the same warehouse in which they keep their customers' grain. BEATING THE FARMERS. But in the meantime the warehouse men got the State administra- tion to come to their aid, and with the Governor's assistance they se- cured the passage of a law which permits them to do the very things which the courts had held to be against public morals and against public policy. The elevator people stand together. They have an agreement not to interfere with each other's business. The moment a bushel of wheat goes into their warehouses they are entitled to two cents storage. When an outside buyer offers 70 cents a bushel it will cost him 72 cents. The warehouse men, by giving up a little of their storage charge, can offer 71 cents, and thus drive the outside buyers out of the market. This done, the market is at the mercy of the ware- house men. -The effect of this -legislation, therefore, is to create a mo- nopoly and place all that section of country which in grain matters is tributary to this city at the mercy of a combination of elevator owners in Chicago. This combination can easily combine with others else- where, so that this legislation lays the foundation for a grain trust 830 LIVE QUESTIONS. that will draw blood from every farmer in America. The question now is, "Does it meet your approval? Will you vote to sustain it?" THE GAS TRUST. Formerly we had eight gas companies in Chicago and its suburbs that were competing for business. Then some manipulators succeeded in forming a trust out of th&se eight companies, so as to stop competi- tion and get arbitrary control of the business of supplying the city of Chicago with gas. Under the laws of Illinois these companies could not legally consolidate so as to form one, it being against public policy to permit combinations of competing interests, and they wanted legis- lation that would enable them to do this ; having Chicago in their grip, they wanted legislation that would practically make it impossible for any new gas plant to be established, so that they would never be threatened with competition. REPUBLICAN LEGISLATURE AIDS GAS COMPANIES TO RAISE RATES. At the last session of the Legislature they secured the passage of one bill which authorized them to consolidate, and they secured, the passage of another bill which provided that hereafter no gas pipe should be laid in a street without the consent of the owners of a ma- jority of the frontage in each block on that street. Inasmuch as the gas trust had its pipes already in the streets, and as it could easily pre- vent any new company from getting the consent of the owners of a majority of the frontage in each block, this act has placed the city of Chicago for all time at the mercy of the gas trust company. HOW GAS USERS ARE MADE TO PAY. Although it costs less than half what it formerly did to manufac-' ture gas, Chicago must pay any price demanded. No matter how poor the gas, no matter how high the price, Chicago is helpless. The State government by this act gave these men the power to rob the people of this city of millions of dollars every year for all time, and the question now arises: "Do you approve of this?" And are you willing to say to the State government that it should go on, and at the next opportunity authorize other schemers and bribers to exploit our people in some other direction? THE ALLEN BILL. The next act that I will refer to relates to our laws concerning street railways. Many years ago, when our law authorizing the forma- tion of street railway companies was enacted, it was seen that the older CRIMES AGAINST STATE AND NATION. 831 a community became the more valuable the privilege of operating a street railway would become and the less the risk of operation; that while the first builders of a road could not tell whether a town would ever become large or not, and, therefore, took some risk in that re- gard, this would not be the case when a city was already built; that therefore, there ought, at short intervals, to be a new adjustment be- tween the public which owns the streets, on the one hand, and a street railway company on the other. The law, therefore, provided that no city council should grant an ordinance or a charter to such a railway company for a longer term than twenty years. Under this law all of our street railway systems have been built, and they have been found to be extremely profitable, so that in addition to large annual returns on the capital invested, especially in Chicago, shares that had origi- nally cost less than $100 were sold in the market for $600. During recent years there have been great changes in the method of operat- ing these roads, by the substitution of electricity, etc., by which the expense of operation has been greatly cheapened. The tendency, by reason of this cheapening of operation everywhere, has been toward a reduction in fare. In many cases it has been reduced to four cents, and, in a few instances, to a little over three cents in America, while in some of the cities of England, where the municipalities have taken the street railways and are operating them, the fare is reduced to about two cents on the average, and it is found that the railways are still profit- able, because, with the reduction of fare, there has come an increase of business. Chicago is one of the greatest street railway cities in the world. The business is no longer an experiment here, but an over- whelming success. And if the inhabitants of any city in the world were entitled to a reduction in the rate of fares,' Chicago is that city. Fifteen years ago the roads of Chicago sold six tickets for a quarter, thus making almost a four cent fare, and although the business has greatly increased and the expense proportionately lowered, they now demand five cents. The ordinances or franchises under which most of the roads in this city were built will expire in a few years. They constitute the contract between the companies and the city, and under that contract, when the franchise expires, the companies have no more rights on the street, but it is their business to get off. Consequently, the time was near when the people of this city could have a new ad- justment, could get reasonable fares and could force the companies to bear their share of the burdens of government, which they have not done so far. The process of invention and of cheapened operating expenses is still going on, everything points to much development yet in that line. §32 LIVE QUESTIONS. THE ALLEN BILL A GREAT CRIME. It is clear that if the ordinances or franchises were to be extended under existing conditions they should have provided for a great re- duction in fare, and the extension should have been for a short time. This generation has no right to sell the inheritance of coming genera- tions. The term should be shorter than formerly, as the roads are already built and in existence, and do not involve new expenditure of capital, it being now simply a question for the owners of taking them up and getting off the streets with them, or of continuing their operation under a new arrangement. Yet notwithstanding these con- ditions, the managers of the street railway companies got the present State government to pass what has been called "The Allen Bill," under which bill the city councils are authorized to extend existing fran- chises or grant new ones for the term of fifty years, and under which act it is provided that the rate of fare shall continue to be five cents for each passenger for the first twenty years; but it provides no method for securing a reduction of fare at the end of twenty years. The street car companies will thus be absolutely independent. You cannot put them off the streets and grant franchises to new com- panies, for their charters will still have thirty years to run. They will go right on charging five cents, and you will be perfectly helpless. This twenty-year clause was manifestly put in as a blind for the pur- pose of deception, and simply adds insult to injury. For practical purposes this bill puts a rope around the neck of this city for all time. But, my friends, the granting of a franchise for even twenty years authorizing a five cent fare, under existing conditions, would be a crime. It would simply authorize robbery by law — and, robbery is crime. There is no moral difference between the club of a thug and the bribe of a Pharisee, except the latter is the more deadly. BOLD AND HIGH-HANDED BRIBERY. It is true the city council must yet act in order to complete the crime of the Allen law, but the owners of the street railways have so often shown themselves to be willing and able to bribe that body that the case of the people seems hopeless. While this measure, as well as the gas measure, was pending in the General Assembly, the city of Chicago, through the press and by its citizens, protested against the passage of either of these laws and pointed out their iniquity, that they were simply measures intended to rob the city, to tie the hands of the people and make them helpless for all time. But their protests were in vain. By means of the most CRIMES AGAINST STATE AND NATION. 833 bold, high-handed, brazen and gigantic bribery they were enacted into laws. The methods through which these bills were passed were of such a character that no honorable man would be willing to see even the Ten Commandments placed on the statute book by similar means. GEORGE WASHINGTON. We sometimes hear the question insolently asked by men with soiled fingers, "If these measures were corruptly passed, why don't you go before the grand jury with your talk?" This question betrays a consciousness of guilt. But let us examine it. There is not a man here that ever saw George Washington, or that can go before a grand jury and, of his own knowledge, swear that he lived, yet every man and woman knows that George Washington did live, and that he was a great character. How do they know it? They know it through a mul- titude of circumstances, of evidences which force conviction. So, while there are perhaps not many outside men who saw the owners of the street railway companies give out vast sums of money for the purpose of bribery, or who saw money deposited for this purpose at various places in Chicago, or who were present and saw the go-betweens actually hand the money to public officers, or who saw blocks of stocks nominally transferred and put up with the understanding that after the passage of a certain bill such stocks were to be purchased back at a certain advanced price, and that the advance in such stock should go to certain public officials — while, I say, there are probably not many outsiders who can go before a grand jury and swear to definite acts, yet there is such a multitude of facts, there are so many and such conclusive circumstances, there are so many things all pointing in the same way, that to-day there is hardly an intelligent man in the State of Illinois but what feels just as certain that the passage of these acts was secured by wholesale bribery, and is a stain upon our government, and a stab at the life of republican institutions, as he is that George Washington lived. MACHINE REPUBLICANS SUDDENLY BECOME RICH. I hold in my hand a copy of the Times-Herald of January 23, 1898, containing pictures of a large and expensive residence which the Hon. William R. Lorimer was building in one of the finest locali- ties on the West Side, and also of a whole row of buildings which the Hem. Thomas N. Jamieson was building on the South Side. Both of these men were members of the Republican machine, and the Times- Herald points out that each had until recently been a poor man, but that in the summer of 1897 each had suddenly come into the posses- 53. 834 - LIVE QUESTIONS. sion of a large fortune, rated, from what was visible, as follows: Jamieson, $200,000; Lorimer, $100,000. Both men having claimed that they had made it by gambling in wheat, the Times-Herald shows that this was not so, but that the money must have come to them out of transactions at Springfield, during the time when the street railways, the gas trust and the elevator people were running the State govern- ment. This was the time, let me say, when many members of the legislature from different parts of' the State suddenly went to buying property, and otherwise showed that they had all at once become pos- sessed of large sums of money. ARE YOU WILLING TO INDORSE THIS? Lorimer and Jamieson were not members of the State govern- ment; they were simply members of the machine which had made the State government and worked with it. There were other members of the machine, who, no doubt, insisted on their share. Mr. Hertz was a member, and if anything got away from him it was very nimble. You will say if such large sums could be made by outsiders for help- ing to get these bills through, what amounts were pocketed by the men who were in a position to grant or stop these bills? I do not know, I do not wish to know the details of a transaction that depraves my fellow-man and destroys the institutions of my country. I am simply calling attention to general conditions. The State administra- tion is seeking an indorsement. Are you prepared to give it? Do you want the State administration and the Republican machine to repeat at Springfield in 1899 the performances of 1897? For the purpose of diverting attention from the crimes of his administration the governor recently went to Golconda and attacked the economy of the last administration. There was not a word of truth in his whole harangue. But suppose there had been, would that change the char- acter of his acts? SOME DEMOCRATS. The question is asked, "Did not some Democrats support that legislation?" Yes, they did; but outside of Chicago nearly every one of them has been repudiated by his constituents, and the Democratic party, as a party, has taken a firm stand against this legislation, while the Republican State administration stands by these acts. CORRUPTIONISTS CONTROL REPUBLICAN PARTY. The difference in the general situation being this: That in the Republican party the corporations, the trusts and the corrupt men who are ready to sell their country and to betray the people are at CRIMES AGAINST STATE AND NATION. 835 the top, they direct, shape and guide its policy; while in the Demo- cratic party just the opposite is true. That party two years ago made a new departure. It cut loose from the corporations and trusts and the corrupting influences; it embarked on a new career, and while it may not have been able in the short intervening time to drive out of its ranks all men who may have established reputation as boodlers, still they are not controlling it, as they are the Republican party. THE LOCAL TICKET. . But, says some one, if we vote to disapprove, it means the election of the local Democratic ticket, and that ticket is not any better than the Republican ticket, or not even so good. I will only say, in answer to this, that I know the Democratic ticket has some excellent men on it, and it would be strange if a ticket containing forty or fifty names did not have the names of some weak men on it; but the Demo- cratic ticket would have to rise above the plane of genius in its capacity for wickedness if it were to even equal, in that regard, the Republican ticket, especially when you consider the character of the machine that put up this Republican ticket, and which will control it, it being the same machine that has guided Republican affairs in this State for a number of years. SCRATCH THE BOODLERS. Let me say, however, that if there is a man on the Democratic ticket that you believe to be a boodler, then vote against that man. The Democratic party is struggling to get away from those influences, and to get onto higher ground, and it will not thank you for support- ing a boodler, even if he has wormed himself onto our ticket. But be sure you are right before thus branding a man. DESTROYING OUR INSTITUTIONS. But the question as to who is elected to the local offices is one of small importance, when compared with the principle involved here. It matters little whether the local officer is a Republican or a Demo- crat, when compared with the selling of legislation and the destruction of republican government, for I need not tell you that a condition in which the passage of good laws is prevented by bribery and the passage of bad laws is secured by bribery means the death of free institutions. No republic can last under these conditions. Let me say to the Republicans, we are all proud of Chicago; every man feels his heart swell when he goes away from home and is able to tell the world that he lives in Chicago. Here is where you are spending your 836 LIVE QUESTIONS. active days ; here is where you are rearing your families ; here is where your children will probably live, and by reason of this corrupt legis- lation you, during your lifetime, your children during their lives, will be the victims of extortion by both the gas company and the street railway companies. A LIVING PICTURE. Board one of our street cars in the evening when nearly one hun- dred thousand women and girls come from the shops and stores and start home — most of them get from $2 to $4.50 a week, work long hours, board themselves, have a constant struggle with poverty, every penny costing them blood — and when you see them hold onto the straps of the car, see their thin hands and their worn faces, and reflect that a corrupt State government has sold to the criminal owners of the street railways of the city the privilege of practicing extortion upon these unfortunate beings as long as they live, then tell me, can you go into the booth and stamp this infamy with your approval? GOVERNOR COULD HAVE STOPPED THESE BILLS. Do not forget that while these iniquitous laws were passed by the Legislature, they were advocated, were favored and finally approved by the governor. A governor who could have protected this city against this criminal outrage if he had been so disposed. All of these bills were passed by a Republican legislature in 1895 and were vetoed. A determined effort was made to pass them over the veto, but it failed. It is in the power of the governor to prevent legislation that will en- able respectable scoundrels to plunder the people, if he will only ex- ercise it. CORRUPTION IS DEATH. "But," says some one, "does not corruption in the end destroy all who are parties to it, and will it not bring its own punishment?" There is no doubt about this. Not only do both bribe-givers and bribe-takers rot down, but their innocent families are destroyed by the leprosy that comes from tainted dollars. The same law which rots down the weak sneak thief sooner or later overtakes his brainier brother. But this does not right wrong, nor does it restore stolen goods. FEDERAL ADMINISTRATION. THE DINGLEY BILL. Let us turn now to the federal administration. In the campaign of '96 the trusts and the great concentration of capital in this country raised an enormous fund for the purpose of 'debauching American CRIMES AGAINST STATE AND NATION. 837 citizens and carrying the election by improper methods. As soon as President McKinley was inaugurated the different interests which had contributed this fund demanded that they be given an opportunity to collect it back, together with an enormous profit. Congress was at once convened, and, although in session many months, it did no business except to enact the Dingley law. Ostensibly it was for the protection of the laborer and to furnish money for the treasury, but it did neither of these things, and in reality it was for the benefit of monopolies only. The famous McKinley law, then barely dead, had during its life not raised the wages of any laborer in this country, and had for the year ending July, 1894, produced a deficit in the treas- ury of $70,000,000. This was caused by placing duties so high as to stop importations of certain articles. The treasury naturally got nothing, while the advanced price of goods, which the people had to pay, went into the chests of the monopolies. The Dingley law was constructed on the same principles, and the deficit in the national treasury under this law promises to be fully equal to that under the McKinley law, nor has it raised the wages of any laborers; but it has created conditions by which the American people are being compelled to pay hundreds of millions of dollars, not into the federal treasury, but into the coffers of private corporations. THE SUGAR TRUST. One illustration answers for all. The great sugar trust had, and has, control of the sugar business and market of this country. It is reputed to have given over $1,000,000 campaign funds in 1896, so in framing the Dingley law the sugar trust was given such a tariff as it wanted. The result of this was that the price of sugar went up 25 per cent.; sugar, that the laboring man formerly got for 4 cents a pound, was at once marked up to 5 cents; instead of getting 25 pounds for $1, he got 20; and during the first year after this Dingley law went into effect the sugar trust cleared over $20,000,000, over and above what it could have made under the former tax. Not a cent of this went into the federal treasury, but it all came out of the pockets of the people. The trust not only- got back the million it had given, but it got nearly $20,000,000 besides. Almost the same state of facts exists with relation to the leather trust and a great number of other trusts and combinations. Nothing done for the laborer, but every- thing for the manipulator. Home labor is driven out by pauper labor brought over in shiploads, but the trust is protected. Gentlemen, do you believe in using the powers of government to enable a few men in that manner to make fortunes off of the masses of our people? 838 LIVE QUESTIONS. COMMERCE AND MERCHANT MARINE. We should have a mighty commerce with every nation in the world, but this Republican tariff, which practically closes our ports to these nations, makes this impossible. Earlier in our history, under Democratic policies, we were a nation of ship builders and ship owners. American ships covered the seas, and our commerce was next to that of Great Britain. But the Republican shipping and navigation laws, passed in the interest of a few home corporations, destroyed this commerce and this shipping and made ship building and ship owning in this country almost an impossibility. But for these destructive tariff and shipping laws our commerce and shipping would be ten times that of England. Shall we not restore these interests? GOLD STANDARD. THE WORST CURSE OF ALL. Again, two years ago the Republicans declared, in their conven- tion, that they would sustain the gold standard only until they could get an international agreement restoring bimetallism, and they pledged themselves to do everything in their power to secure such an agreement. During the campaign we charged that this pledge was not made in good faith, that they were really under control of foreign and Eastern manipulators, and that that pledge was simply intended to deceive, and in that way secure the votes of conscientious Repub- licans who felt that the gold standard was a curse to this country. We pointed out that the demonetization of silver had resulted in lower- ing the general level of the price of property nearly 50 per cent.; that the total amount of money in circulation in the world determined the demand for property and thus fixed the general level of all prices, while the law of supply and demand would again raise or lower the price of any particular article above or below this general level; that the lowering of this general level had destroyed the purchasing power of our farmers and of the great producing classes, and had thus paralyzed our industries, destroyed our trade and caused widespread bankruptcy, suffering and distress throughout the civilized world,- and that, until the general level of prices was again raised to what it was during the existence of the bimetallic standard, we could not again have prosperity; that a low standard of values always falls hard on the poor and always gives the manipulator an advantage; it breaks manhood and cheapens character, and inasmuch as the debts, interest and taxes and the great burdens that were weighing our people down CRIMES AGAINST STATE AND NATION. 839 were not reduced in size, but required just as many dollars to liqui- date them as was formerly necessary, that it was a crime to maintain a system which made each dollar twice as hard to get as it formerly was, and we claimed that if silver were restored to the place that it had occupied for hundreds of years, it would again raise the general level of prices of property and enable our people to discharge their burdens and to buy freely and again inaugurate an era of prosperity, industry and happiness. LUCKY ACCIDENTS. A whole chapter of accidents followed the election of '96, all favorable to the Republicans. First, the great drought and conse- quent failure of crops on three continents, resulting in a terrible famine, temporarily raised the price of wheat far above the general level, and thus helped those farmers that had not yet sold their crops ; and second, the same drought caused the loss of about 60,000,000 head of sheep in Australia and the surrounding islands, which fact raised the price of sheep and the price of wool throughout the world; and third, came war, which usually creates more or less activity in com- mercial circles. Astonishing as it may seem, the Republicans attri- buted all these things to their tariff law. But these accidents have spent their force; wheat is again approaching the 50-cent line, the general level of prices is about where it was two years ago, and is showing a constant tendency to sink still lower, because, while the population of the earth is increasing and demands more and more money, the annual addition to the world's stock of money is not increasing in proportion. In consequence of the general downward tendency of prices no man feels safe to embark in new enterprises, and the money that we have in the country is collecting at the centers, like blood congesting the heart, and is not circulating in the extrem- ities. NO PROSPERITY— PLENTY OF STRIKES. Instead of the restoration of prosperity, as we were promised, we find that only those classes who in one manner or another devour the substance of other men's toil are prospering, while the great masses of our people find themselves in as much distress as ever. While the brokers and speculators, the manipulators who have abso- lute control of certain markets and can force the people to pay any price they may ask, are talking about prosperity, we find that there have recently been, and so far as I am advised are yet in progress, seventeen great strikes in industrial centers of this country all on account of wages, in nearly all cases reductions having been made, 840 LIVE QUESTIONS. a reduction, too, from what were already starvation wages. In the great wood working town of Oshkosh, in Wisconsin, where a strike lasted so long and was of so fierce a character that the military had to be sent there to maintain order, an inquiry developed the fact that skilled workmen that used to get $2.50 a day were getting only $1.25 a day, working ten hours, and day laborers were getting only 80 cents a day; men 30 and 40 years of age, in the prime of life, with families to support, were working ten hours and getting 80 cents. At Pana, in Illinois, we have for months had a strike among the coal miners, be- cause the mine operators insisted on reducing wages below a starvation point, declaring that they could not otherwise run their mines. And they are now driving the white men off and filling their places with negroes brought from Alabama. This is Republican prosperity. In almost -every industrial center in this country we find a similar condition, and only recently Mark Hanna's manager, speaking of the condition of the coal miners in Ohio and West Virginia, stated that their companies were going to reduce wages and that he antici- pated a long and serious strike in consequence. BANK CLEARINGS.. We are told that the large bank clearances show prosperity. Yet the total bank clearances of all the banks of New York for the year 1897 were only $31,337,760,948. They lacked $6,069,268,039 of being as large as they were in the year 1869, when they amounted to $37,- 407,028,987. And the average total daily clearances of all the banks of New York lacked $18,016,444 of being as large during the year 1897 as they were during 1869. During these twenty-nine years the population has fully doubled. The business of 1897 should have been twice as large as that of 1869, but instead it was much smaller.. In fact, a large portion of the clearances for 1897 represented simply stock gambling and not legitimate business. In 1869 operations of this kind were not large. If you deduct these gambling operations for the year 1897, it shows that the legitimate business done that year was not one-third as large as it should have been. FEPUBLICAN BAD FAITH. While all these conditions exist, and while everything points to the fact that they must continue to exist so long as we maintain the low prices that result from the gold standard, the federal administra- tion has been doing everything in its power to more firmly establish this gold standard. It has thrown off the mask which the St. Louis CRIMES AGAINST STATE AND NATION. 841 convention had put on, and bent all of its efforts toward making the gold standard, with its low prices, its paralysis and suffering, a per- manent thing. Even while the commission which Mr. McKinley had appointed to go abroad and ostensibly labor in behalf of an inter- national agreement was on the other side of the Atlantic, the president of the commission found that the administration at home was under- mining his efforts and doing all it could to prevent the accomplishment of anything looking toward an international agreement. So com- pletely is this administration guided and directed by the moneyed in- fluences that are profiting by the maintenance of this gold standard and this condition of paralysis and suffering among our people that many of the leaders of that party now openly declare that the talk about securing international agreement in the St. Louis platform was a mere blind and that inasmuch as it has served the purpose for which it was intended — that is, fooling the people — they will give it no further attention. On this point, gentlemen, the question arises, "Do you approve of the want of good faith shown in this matter? Do you approve of the determined effort to fasten this blight upon us?" THE BOND ISSUE. Again, when war against Spain had been declared, it became nec- essary to raise revenues for that purpose, and although it was un- necessary to issue bonds, the administration would listen to nothing else, because those men and those interests which had supported it, and were supporting- it in the East, clamored for more bonds. They wanted opportunities to make money by handling the bonds of the government, and $200,000,000 of bonds have been sold, although it now turns out that the total expense of the war is only about $150,- 000,000, and more than this sum has been raised out of the other methods which Congress provided for raising revenue. EXEMPTING CORPORATIONS FROM WAR TAXES. Further, the bill which provided for direct taxation for the pur- pose of raising more revenue was so constructed that most of the great corporations escaped their share of the burden. You send a telegram, and you have to pay the revenue tax on it — not the corpora- tions; you send a package by express and you find that the corpora- tion refuses to pay the revenue. If you want that package to go, you have to pay it. Here again, gentlemen, do you approve, do you think it good governmental policy to be constantly issuing bonds for the accommodation and enrichment of brokers and speculators at the expense of our people, and do you believe that it is right that 842 "LIVE QUESTIONS: capital should be exempt from taxes and should not contribute its share to the maintenance of the government? HISTORY OF ALGER. Now, let us glance for a moment at a bit of history. During the civil war formal charges were filed against Lieut. Russell A. Alger, alleging that he had absented himself without leave during a battle and praying that he be court martialed and dismissed from the army. These charges were signed, among others, by Gen. Wesley E. Merritt. But Mr. Alger had political influence and he managed to get per- mission to resign from the army instead of being dismissed in dis- grace. Mr. Alger went back to Michigan and amassed a great for- tune, by means which we will not inquire into, although it is said that the stumps on the government lands could tell strange tales if sum- moned before a grand jury. SHERMAN'S CHARGES. Several years ago Senator John Sherman, a great Republican authority, wrote a book, in which book he charges this Mr. Alger with being a corruptionist, charges him with the crime of corrupting Republican delegates who had been chosen to go to a national con- vention. He thus charges him with being a man who by corrupt means interfered with the natural and proper workings of republican government, and doing things which tend to destroy republican in- stitutions. HELPED HANNA. Well, in^the spring of 1896 this Mr. Alger joined hands with Marcus Aurelius Hanna of Cleveland, Ohio, who has impressed him- self upon the American people as being the greatest debaucher of American manhood and citizenship, and as having done more to undermine and. destroy free institutions in this country than any other man. Mr. Alger thus assisted in bringing about the nomination of William McKinley. How much money he spent in doing this, and whom he debauched I do not know. Mr. Sherman is silent upon that subject. But after Mr. McKinley was inaugurated, then, to the astonishment of the American people, he, as a matter of gratitude and favoritism to the man who had helped him, appointed this Mr. Alger to the head of the war department-- that department in which were supposed to be on file charges signed by some of the most prominent officers in the army, to the effect that this Mr. Alger, although the favorite of the President, was not the man to handle military affairs. Let us halt a moment here. With CRIMES AGAINST STATE AND NATION. 843 your permission we will digress and' talk of a pleasanter subject for a moment. REGENERATED DEMOCRACY. Two years ago our great party adopted a new Declaration of In- dependence. It cut loose from the forces that were degrading it — that were robbing it of its mission. It devoted itself anew to the service of mankind, to the elevation of humanity. Since then it has demonstrated that a resolute, compact minority party with high aim and lofty purposes can frequently accomplish more for the welfare of the human race than a majority party; that while a majority party has to busy itself with patronage, favoritism and compromises to keep its supporters together, the minority party can keep its face to the sun, constantly holding its hand on the sword of justice. GLORIES ACHIEVED. I want here to congratulate the Democracy of America upon the fact that since its release two years ago from the paralyzing influences that had controlled it, it has already made an achievement that will forever gild the close of this century with glory. It has driven that tyranny, that robbery, that assassination, which for centuries has darkened our skies near our borders, forever off the Western hemis- phere. It has rescued suffering millions; it has lifted the standards of justice. It has opened a career for countries which have tasted nothing but the curse of oppression for centuries. It has done more; it has put in practice, and thus enforced recognition of a new principle of international law, and that is, that no government has the right to rob and murder its citizens, and that wherever it does so, it is the duty of other governments to interfere and protect the people. This principle marks a new advent in the history of the world, and has a meaning for the coming millions of the earth that only the eye of the Omniscient can measure. Should the regenerated Democracy never accomplish anything more, this one achievement will cover its memory with glory. BLIGHT OF CLEVELANDISM. For had the forces which formerly controlled our party not been overthrown, had Cleveland and his corrupt Pharisees not been repudiated, the hand of the assassin would still be striking down women and children, and vultures would still be devouring the flesh of murdered patriots in Cuba. You ask why the Democracy is en- titled to this glory. I answer, look back one year, read only your Republican newspapers, and you will see that the new Democracy, 844 LIVE QUESTIONS. assisted by a few Republicans who yet had courage enough left tc say that they possessed convictions and dared to assert them, com- pelled the present administration to declare war against Spain. OUR PARTY SAVED CUBA. Those men who controlled the present administration were unitedly opposed to having the government do anything. They stoutly insisted that the interests of some bondholders were of far more importance than the lives of several million men, or the suffering of whole generations. As it was the Jeffersonian De- mocracy that illuminated the beginning of this century, so it is this same Jeffersonian Democracy that has immortalized the close of this century. EFFECT OF WAR. This war will increase our influence and broaden our activities. We will connect the two oceans with a canal, we will gradually acquire harbors and coaling stations all over the earth, and the new Demo- cracy will cover the seas with our merchant marine. Our country will in time extend from the Pole to the Gulf, and will include the West India islands, not through force, but through natural growth and development. Ours will be the great republic of the earth, the supreme mistress of the Western hemisphere. We will mold the des- tiny of nations by our moral and commercial influences. This will involve no increased army nor a colonial system. Further, the Philip- pine islands will acquire their independence and occupy close rela- tions with us. But we must steer clear of a corrupt colonial system, such as would grow up in an attempt to govern eight or ten millions of people on another hemisphere. Just imagine the spectacle of turn- ing loose on the innocent Filipinos the crowd that looted Illinois a year and a half ago. THE CHICAGO PLATFORM. THE CORRECT POSITION. I further congratulate the Democracy upon the fact that every day since 1896 has demonstrated the justice and the wisdom of the high position then taken, not simply on the money question, but upon all the other great questions. The money question lies at the base of our distress, and must be righted before we can again prosper. We must and will restore the dollar of the fathers. The gold standard is a disastrous failure in every country that has recently tried to estab- lish it. It has utterly ruined India, and recently the bankers and CRIMES 'AGAINST STATE AND NATION. 845 brokers and gold standard writers of London have united in a protest against any further attempt to establish the gold standard in India, declaring that it has not only ruined India, but that it would produce a panic in London, because there is not enough gold for the purpose. In England and in the, German empire the agricultural interests are paralyzed, and a parliamentary inquiry as to England has shown that ■this condition is due to the gold standard, and in both of these great countries there is now a powerful movement for the re-establishment of bimetallism. This question is arousing the world, and will continue to do so until it is settled right. MISSION OF DEMOCRACY. So with the question of corruption, of corporation rule, of usur- pation by federal courts, etc. The intelligence, the patriotism and the manhood of the country are with us. The scribbling by handy hired men is still against us, but is losing its influence. The regener- ated Democracy will take no backward step. It has a great mission, and under the peerless Bryan will perform it. It stands for higher ideals, stands for a higher justice, stands for a new era, stands for a new republic. ARMY AND NAVY SCANDALS. SAMPSON AND PRIZE MONEY. Let us now resume our narrative, and go over to the navy depart- ment. There are some antiquated laws still on our statute books which once had a reason for their existence, but have not now, al- though they are yet in force, and which provide that the different naval commanders shall get a share of the prize money which arises from the capture and condemnation of vessels or cargoes of the enemy. The amount which each gets depends on the position he holds and the part played by his vessel or fleet in the capture — the commander get- ting one-twentieth, whether present or not; whereas if actually present and participating in the capture he gets a greater per cent. Now, there was a captain in the navy named Sampson, who seemed to be a special favorite of President McKinley. He had never fought a battle ; he had done nothing to especially distinguish himself, and he did not stand at the head of the list of captains, yet the President took this man and jumped him — that is, advanced him — not only over a number of captains who were his seniors, but jumped him over a commodore and appointed him acting rear admiral, for no other ap- parent reason than that as a matter of favoritism he wanted to give this man a chance to make a fortune out of the prizes which the fleets 846 LIVE QUESTIONS. might capture, and it is estimated that this man Sampson will get over one-fourth of a million of dollars of prize money, by reason of the advancement which the President gave him. There were in the navy at that time not only a number of captains who had shown great ability and gallant service, but there was Commodore Schley, who had distinguished himself in the civil war, who had distinguished himself in the Arctic seas, who is regarded by the world as one of the ablest living commanders, and yet the President, as an act of favor- itism, was willing to endanger the fortunes of the navy, willing to put a slight upon its experienced and able commanders, by advancing this favorite of his over them all. And, unfortunately, when the first opportunity arose for Captain Sampson to show the American people what kind of clay he was made of, he made a bad impression, he put himself in the light of wanting to claim for himself the glory of destroy- ing Cervera's fleet, which was solely due to Commodore Schley. His conduct on this occasion has forced the conviction upon the American people that he is not a great enough man to command the American navy. APPOINTING FAVORITES. Now, we will go back to the war department. As soon as the war was declared, that class of people who had opposed it to their utter- most rushed to the front with fierce determination to get all the money and all the advantage, and all the offices that were to be had. In every war the matter of furnishing supplies to an army is of the great- est importance, for upon it depends not only the comfort, the health and the fighting qualities, but the lives of the men, and instead of appointing to the places in the quartermaster's department and in the commissary department and in the medical department ex- perienced and capable men, the President filled these de- partments with dudes and incompetent sons of rich or influen- tial fathers. It was a pure question of favoritism from beginning to end. The appointment of the Secretary of War had been a question of favoritism, using the great department of the government to favor a man to whom he was under obligation, and now the welfare of the army and the interests of the American republic were again lowered to the plane of favoritism. The great Republican journals at that time published the official acts of the government from day to day. Go and re-read them. They are full of meaning now. PATRIOTISM OF OUR PEOPLE. The American people rose to the heights of lofty patriotism. Party lines were obliterated; sectional differences were overlooked. CRIMES AGAINST STATE AND NATION. 847 Divisions of sentiment that had existed for one hundred years all dis- appeared. In one grand offering the nation arose and gave its noblest sons to the service of the country. They went forth in vigor, with high hopes, and noble resolve. They showed the world how the .children of a republic will rally around the altars of their country. In all over two hundred thousand men entered the service as volunteers; only a few of them ever reached foreign soil; the great majority of them never left the United States; they were in camp in various sec- tions of the Union, right in their own country, surrounded by friends, where there was no enemy, where there were railroads, and where everything that is necessary for the health or the comfort of man, when he is well, or when he is sick, could easily and quickly be fur- nished, and yet in every one of these camps they found themselves the victims of neglect and incompetency. SUFFERING SOLDIERS. There is not time to give the experience of those who were well and were forced to go hungry, and I can only glance at the treatment of the sick. Recently the Chicago Tribune published an abstract of a report made to the surgeon general of the army by one of the most prominent surgeons in this country, relating to the hospital at Camp Thomas, Chickamauga. First, "in a hospital having more than 500 patients there was for weeks only one drug clerk on duty at a time. Oftentimes prescriptions written at eight in the morning were not filled till late in the evening, and the men lay there all that time, neglected and suffering." Second, "there was an utter absence of everything necessary for the care of the sick." Third, "at no time was there sufficient tent room to make the sick at all comfortable, for they had to be crowded together, like sardines in a box, with their heads against the tents." Fourth, "the cots were so crowded that there was no room to stand between them, and the physicians and nurses were obliged to reach the men from the foot of the cot." Fifth, "at no time were there sufficient cots to furnish each man with a com- fortable bed. Every hour of the day, and every day, men were obliged to lie either on the ground or on the litter on which they were brought to the hospital. Men were often obliged to remain in the dirty camp clothing for hours, and in some instances longer than days, for the want of anything to cover them with, except their blankets." This surgeon adds, "that the conditions were a blight on the fair name of our rich and glorious government." M Live questions. A STAFF OFFICER OUSTED. A staff officer on the ground supplements the above with still fu: ther details. First, "a man of the Fifth Missouri, sick with tt measles, was permitted to lie on the ground without proper attentio till he died." Second, "one man had died and his body was permitte to remain for nearly thirty-six hours in close proximity to the sick Third, "another man had been neglected- and had lain in filth s long that he became fly-blown and his body was covered with maggol for hours before death came to his relief." Fourth, "that during th rainy season there were no floors in the hospital tents, and that sic soldiers were compelled to stand with bare feet upon the damp groun while their beds were being changed." Fifth, "that disinfectants wen for many weeks, not to be had at all, or in such limited quantities a to be almost useless." Sixth, "that owing to the frightful conditio of the hospitals hundreds of sick soldiers remained on duty in th ranks until they fell by the wayside unconscious." Seventh, "tha nearly all the proper remedies and delicacies for the sick were fui nished for many weeks by the Red Cross Society and by private sub scriptions." Eighth, "that frequently the physicians in charge sen their prescriptions to the drugstores at Lytle and Chattanooga be cause the most ordinary and useful drugs could not be had at th division hospitals." This staff officer then closes by saying that jus as soon as the military embargo is removed from the lips of the officer and soldiers, facts more terrible than any yet mentioned will b brought to the attention of the world. This, my friends, all relates to the question of one camp, not ii the enemy's country, but in the heart of our own country and withii reach of everything that the markets of America could supply. Le me add that from every other camp comes the same chapter of neg lect, starvation and consequent sickness, suffering and death. Thou- sands have been unnecessarily forced into premature graves, and ten: of thousands have their health permanently broken and are men wrecks of a former manhood, while the brave men who are returning from Cuba after winning a glorious victory, tell a story of neglect starvation and suffering that chills one's blood. FOUR SCENES. Reflect for a moment, my friends, upon these conditions. First there is the scene of a great people patriotically bringing to the altar; of their country their best blood, men and treasure in profusion, al for the glory of the republic. Then comes the scene of a chief execu CRIMES AGAINST STATE AND NATION. 849 tive placing the lives of several hundred thousand soldiers, and even the glory of our country, in the hands of inexperienced and utterly incompetent young men who were appointed to positions of trust as a matter of favoritism to please wealthy or influential friends. Third, comes the scene of suffering and death growing out of this incompetence and consequent neglect. HANNA BOBS UP AGAIN. Fourth, and now comes Mark Hanna from his cowardly hiding place and charges that bananas and soda water ruined our soldiers. This man, who is largely responsible for the suffering of our armies, now comes forward and insults our patriots by telling them they had not sense enough to take care of themselves. There is something humiliating in all these things. Gladly would our people have con- cealed them from the world. But the Republican machine and the people who are responsible for these horrors have the insolence to demand an indorsement. This being so, let me ask you now, citizens of Chicago, do you approve of these things? DO YOU APPROVE? A vote for the Republican ticket means approval. We know that that whole class of men who have received favors of either administra- tion will shut their eyes to any facts and blindly give support. We ''know, too, that a few men who may call themselves Democrats, but who are never happy except when servilely basking in the smiles of rich Republicans, or who either have received or are expecting to receive favors at the hands of the administration, will support it. We know that the whole horde of men who are making fortunes out of the government will support it, and that that whole class of our citizens who make such pretension to patriotism, but who are always ready to sell their country or betray their race for pelf or for political prefer- ment, will support it. MEMORY OF LINCOLN. But there is yet in this land a host of men who reverence the mem- ory of Lincoln, and who believe in his precepts, and who believe that government should be conducted for the benefit of the people, and not for the benefit of favorites, and to these men I appeal. I ask, are you ready to go into the booth on election day and send word to the gov- ernment at Springfield that you approve its course in selling legisla- tion? Are you prepared to say to the federal administration that you approve of the policy of legislating solely in the interests of capital 54 850 LIVE QUESTIONS. and of the schemers and speculators of this country-^that you ap- prove of the policy of making the paralysis and the suffering and the distress which result from the gold standard permanent in our coun- try — that you approve of the policy of making the common people bear the burdens of this war and relieve the great corporations of their share of the burdens? Are you prepared to say that you ap- prove of using the navy of this nation for the purpose of either en- riching or helping favorites? You, my Republican friends7 whose sons went proudly into this war, and either have not returned, or, if they have returned, have the seeds of permanent disease in their sys- tems, are you prepared to go into the booths, and there, with no one present except God and the specter of your dead or injured boys, send word though your ballots to the federal administration that you ap- prove of the acts of trifling with the welfare and the lives of American patriots, for the purpose of doing a favor to incompetent men who happen to have political influence? I do not ask you to join the Democratic party. I do not ask you to join the silver-Republican, or the People's party. I do not even ask you to leave your own party. It is hard to sever the associations of a lifetime and face the sneers of thoughtless or shallow acquaintances — but I do ask you to be men, N and to act the part of men. And when you are convinced that a cer- tain policy or course of conduct is wrong, I do ask you to show suffi- cient moral courage to vote against that wrong. CAUTION TO DEMOCRATS. A word to the Democrats: Do not waste a moment trying to make converts. The patriotism and the intelligence of the country are with you. The great majority of our people are disgusted with existing conditions. The Republican machine managers know this, and their hope of success lies in a repetition of the frauds and crimes at the polls that were committed two years ago. They know that there are between three and four thousand voting precincts in the State, there being over twelve hundred in Cook county. They know that in a large per cent, of these it is possible to get false registration and false returns by paying for them; that with money enough they can by these methods overcome any majority which the people may cast against them. They know that here in Chicago many of the judges and clerks of election seek these positions for the purpose of making some money by selling out, and these machine men hope that with the aid of the corruption fund they are collecting in this State, added to what they will get from the trusts, they can defy and defeat the majority of the people. The corporations will give them REPLY. TO PROF. LAUGH LIN. 851 all the money they want, for they expect more favors, and if too much of it does not stick to the pockets of the managers, they can buy the State. Out over the State you hear labored efforts to talk patriotism, but they are only for the purpose of diverting attention. Here in Cook county a member of this machine, who is a candidate for Con- gress, has been giving some Punch and Judy shows, prostituting the flag, and lowering the dignity of the high office for which he is a can- didate, not to make votes, but to divert attention. ' Let me say to you, head off frauds at the polls and you are already elected, and unless you do this, a campaign is useless. The election criminals are neither Republicans nor Democrats — they are neither men nor women — like grave robbers, they are ghouls, and a penitentiary cell is their fit habitation. Let them understand that the least trifling will send them there, and victory is yours. REPLY TO PROF. LAUGHLIN ON THE BANKING BILL. Prof. Laughlin's article in The Record replying to my article on the McCleary bank bill is remarkable for some things it says — more remarkable for things it omits and thus concedes, and is astonishing for its perversions. He says the McCleary bill "follows the recommendations of the monetary commission appointed by the non-partisan business men of the country.'' By this he evidently means the Indianapolis con- vention, composed of self-appointed and for the most part unknown delegates, who represented nobody but themselves and posed as be- ing "non-partisan." This term has been greatly abused. In recent years, when some schemers without any following wanted to get office or to foist something on the public they started a non-partisan move- ment. This disarmed criticism and prevented scrutiny, and in nearly every case these movements have been so disappointing that the term "non-partisan" has become almost synonymous with hypocrisy and fraud. But that Indianapolis convention was not even honestly non-par- tisan. There was not a man in if that belongs to the great Demo- cratic party. Nine-tenths of the men in that convention supported McKinley, and the other one-tenth allowed themselves to be used as decoy ducks — used as mere wooden blocks set in the water to de- ceive such Democrats as might be floating in the air and were unwill- ing to fly over to the McKinley blind. 852 LIVE QUESTIONS. If the professor is right in regard to the parentage of this bill, then the bill can have no pride of ancestry. 2. There is a class of $5 lawyers and advocates who, when they find that the facts are all against them, resort to a loud and coarse abuse of the opposing counsel. Some of the professor's friends must have been surprised to see him place himself in this class, because the clients for whom he so incessantly talks, in season and out of season, are rich and can afford to pay more. The insolence and coarse charge of ignorance, etc., contained in the article must satisfy any fair man that the professor had just had an altercation with his conscience. 3. The professor says: "While being just to the banks the Mc- Cleary bill is framed in the interest of the borrowers among the people and of the innocent holders of notes, and not in the interest of the banks, large or small. * * * In short, the McCleary bill favors the borrower as against the banks, the small banker against the large - banker of the cities." Hear this, O Israel! A new era is upon us. The morning stars are getting up a new song. We have Prof. Laugh- lin's word for it. In all the past the moneyed interests have con- trolled government to their own advantage. In all the past the strong have devoured the weak. In our country the great banks have shaped the policy of our government entirely in their own interest. But now all is to be changed. For years they have wanted a new law. They have toiled, they have spent vast sums of money, they have practiced corruption right and left, and all this for the beneficent purpose of getting a law that shall favor the borrower as against the banks, and the small banks as against the big ones. The present Congress is a corporation Congress — it is absolutely controlled by the great banks and trusts — and through this Congress the great banks are going to revolutionize all the past — going to reverse the present — going to give up all the advantage they now have and hand the borrower their purse. Reader, do you ask why, if this is such a good measure, the Re- publicans did not pass it and thus make themselves so popular with the people that they could have remained in power for a century? Candidly, I do not know. Speaker Reed could have passed it through the house in an hour. But they were afraid. They feared that the American people might rise up and destroy them for placing upon the statute books such a beneficent measure. So they simply put it on the calendar ready for passage and then adjourned without saying a word about it. Do you ask why the Republican leaders are not now explaining to the country what a great blessing they are about to confer upon it REPLY TO PROF. LAUGH LIN. 853 and thus insure success at the election? Candidly, I do not know. The fact is they have maintained an organized silence about it. Not one has mentioned it. Mr. McCleary, the reputed father of this bill, went to the Omaha monetary discussion on purpose to discuss the general subject of paper money, but he never referred to this bill. He was asked twenty-six specific questions about it and he declined to answer every one of them. Nothing is to be said before election, and then it is to be rushed through. Do you say this determined silence looks suspicious? Yes, it shows there is something they wish to con- ceal from the American people and this alone should defeat the bill. The fact is the idea that this bill is got up for the special interest of the small banks, the borrbwers and the common people generally is too absurd to be discussed. There is not a line in the bill that supports this talk. Let us give a few of the provisions of the bill, in order to make the subsequent discussion plainer: 1. It creates a bureau in the national treasury to be known as the division of issue and redemption, and it places a board of three comp- trollers in charge of it. Each member is to hold office for twelve years, and to be removable only on specific charges, tried by the Senate. As the comptrollers in the past have always been mere con- veniences for the great banks, the evident purpose now is to get them- selves so established in the treasury department that no change of administration can affect their power or control. This division is to have absolute control of the issuing and redemption of money by the treasury department, and is to redeem silver dollars in gold. 2. The bill provides for issuing three kinds of notes, by the gov- ernment to banks — -"national reserve notes," "national bank notes" and "national currency notes." A bank can present to this division an amount of United States notes or greenbacks equal to its paid-up capital and receive in return an equal amount of national reserve notes. These national reserve notes are to circulate as money, and are a legal tender for most purposes, and by accepting them the banks agree to redeem them or pay them in gold whenever presented, but the bill provides that they are ultimately to be paid by the government. The United States notes or greenbacks given to the treasury in lieu of these reserve notes are to be canceled, and thus wiped out. Having gone' thus far, the bank can deposit with this division of the treasury an amount of United States bonds equal to its paid-up capital and the national reserve notes it has taken, and shall receive from the treasury an amount of national bank notes to the full par value of the bonds, instead of 90 per cent, as at present. These na- 854 LIVE QUESTIONS. tional bank notes are substantially of the character of the national bank notes now in circulation, and their redemption is secured by the United States bonds deposited. After having taken these two steps, then the bank may issue notes against its capital. The bill says: "That any national banking asso- ciation having deposited in the treasury of the United States United States notes and received in exchange therefor national reserve notes shall be entitled to receive and issue in addition thereto an amount of national currency notes equal to the amount of national reserve notes received, as aforesaid, provided, however, that the amount of national currency notes shall not exceed the amount of its national bank notes outstanding, and provided further that the notes thus issued shall riot exceed 40 per cent, of the paid-up and unimpaired capital of the bank, . but an additional amount of national currency notes may be issued, subject to the tax on circulation provided in Section 29," etc. It will be seen that one clause authorizes the issuing of national bank notes to the full amount of the paid-up capital and the par value of the bonds deposited, and under another clause the bank can issue currency notes to the full amount of the national reserve notes it has taken out — that is, to the full amount of its capital; but still another clause in the same section provides that in no case shall the sum of the bank notes and currency notes exceed the amount of the paid-up and unimpaired capital. This seems to conflict with the other two provisions relating to the amount of notes that can be issued. The two other clauses named are specific and clear ; this clause is not. The currency notes are made a paramount lien upon all the assets of the bank issuing them. In addition to this, each bank issuing currency notes is to deposit an amount in gold in the treasury equal to 5 per cent, of the currency notes issued by it, to constitute a guar- anty fund for the ultimate payment of all such currency notes; and when any bank fails to redeem its currency notes they are paid out of this guaranty fund. Thus to a certain extent the banks guarantee the payment of each other's currency notes, and the amount taken out of this fund for the payment of such notes shall be made good out of the assets of any defaulting bank, in preference to any and all other claims whatsoever, excepting the costs of administration. In oth- er words, the deposits or other assets of a bank shall be first used toward paying off or making good the currency notes, so that even if the depositors do not get a cent in return for their deposits, the cur- rency notes issued by the bank will still be good. While the govern- ment does not specifically guarantee their payment, jt makes such pro- visions as will insure their payment, REPLY TO PROF. LAUGH LIN. 855 The bill next provides that the country shall be divided into clear- ing-house districts, and every bank issuing notes shall have an agent— that is, some other bank — in each clearing-house district, which shall redeem or pay such notes and take them up on presentation. I stated in my article that while each country bank was expected to be prepared and must be prepared to take up its notes as they are presented in the ordinary course of business, yet that no bank would be safe for a day if there were a number of banks especially appointed to take up its notes, which could present a large amount of notes at any moment and demand payment, and which would be al- most certain to make such presentation in times of depression or when there was a demand for gold, and therefore it would be impossible for country banks long to do a legitimate business under this bill. Prof. Laughlin takes exception to this and says that I am arguing in favor of the banker as against the innocent holder of the bank notes, and then he lifts his hands and weeps over the condition of the innocent holder of the bank notes, and he says: "No poor man should ever be unable to fill his dinner pail because a bank was permitted to put out notes which might depreciate in the laborer's hands before he could get to the grocery." Why the professor indulges in this lamen- tation, unless it is for the purpose of diversion and deception, it is difficult to comprehend. As already shown under the provisions of the bill the government makes the notes which the bank issues ab- solutely good. First, the government itself agrees to pay in gold the reserve notes of the bank. The United States bonds deposited make the national bank notes good ; to make the currency notes good the guaranty fund kept in the United States treasury is to be used, and in addition the entire assets of the bank, to the exclusion of even the depositor, are to be used, so far as necessary, for this purpose. The noteholder is absolutely protected against any possible loss, but the depositor has no protection whatever. Now, if the professor ever read the bill he knew this was so, and he knew that all his talk about the poor laborer losing because he held one of the bank notes was a cheap effort at deception — was a trick which, while in perfect harmony with everything which the gold standard people say and do relating to this money question, was unworthy of a man holding a high position in one of the great universities of the land. If he never had read the bill, then he should not have been quite so glib in charging other people with ignorance. It is amazing to note what a great convenience "the poor laborer" and "the widows and orphans" have been in recent years to those 856 LIVE QUESTIONS. interests which use the government to enable them to devour the fruits of other men's toil. I stated in my article that under this bill all the greenbacks or United States notes and treasury notes would be canceled, and ulti- mately the government would have to issue bonds or interest-bear- ing paper that would not circulate as money in their stead, thus in- creasing the annual burden of the American people without getting anything in return. Prof. Laughlin says that this shows inexcusable ignorance, and is the opposite of the truth; that under the McCleary bill the greenbacks will be retired without reducing the volume of money and without issuing any bonds whatever; that the govern- ment will take in the greenbacks by issuing an equivalent sum of national-reserve notes, which it pledges the national banks, who re- ceive them, to be ready to redeem in gold. Here the professor stops. There is another line and a half in the paragraph from which he quotes, and in that line and a half it is provided that the government of the United States shall ultimately pay these national-reserve notes in gold. That is, in the first instance the holder of a note will present it to the bank and get gold, but ultimately the note will be presented to the United States, and the United States must pay it in gold. Why did the professor omit this line and a half? Has his work for the gold standard people so trained his mind that he unconsciously tries to make a false impression, or did he do this deliberately? At present the treasury issues bonds, gets gold and redeems green- backs. Under the new bill the treasury issues reserve notes to banks in exchange for greenbacks, which it cancels and thus wipes out, and then the reserve notes are ultimately to be paid by the government in gold. Where is the government to get this gold? Section 4 of the bill provides: "That it shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to maintain the gold reserve in the division of issue and redemption at such sum as shall secure the certain and immediate payment of all notes and exchange of all silver dollars pre- sented, as herein provided for, and for this purpose he may from time to time transfer to the division of issue and redemption any funds in the treasury not otherwise appropriated in excess of an actual cash balance of $50,000,000, and in addition thereto he is hereby authorized to issue and sell for gold, whenever it is in his judgment necessary to the ends aforesaid and for no other purpose, certificates of indebt- edness of the United States, bearing interest at a rate not exceeding 3 per centum per annum, payable in gold coin at 'the end of five years, but redeemable in gold coin at the option of the United States mPLV TO PROF. LAUCHLM. §57 after one year, and the proceeds of all such sales shall be paid into the division of issue and redemption for the purpose aforesaid." Will the professor explain what is the ultimate difference between issuing bonds to get gold with which to redeem United States notes and having the Secretary of the Treasury issue certificates payable in gold and bearing 3 per cent, interest for the purpose of getting gold with which to pay reserve notes that have been issued in exchange for greenbacks? The former method has the merit at least of being direct. The latter is circuitous and has about it an element of hoodwinking. Further, under the law as it now stands, the treasury need not redeem United States notes in gold, but can exercise its option to re- deem them in silver, and this option was exercised by the treasury de- partment until the year 1891, when, under the administration of Presi- dent Harrison, while Mr. Foster was Secretary of the Treasury, the government for the first time decided to waive its rights in the matter and pay the greenbacks in gold. The bankers understood that under the law greenbacks could be redeemed in silver, and from the year 1879 to Jan. 1, 1891, only about $34,000,000 of greenbacks were presented for payment, an average of a little over $2,500,000 per year. But after the bankers got the government to redeem greenbacks in gold $351,- 000,000 were presented for payment in four years. This McCleary bill destroys the option which the law gives the government in the prem- ises and makes everything redeemable in gold, even silver dollars, and it provides for getting gold into the treasury by practically the same methods that have been employed in the past — that is, by issuing in- terest-bearing paper payable in gold, thus increasing the debt of the country and the annual burden of the people. I stated in my article to which Prof. Laughlin made a reply that under the McCleary bill the banks could issue their notes and then could call in their notes, at pleasure; that in this way they could in- crease the volume of money in the country, and reduce the volume of money in the country, and could thus raise prices and lower prices; could, whenever it suited their purpose, in fact, produce a panic. Prof. Laughlin says that this is not so, and that such talk proves entire ig- norance of the nature and operation of a bank. Why he claims that they could not do this passes all comprehension, for the bill expressly gives them power to call in their notes or to issue them. This certainly must affect the volume of currency in circulation. Whether you call them money or call them merely bank credits is immaterial. He now says that this "could not affect prices, for prices are fixed by com- paring goods with a standard, like gold. If the standard is low- ered, of course prices will be lowered." Then he says : "But increas- 858 'LIVE QUESTIONS. ing the media of exchange will not raise prices ; increasing bank notes will not raise prices, any more than increasing bank checks." These are remarkable statements when we consider their source. The professor has talked on this subject before. Not being willing to keep his knowledge under a bushel he gave to the world a book, over ten years ago, in which he enlightened mankind on this subject, and on page 153 of that book, in discussing credits, he says: "To any one who can get credit, it is purchasing power. The amount of goods a man can purchase is represented not only by the sum of money he has, but by his money together with his credit. An increased demand increases prices, and as an increased use of credit increase? demand, an increased use of credit raises prices. Credit, therefore, can influence prices as much as the offer of money. * * * In short, an increase of credit affects prices in the same way as an increase of money." Now, in this instance, the bank notes stand on a higher plane than mere bank credits, and if the increase or extension of credits to indi- viduals on a bank's books has the same effect on prices that money has, it follows that an increase of the number of the bank's notes in the pockets of the people must also have this effect; because, as we have seen, the notes are so protected by the government as to make them absolutely good, while the bank credits might not continue to be good. Has the professor changed his mind during the last ten years, or does his last article simply show nimbleness in shifting position when exigency requires it? Again, on Dec. 6, 1894, the professor delivered an address before the Sunset club in which he said: "The government should not issue notes because it puts it in the dangerous position of influencing and controlling prices and the money market." If government notes in- fluence and control prices and the money market, will not bank notes which are protected by the government do the same ? The idea that the great or speculative banks of the country might abuse the power, if they had it, of increasing their issues or credits and raising prices, then contracting their issues or credits and lowering prices, thus producing depression and occasionally a panic, he scouts as the height of absurdity. He says "as well might sailors at sea burn the ship that carries them." This sounds plausible, but we are not left to theory. The world has had experience in this matter and that experience has cost it very dearly. The banking power has, during our whole history, tried to control legislation, and for its purposes has repeatedly given the country what it called an object lesson, to show its power, and for the purpose of frightening and coercing Congress REPLY TO PROF. LAUGHLIN. 859 has repeatedly contracted its notes and its credits and produced not only a depression but an actual panic. Of the large number of in- stances that should be cited I have space for only a few. Prof. Sumner, in his "History of American Currency," says: "In 1832 the national bank petitioned for a renewal of its charter. The bill passed both houses and was vetoed by the President. It being now evident that the bank must expire unless some influence could be brought to bear to change the President or win two-thirds of Con- gress, a violent warfare was begun by the bank. It is certain that the bank paid no more heed to the laws of the State than it did to the laws of prudence or of banking science, and that they paid very little heed to either. The motion to sell out the public shares in the bank was lost, through the influence of the bank, which, as they afterward discovered, had a large number of debtors, attorneys and stockholders in the House. In August, 1833, the bank altered its policy. It rapidly contracted its loans, giving as a reason the necessity for providing for the transfer of the deposits, a reason which the facts did not warrant. On the assembling of Congress December, 1833, tn e message of the President charged the bank with creating an artificial stringency in order to make itself appear necessary to the community." The evidence at that time showed conclusively that the bank had thrown the country into distress for the sole purpose of forcing Con- gress to recharter it. General Jackson, in his message, said: "Events have satisfied my mind, and I think the minds of the American people, that the mischief and dangers which flow from the National bank far overbalance all its advantages. The bold effort the present bank has made to control the government, the distress it has wantonly produced, the violence of which it has been the cause in one of our cities famed for its observance of law and order, are but premonitions of the fate that awaits the American people should they be deluded into the perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it. It is fervently hoped that, thus admonished, those who heretofore favored the establishment of a substitute for the pres- ent bank will be induced to abandon it, as it is evidently better to incur any inconvenience that may reasonably be expected than to concen- trate the whole money power of the republic in any form whatsoever, under any restrictions." In the fall of 1877 the House of Representatives at Washington, by a two-thirds majority, suspended the rules and passed a bill which the banks did not favor. They combined against it, produced a money stringency, and defeated it in the Senate. On Jan. 11, 1878, the New &5o 'LIVE QUESTIONS. York Tribune, commenting on this action of the banks, said: "The machinery is now furnished by which in any emergency the financial corporations of the East can act together at a single day's notice, and with such power that no act of Congress can overcome or resist their decision." In 1881 Congress passed a bill which the banks opposed, and for the purpose of frightening Congress they contracted their credits and withdrew $18,000,000 from circulation and deposited it with the treas- ury, and in order to avoid a panic the treasury called in and paid for a large amount of bonds, so as to keep money in circulation. Comment- ing on this fact, Secretary Windom in his annual report recommended that the national banks be prohibited from withdrawing their circula- tion, except after giving timely notice, and President Arthur in his an- nual message concurred in the recommendation, saying: "Such legis- lation would seem to be justified by the recent action of certain banks." In giving an account of this proceeding, Appleton's Annual for 1881 says: "The national banks of New York City, acting in concert, brought Wall street to the extreme verge of a panic. The tone of the money market was only partially restored by an order by the Secretary of the Treasury for the redemption of $25,000,000 of bonds on presentation." In 1884 the banks again acted in concert and produced a panic in the money market for the purpose of influencing Congress, and they succeeded in defeating certain legislation that was then contemplated. Immediately after the last election of Mr. Cleveland the banks of New York determined to force Congress to repeal the Sherman law under which about $50,000,000 of treasury notes were issued yearly against silver bullion, and which were added to the currency in circula- tion. In March, 1893, the Bankers' Magazine of New York published an article giving the opinion of leading financiers and bankers of that city, to the effect that "The quickest, if not the only way to repeal the silver-purchasing law is to precipitate a panic upon the country, as nothing short of this will convince the silver men of their error and arouse public opinion to a point which will compel the next Congress to repeal the Sherman law, whether it wants to or not." When President Cleveland, in February, 1895, sent his message to Congress asking for the retirement of the greenbacks, the big specu- lative bankers of New York co-operated with him and made a run on the gold reserve and deliberately produced such a depression that, ac- cording to the editor of Bradstreet's Review, on the day that the mes- sage was read "the treasury was confronted by an actual crisis and the country by another and worse panic than that which had just sub- REPLY TO PROF. LAUGH LIN. 86 1 sided." All this for the sole purpose of frightening and coercing Con- gress into giving the bankers such legislation as they wanted. This open assault failed, so they are now trying to sneak a worse measure through. Mr. Cornwell, president of the New York State Bankers' Association, in a speech before the Bankers' Club of Chicago on April 27, 1895, in which he strongly urged concert of action in order to con- trol politics and thus secure legislation, said, among other things: "What ought bankers to do about legislation? This is the most important thing for any body of bankers in this country to consider at once. * * * It is time to tear off disguise. International bimetal- lism is a traitor in the camp. It is a false fraud. The fight is on. * * * All disguise should be thrown off. It is time for aggressive action. The banker has a large influence. He is a confidential ad- viser of thousands of business men." He then pointed out how powerful the bankers could make them- selves in politics, and in order to show what they had already done he said: "The politician, high or low, who to-day turns from * * * the gold standard stabs dead once for all his every chance for political success, especially if he wants to be President." Acting on Mr. Cornwell's advice, the bankers started out in 1896 to control both of the great political parties, and they sent out the fol- lowing letter: "The American Bankers' Association, 2 Wall Street and 90 and 94 Broadway, New York, March 23, 1896. To the bankers of the United States: At a meeting of the executive council of the American Bank- ers' Association, held in this city on March 11, 1896, the following declaration was made by unanimous vote : "The executive council of the American Bankers' Association de- clares unequivocally in favor of the maintenance of the existing gold standard of value (prices) and recommend to all bankers and to the customers of all banks the exercise of all of their influence as citizens in their various States to select delegates to the political conventions of both the great parties who will declare unequivocally in favor of the maintenance of the existing gold standard of value (prices). "Your influence is earnestly requested to give practical effect to this action. "EUGENE H. PULLEN, President. "JAMES R. BRANCH, Secretary. "JOSEPH C. HENDRIX, "Chairman Executive Council." 862 LIVE QUESTIONS. While there are banks which do a legitimate banking business, and do not profit by panics or arbitrary contraction of credit, but on the contrary are injured by panics, there have in our history been enough of the speculative banks and political banks, which apparently do profit by panics, to control the situation. The fact is when a few great banks pursue a particular course, with respect to reducing circulation and also reducing credits, other banks are almost obliged to pursue the same course. The trouble with Prof. Laughlin is that the great schemers of the world never take their handy hired men into their confidence. They give each his work and expect him to do it quickly and thoroughly, and under no circumstances to hesitate on account of any question of ethics or morals that may be involved. Prof. Laughlin has never been taken into full confidence. He does his work without hesitation, ' and he writes about banks from his rear room as 1 he finds them in the books; but the American people have to deal with them as they are, and in many cases they find them in the control of thoroughly un- scrupulous men. In fact, our institutions are now in a life and death struggle with a corrupt moneyed power. Prof. Laughlin says: "Under our present system the maximum of free competition exists in banking, and combination is rendered im- possible." In view of the fact that banks are being consolidated every- where, that only recently we read the report that in 'Boston nine dif- ferent banks are going to consolidate and form one, the professor should have explained what he meant by saying that combination was impossible. I stated that every time the government guaranteed the circulating notes of a private corporation it became interested in the business with that corporation, even though it got none of the profits, and fur- ther that it is the action of the government which makes the notes of private corporations circulate extensively; that if it were not for its action these notes would stand on the same basis on which the old "wild cat" bank notes stood — some would be good and some utterly worth- less. In short, our whole national bank system depends on the assist- ance of the government, and this being so, it is inaccurate to say that the issuing of circulating notes by private corporations is purely a pri- vate business. The fact, therefore, is that instead of the McCleary bill taking the government out of the banking business it will place the government in a position where it becomes more and more deeply interested in the success of the banks, because it practically has to stand behind them so far as their circulating notes are concerned, and the fact that REPLY TO PROF. LAUGHLIN. 863 it may be reasonably well secured against any loss does not change the principle that is involved. Under a correct policy the government itself would issue every- thing that should circulate as money, and confine the banks to a loan and discount business. Then the banks would not be so directly in- terested in running the government, or doing a governing business. I stated that the bill authorized the establishment of a limitless number of branch banks, there being no limitation as to the number nor as to the place where they could be established, and that this must ultimately result in driving out the small banks that are now doing business over the country and in establishing a great banking trust, consisting either of one or of a small number of great banks and their branches, and that the whole country would be at its mercy. The professor says on this point that if a branch bank did drive out the little banks it would be because it would give better accommodations. I answer that is certainly the way in which it would drive them out, but, having driven them out and having the business community at its mercy, what would be its course then? What is the attitude of the great trusts toward the public? Would the business men be better off by having only one bank to go to than they were when they had sev- eral? But the professor turns and loftily says that this talk of a finan- cial octopus "is the venerable and familiar old stalking horse of 1896. It may do to catch mossbacks, but not an alert and modern nation." Inasmuch as he accuses me of being densely and elaborately ignorant, and intimates with a sly wink that a professor's den in some rear room is the place to acquire practical business knowledge, I will not argue the point as to what effect branch banks will have, but I will quote from the utterances of a man who is entitled to a hearing, Mr. Walker of Massachusetts, who is chairman of the committee on banking and currency from which the McCleary bill was reported, Air McCleary having been chairman of a sub-committee which drafted the bill. Air. Walker was appointed to this position by Speaker Reed, and he is re- garded as one of the ablest men that the Republican party has in Con- gress, especially with respect to the subjects of banking and currency. Mr. Walker does not approve of this McCleary bill, and he made a minority report against it, the whole of which report makes inter- esting reading. For want of space I will quote only a few lines. He says : "A bill authorizing branch banks is very bad economics as corn- pared with encouraging the local independent bank, and is still worse statesmanship. It finds no justification in the policy of our free bank- ing system, or in any amendment of it proposed in this bill. It is 864 'llVE QUESTIONS. unwise to permit powerful city banks to establish branches. * * * Putting a local agent in a place with no interest in it other than the money he can make out of it for his non-resident employer means that no independent local bank, managed by its citizens, can be estab- lished in the town, and if one is already there it must go out of busi- ness. In nine cases out of ten local banks in towns are formed by public-spirited citizens to get a fair return on the capital they put in the bank, but still more to build up the town by assisting other citizens to capital with which to do other business. The agent of the city bank may for a time loan money, in good times, at rates to drive out the country bank, and in times of stringency the funds with this country agent will be sure to be immediately returned to support the city bank. The customers of the country agency will be sacrificed to the neces- sities of the parent bank. Generally there are two stores in a town. In times of excitement each is the headquarters of one political party. The agent of the parent bank knows the politics of its city employer, and again the bestowal of his favors is likely to be influenced by his own politics. Our choice^must be made between one great United States bank with 10,000 branches, and, on the other hand, 10,000 in- dependent local banks, united together, that all may support each, and thus all together may give each security in times of stringency or in threatened or actual panic." Prof. Laughlin may denominate Mr. Walker as a "mossback," and charge him with unparalleled ignorance — this is always convenient when there is nothing else to say — but Mr. Walker stands before the American people as a leader of his party, and even if he has not written on both sides of the money question he is by that party re- garded as a statesman. They look upon him as a learned and able man, of practical experience, who is dealing with facts and endeavoring to solve a great problem. Possibly the schoolmaster of the deserted vil- lage could have beaten him arguing — for e'en though vanquished he could argue still — and of course if he could have done this then Prof. Laughlin can do it, for the professor has never yet admitted that he was inferior to Goldsmith's famous schoolmaster. Speaking of the formation of a monetary or banking trust, Prof. Laughlin says: "How would it be possible to corner all capital? Money is not all of the country's capital. To monopolize capital one must monopolize all wealth engaged in production. To corner capita! implies cornering all the instruments of production. It is the wild vagary of a doctrinaire. It is unthinkable." Look at this for a moment. The Standard Oil Trust is one of the most iron-handed trusts or monopolies on earth, crushing out every REPLY TO PROF. LAUGH LIN. 865 competitor. Did it corner all the country's capital? Did it monopolize all wealth engaged in production? Certainly not. It simply got abso- lute control of all the facilities necessary to carry on the oil business. It did not attempt to corner all the instruments of production. It con- fined itself to one line, and so with all of the other great trusts that crush out their competitors and force them either to become clerks ' or go out on the highway and look for a job. Now, to have a banking trust means to get the absolute control of banking facilities to such an extent as to be able to crush out the smaller and weaker institutions. In order to do this it is not necessary to monopolize all wealth en- gaged in production. It is not necessary to corner all the instruments of production. I will not retort in the professor's own language by saying, "Was there ever greater ignorance of the facts of our own his- tory," for I do not believe the professor was ignorant when he wrote his article. I believe this was simply one of those reckless statements, intended to mislead and deceive, which he has been making so long in this community that he does not expect any of them to be chal- lenged. If he made this statement through ignorance, then his em- ployer should raise his salary a little, in order that he may brush up. Again, the professor says that branch banks can be formed only by and with the consent of the Secretary of the Treasury. And he is again astonished at my ignorance in having made the statement that there was no limitation upon the number that could 'be established. This whole question is covered by Section 35 of the McCleary bill, and it reads as follows: "Section 35. That it shall be lawful for any national banking as- sociation to establish branches, under such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the comptrollers of the currency." It will be seen that it is not necessary to get anybody's consent. The law gives the power to establish the branch bank. The comptrol- lers of the currency — not the Secretary of the Treasury — are to make some rules and regulations on the subject. These rules and regulations can only prescribe the manner of establishing. They cannot take away the unlimited power to establish, and when these rules and regulations have once been made and published, then it is not necessary to get any- body's consent. It is only necessary to comply with these rules as to the manner of procedure. But even if the consent of the comptrollers of the currency were required, that would signify nothing. The comp- trollers of the currency have been mere Washington conveniences for the national bankers, and have done in the main what the banks wanted done. They are a species of clerk for the banks, but the gov- ernment pays their salary. Their chief duty seems to be to attend 55 866 LIVE QUESTIONS. bankers' dinners; so that if a comptroller's consent were necessary it could easily be had. But it is not necessary. When Mr. Walker says that a branch bank would try to control the politics of the town in which it was situated according to the wishes of its parent, and that every merchant and manufacturer needing bank- ing accommodations would have to submit or be ruined — and when he further says that in times of stringency the big banks would draw their funds back to the city, in order to take care of their important customers, and would thus leave their little country customers to their fate — he states two vital truths either one of which should defeat the bill. I stated in my article that this bill furnished no protection what- ever to depositors; that it created a bubble which after deceiving the public would burst and spread ruin; that at present, when a bank broke, whatever assets it had went to depositors and other creditors, but under the proposed bill all the assets must first be applied to the payment of the circulating currency notes the concern had in cir- culation. The professor does not deny this. He weeps over the fate of the poor laborer who might hold a $5 bank note that would not be redeemed (a fact which, as we have seen, could not happen), but if the same laborer had $100 on deposit in the same bank and loses it all, the professor leaves him coldly to his fate. Why this difference of attitude? The reason is apparent. The bill is framed in the interest of a small class. For a private corporation to be able to issue circu- lating notes against nearly the whole of its assets will be a great advan- tage to scheming men. They would prefer issuing notes without secur- ing them at all, but as these would not circulate, and as something must be set apart to secure them in order to make them circulate, these men are willing to have their depositors' money thus used. It is a scheme to help a class make money at the risk of the business men and the common people. Being the champion of favored-class interests, the professor was obliged to defend this bill. The sight of thousands of poor and despairing people shivering around a broken bank through which they have lost all their savings does not interest the professor. Let them shiver, is his motto then. Several years ago the humane people of Chicago tried to end the inhuman and debasing conditions existing in what were called the sweatshops of the city — -so named because children, poor women and even men were "sweated" — that is, slowly crushed with slavish labor amid conditions so filthy as to spread disease, and were paid what were even less than starvation wages. The class which the professor serves was profiting by these inhuman conditions, and opposed any change; REPLY TO PROF. LAUGHLIN. 867 so instead of helping this movement he was reported to have said with a disdainful air: "Let them sweat." The class in whose favor this bill is being pushed is the class which has helped to create the conditions which have ruined the poor la- borer and the small farmers and producers of the South and West, and when this class sheds tears over the poor laborer and small farmer one is reminded of these lines: "On the banks of the Nile lay the crocodile; Tears streamed from his eyes and sad were his.cries. 'I am weeping,' he said, 'o'er the terrible fate Of that dear little fish I just now ate.' " Again, in speaking of what the professor calls "sound money" — that is, gold — he says : "Indeed, the best is none too good for the hard- working people, who have no time to watch the political money-makers in all their tricks." Here the professor is sublimely unconscious of the fact that the present status of the gold dollar was created by the political money- makers, and that this McCleary bill is another effort on the part of the political money-makers to tinker the monetary system of this country. But he does not state the dear-dollar argument as well as I have fre- quently heard it stated. Generally the would-be deceivers of the poor man state it this way: "When the laboring man has toiled all day and returns at night, weary and worn, he should be paid in the dearest dollar known, the dollar of the greatest purchasing power, that will get him as much for his day's work as possible." This is a plausible argument, and as the professor has introduced this subject we will notice it for just a moment. Why is a dollar said to be dear, and to possess great purchasing power? It is because it takes a great deal of property to get one. This makes the dear dollar. Now, what does labor create, whether it works in the field, in the mine or in the shop ? Why, it creates property, and if this property has to be sold cheap, in proportion to cost of production, if it takes a great deal to get one of ' these dear dollars, then it follows that the laborer has to accept cheap wages. No farmer or manufacturer or mine-owner can pay high wages to have property created, and sell that property very cheap, without going into bankruptcy. Therefore the dear dollar first means low wages ; but it does not stop there. One-half of the American peo- ple are farmers, and when the dollar is so dear, as is now the case, that it takes twice as much of the products of the farm to get one of these dollars as it formerly did, then the farmer's purchasing power is de- stroyed. He can get together barely money enough to pay the taxes, the interest on the mortgages and such other charges as must be • 868 LIVE QUESTIONS. paid in money. Indeed, in thousands of cases he cannot do that. He can no longer buy for his family the hundred things that he formerly did, and when his purchasing power is thus reduced or destroyed the small merchant sells less goods, and if the consumption of the coun- try is thus reduced, the factory soon finds that there is no market for what it produces ; so it first cuts wages in order to reduce expenses, and it gradually reduces its working force, and in many cases has to shut down entirely. Why? Because the purchasing power of one-half of the American people has been reduced or partially destroyed, and when it for this reason discharges men or shuts down the mill the laborer is thrown out of a job and his family out of bread. It produces that dead circle that we have seen in our country for a number of years — farmers helpless, business paralyzed, factories par- tially idle, the laborer seeking work and his children begging bread. So that the dear dollar means not simply low wages, but it means loss of work and starvation, and the fact that there is to-day not an intelli- gent workman or laborer in the United States but that denounces this dear dollar as his worst enemy speaks volumes for the intelligence of the American laborer. The deception of the dear dollar misleads them no "more. Some new tricks must be invented. The old ones will no longer answer. I stated that all the banks of America held scarcely $200,000,000 of gold, and that even the balance of trade brought us little or no gold. To this the professor replies: "Is it possible he knows nothing of the recent imports of gold, and that the gold due us for our enormous excess of exports is owned by the holders of foreign exchange, and that the treasury now holds more gold than ever before?" Now, I did not speak of gold in the treasury. I spoke of gold in the banks, and if my statement was not correct, why not give the figures? Why quibble away from the banks over to the treasury and talk about the gold there? And how did this gold get into the treasury? Why, it came from the sale of $200,000,000 of bonds, which it was first alleged had been sold to the great common people of this country, but which, as a matter of fact, were monopolized by the bankers, who used their clerks and customers as conveniences through which to get them, and a very large portion of these bonds ultimately went to Europeans, so that the gold we recently got came chiefly from selling bonds. In answer to his statement that the gold due us for our enormous excess of exports is owned by the holders of foreign exchange, I will say that if by "the holders of foreign exchange" he means the holders of our securities, the holders of the billions and billions of debt that we owe, then the answer is correct, because for quite a number of years REPLY TO PROF. LAUGH LIN. 869 it has taken practically the whole of the excess of our exports over imports to pay the interest on American securities held abroad. So that gold does hot flow naturally to our country. We have to make a desperate effort to get it, and a still greater effort to keep it any length of time. The professor says: "Instead of costing the country anything, the McCleary bill will save the country the expense of maintaining the troublesome gold reserve, and will put the cost of it on the banks." Let us see about this. While the silver certificates" are to be grad- ually reduced to the denominations of $5 and less under this bill, they are all to remain in circulation. The amount of silver certificates and silver dollars is between $500,000,000 and $600,000,000. The silver dollars are expressly to be redeemed in gold. A bank can at any time gather up $1,000,000 of silver certificates, go to the treasury and get $1,000,000 of silver, take these silver dollars to the next window and get $1,000,000 of gold. The silver certificates are to be paid out a~gain by the treasury. The bank can gather up not only one, but a number of millions, at any time, go over to the treasury, get silver dol- lars, take the silver dollars around to the next window and get gold dollars for them, and keep this up as long as it wishes to. At present the bankers can only do this with United States notes and treasury notes, amounting to in the neighborhood of $400,000,000. Under the proposed new bill the facilities for working the endless chain will be increased by over $100,000,000. In addition to the silver which is to be redeemed in gold, the "na- tional reserve notes" issued to the banks are also to be redeemed in gold by the government, as we have already seen. Thus the govern- ment will soon be in a position where the endless chain will be work- ing with twice the power that it is working now. Upon this subject let me again quote from the minority report of Mr. Walker, the chair- man of the committee: "To provide that our 500,000,000 of legal-tender silver dollars shall be redeemable in gold dollars by the government and for keeping an additional gold reserve for that purpose is one of the most unneces- sary, inconsistent and remarkable, not to say ridiculous, provisions that could well be incorporated in a banking bill. The reason given for pro- posing the destruction of $346,000,000 of greenbacks is that they men- ace our whole financial system in their power to extract gold from the treasury. But this bill, which would destroy the greenbacks, pro- ceeds to add '500,000,000 of silver dollars to the national reserve bank notes and other bank notes as abstractors of gold from the treasury, and would have us believe that this is a cure for all our financial and 870 LIVE QUESTIONS. banking ills. Having experienced the delights of the vision of seeing the United States notes destroyed and of resurrecting a bank note from their ashes in the proposed national reserve note, and having exercised the supreme power of making this national reserve note the equal of gold as a legal tender, the power grows on what it feeds upon. Then they proceed to destroy the 500,000,000 of silver dollars as such and to resurrect them as abstractors of gold from the treasury. * * * Where are the country branch banks to get their gold? Out of the United States treasury? How is the treasury to get this gold? Of course the city banks will kindly hand it over to the government in pleasant times -when everything is balmy. How when it storms? How about 1893? How about another Cleveland-Carlisle administration? It is as sure to come as history is to repeat itself. Sell bonds, of course. * * * This bill leaves the United States treasury absolute- ly unprotected, the sport of the most unscrupulous money changers and gold brokers that can be found anywhere in the world. A cable- gram costs but little. The door of the United States treasury opens' for the delivery of gold into every European broker's office, Israelite or Christian." In view of these facts, why did the professor state that it would relieve the United States treasury of maintaining the troublesome gold reserve, when, as a matter of fact, the gold reserve under this bill will have to be larger than ever before, and the facilities for brokers to draw gold out of the treasury will be greater than ever before? The professor claims to have read the bill. If so, his mind must have been a little weary when he passed over these sections, and, while it may be a little impertinent, I would again suggest a raise of salary for the professor in order to stimulate and brighten him up. JOHN P. ALTGELD. OMAHA SPEECH.— THE SITUATION. (Delivered before the Jackson Club, January 7, 1899.) THE REPUBLIC THREATENED. This club has won fame through its struggle for higher politics — for higher standards of justice, and for more honest economic and financial policies. But great as are your achievements, much as you have accomplished, your work has barely begun. This republic has been the beacon light of the world for more than a century. It has not only lifted the hopes of all men, but by its example it has turned the face of nearly all nations toward liberty. Since the first reading of OMAHA SPEECH. 871 the Declaration of Independence over two hundred and fifty constitu- tions that were Republican in form have been adopted. Most of them perished, but they will rise again. Now the foundations are being pulled from under our own institutions. The very altars of liberty are being betrayed by the men set to guard them. Two years ago, when we turned the face of our party toward the sun, we protested against economic policies that robbed, against financial policies that paralyzed, and against judicial usurpation that enslaved. Every day's develop- ment since that time has shown not only that we were right, but that the situation was far more serious than we supposed. LOOK ABOUT YOU, AMERICAN CITIZENS. Look about you! Nearly all of the wealth of this land is passing into a few hands, and not one of these hands favorable to the freedom of the citizen. Every great industrial, commercial, mining or trans- portation enterprise is passing into the hands first of corporations, and then by further consolidation into the hands of trusts which thus have an absolute monopoly — a monopoly which can, arbitrarily, fix prices, fix wages and regulate output — a monopoly which has no soul and whose chief purpose is to plunder the public. The monopolist and the speculator prosper, but the masses wither. Men of moderate fortunes and of fair incomes, who were the bulwark of the republic, are slowly but surely being wiped out. We are being reduced to two classes; in the first stage these will be known as the very rich and the moder- ately poor, and in the second stage as the masters and the slaves. We have established a monied aristocracy and are now fastening a yoke on posterity. A standing army is to be enthroned and bayonet argu- ment is to govern. WEALTH THE ENEMY OF LIBERTY. Republican institutions cannot live amid these conditions. Wealth has never been the friend of liberty. Concurrently with the progress of these changes we hear the snarling voices of men who deride the doctrines of Jefferson and Lincoln that made our country great and mighty. Already we see magazine articles urging the establishment by law of a permanent aristocracy in our system of government, and from high quarters we hear a demand for Hamiltonism. Hamilton believed in monarchy and aristocracy bottomed on corruption. He was in love with the English system as it existed in the last century, thoroughly rotten from top to bottom, and he labored to transplant whatever he could of that system. He once said to John Adams: "Purge the British Constitution of its corruption and give to its popu- 872 LIVE QUESTIONS. lar branch equality of representation and it would become an imprac- ticable government. But as it stands at present, it is the most perfect government that ever existed." He did not advance a single new thought, did not promulgate a single new principle; and he sneered at the idea that the people were capable of self-government. HAMILTON WAS AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION. England herself has since that time repudiated corruption and es- tablished equality of representation. Hamilton favored the adoption of the new Constitution, but was not satisfied with it, and openly expressed the hope that some future war would centralize the powers of the government. When he was made Secretary of the Treasury the new Constitution had been adopted, Congress had been given power to raise money, everybody could see that the republic could now easily pay its debts, and that it was not necessary to introduce cor- ruption of any sort. But true to his theory, he at once secured the establishment of a national bank and introduced the British funding and bond-issuing system, coupled with its limitless opportunities for plunder. A short period of unparalleled speculation and peculation followed. The sharks and financial birds of prey made fortunes and Hamilton became the hero of the hour. The whole system collapsed in a few years and scattered ruin and misery over the country. Yet for a whole century the men who use the government to plunder the country have shouted for Hamilton. Whether Hamilton himself shared in the plunder is immaterial. He expressed his belief in the system, and deliberately furnished the opportunity to others. During the administration of Mr. Adams Hamiltonism ran wild. Almost every principle of the Declaration of Independence was trampled under foot, and those provisions of the new Constitution that were intended to protect the individual were ruthlessly brushed aside. No man dared to criticise the administration. Scores of good men were denied trial by jury and languished in prison for exercising the right of free speech. A tyranny was established that surpassed anything existing in Eng- land. Four years of this regime was all the American people could then stand; they declared that they had not cast off a foreign yoke to take up a more galling home yoke, and in 1800 they arose and over- threw it so completely that it has taken nearly a century for a resur- rection. DEATH OF HAMILTONISM. Had Hamiltonism prevailed at that time the whole history of the republic would have been different; the brains, the industry, the skill and the enterprise of the earth would not have flocked to our shores. OMAHA SPEECH. 873 The genius of man being cowed would have withered here as it had in Europe, and the American republic would to-day be simply an oli- garchy, stretching in small settlements from the Mississippi to the Atlantic. Hamilton was a member of the Constitutional convention, and succeeded in establishing that aristocratic branch of our govern- ment known as the federal judiciary, unrepublican and undemocratic; it is not chosen by the people and is not accountable to them. In fact, for practical purposes is not accountable to anybody. Jefferson op- posed this manner of creating a judiciary with all his might, and he pointed out that here would ultimately be found the tomb of American liberty. How prophetic was that vision? During its whole career this branch of the government has never been on the side of the weak, but always on the side of power. First it stood for federalism and usurpation. RELICS OF HAMILTON. When General Jackson tried to protect the American people from the clutches of the great rotten bank the federal judiciary used all its power to help that institution. After the bank went down this same judiciary did the bidding of the mighty slave power, and after this went down these courts took the corporations under their wings and many of them seemed to become mere side-door conveniences for con- centrated and even corrupt capital. For the last thirty years the cor- porations have fled to the federal courts like the ancient murderers fled to cities of refuge — there they felt safe. Recognizing that the con- struction of the laws is more important than making laws, these pow- erful influences have allowed no man to be appointed judge whom they did not believe friendly to them. They do not buy federal judges because it is not necessary. In their eagerness to serve the corpora- tions, these judges have in recent years established government by in- junctions in this country, under which a judge becomes legislator, court and executioner. They brush free speech — the liberty of the citizen — and trial by jury away with a contemptuous sneer. A TRUTHFUL JUDGE. The Anglo-Saxon race has shed its blood to maintain these bul- warks of liberty, and our Constitution guarantees them to every citizen. But they have already been stabbed to the vitals. For several years we have beheld the spectacle of some Supreme Court and other federal judges dragging their ermine around over the land to act the part of advocates for those interests which are destroying republicanism in this countrv. What are the liberties of America worth when com- §74 LIVE QUESTIONS. mitted to the guardianship of such men? During the recent campaign Mr. Depew came to Chicago under the auspices of the Hamilton club, to deliver a- partisan address at the Auditorium. Federal Judge Peter S. Groscup mounted the rostrum for the purpose of introducing the orator, and told the audience, among other things, that the light of Jefferson was waning — that on the dial plate of our nation's history this hour was Hamilton's, that Hamilton's great name exactly fitted these times, etc. HANNA, QUAY & CO. ARE HAMILTONIANS. My friends, must we admit that Judge Groscup was right? Let us look around again. The Senate of the great State of Ohio has just indicted a Hamiltonian senator for bribery and debauchery in securing a high office. A grand jury in Pennsylvania has just indicted another Hamiltonian senator for robbing the treasury of the State. Almost every great trust appears to have one or more Hamiltonian senators as standing conveniences. In the House of Representatives, where the voice of the people was supposed to be heard, we find a pensioned ring-master of monopoly stifling the voice of the people's representa- tives and reducing Republican congressmen to a condition of pity and contempt. Two years ago a horde of Hamiltonian statesmen went to the capital of Illinois and not only sold out the people but robbed the State of everything in sight. Wherever you find dirty finger marks in the temple of justice or a foul odor in the halls of legislation, there you will find Hamiltonism. Verily, the spirit of Hamilton fits these times, but what shall we say of a judiciary that openly rejoices over the fact that an era of corruption has enveloped the land, that the be- trayal of the people has become a science, and that the robbing of the people has become a fine art? And now we are to widen the sphere of this class of statesmen by giving them a chance to rob the Fili- pinos! Heaven pity those poor people. The Spaniard took what was in sight, but the Hamiltonite, with his bond jobbery, enters the womb of the future and plasters his mortgage ort remote generations. THE TONGUE OF TREASON IS WILDLY WAGGING. During the political and partisan Peace Jubilee, recently held in Chicago, the President of the United States went to the Chicago Uni- versity for the purpose of being dubbed Doctor of Laws. In handing him the parchment, Prof. A. K. Parker, who made the presentation speech, said among other things: "The doctrine of sovereignty of the people leads a precarious existence in the mouths of men who love long sounding words and have not stopped to consider that it is OMAHA SPEECH. 875 only a specious form of the ancient blasphemy that might makes right." Stop here a moment and reflect. The President of the United States, standing under the wing of the Standard Oil Company, accepts a proffered honor which is coupled with the declaration that the doctrine of popular sovereignty is a specious form of blasphemy, and he utters not one word of protest, but by his silence and by his acceptance nods his approval. GLORIES IN THE SPECTACLE OF LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG. Come now to another scene. On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln stood on the battlefield of Gettysburg, and with tears in his eyes asked the American people to dedicate themselves anew to that cause for which the heroes living and dead had fought on that field, so "that government of the people, for the people, and by the people should not perish from this earth." Consider these words; they em- body the most complete form of popular sovereignty, yet, only thirty- five years later, we behold a Republican successor of Lincoln nodding assent to a doctrine which characterizes the above utterance of the great martyr President as a specious form of blasphemy. Yea, Ham- iltonism fits these times. Jefferson and Lincoln stood on the platform of the common people and as the light of Jefferson wanes the work of the great liberator passes into the shadow. QUEEN AND PRESIDENT. About two months ago the New York Chamber of Commerce gave a banquet, and the president of that body asked the assembled guests ' to drink to the health of the British Queen before drinking the health of the President of the United States, and it was done. He said the President would consent to this if he was there. To be sure, this will not shake our republic ; but it does show the tendency of thought among certain classes. It shows that the stock jobbers, the specula- tors and the financial wolves have no more love for our institutions to-day than they had in 1776, when they sided with England, or 1861, when they sided with the Confederacy. MAUDLIN TALK OF ANGLO-AMERICAN ALLIANCE. From the same source comes the maudlin talk of an alliance with England. We are to repeat the experience of the lamb and lie down with the lion, and we have toadies artd flunkeys in America who would consider it a privilege to lie down inside of the lion. &76 LIVE 'QUESTIONS. HOW TO CALL A HALT. But, say you, these things are not new to us ; tell us what to do. My friends, no mortal can tell you in advance. In all great conflicts the first thing is to ascertain the principle involved and the ultimate object aimed at. The campaign will then be shaped by conditions and events. We wish to prevent the enslavement of our people and the establishment of an aristocracy. We see that no aristocracy, either of birth or wealth, can be established or maintained where the great masses are prosperous and independent. It can exist only amid cheap property, cheap labor and cheap men. A cowed and a poor people are the soil in which it grows. When they gave us a financial system which paralyzed our country, which cheapened property, which crushed labor and which cheapened manhood and destroyed independence, they laid the first stone for an American aristocracy. If these condi- tions are to continue, then the star of the republic has set. But if we can overthrow this system, if we can re-establish bimetallism, if we can found a scientific monetary system and restore the price of pro- ducts and of property, if we can raise the spirit of labor and renew the independence of the masses, then the beginning of the next cen- tury will crush this aristocracy to atoms and cast it to the four winds, and a liberated people, bowing only to the God who made them, will leap forward with a joy that shall gladden the earth. You see the money question confronts us at the door. It is not of our choosing. We cannot make issues. Issues grow out of wrong — grow out of injustice, grow out of human suffering. Cowards and weaklings evade them, but men must meet them. THE FINANCIAL QUESTION. Other great questions vital to our existence have been evolved by the age and must be met. But the financial question is basic and central. It is the mother of a whole brood of evils. The financial spec- ulators of the East and of Europe want the absolute power to control average prices. Therefore they want silver and greenbacks wiped out, so as to make everything rest on gold — this they can easily corner — then with a monopoly of issuing paper money they can concentrate everything into a few hands. A few gigantic banks can then control. When it suits their speculative purposes they can expand and raise prices, and then contract and lower prices, and thus catch the country coming and going. These great and unscrupulous interests always move secretly and in the dark. They bridge every chasm with a bribe and catch the political highwayman with an official uniform. The gold OMAHA SPEECH. 877 standard has never drawn an honest breath nor taken an honest step in this country, and its success so far shows the venality and the apostasy of American politicians. RATIO OF METALS. What about 16 to 1? Well, my friends, it is not in our power to change this; it is impossible to get anything along any other line. Change the ratio and the whole case dissolves. To be sure, theoreti- cally this is not so, but we have to deal with fearfully sad facts. For twenty years both of the great parties denounced the gold standard and demanded the free coinage of silver at the old ratio. It looked as if the question would be settled in a week, but instead the gold standard got more firmly seated in the saddle. How? By corruptly controlling the government and manipulating Congress. Open the question of ratio and you will get no action in a century. To drop the ratio is to betray the cause. We are for the old ratio because it is right, because it will undo a great crime, because it will make prosper- ity possible, because we cannot succeed in any other way, and because the suggestions for a change come only from the enemy. PRIVATE MONOPOLIES. Now, gentlemen, time' never stands still and evolution is eternal. Now questions affecting our very existence have arisen ; while they are old elsewhere they are new here. This is an age of concentration in all things, and the formation of private monopolies in particular. Competition has been wiped out. In harmony with the law as it has stood for centuries we have denounced this, but to no purpose ; we have legislated against it, but in vain. When they could not defeat legislation by bribery they went before some subservient federal judge and had it declared unconstitutional. Our remedy has failed. Private monopoly is as injurious and as much of a crime as ever, and we can- not stop its birth; we must change our tactics and convert private monopolies into public monopolies. Give the whole public the benefits of the monopoly instead of a few individuals. Let the government take them. This is not State socialism, it is simply protecting the people, and therefore is democracy in its broadest sense. The Euro- pean people fight socialism, but get the greatest benefits from collec- tive ownership. GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP WOULD KILL MONOPOLY. There seems to be no other way to protect the public, and it in- volves our very existence as a party. The Democratic party must al- 878 LIVE QUESTIONS. ways stand for the great masses or else have no mission. The Re- publican party stands for private monopoly and rottenness, and the monopolies will always support it and try to crush us. It is a fight not only for humanity but for our very existence. MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP. There are hundreds of things that the public cannot do. But there are a great many that it can, should, and must do. It has been demon- strated that municipalities can successfully and very profitably own and operate water, gas and electric light plants, street railway sys- tems and a number of other things, and the American people are pre- pared to move forward along this line and every such step by helping the people will help the Democracy. TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE MONOPOLIES. The American people are also prepared to take the telegraph and telephone monopoly and make them part of the postoffice, and thus not only cheapen the service by one-half but make the telegraph neu- tral in politics. Ours is almost the only great government in the world that does not own the telegraph lines. POSTAL SAVINGS BANKS. I believe that our people are also prepared for postal savings banks < and widening the functions of the postal department. It is safe and very cheap to the public. The English postoffice runs savings banks, issues fire insurance, life insurance, sells annuities, and does many other things at greatly reduced rates, and it does what is almost a gen- eral carrying or express trade of small articles at greatly reduced rates. A man once said: "You can send a" saw-mill through mails there." CONTROL OF RAILWAYS. But the greatest question is the control of our railroads. Nearly all the governments of the earth own the railroads, and railroad ser- vice, both passenger and freight, costs their people on the average about one-half what our people must pay. However, it is not the economic feature that I wish to discuss at present. The railroads and corporations now run our government. They control the appoint- ment of federal judges, they meddle with the election of congressmen, senators, State legislators, governors and aldermen. They dictate the policy of government, and they do it by corruption. Years ago I wrote some articles favoring governmental control or regulation of railroads, but not ownership. Observation has satisfied me this is all futile. OMAHA SPEECH. & 7 $ Instead of a board regulating the corporations the corporations regu- late the board. And if they run against an honest board some friendly judge flies to their rescue and kicks the board clear off the highway. INTERSTATE-COMMERCE FARCE. It was lately suggested that the law should require the interstate commerce commissioners to shut their eyes when drawing their salary, so as to lessen the moral shock of getting something for nothing. At present there seems to be no way of protecting the public and re- storing to the people their government, except by having the govern- ment own the railroads. As between having the corporation own the government or having the government own the corporation, the American people will prefer the latter. DUTY OF THE PARTY. To the Democratic party it is a question of vital interest. It can never become a corporation party without abandoning its mission and becoming contemptible in the eyes of men. Therefore the corpora- tions will always furnish the boodle to Mark Hanna with which to debauch the American voter and defeat that party. If the govern- ment owned the roads it would be different. True, it would create a large patronage. This, however, might be regulated by civil ser- vice, but even if it were not the government could not possibly coerce its men more than the corporations do now, and it could not pay the large sums for corruption purposes which the corporations now ad- vance and then indirectly get back from the government. If the gov- ernment owned the railroads many trusts now made powerful by rail- road discrimination would dissolve. HOW LITTLE CORPORATION BANTAMS ARE INCUBATED. The great and criminal corporations are the incubators which have been hatching the* little bantams that talk aristocracy. Destroy the in- cubators and the brood will die out. These, my friends, are the issues, this our high purpose. We are not interested in cheap politics. We are trying to establish a higher justice and bring mankind a day's march nearer to the great high plane of human brotherhood. Two centuries ago the world , struggled for religious liberty, a century ago for political liberty ; to- day it is in the birth throes of industrial liberty. Religious liberty could not live amid superstition, but demanded liberal institutions. Political liberty could not live amid kings and aristocracies, but de- manded republican institutions. Industrial liberty cannot live amid ggo 'UVA QUESTIONS. monopoly and injustice, and it is calling for higher standards. Demo- . cracy established religious and political freedom and it must now es- tablish industrial freedom by giving the public the benefit of all mo- nopolies. ROAD TO INDUSTRIAL FREEDOM. How is this to be done? By the same means by which every great reform and moral advance in the history of the world has been car- ried forward. The soul of the hero and the spirit of the martyr are the twin guides of human progress. James Russell Lowell summed up the whole history of civilization when he penned the lines: "Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, But that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch upon His own." To-day truth is on the scaffold and wrong is on the throne. The forces that support crime in high places are masters, and as they live by the breath of falsehood, we must expect every possible indignity, and we must expect temporary reverses. RIGHT IS ETERNAL. Howard Taylor said: "Over a century ago the British drove the Pine Tree flag off of Bunker Hill, but God retreated with it till he brought it back to Bunker Hill." My friends, justice is not abdicat- ing; have no fear about our cause. Its ultimate success is written on the programme of destiny. "Yes," says someone, "but the wilderness is dreary; when shall we reach the promised land?" I do not know. On the dial of pro- gress time is not indicated by months, or even years, but by epochs. Some long, some short. In our country they have been short, and the change has always come like a sunrise when things look most gloomy. "But," says another, "are not most of the powerful forces arrayed against us?" Yes, the same forces that have fought every reform ever made are also against us; but when the time is ripe they disap- pear from the earth. A century ago Hamiltonism seemed to be permanently entrenched, and supported by all the strong forces of society, but in a few years it went down. OMAHA SPEECH. 88 1 POWER OF THE MONEY POWER. When the powerful national bank controlled nearly all of America and tried to coerce President Jackson it had its slimy finger in every neighborhood, dominated the drawing-room, the counting-room, the school house, the press, the church, the politicians and the govern- ment. Yet a couple of years were sufficient to overthrow it and ex- pose its awful rottenness. Hear what George W. Curtis said of the slave power in even the Northern States in his day: "Slavery sat supreme in the White House and made laws at the capital. Courts of justice were its ministers and legislatures its lackeys. It silenced the preacher in the pulpit, .it muzzled the editor at his desk, and the pro- fessor in his lecture room. It set a price upon the head of peaceful citizens, it robbed the mails and denounced the vital principles of the Declaration of Independence as treason. In States where laws did not tolerate slavery it yet ruled the club and the drawing-room, the factory and the office. It swaggered at the dinner table and scourged with scorn a cowardly society. It tore the golden rule from school books and from the prayer-book the pictured benignity of Christ." AN AWFUL PICTURE TO BEHOLD. My friends, this is an awful picture of supreme power. The men and the women who opposed this institution did not expect a change for centuries, but the great clock in the chamber of the Omnipotent never stands still; it ticked away the years as it had formerly ticked away the centuries, until finally it struck the hour. The world heard the tread of a million armed men, and slavery perished from America iorever. Mr. Curtis' description exactly fits these times. The money power sits supreme in the White House and makes laws at the capi- tal. Courts of justice are its ministers and legislatures are its lackeys. It silences the preacher in his pulpit, the editor at his desk and the professor in his lecture room. INTELLIGENCE OF THE COUNTRY WITH DEMOCRACY. But the infallible finger of its growing insolence shows that the hour of its destruction is near. Remember that thirty thousand votes properly distributed in '96 would have elected Mr. Bryan. The pa- triotic intelligence of the land is already with us. Deduct from Mr. McKinley the negro vote and he is lost; deduct the ignorant city slum votes which he got and he is lost. Deduct the vote purchased with Hanna's boodle and he is lost. Deduct the false returns made by cor- rupt election judges and he is lost. He was elected by tainted dollars, 56 882 LIVE QUESTIONS. and his future must rest on them. The elements of corruption are his mainstay and nothing can stand long on a rotten foundation. - Re- member, too, that not a single devotee of '96 has deserted. Fleshpot ' patriots may weary, but our mighty army still has its face to the sun and our only course is forward. THIS IS GOD'S FIGHT. Ah, say you, this is a fight against money, and we have none. That is true. But no great moral and political reform ever yet rested on money. The Almighty has never yet tried to sprout the seeds of justice in the garden of lucre. Only poisonous vines will grow there. Noble manhood perishes there. It is moral force that, in the end, moves the world. Had Christ been furnished a million of dollars by a syndicate to introduce his religion, it would have been a failure. True, we must have money for hall rent, printing, etc., but we must get it from those who give with a blessing and not from the men who demand the selling of souls and the surrender of manhood." 1 MONEY CANNOT WIN IT. If the Sugar Trust' or the Standard Oil Trust would give us ten millions of dollars to make a campaign with our cause would be lost. It would be Clevelandism over again. Even if we won the election our moral force would be gone, and we would accomplish nothing. It is the ardor of devotees that shakes empires, and we must win this fight by a self-sacrificing manhood. Men with fleshpots cannot help us. I hear the derisive laughter of Mark Hanna at the mention of manhood. But, my friends, American manhood will yet survive to throw the deodorizing lime of oblivion upon his polluted grave. NO TIME, NO PEACE FOR TRIMMERS. We are in a crisis. The liberties of a mighty people are at stake. There is no neutral ground; trimming and trading can no longer be tolerated. The world demands earnestness and candor. I do not believe in the black flag; give every honorable enemy quarters. But we have a sacred black motto which we must keep to the front, and that is : "Woe unto him who trifles with the confidence of the Ameri- can Democracy." Grover Cleveland is dead, and he left no friends to whom to send the obituary notices. Scores of wabbling statesmen, are to-day looking through the fence into the graveyard for a burial place, because they were hit by the wrath of a deceived people. Each age furnishes a weapon for the people. The weapon for this age is Initiative and Referendum. Through it we can restore Democracy. OMAHA SPEECH. 883 Then fill our people with the spirit of Andrew Jackson, and the corruption of Hamiltonism, as well as the hypocrisy of McKinleyism, will no longer threaten or disgrace our land. WHY WE HONOR JACKSON. Why do we honor the memory of Jackson? He was not a great scholar, not a great orator, not a great publicist, not a great military man, and yet he stands like a mighty rock in the ocean towering high in air, while thousands of scholars, orators, publicists, generals and statesmen who have come since his time are lost in oblivion. It is because of his character. Amid temptation and threats of destruction he fixed his eye on the star of justice, shook his fist in the face of power and delivered the American people. This country needs more Andrew Jacksons — and the people believe that they have found one in William Bryan. Upward oi twenty large public buildings were erected by the Slate ol Illinois during Governor Altgeld's administration. The ollowing pictures show the character of eight of them. Owing o the rapid growth of population, the demand tor than- space ml the small appropriations but little attention had been paid o the exterior architecture ol the public buildings. But during lie last three years of In, administration he required the architects o devote more attention to this subject, although the appropna- ions were so ridiculously small that no elaborate style of orna- nentation could be adopted. LIBRARY HALL, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, AT CHAMPAIGN ERECTED 1896. ■jSr-^s&nT'r' •I, ¥]:::■ ilfd*Sfv ■:'i i : Em. 'rfiV ' : ; [ "■■fin mi » BBd mi. i ho -cm ' * ■ i tM ?JF Ww~- 1 X r. ~ 2 2 w t^ X o v - '- : .. V - r "y.-. ; . "., > H H X V, - in 71 t/i H 2 o ;"«sa «% ■4, APPENDIX. EMBRACING GENERAL AND SPECIAL MESSAGES TO LEGISLATURE, VETO MESSAGE ON ENLARGEMENT OF ASYLUMS, VETO OF MONOPOLY BILLS, OF BILL TO CONSTRUCT WATERWAYS, OF BILL FOR CONSOLIDATION OF CERTAIN COR- PORATIONS, PROCLAMATIONS, RECOMMEND- ATIONS AND OTHER OFFICIAL PAPERS. USELESS OFFICES. State of Illinois, Executive Department, Springfield, March 23, 1893. To the Honorable, the House of Representatives: I respectfully call the attention of the General Assembly to the fact that we have a number of boards and officers in this State which have in the past drawn large sums from the public treasury, and which now cost considerable every year to maintain, and which, so far as I can observe, are of but little use to the public. Among others, I especially invite your attention to the following: First, the Fish Commission. This board was created in 1878 and has up to date drawn $85,496.34 from the State Treasury, and however able the mem- bers may be, and whatever the theory may have been which led to its creation, it is apparent now that the people of the State have at present very little to show for this large expenditure of money. The experiment has been tried sufficiently to demonstrate that it does not pay, and as it costs the State on an average about seven thousand dollars per annum to maintain the commission, I recommend that it be abolished and that the different county and township peace officers of the State be required to execute the law against the use of nets in the waters of the State. I also call attention to the fact that it now costs twice as much to maintain the Commission of Claims every year as the total amount of claims that are annually proven against the State. In my opinion there is no necessity (or longer continuing this commission. Further, we have here in the capitol severa) large collections of valuable 894 LtVE QUESTIONS. geological, horticultural, ornithological and other specimens which are of little or no use to anybody here, and which cost the State considerable money every year to care for. The Secretary of State, who has charge of the capitol building, informs me that the room now occupied by these specimens is needed for other purposes. I recommend that all of the above specimens be placed in charge of the University of Illinois, at Champaign, where they will be of ser- vice to the students and others pursuing studies or investigations in these fields, and if any of such specimens are not needed by the University, that they be given to the other educational institutions of the State. In this connec- tion I wish to say that the State Geological Department has now cost the State, including the printing of the annual reports, about $175,000, and it now costs from $7,000 to $8,000 per year. Many of our people feel that it does not pay to longer maintain it. Should it be wise, however, to continue it, then I recom- mend that it be placed in charge of the University, where it can be maintained at much less expense to the State than here at the capitol, and where the students will get the benefit of such investigations as are made from time to time. JOHN P. ALTGELD, Governor. THE COURTS OF CHICAGO. State of Illinois, Executive Department, Springfield, May 31, 1893. To the Honorable, the House of Representatives: I feel it to be my duty to direct your attention to the condition of business in the courts of justice in Chicago. Owing to the marvelously rapid accumu- lation of cases and to the fact that our "General Practice Act" seems to be radically defective in many particulars, and unsuited to govern the procedure of the courts where there is such a great volume of miscellaneous work, affairs have come to a point where there is almost a practical denial of justice in that great city, because litigants find it nearly impossible to get their cases tried. The problem presents so many difficulties that it is hard to determine in what manner relief can best be given. Several times within recent years the num- ber of judges has been greatly increased, but now with twenty judges the situation is worse than it has ever been. One difficulty about the increase of judges is that the bar almost unanimously demands, and the courts have been obliged to adopt a rule to the effect that if when a case is called for trial, the lawyer on either side should be engaged in any other court of record in the county, then the case must be passed until the engagement ceases, consequently litigants find that they must prepare for trial, must get their witnesses together and attend court sometimes for days before their cases are actually reached, and then they discover that they must be passed because of the engagement of one of the lawyers. When this engagement is over, they again get their witnesses together and attend court one or more days until their cases are called the second time, when they discover that the lawyer on the other side is engaged, and the cas.e has to be passed again; and in this way cases go, as it were, bounding along, and litigants are worn out before they can get a hearing. This added to the fact that the courts are nearly three years behind makes it impossible for people of limited means to get redress in the courts. It is true the rule above referred to could be changed, but so long as all of the lawyers of Chicago are compelled to practice in what is practically one court, 'APPENDIX. 895 the courts would probably find themselves forced to leave the rule broad enough to enable a lawyer to have his case passed, if he was, at the time it was called, actually engaged before some other judge of the same court. If we increase the number of judges to thirty, then, although there may some of them be holding the appellate court and some of them the criminal court, there will still be upward of twenty presiding in courts of the same jurisdiction, and all lawyers practicing in Chicago will of necessity have to practice in these courts, and it will be a matter of daily occurrence with very many lawyers that a number of their cases will be called on the same day and before different judges, and the difficulties and delays resulting from this will be even greater than they are now. At present the short cases which can be heard in half a day are wedged in between cases that require a week, all of which tends to increase the difficulties of the smaller litigants. From my experience, while on the bench there, and from a thorough consideration of the subject, I feel convinced that it would be better if another court could be established to which a certain class of cases could go, so as to keep them off the calendar of the circuit and superior courts and still insure them a speedy trial, and at the same time enable some lawyers to confine their practice to that court, in that way obvi- ating to a certain extent, at least, the difficulty of judges having to pass cases because of the other engagement of the lawyers; at the same time there should be revision of the general practice act in such a way as to meet the objections that have been discovered in the law as it now stands. The effect of this would be to weed out a great deal of litigation that ought never to get into the courts, and also to provide that cases of a certain class should go not only to a certain court, but on dockets by themselves, so that people with short cases should not be subjected to the great uncertainty to which they are now subjected by having their cases wedged in between cases that require a great deal of time for trial. Both the Constitution and the statute provide for a city court which shall have jurisdiction almost equal to that of the superior and circuit courts. If this court were created and the law so amended as to require appeals from justices of the peace in the city to go there, it would greatly relieve the other courts. I would therefore respectfully suggest for your consideration, the ap- pointment of a commission to revise our practice act during the vacation, and report to the next General Assembly; and upon this subject I venture to further suggest that the commission should not be large, for as a rule, a small body can do the work intrusted to it while a large one is getting itself together; and further, I believe we will get the best efforts and the highest grade of service if the commission work without compensation. I am convinced we have many able and public spirited lawyers in this State who feel so deeply interested in this question that they will gladly do this work for the sake of rendering their country a service. On the subject of increasing the number of judges I submit for your consideration — first, that it appears that only a few can be provided for, the county commissioners claiming that they have neither the court room nor the money with which to immediately provide for many more judges. Second, that if the additional court shall in time be created, it will not be necessary, even with future increase of business, to have many more judges in the circuit and superior courts; and, third, if the practice act is re- vised, it will probably change the method of procedure in such a way that not 896 LIVE QUESTIONS. many more judges will be required for a considerable time to come, conse- quently I doubt the wisdom of adding very many more judges just at this time, but inasmuch as some immediate relief is needed and as extra judges are required in the criminal court, it may possibly be necessary, in order to satisfy the bar and the public there, to add five more at once. I would further suggest that the law should provide that it shall be the duty of the chief justice of each court to distribute the business of the court, and assign cases to each judge so that all will have to do their fair share of work.' JOHN P. ALTGELD, Governor. VETO OF BILL TO ENLARGE ASYLUMS. To the Honorable, the Senate: This bill appropriates $120,000 to enlarge the Southern Hospital for the Insane and $120,000 to enlarge the Northern Hospital for the Insane. We have now in this State four great insane asylums. There are in the Southern Hospital for Insane about 900 patients; in the Northern Hospital about 1,100; in the Central Hospital upwards of 1,200, and in the Eastern Hos- pital at Kankakee upwards of 2,100. In addition to these there is a large hospital for insane in Cook county, and yet all of these hospitals provide for only about two-thirds of the insane of the State. Nearly one-third of the insane of the State are either in the county poor-houses, or are being other- wise cared for. There is urgent need of more hospitals. Frequent efforts have been made to found an asylum in the western part of the State, but these efforts have always been defeated by the representatives from the localities where the existing institutions are situated, who are always laboring to secure an enlargement of their institutions. The question arises whether it will be good policy for the State to enlarge these hospitals. If these institutions were intended simply to confine the hope- lessly insane, then there would not be such serious objections to herding so many together, but this is not their purpose. The law contemplates that they shall be hospitals where those who are not yet hopelessly insane may be treated, with a view to their recovery. To carry out this purpose it is necessary that all of the surrounding conditions should be favorable. This cannot be where too great a number are confined in one institution. It is of the greatest importance, in order to facilitate recovery, that all who are not dangerous should be in the open air as much as possible and receive individual attention from their keepers, not only in medical treatment, but in the matter of diet, exercise, work, social intercourse and all matters interesting to them. Instead of this, they are now, from necessity, grouped into^wards and are managed in large squads and owing to the great number they cannot individually exercise as they choose on the grounds, but generally have to go out in groups and then only for a limited time. They soon become institutionized and the con- ditions, instead of being favorable, are nearly all unfavorable for recovery, and as a result, the percentage of recovery in our institutions is very small. The ablest authorities on this subj.ect, men who have studied it carefully, are almost unanimous in the opinion that five hundred is as great a number of patients as should be permitted to be collected at one place. As we have already from two to four times that many in each of our asylums, I feel that "Appendix. 89? it would be a serious mistake to enlarge them. The fact that the cottage, or separate ward plan, is adopted does not meet the objection. While this is the modern plan and is a very great improvement on the old method, still the separate wards must all be in the same enclosure. It is argued in favor of adding wards to the existing asylums, rather than founding new ones, that it saves the expense of an additional superintendent and is otherwise more economical. Even if this were true, it is a sufficient answer that we do not want ta practice a kind of economy which will defeat the very purpose for which the institutions were originally created. Besides, the saving of expense by enlarging an institution has its limitations. There is a point beyond which any further enlargement simply begets waste. Whenever an institution becomes a great, cumbersome and unwieldy machine there grows up a waste that much more than eats up the little that is saved on some things by reason of its size. Whenever an institution becomes so large that one man can no longer oversee it and keep in touch with every part of it, as well as know all about what is going on, then its management not only ceases to be economical, but the institution ceases to perform the functions for which it was created, and instead of being a blessing, instead of being a helper to others, it becomes itself the central object of existence and patients are to it simply a convenience to enable it to draw money from the State Treasury. The reason why some of our asylums have been constantly enlarged was not because this was the best way to care for the insane, but because the institutions and the towns in which they are situated are greedy and want to draw everything possible to themselves, and to accomplish this their represen- tatives in the Legislature combine and defeat any move to found new ones, while they secure appropriations to enlarge the old ones. The whole problem of State institutions is not only unsettled, but unsolved. It is doubtful whether there is an institution on earth that is fully serving the purpose for which it was created. It is certain that very many produce almost the opposite results from those that were expected. Great improvements have been made in the last twenty years and a process of evolution, springing from inquiry and intelligence, is now at work, which may in time develop the best institution possible among men. In the meantime we must be guided by such light as we may have and endeavor to avoid those conditions which we know to be unfavorable. It is high time that we set our face against the policy of enlarging these institutions, for it has already injured us. I therefore return this bill without my approval. JOHN P. ALTGELD. GENERAL MESSAGE ON ASSEMBLY OF LEGISLATURE. Executive Department, Springfield, 111., January 9, 1895. Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives: In compliance with the requirements of the Constitution, I respectfully submit the following information in regard to the condition of the State, and also such recommendations as seem to me to be expedient. As the affairs of the State had been continuously controlled by one political party for thirty-six years, both the reasonable expectations of the public and the existing political conditions called for great changes m the personnel of 57 M 'LIVE OUESTIOMS. the administration. In consequence of this, so large a number of new men became connected with the management of public affairs that it was deemed wise to lay down the general principles which this administration aimed to carry out, and also such definite rules as would facilitate the carrying out of these principles. As there was great pressure for place all along the line of the public service, the following specific instructions were given to all the trustees and superin- tendents of public institutions: First— Do not put a man upon the pay-roll who is not absolutely needed. Second — Do not pay higher salaries in an institution than the service or ability which you get would command outside. Third — Do not keep a man an hour after it is discovered that he is not just the right man for the place, no matter who recommended him, or what political influence he may possess. Fourth — Require vigilance and careful attention of every employe, and promptly discharge any appointee who is guilty of brutality toward patients, or who is guilty of any serious neglect of duty. These instructions have been reiterated at various times with emphasis, and, I believe, have, in general, been observed. CARE OF PATIENTS. The trustees and superintendents were instructed that our great institu- tions were not founded to make comfortable homes for officials, but to take care of the unfortunate, and that the energies of the management must be directed toward giving the inmates the very highest degree of care and comfort that is possible. Further, that the people of this State are liberal and want all who are thrown upon public charity to be properly fed and clothed, and that therefore the standard of diet and of clothing must in no case fall below that of the average self-supporting citizen of this State, and I will say here that I believe the standard in most of our institutions is higher than this. PURCHASE OF SUPPLIES. The system prevailed in this State, which is still found in most other States, of having in each institution an officer who was known to the public as the purchasing agent. This man went into the market and bought where and of whom he pleased, and no matter how honest he may have been, he was still under suspicion. It was observed a number of years ago that the great corporations which have to buy large quantities of supplies had entirely abolished this system, and had introduced in its stead a system of buying on bids> of the lowest bidder. Good economy and the highest moral consideration, as well as public policy, required that the State should purchase its supplies ' in the same way, and thus reduce the possibility of favoritism, corruption and scandal to the minimum. Therefore the following instructions to govern all institutions in this State were given: First — Make out a list of articles that will be needed for a given time, describing each article fully, and~have the typewritigt make ten or twelve copies of this. Second — Send these copies to as many .different business houses dealing in the line of goods required for bids, to be accompanied by samples where APPENDIX. 899 necessary. Then accept the lowest and best bid, reserving in each case the right to reject any goods that may be deemed unsatisfactory. Third — File these bids, together with the list upon which they were based, for a reasonable time, so that they can be inspected by any State officer, if desired. In a number of. institutions the old superintendents remained in charge until the expiration of the quarter ending July i, 1893, and, as the other officers were new, no general effort was made to carry out these rules until after that time, and in some cases the new officers were reluctant to introduce them, but they were told that this was the policy of the administration, and that if they were not in harmony with it a new set of men would have to be appointed who would be in"" harmony. By degrees the new methods were generally adopted and are now fully grounded and established in every public institution in this State. We have been running for nearly a year and a half under the new system, and the result has been a surprise to all, and a gratification to every one favoring business methods. It was soon found that the bids from the most responsible houses upon articles that were considered staple varied from 10 per cent to 25 per cent. This difference was, in nearly all cases, a net gain to the institution, and I have to report the following general results of the new method: First — The office of purchasing agent has been abolished in every institu- tion in the State, thus effecting a saving in salaries of nearly $25,000 a year. Second — The appropriations made by the last Legislature for current expenses of all of the State charitable institutions was only $3,800 in excess of the appropriation made for the same purpose two years before. But owing to the hard times or to other causes there was an average increase of 1,114 in the population of all these institutions over the average of the prior two years, and the cost of maintaining these 1,114 for eighteen months was $237,282. Yet, notwithstanding the cost of maintaining the increased number of persons, there was on January 1, 1895, a surplus in the treasuries of the various insti- tutions amounting to $243,000. This sum added to the cost of caring for the increased number makes a total comparative saving of $476,482. Several of the treasurers have been directed to retain a small amount of the surplus for pos- sible contingencies, and all of the remainder, amounting to $233,482, has been turned back into the State Treasury. The physical condition of the various institutions is better than it ever was, while the standard of living is not excelled anywhere. It is apparent that no matter what the State may desire to buy in the future, whether cheap goods or expensive goods, the new system of purchasing if adhered to is going to make an annual saving to the State for all time to come of nearly half a million of dollars, and I respectfully recom- mend that this money be expended in providing for our people the means of higher education, a subject to be referred to later. SCIENTIFIC METHODS. After the new business methods were fully established, early in December, 1893, the superintendent of each institution was requested to make a thorough examination of the methods, the most advanced theories, and the results of the experiments in similar institutions in this country and in Europe, and to see wherein such institutions differed from ours, and if anything was found elsewhere that was thought to be an improvement upon the methods pursued ^06 UVB QUESTIONS. here, to at once adopt it; also to submit a full report of such investigation oil or before April ist, 1894. Accordingly, last spring each superintendent sub- mitted his report, giving the result of his investigations. These reports have Been printed in a separate volume, and I herewith submit a copy of them. A number of them are very able, and contain valuable suggestions which have been, so far as possible, acted upon. It is confidently believed that our insti- tutions are conducted on as high a scientific plane as any in the world, and that, while some of the European institutions have the advantage of more elaborate and expensive buildings and equipments, yet in other important par- ticulars, relating to the care of inmates, ours are superior. There was also established at Kankakee a laboratory, and a pathologist was employed, who gives all of his time to making microscopical and other scientific investigations, and who devotes at least one hour a day to a general discussion with the physicians of that institution. The result has been to arouse a new interest and create the highest aspirations throughout that great institu- tion. There is every reason why Illinois should lead in this line of scientific work. I believe this pathological work to be of such importance that the trustees of each of the other insane asylums have been requested to establish a laboratory and employ a pathologist for the benefit of said institutions. SOLDIERS AND SAILORS' HOME. In this Home there has been friction between the superintendent and the trustees, due, in part, to the discipline which the superintendent enforced and which the trustees regarded as being too severe. In consequence of these dif- ferences, the superintendent resigned early in November, and the trustees ap- pointed a successor. The business affairs of the Home, however, as well as the physical condition of the Home, are practically perfect, and it should be said, that prior to taking charge of the institution by the outgoing superintendent, more than 160 of the inmates of the Home had been expelled for insubordina- tion, for persistent violation of the rules of the institution and for bad conduct. After being thus expelled, they found themselves penniless by the wayside and nearly all drifted into the alms-houses of the country. Believing that this condition of affairs ought not to continue, the superintendent re-admitted all of the men who had been so expelled and nearly all of them are still in the Home. Many of them have been a constant source of annoyance and trouble and made discipline a necessity, yet I believe that the act of taking them back was humane and right. The trustees have shown the greatest vigilance and care in watching over this institution, and have done everything in their power for the relief and comfort of the old soldiers. I recommend a liberal policy toward the Home. This great State owes these unfortunate veterans a debt of gratitude and we must see to it that their declining years are not only peaceful but comfortable. INDUSTRIAL HOME FOR THE BLIND. The last General Assembly made an appropriation to found an Industrial Home for the Blind, in which these unfortunate people could earn a living and thus cease to be beggars on the street or inmates of alms-houses. In pursu- ance of this object, ground was secured near Douglas Park in Chicago, and a four-story shop with a steam plant attached has been erected, and near it a large four-story brick building, arranged for residence purposes, has been com- APPENDIX. 901 pleted and opened. This will enable many of the blind of the State to become self-supporting. REFORMATORY FOR GIRLS. . The last General Assembly also made appropriations to establish a Reform- atory for girls. To carry out this provision, a board was appointed, a build- ing was rented, and a reform school, in harmony with the act, was opened, and steps were taken to erect a new building. A charming site for this purpose was secured on the banks of Fox river, near Geneva, in Kane county, and the new building is now under roof and will be ready to be opened in the spring. FIRE AT ANNA. On the night of January 3, 189s, a fire destroyed a large part of the main building of the Southern Hospital for the Insane. No lives were lost and all the patients have been properly housed and cared for. I have not the exact data on hand, but recommend that the necessary appropriation be made at once to rebuild the part destroyed. REPORTS OF TRUSTEES, ETC. It would make this message entirely too long for me to refer in detail to the salient features of each State institution, and I am, therefore, obliged to refer you to the reports made by the trustees, and also to the report of the State Board of Charities, all of which are herewith submitted. I must, how- ever, direct your attention to the fact that, with the exception of the school for the education of the deaf and dumb, at Jacksonville, every State institution is overcrowded. I am informed that there are several thousand insane persons in the alms-houses of the State. The institution for the feeble-minded at Lin- coln has between 600 and 700 inmates, and there are now that many applica- tions for .admission by people for whom no room can be found. We need, at once, more room for the feeble-minded and a new asylum for the insane. Those who have given the matter most consideration advise an asylum for epileptics and the hopelessly insane, to which this class of patients from the other four institutions should be removed, their places being filled by those for whom there may yet be hope — that is, make the new institution an asylum and have existing institutions do the work of the hospitals. In. the fall of 1893, and again in the spring of 1894, all of the superintendents and trustees were convened in convention at Springfield, for the purpose of being more fully advised as to the policy of the administration, but more especially for the purpose of discussion and interchange of ideas. While this was a new departure, it was a pronounced success, the discussion in particular being of great benefit and assistance to all present, both in the dissemination of new ideas and the creation of higher aspirations. STATE BOARD OF CHARITIES. The last General Assembly passed an act for the appointment of three local visitors in each county, to serve without fee, but having power to inspect both the jails and the alms-houses in the county. The State Board of Charities made these appointments and already the condition of many of these places has been greatly improved. It is found that there cannot be too much light thrown into the alms-houses and jails; while many of them are kept in the very best 9 02 LIVE QUESTIONS. condition, others are sickening in their filth and wretchedness. In one of the alms-house's a member of the State Board of Charities found a number of children that were not sent to school, and were growing up in utter- neglect. In another, this member found a number of insane men and women practically living in one apartment — and that filthy. It is believed that with the added machinery for inspection, those conditions will soon disappear from our fair States . . STATE BOARD OF HEALTH. This board has held two conventions of the local health officers of the State with a view of getting in touch with every neighborhood, so as to be in the best position possible to arrest the spread of any epidemic or contagious diseases. These conventions have been very instructive and beneficial. The board has also raised the standard of education necessary before beginning the study of medicine. The State has, for a number of years, been laboring to raise the standard of the medical profession, and now it is regarded as the highest in the Union. PRINTER EXPERT. The State Printer Expert has revised the methods of estimating the amount to be paid the printing contractor so as to make them conform to the law, and has thereby saved to the State about $10,000. I call your attention espe- cially to his recommendations as to the revisions of the law governing State printing. INSURANCE DEPARTMENT. The Insurance Superintendent has at the cost of a great deal of labor pre- pared a revision of the laws relating to both fire and life insurance, and I commend this for your consideration. He has also collected as fees, since taking charge of his office, about $15,000 during the balance of the year 1893, and $135,000 for 1894,, making $150,000— which has just been turned into the State Treasury. FACTORY INSPECTION. As our population increased and new machinery was added, a great many thousands of children were employed in certain factories of large cities to do " the work formerly done by adults. They received only a pittance, and while the work in some cases, was light, they all worked long hours and it was soon found that they became dwarfed in both body and mind, often being already old before reaching the age of maturity. In some factories there were no safe- guards against accidents, and employes were being crippled and sometimes killed. In others the sanitary conditions were such as to not only breed disease but to foster immorality, boys and girls being often obliged to use the same filthy closets. Again it was found that the working of long hours in a factory by women, in the end unfitted them for the duties of home and of motherhood, in consequence of which their children were weak and often deformed, and there was growing up a generation of young men and women who were in- ferior both physically and mentally, and the standard of American womanhood and manhood was being lowered. These conditions called for a remedy. The question was not new. All civilized countries have had to deal with it. Eng- land found all these conditions seventy-five years ago and Parliament passed acts to remedy them. Those acts were based on the ground that it is the duty of government to prevent degeneration of its people, that the law of self preser- APPENDIX. 903 vation alone requires this, for an inferior people must go down before a superior, iboth on the field and in civil life. These acts of Parliament were resisted by nearly all the wealth and by the Church of England.- It was claimed they would ruin the British Empire, but Parliament made new investigations and passed still more stringent measures, until after a struggle of fifty years it had perfected the most comprehensive system of factory legislation in the world. Some of her greatest statesmen now consider this one of the grandest achievements of the empire. All the civilized countries of the old world, and the older and more advanced States of our country have adopted similar legis- lation. .Following these examples, the last General Assembly passed an act to remedy the -evils complained of. It has now been in operation a little over a year and a half, and while it is in many respects crude and imperfect, and may, in a few exceptional cases, have done an injustice, yet it has accomplished much for humanity. The foul sanitary conditions have almost been wiped out. More protection against accidents has been enforced, and the scene of thousands of little children stunting their lives by working ten hours a day in a factory, doing the work of adults for a mere pittance, no longer disgraces the State. HISTORICAL LIBRARY BOARD. This board has prepared a complete list or catalogue of all the papers and books in the library, and realizing that on account of the romantic history and wonderful achievements of this State, arid its rapidly increasing greatness, its history must soon attract general interest, the board has made zealous efforts to procure all the papers, books and documents that tend to throw any light on the early development of our State and the-Northwest country, and it now invites correspondence from all who have any documents of this character in their possession. BOARD OF LIVE STOCK COMMISSIONERS. This board has been exceedingly vigilant, and has been able to prevent the spread of any contagious diseases among the horses and other animals of the State. But it was found that the State inspection which we were main- taining af Chicago for the purpose of preventing traffic in diseased cattle was a farce. The inspection was largely for its effect on foreign markets, the city of Chicago having its own inspectors, who were supposed to look after the meat used by the city. Owing to the vast extent of the Union Stock Yards, and the hostility of many of the merchants there to any interference by the State, but little could be done without an army of men. In company with the board, I attended a meeting of the stock yard merchants, and they were informed that as this inspection was largely for their benefit, they must either cooperate with the State or the inspection would be withdrawn entirely. There- upon the Stock Yard Exchange adopted new regulations and proceeded to cooperate with the State authorities, and it is believed the traffic in diseased cattle has been substantially broken up. Some legislation, however, is urgently needed to enable the board to deal more effectively with men who defy the authorities; also to enable the commissioners to inspect all places wherein any cattle are confined. 904 LIVE QUESTIONS. WOMEN IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE. This administration has taken a new departure by appointing a number of women on important boards and to other positions. While this was not good politics, from either a personal or party standpoint, it was believed to be eter- nally right, and was done solely on the ground of justice. The army of women who are obliged to earn their own bread is constantly increasing. At best they have a hard struggle to maintain themselves. Justice required that the same rewards and honors that encourage and incite men should be equally in reach of women in every field of activity. And I am glad to report that they have met every reasonable expectation. As a rule, they have done their work well. PENITENTIARIES. Owing to the panic and the consequent paralysis of business, every State in the Union has met with very great difficulty in keeping its prisoners em- ployed. In a number of States in which the contract system still prevails, convicts have been offered at forty cents a day without meeting with any employer. Some of the officials of this State visited a number of the large penitentiaries in the States east of us, and everywhere found hundreds of con- victs idle. The health of the prisoners, as well as the highest moral and economic considerations, require that they should work. In Illinois every convict has been kept steadily at work with the loss of scarcely a day. The contract system has been prohibited by the Constitution, but before this was done a number of contracts had been made which did not expire until October, 1894. Formerly, -from 250 to 400 men were sometimes employed in one indus- try, thus producing an amount of goods which seriously affected the market, and thus competing directly with outside free labor. The commissioners and officers appointed in the spring of 1893 were instructed that they must: First; comply with the Constitution and abolish the contract system entirely; second, that the prisoners must be worked on State account, and, third, that enough new industries must be introduced into the prisons so that the number of convicts working at any one industry might be reduced to as nearly 100. as pos- sible, thus making the competition with outside free labor the minimum. This policy has been carried out. Owing to the severe business depres- sion, it was exceedingly difficult to establish new industries; the great majority of manufacturing establishments outside of prisons were obliged to shut down because they could find no market for their products; but in spite of these obstacles, the prison officials were obliged to go ahead and they have met with a remarkable degree of success. It is to be deprecated that convict labor should in any way, even in the slightest degree, be brought in competition with free labor. To reduce this competition to the minimum, the present system has been adopted. Every consideration of humanity emphasizes that the convicts should not be allowed to remain in idleness, and if this consideration did not control it would be unjust to the tax-payers to make no effort to secure some revenue from the work of the prisoners. If the Legislature can suggest a plan better than the one now in force, and which will make less the competition with free labor, we will be most happy to cooperate in its enforcement. The present commissioners have given to the discharge of their duties more time than was ever before done in the history of the State. At Joliet APPENDIX. 905 one of them has given all of his time, and the other two from a third to a half of their time. CHESTER, The prison at Chester has never been self-sustaining. The annual deficit has always been about $100,000. A number of industries are carried on there, brick-making being one of them, and a superior quality of brick is manu- factured. New ovens have been put in for this purpose, and the entire prison has been remodeled and is now in excellent condition. There are at present 694 convicts confined there, and the commissioners report that by the introduc- tion of better business methods they have so far reduced the expense of the management that they will need only $50,000 a year to meet the deficit, instead of $100,000, as heretofore, and they believe that in the near future the prison can be made self-sustaining. The insane asylum connected with this prison has been entirely remodeled. A new water supply has been put in and it is now lighted by electricity and heated by steam. Formerly it was lighted by oil lamps and heated by stoves, which stood in the rooms occupied by insane criminals. For a better understanding of the present condition of this penitentiary and the changes made there, I refer you to the report of the commissioners, here- with submitted. JOLIET. The former commissioners of this prison on October 1, 1892, reported to the Governor as follows: "Balance of cash now on hand and in banks, .$63,494.91. This institution is self-sustaining." They then continued in charge of the prison until toward the end of January, 1893, and before retiring they spread a statement upon the records of the prison. Among other things they said: "There was, as on October 1st, 1892, cash on hand and in banks, $63,494.91, and on January 24th, 1893, cash on hand and in banks, $39,017.70, a falling off of $24,477.70." And the January bills were still unpaid. They also spread on the records an explanation of this difference, claiming that about $1,850 was spent in repairs, but the principal reason was "the expiration of high-priced contracts," meaning contracts for convicts. In other words, the prison was running behind. Making allowance for the sum of $1,850, which they claimed had been put into permanent improve- ment, it still left a deficit of $22,627.70 between the earnings and expenses of the penitentiary, which had accrued during the months of October, November and December. They did not pay the bills for January, but the same conditions existed during that month, so that during the last four months that the old commissioners had charge of the prison there was a monthly deficit between the earnings and expenses of the prison of about $7,542 per month, making in the neighborhood of $90,000 a year if continued, or $180,000 for two years. It is true that the prison- had once been self-sustaining, and among other rea- sons given by the old commissioners in attempting to account for this deficit, was the fact that since the prohibition of contract labor, contractors felt inse- cure, and therefore the commissioners could not get as high wages for the con- victs as they formerly did. The present administration took charge of the prison toward the end of January, 1893, and found nearly all the prisoners at work at prices which had been fixed by the former commissioners, and found 906 LIVE QUESTIONS. that under this arrangement the prison must continue to run behind more than $7,000 per month, just as it had during the last four months that the old commissioners ran it. At that time there were 1,372 convicts in the prison, and at present there are 1,566 convicts there. The business depression already referred to was felt most keenly in the prison. The city of Joliet itself is filled with manufacturing establishments, all of which were idle; yet, in spite of this, the commissioners have introduced five new industries and changed five others to State account, so that there are now ten industries carried on there on State account, and two are still in the hands of contractors. Under con- tracts which were let eight., years ago, 539 convicts were bound to contractors until some time in October last. Owing to the want of funds with which to start new industries, 321 convicts are still working under old contracts. The introduction of new industries involved for a time a loss io the insti- tution. It took time, to install them, time to make the necessary arrangements, to get the right kind of material, and time for the convicts to learn the new work, so that there was necessarily a falling off in the earnings during that period. Again, the first work produced by the 'Convicts working at a new trade was not of the highest order, and in consequence had to be sold as inferior goods. This also seriously affected the earning capacity of the prison, but all of these obstacles have been overcome in connection with the industries now established. It appears from the report of the commissioners, herewith submitted, that the difference between the earnings and the expenses of the prison from October 1, 1892, to October 1, 1894, is $129,144.48. Of this sum, $76,807.10 accrued from October 1, 1892, to October 1, 1893, and $52,337.38 during the last year. Of the $76;8o7.io of shortage which accrued during the first year, about $29,872.18 accrued during the months of October, November, December and January, during which time the old commissioners had charge. The present commissioners believe that with a revival of business the prison will be made entirely self-sustaining under the new system. In their report they say they will need about $100,000 for this purpose. If this is granted them, they will put the last convict in the institution at work on State account, and thus finally put an end to the old convict contract system, a system which made reform impossible by degrading and hardening the convict into a brute, while it yielded fortunes to the contractor. The penitentiary having been long in charge of contractors who could not be expected to spend any money in improvements, it was found that very expensive repairs in the way of making new floors, roofs, etc., were necessary. Then it was-found that the State had no steam plant to speak of and no power plant whatever. The new commissioners have put in a shop, have built a power house, and have built a complete steam and electric light system- The State now has- at Joliet one of the very best power plants to be found in the country. The power used in the shops is electricity. I respectfully suggest that in accordance with the custom, your honorable bodies will appoint ' a commission to visit this, as well as the other institutions, and make a special inspection of the changes and improvements which have been made. PARDONS AND INEQUALITY OF SENTENCES. In connection with what is said about our penitentiaries, I feel it my duty to urgently call your attention to the subject of pardons, and of the inequality of sentences growing out of the present method of administering our criminal APPENDIX. 907 laws. The present system of having a fixed, ironclad sentence for each offense, without regard to the age or character of the offender, or to the degree of his criminality, is a relic of barbarism. Under this system, it frequently happens that the young are sentenced for a long term of imprisonment because they happen to be poorly defended, or there is a vigorous prosecution, while the hardened criminal, tried in another county, receives a short term of impris- onment for the same offense, because he happens to be well defended or there is a weak prosecution. As each case is tried by a different jury it is impossible to have system or regularity about it. My attention has been repeatedly called to cases where boys not yet twenty years old were sentenced to the peniten- tiary for fifteen years, while scores of hardened and very dangerous criminals were sentenced for two or three years for the same offense, and were then turned loose upon society. At present all are turned out of the prison without reference to their ability to maintain themselves. It is difficult for a man who has not been in prison to get work, and it is infinitely more difficult for him who is weakened by the degradations and humiliations of a prison experi- ence. If he tells where he last worked he is jeered at and ordered away. He is, obliged to lie at the start. If he gets work he is found out and dis- charged. Sometimes he is blackmailed, very frequently he is literally forced back into crime, and with this his hope of an honorable life dies out. At this point there is born for society a desperate criminal, whose bloody hand will always be near its throat, and when it thereafter shivers at the sight of his awful deeds, can it then truthfully say it did not help beget him? The entire system should be changed. The court and jury should do noth- ing except ascertain the guilt of the . defendant and simply sentence him to prison, and the release of the prisoner should then depend upon circumstances. The young and those who are not yet hardened, who sinned in a moment of temptation or excitement, or in a moment of weakness, should be detained the minimum length of time and then released, but not until after employment and a home has been found for them. Experience shows that prison officials can get work for discharged prisoners when the latter can not. The hardened criminal and those who are natural enemies of society should be detained the maximum length of time. This system was strongly urged by my immediate predecessor in office, in language more eloquent than is at my command, but I wish to urge it with the same earnestness. NUMBER OF PARDONS. During the twenty years immediately preceding my administration there were, altogether, 1,673 pardons and commutations granted, making an average of 84 2-3 pardons and commutations for each year. Governor Cullom, during the six years of his incumbency, granted 447 pardons, or an average of 72J4 per year. During the two years of my administration I have granted 144 par- dons and commutations, being an average of 72 per year. I have thus fallen below the average in the granting of pardons and commutations. On the other hand, the number of prisoners and consequently the number of applica- tions for pardons have greatly increased. We frequently receive from three to five applications for pardons a day, and the work this entails is so great that it cannot be properly attended to by one man. Besides, in many cases, this is not the proper method of getting relief, whereas, if prisoners were released 9o8 LIVE QUESTIONS. under a system of parole already discussed, every prisoner would stand on his own merits. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. During the past two years there have been seven men hanged in this State, and I have commuted the death penalty to imprisonment for life in two other cases. I respectfully submit for your consideration the question as to whether the death penalty does any substantial good, whether we are any better off than they are in those States where they long ago abolished it, • whether it is not barbarous and degrading in its effects, and whether it would not be better to have a more rational system of managing our prisons, and then abolish capital punishment entirely. STATE REFORMATORY AT PONTIAC. Formerly this was a reform school for boys who did not exceed sixteen years of age. Four years ago, the General Assembly passed an act making it a State reformatory for all offenders under twenty-one years of age. Under the new law, prisoners are sent there under an indeterminate sen- tence; that is, the court simply determines whether they are or are not guilty and sentences them to the institution where they have to remain at least a year or may be held for a number of years. The managers are in possession of all the information that can be had touching the previous character and career of the young offender, his education, habits of industry, etc. After the expiration of one year, they may parole a prisoner for a time, provided they first find him a home and suitable employment. If, during this parole, he does well, he is ultimately released, if not, they have the power to take him back. If the prisoner is vicious or for other reasons it is not deemed for the best interests of society to put him on parole, he is kept in the institution for the maximum number of years the law fixes as the penalty for the offense he has committed. In this institution the aim is to give every young man the rudiments of an English education, such higher and moral instruction as may be practic- able, and also, as far as possible, to teach him a trade; above all, to inculcate habits of industry and morality. Owing to the want of harmony in the board and the failure of some con- tractors, practically nothing was done towards changing the institution until about eighteen months ago. Since that time three new buildings have been erected and the old ones have been considerably changed and remodeled. There are now nine schools and nearly twice that many workshops or schools for mechanical training, in operation. Every inmate is compelled to devote certain hours to study and recitation, and certain other fixed hours to work in a shop learning the use of tools. In addition to these hours of study, the older prisoners are required to work at the manufacture of articles for sale, so- that the institution is at once a large prison, an English school, a collection of workshops in which instruction is given, and a manufacturing establishment. A good band has been organized among them, and the superintendent and' managers have been requested to employ a competent officer to drill the boys in military exercises every day, first as a means of physical exercise, but more particularly for the development of a higher spirit and a better tone among them. There are now 812 boys and young men there. During the last year, 266' Appendix. 909 prisoners were paroled under the provisions of the law. Homes and employ- ment were found for all of them before leaving the institution and the officers of the prison continued in correspondence both with the prisoners and with their employers, and the results have been gratifying beyond the hopes of the friends of the institution. Out of the 266 paroled, 231 are reported as doing well. The remaining are reported as follows: Returned to prison, 10; ran away or ceased to report, 24; died, 1. The theory upon which the reformatory was founded, while not entirely new, had had no trial in the west, and only a limited trial anywhere in the world. Feeling that Illinois should have a re- formatory that was second to none, the aim has been to place on the board of this institution men imbued with the highest motives, who are familiar with the literature relating to reformatories and the experiments which have been made, and who felt an enthusiasm on this subject. And the aim has been to keep a man in immediate charge who should not only be familiar with all the learning relating to the subject, but who should bring to the institution the experience of a business man, a prison manager, an educator, and a man thoroughly familiar with the practical methods most successfully employed in modern reformatories. As a result of the combined efforts of these men, we now have a State reformatory which is the equal of any in this country, and is moving along lines which will soon make it one of the very best in the world. In this connection, I recommend that the maximum age of young men eligible to this institution be changed from twenty-one to thirty years, so as to make it in this respect correspond to the New York Reformatory, at Elmira. NORMAL UNIVERSITIES. The excellence of the public schools of the State has for years been a matter of congratulation with our people, and some years ago the General Assembly provided for establishing in this State two normal universities in order to furnish the young men and women of the State, who desired to follow school teaching as a profession, an opportunity to prepare themselves for this work. One was located at Carbondale and the other at Normal, and both of them have been maintained at State expense, and have been in fairly pros- perous condition. Some complaint was made that too many children were admitted, merely because they paid tuition, and there was a tendency for the institutions to become neighborhood high schools rather than normal univer- sities. It was deemed proper to impress upon the officers of these institutions the importance of arresting this tendency, and of admitting only such children from the neighborhood as were necessary to form model schools, and outside of this, to invite the attendance only of such as expected to follow teaching. Both of these institutions are now in a more prosperous condition than they were at any prior period in their history, and as they have much to do in determining the character of the common schools of the State, I recommend a most liberal policy toward them. HIGHER EDUCATION. While we have laid broad and deep the foundations of our educational system, and have built well thereon, we have thus far not afforded the young men and women of the State the means of a higher education that other States offer, and as a consequence, thousands of our young men and women annually go away to neighboring States, or to Eastern States to get these advantages. 9io LIVE QUESTIONS. We have a large number of private colleges which are doing excellent work, and should be encouraged, but they have not the necessary means to procure the extensive equipment that is now essential to a higher institution of learn- ing. This can only be supplied by institutions which have been richly en- dowed by private munificence, or which receive support from the State. Most of the large educational institutions in the Mississippi Valley are, at least partially, maintained by the State. This is notably so in Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri and Iowa. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS. For many years -there has been maintained at Champaign, in this State, . partly at State expense, a university, now know as the University of Illinois. For some reason our people do not seem to know much about it. By many it is regarded as an agricultural school. It has, however, for years, had some of the most eminent men in the country among its faculty, and has been doing a high grade of work. There is an agricultural experiment station maintained there, which is only incidental to the university and gives the students that much of an additional advantage, giving them the facilities for acquiring knowl- edge in regard to tree planting and in regard to everything pertaining to agri- culture, without extra expense. A United States military officer is stationed there, who gives instruction in military science, so that the student gets the benefit of military training in the form of exercises, without additional ex- penditure or loss of time. The equipment of the University for teaching the modern sciences is very good, and the number of students in the engineering department has so increased that the last General Assembly made a large appropriation for constructing an engineering building. This building has been completed and is now in use, and I am informed by men who have exam- ined the equipment of other large educational institutions of this country that the University of Illinois has now the best arranged and the best equipped engineering department, especially electrical engineering department, that there . is in the Mississippi Valley, and as good as any in the country. The University had large scientific collections and obtained a very large addition to its museum from the World's Columbian Exposition, but it has not now the room to place these specimens. Large quantities have to be kept in boxes, and there is urgently needed a library and museum building. The number of students at the University has now reached nearly 800 and is rapidly increasing. Steps have been taken to bring the institution more fully to the knowledge of the people of the State, and it is believed that the number of students will double in a very short time. Inasmuch as Illinois is now one of the wealthiest and great- est States on the globe, as its people lead all others in nearly every field of human activity, and as we have not only invited the attention but won the admiration of the world by our achievements, I submit that Illinois should have one of the greatest educational institutions on earth. We have the wealth, the people and the enterprise to make it. We should have a university that will remain free from the dilettanteism now found in some sections of the country, that will continue to inculcate those principles of a rugged, sturdy manhood and honest devotion to country, those principles of civil liberty and of free government which have made our country great and glorious in the sight of the world, and I most earnestly urge a liberal policy toward this insti- tution of learning. NEW BUILDINGS. During the last two years, thirteen new buildings have been erected for the State, the most important being the Engineering Hall at the University. A BETTER CIVIL SERVICE. I would here suggest that there is urgent need of legislation in regard to the civil service that will relieve executive officers, both State and municipal, of the constant and overwhelming importunity for place. In a great State like ours, and in a great city like Chicago, this importunity is so constant as to test the powers of physical endurance, besides taking up so much time as to seriously interfere with public business. Owing to the large number of men who were out of employment, the last two years have been especially trying in this respect. I doubt the wisdom of a system that forever keeps the same men on "the pay-roll, for it is not calculated to produce the highest degree of efficiency. Every executive officer or head of department, whether • State or municipal, being responsible for the conduct of his office, should, sub- ject to some general rules, have the power of discharging any employe when, in his judgment, it is best for the service; but when he does so, the place should be filled by taking the first from a list of names selected on the ground of merit by an examining board. This would take away the temptation to remove in order to make room for favorites, and, at the same time, it would relieve the officer of the embarrassing importunities on the part of that limit- less number of good men who want to find places for friends. We must strike a mean between the retention of incompetents and the distribution of spoils. PUBLISHING OF PAY-ROLLS. The trustees and superintendents have all been instructed to include in their reports the complete pay-rolls of their institutions, giving the name of every man or woman to whom money has been paid, the amount paid each, and what service has been rendered. These reports are printed, so that every tax-payer in the State can see who is drawing money from the State Treasury. This never before has been done, but it is believed that when once firmly established it will be a great protection to the public. ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN CANAL. It gives me pleasure to report that the canal commissioners have offered to pay $50,000 into the State Treasury, which will be done at once. Nothing of the kind has occurred for nearly twenty years. The canal depends largely on the carrying of building stone to Chicago. This business was good until about two years ago, but almost dead for more than a year, yet the commis- sioners have effected such a saving in the operating expenses that the net earn- ings of the canal greatly exceed those of more prosperous years, so that after turning $50,000 into the State Treasury they will still have a surplus of $38,000 to meet possible contingencies. This $50,000 added to $150,000 from the In- surance Department, $233,484 by the charitable institutions and $92,000 by the Illinois World's Fair board, hereafter mentioned, makes over $525,000 that has been or is ready to be turned into the State Treasury since January 1, 1895. $t* LIVE QuMsfidNS. EXTENDING LINCOLN PARK. As land becomes more valuable there is a constant effort on the part of speculators to nnrice new land in the lake along the shore on the north side at Chicago, and some riparian owners, in violation of law, build piers into the water for this purpose. This shore should be saved for the public, so far as possible. As Lincoln Park is already much too small to accommodate the multitudes of people who seek pure air and recreation there, and as it can only be extended by utilizing the shallow waters of the lake for that purpose, I recommend such legislation as will enable the park commissioners to acquire the riparian rights and to extend Lincoln Park and the drives to Evanston. This would protect the shore and make the grandest park in the world. ELECTION LAWS. Our election machinery has been greatly improved during the last ten years, but there are yet very grave defects in it. Until we place every candi- date for office before the public on his own merits, and enable every citizen to cast his ballot without any hindrance or embarrassment of any kind, we will not have done our duty. This State should have the most perfect system for giving expression to the popular will that can be devised, and I recom- mend a careful revision of our election laws. ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN . LARGE CITIES. The condition of business in the courts of Chicago almost amounts to a denial of justice. It takes years to get a case finally settled by the courts, while the expense, annoyance and loss of time involved in watching it are so great that the poor cannot stand it and business men cannot afford it. Liti- gants are worn out and the subject matter of dispute often becomes useless before the courts get done with it. This is not the fault of the judges, but of the system, which in its practical workings often discourages the honest man and encourages the dishonest one, for it enables him to wear the former out. Urged by the bar, the number of judges was greatly increased by the - last General Assembly, but the conditions are almost the same. We now have twenty-eight judges in Cook county alone, while there are only thirty- four in all England, Ireland and Wales. In England, most cases are disposed of at once. The dishonest man does not find it to his interest to go into the courts there, while we, with our system of distinctions and delays, almost offer him a premium to do so. We borrowed our system of jurisprudence from England more than a century ago, when it was loaded down with absurd distinctions and formalities. We have clung tenaciously to its faults while England long ago brushed them aside. Three-quarters of a century ago that country began to reform its judi- cial procedure by wiping out all useless distinctions and formalities and making all procedure simple and disposing of each case promptly on its merits, and their appellate courts now revise cases only when it is shown that an actual injustice has been done and not simply because some rule or useless formality has been disregarded. As regards the administration of justice we are to-day three-quarters" of a century behind that country from which we borrowed ,_. our system. We may be great in politics, but do not yet lead the way in APPENDIX. 913 statesmanship. The whole system should be revised and simplified so that it will give our people more prompt and speedy justice and less fine spun law. JUSTICE COURTS. I must again call attention to the conditions surrounding the police and justice courts of Chicago. They are a disgrace, and we will not rise to the demands of the occasion if we do not devise some remedy for these evils. I also again call attention to the subject of permitting any officer connected with the administration of justice to, keep fees. This is -the very foundation upon which the whole structure of fraud, extortions and oppression rests. No man's bread should depend upon the amount of business he can "drum up" around a so-called court of justice. Both of these subjects are discussed at length in my message to the last General Assembly, and I refer to it for further discussion. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION. In June, 1891, the General Assembly passed an act to enable the State to participate in the World's Columbian Exposition, at Chicago, and it author- ized the State Board of Agriculture to erect a building and make such exhibit as would illustrate "the natural resources of the State, together with the methods employed and results accomplished by the State in its municipal capacity throughout its various departments, boards, commissions and other agencies in the work of forming the moral, educational and material welfare of its inhabitants." Under this law the board was authorized only to make an exhibit. Subsequently, when it was more fully realized that we were in a sense the host, some of our people regretted that provisions had not been made for the social and hospitable amenities. A very complete and magnificent ex- hibit was made, however, of the resources and products of the State, and of the workings of our civil institutions, and the whole enterprise was conducted with such fidelity on the part of the board that, contrary to the usual experi- ence in such cases, instead of ending with a deficit, the board has' on hand nearly $89,000 of the moneys which were at its disposal, and this is now ready to be turned into the State Treasury. The same law which created this board also provided for the creation of an Illinois Woman's Exposition Board for the purpose of exhibiting the industries of the women of the State, and 10 per cent of the $800,000 which was appropriated for exposition purposes, that is $80,000, was set apart for their use. The women on this board worked hard for several years, and succeeded in making a collection and an exhibition which reflected great credit upon them and upon the women of the State, and they managed the business part of it with such care and ability that they have left "over $3,000 to be turned into the State Treasury. Special boards were created to exhibit the dairy, clay, fruit and apiary products of the State. Many of the exhibits made by the State of Illinois were the best on the ground. Since the Columbian Exposition the State Board of Agriculture has permanently located the State Fair at Springfield. It has already erected one very large building, and is about to erect others, and a very successful fair was held by it this last fall. This State Fair has become a State institu- tion and promises to be one of great importance. It may be a satisfaction to our people to know that, owing to the vast extent and great variety of our resources and of the high order of our exhibits, the State Fair of Illinois is 9H LIVE QUESTIONS. now regarded as the best in 'this country, and the dates for holding the fairs of other States of the Union are fixed so as not to clash with the State Fair of Illinois. The State Board of Agriculture has also recently held in Chicago a Horse, Fat Stock and Poultry Show, which was very successful. The effect of these industrial exhibitions, displaying not only our products and the superior character of our domestic animals, but to a certain extent the skill and the genius of our people, can scarcely be estimated as an educative force which constantly elevates our standard and creates that emulation which seeks still greater and greater excellence. The World's Columbian Exposition brought us to the attention of the whole civilized world and won for us the admiration of all men. In consequence of this we now occupy a position where the eyes of the world are upon us, and where we can neither retrograde nor stand still without experiencing a sense" of deep humiliation. We must move on in order to hold the high position we have taken. In this connec- tion I would suggest that we need in Chicago a large building in which to hold expositions, conventions, and for accommodating other great gatherings that are of a semi-public character and outside the line of mere entertainments. The State now pays annually a large sum as rental for the use of armories for the First Brigade of the Illinois National Guard. If the city of Chicago will give enough ground on the lake front for that purpose, and if the public- spirited citizens will contribute enough money to meet any deficit, then I would recommend an appropriation for the purpose of erecting such a building of an amount equal to that upon which the rental we now pay would yield five per cent interest. This, of course, with the understanding that the National Guard have priority in the right to use such building for armory and other purposes, and to use it exclusively in times of trouble or public disturbances. REVENUE SYSTEM. Whatever may be said of the "theory of our revenue system in this State, it is, in its practical workings, a giant of injustice. Under it the great con- centrations of wealth contribute comparatively little, while the owners of small and moderate sized properties are forced to bear nearly all the burdens of the government. The personal property of the very rich is scarcely taxed at all. There are thousands of men in this State who have great fortunes invested in stocks, bonds, and other forms of personal property, upon which they do not pay a dollar, yet they enjoy all of the educational facilities, all of the protection and other advantages of the government just as much as their neighbors do, and, curiously enough, these are very often the men .who have most to say about patriotism and the duties of citizenship. The failure to assess personal property is due in part to the fact that there is no method of compelling every man to honestly state what he has. Again, in the assessment of real estate the greatest inequality is found between the assessments of small and the assessments on valuable pieces of property. For example, in Chicago the store of the small merchant and the home of the mechanic or man of moderate means is assessed at from 25 to 40 per cent of its cash market value, while large business blocks held by very wealthy men are assessed at from 15 to 20 per cent, and the large and magnificent residences are assessed at from 8 to 15 per cent of their cash market value, while their luxurious contents, often worth from $50,000 to $100,000, are scarcely mentioned upon the assessor's books at all. Most of the injustice in the assessment of tangible property, such. APPENDIX. 915 as real estate, is directly due to corruption. It is found that large holders of real estate first employ agents to manage it and to keep the taxes down. These agents have a go'-between who arranges with some assistant assessor, whereby, for a consideration, the assessment on certain pieces of property is lowered so that the property owner saves from five to ten times the amount he advances to the assessor. The result of all this is that the men of moder- ate means, the men of small holdings, pay from two to four times as much in proportion to their ability as do the very wealthy, who do more in every way to increase the expense of the government. The moderate property-holder rarely ever calls for extra police protection, and never for military protection. The large property-holders use both. It is always a most difficult matter to legislate against corruption, but it is believed that if greater publicity could be given to assessments it would have a good effect. I am informed that in some cities assessments are published in the newspapers by blocks, giving in each case the name of the owner and a description of the property, together with the amount of the assessment. This has been found to work well. Another source of great injustice is the fact that almost every great interest has managed to get special legislation changing the method of listing its property. This makes uniformity of assessment between different kinds of property impossible. If the present system could be entirely wiped out, and a simple statute enacted providing that everything that has a market value shall be assessed, either at that market value, or at a certain fixed per cent of its market value, it would, at least, make fair assessment a possibility. It is the wilderness of legislation as to detail that has produced the present mon- strosity. A prominent citizen of Chicago has prepared a statement which I attach as an exhibit because of remarkable facts it contains and because it suggests a plan for uniform assessments that may be of value. ASSESSING CORPORATIONS. Under our law the corporations are assessed by the State Board of Equali- zation. This board is composed of one member from each congressional dis- trict of the State. Theoretically a board thus composed is supposed to labor simply for a fair and equal assessment throughout the State and then to levy an assessment upon the corporations which will be in keeping with the assessment levied upon other property, but in practice the board has been almost the opposite of this, and has demonstrated conclusively that a fair equalization between the different counties of the State by a board thus com- posed cannot be had, and second, that a fair assessment of corporate property, by such a board, seems to be an impossibility. So far as it does anything on the subject of equalization, it is simply an effort by one or more sections of the State to throw the burden onto some other portion of the State. Upon this subject I respectfully submit that, the State tax being now only 31 cents on $ioo, while the local taxes in the various counties range from 350 to 750 cents on $100, there is no longer any need of the Board of Equalization. If the assessment of property in some counties were to be a little lower than in others, the difference made in the State tax would be scarcely perceptible, and, as nearly all the counties in the State are obliged to keep their assessment up to a reasonable point in order to raise the needed local revenue, if the State tax were levied directly upon whatever assessments the counties made, very little, if any, injustice would be done, while the present system has from the 916 LIVE QUESTIONS. beginning been a source of wrong. Again, while the property of most of the corporations of the State, especially of the smaller ones, may be assessed its fair proportion, large amounts of property belonging to the more wealthy and powerful corporations are shielded from taxation by this Board of Equalization. A few of the members do their best to make an honest assessment, but the majority ignores them. There are in Chicago alone a few corporations which between them possess more than $200,000,000 of property, over and above what is assessed, that escapes all taxation of every kind and character — property, the value of which can be ascertained just as readily as if it were real estate, and there is not a farm in the State but what is taxed. One corporation alone, which subjected the State to a large expense last summer to protect its prop- erty, has in the neighborhood of $40,000,000 of property upon which it pays no taxes whatever. Indeed, it is the corporations that shirk the payment of their taxes that are the first. to call upon the State or the local authorities for pro- tection. When an officer elected as a member of the Board of Equalization, and sworn to do his duty, comes to the Capitol and labors night and day, resorting to every means within his power to shield some particular corpora- tion from assessment, and, by making combinations with other members, is enabled finally to save a corporation anywhere from $100,000 to $400,000 in taxes, the public must form its own conclusions as to the character, the color and the size of the argument which led to the betrayal of an official trust. Most of the business, the manufacturing and the other great interests of the State are now carried on in the name of corporations. These corporations should be treated with the same consideration that is shown private individuals. They should not be excessively taxed because they are corporations. On the other hand, they should not be permitted to escape bearing their share of the public burdens simply because they are great and powerful. Experience has shown that a division of responsibility is the mother of corruption. As long as a dishonest man feels that the public gaze is on him individually, he will keep up at least a semblance of honesty, but when a dozen men are asso- ciated with him he will brazenly pocket the wages of corruption. So far as the assessment of corporations is concerned, some State officer should be designated to ascertain and place upon his books the fair market value of the stock of corporations and upon this such an assessment should be made as would harmonize with the assessment placed upon other property in the State. But in any case it has been demonstrated that the State Board of Equalization is not only a failure, but an obstruction, and it should be abolished. FOREIGN CORPORATIONS. At present there is no adequate provision for taxing corporations that are organized in other States. There are a number of such corporations that do an enormous business in our State and make money off our people, but con- tribute scarcely anything to support our government. Under the law as it now stands, we can only assess such tangible property as they see fit to keep here. I am informed that there are several corporations that were once organized under our laws and after some years they surrendered their charters and organized under the laws of another State in order to escape their share of the taxes here, and as nearly all of their business is done here they pay but little tax in the State where they are now organized, thus escaping almost entirely. This should be stopped. While the men who manage these corporations are all APPENDIX. 917 honorable men, it will require carefully drawn and stringent legislation to make good citizens of them in this regard. NEWSPAPER PROPERTY, ETC. While most corporations are assessed by the State Board of Equalization, there is upon the statute books an act which provides that companies formed for certain purposes, one of these being the publication of newspapers, shall be assessed as the property of private individuals is assessed. This at first blush looks harmless, but when more carefully examined it is found that only the tangible property, such as presses, etc., can be assessed, and under this clause many corporations which have not much tangible property, but do have a large business good will that would sell for cash in the market, and which make enormous profits, practically escape taxation. If their capital stock were assessed its market value would have to be considered, and that would be partially determined by the dividends. For example, one of the oldest daily morning papers of Chicago has for, very many years annually earned net profits amounting to upwards of $250,000, which would be large dividends on between $3,000,000 and $4,000,000. During last summer the owners of this paper refused to accept a cash offer of $3,000,000 for that property, thus show- ing that they valued it at a still higher figure. Yet the company which owns this paper pays taxes on an assessment of only $18,000. In the case of small papers this law may not work so great an injustice, for the tangible property may represent nearly all there is of value, but in the case of corporations having an established business which has a market value and could be sold in the open market, this is not the case. The publishers of this great paper assume the right, almost, to dictate to the community upon every public question. They assume the right to denounce whomsoever they please. They are in a sense above and beyond the law, for a poor private individual has no practical remedy against an unjust attack upon its part, and yet they manage to throw the burden of supporting, our government upon the shoulders of others. INHERITANCE TAX. A number of the older States of the Union, notably Pennsylvania and New York, recognizing that large concentrations of capital, especially per- sonal property, do not pay their share of taxes, have adopted what is called an inheritance tax, whereby the estate of a deceased person has to pay a certain per cent into the State Treasury before it can be distributed, this per cent being generally on a sliding scale, small estates being entirely exempt and large estates paying a high percentage. Under the operation of this law these States annually collect large sums of money. In the State of New York nearly a million of dollars was collected from one estate. I respectfully urge the adoption of similar laws here, and the abolition of all State taxes. REPORTS OF STATE OFFICERS. I call your attention to the reports of the various State officers. The Auditor has weeded out the rotten building and loan associations, and the examination of State banks is so thorough that not one out of the 126 State banks failed during the late panic, while many private and National banks did. Under new legislation the Secretary of State turned about $40,000 more fees 9i8 LIVE QUESTIONS. into the State Treasury last year than ever before. Both of these officers make important recommendations. THE RAILROAD AND WAREHOUSE COMMISSION. The railroad interest is one of the most important in the State. They represent so much capital and employ so many men that they call for special consideration at the hands of the gover i..ent. The last two years have been, in a general way, unprofitable for railroading, and the State administration has aimed to pursue a liberal policy toward them. It was not considered a good time to meddle with carrying charges. While the Railroad and Warehouse Commission has made a thorough inspection of all the railroads, and has insisted on a prompt compliance with the law, it has endeavored to avoid everything that had the appearance of being of a harassing character. But numerous cases of unjust discrimination arose, which were ruinous to some of the citizens of Illinois. For example, the rate allowed in this State on a cer- tain class of goods from Chicago to Ro^k Island and Mississippi river points is 28 cents per 100 pounds. But some of the eastern roads made an arrange- ment with parties in Cleveland to carry the same line of goods from Cleve- land via Chicago to Rock Island and Mississippi river points for 20 cents per 100 pounds. This discrimination must in time drive the Illinois man out of business. Cashes of this character arose all over the State, the railroads giving such an advantage to certain merchants and manufacturers in cities east of us as to make it almost impossible for our merchants to do business in our own State. The railroads were appealed to to stop this discrimination, but they replied that it was an inter-state matter and did nothing about it. The Federal government tried long ago to stop discrimination on inter-state roads, but a powerful railroad lobby and the Federal courts have thus far rendered that government almost impotent to deal with the problem or to give any relief to the public. Thousands of men have been ruined by this railroad discrimina- tion, and many of the great private fortunes of the country have been made through it. The Railroad and Warehouse Commission determined to protect our people against this wrong if possible. The fact that roads running through our State are carrying the goods for the eastern roads and prorating with them on reduced rate of freight and have been doing so for a long time seemed to warrant the conclusion that these rates must be profitable. At the expense of a vast amount of labor, the commission is now revising the entire schedule both as to classification and as to rates. They are endeavoring to fix a rate that shall be just between shipper and carrier, and stop the discrimination against our people. The commission expects to render its decision in a few weeks, and it is hoped that this will put an end to the wrong complained of. So far as I am at present advised, no legislation is needed to regulate the rela- tions between the public and the railroads in their capacity as common car- riers. The laws now on the statute book are believed to be sufficient, if enforced. But I do recommend such farther reasonable legislation as will tend to give the highest possible protection to the lives of the operatives as well as of passengers. SLEEPING CAR CHARGES. During the last twenty years the prices of all commodities as well as the carrying charges of railroads have been reduced from 30 to 60 per cent, but APPENDIX. 919 our people still have to pay the old extortionate rates for sleeping-car service, which has become a necessity of modern travel just as much as railroads are. The travel on sleeping cars has increased so enormously that this fact alone, aside from the general fall in prices and carrying charges, long ago called for a large reduction in sleeping-car rates. The people of this great State should long ago have been protected against this extortion, and I recommend legis- lation on this subject and the establishing of rates that shall be just to both the carrier and the public. THE SETTLEMENT OF LABOR TROUBLES. Owing to the division of labor, the building of railroads and the great consolidations that have taken place in the mercantile and industrial fields, many of the theories of government applicable fifty years ago are now utterly inadequate. In the great division of industries each has become dependent on the other and none can shut down without affecting all. The whole American people have adjusted their affairs to the continued operation of railroads. Any interruption affects the entire public. Again, all of our industries depend on the regular supply of coal, and if this is interfered with it injures not only those connected with some mine, as was once the case, but the whole com- munity. Our civilization makes us all inter-dependent. Government must keep pace with the progress of the age and meet the changed conditions, for it is the duty of government to protect all. Whenever any men are pursuing a course injurious to the rest of the community, the government should deal with the question on the lines of justice and not simply join hands with the strong to crush the weak. In recent years we have repeatedly had labor disturb- ances in the form of strikes and lock-outs that almost paralyzed the country. It will no longer do to say that this is the business of employer and employe, for while these are fighting, innocent non-combatants may be ruined. The question of dealing with these conditions is a most difficult one, and no com- plete remedy has yet been devised. Many advocate compulsory arbitration, but no practical method of enforcing a decree or award in every case of this character has yet been found. There is, however, no difficulty in the way of making a compulsory investigation in every case, and this alone would be a great preventive as well as corrective. This method has been tried elsewhere and has worked well. Promptly ascertaining and making public the actual con- ditions in each case arouses a moral sentiment that often forces a settlement, and the fear of such an investigation will sometimes do this. I strongly urge legislation on this subject, and I would suggest that the law would provide for a new board in each case, allowing each party to select an arbitrator and the two thus selected to name the third, or, if they disagree, then let the county judge name the third. If a permanent board was created, the more powerful interests would soon seek to get their friends appointed on it, and no matter what it did it would soon lose the confidence of the workers and of the public, and with this its usefulness would be gone. Again, nearly all the great inter- ests of this country, except farming, are controlled by combinations. Often one of these combinations collects together thousands of laborers representing many thousand people, at a point where it is almost the only employer and where they would otherwise not have settled. These are absolutely at its mercy. If for any reason it turns them out; they become a charge upon the State, that is, upon the public; the corporation at once washing its hands of 920 'LIVE QUESTIONS. all responsibility. The public, being the State, has the same right to protect itself that individuals" have, and these evils must, in some way, be met, for a government that cannot deal with new problems as they arise is unworthy of a free people. There should be some legislation to prevent laborers being brought into the State by squads, for they generally have to displace an equal number, who, being suddenly thrown out, become a charge upon the public. Some years ago a number of non-resident capitalists bought large tracts of coal lands at Spring Valley, in this State, and opened a number of mines. Several thousand miners were induced to move there, a very large per cent of whom were Americans, many of whom were induced to buy lots of the company. The company then pursued so greedy and unconscionable a course towards its employes, through truck stores and other devices, that the men became restless. Thereupon it displaced almost every American laborer with foreigners, who had been brought or induced to come there. This left the former employes out of work in a locality where none was to be had, and naturally led to disturbances. By degrees the new men, finding themselves reduced to intense poverty by the exactions and greed of the company, became sullen and discontented, and last summer the public heard much about the dangerous foreigners at Spring Valley. Last year the company employed a large number of negroes, who are displacing that many of the former em- ployes, who now find themselves without work and without bread, for no matter how hard they worked they could barely keep their families alive, and could save nothing. This company has been a curse and a bill of expense to the State from the time it commenced operations. Almost every administra- tion for a number of years has had to send a military force there to preserve order and protect the property of this concern that was really causing the trouble. Although it has nearly 40,000 acres of coal lands and its property is estimated at over $3,000,000, it is assessed at only $136,084, and pays taxes on this sum. While we welcome every honest enterprise and industry, we cannot allow our State to become merely a foraging ground for wolfish greed. We want no more enterprises of this character. ILLINOIS NATIONAL GUARD. The events of last summer have again demonstrated what was brought to the attention of the world in the sixties, that is, that a volunteer soldiery, coming from the walks of civil life, imbued with the spirit of free government and of free institutions and having an appreciation of the duties of citizenship, is the best in the world, because made up as a rule of a higher grade of men than can be found under any other circumstances. They are steady; they are energetic; they are brave; they have a high sense of duty and they obey orders. In times of peace, even more than in times of war, the most important feature of military service is celerity of movement. Our State is nearly four hundred miles long and two hundred miles wide. It cannot maintain a great army, and for a small force to be effective it must move quickly. We have less than six thousand men on the rolls. They draw no pay except when on active duty. They are all engaged in private business pursuits just as other citizens. This being the case, there was impressed upon the ^officers the importance of making their arrangements for calling their men together so perfect that they could be collected at any hour of the day or night from their homes and places of business, without the loss of a minute, and I am proud to say that (he 'appMdIX. 92 1 highest requirements in this regard have been met. During the coal strike and the railroad strike we sent troops to more than fifteen different points in the State. It often happened that the situation had become suddenly threaten- ing, and the local officers called for immediate assistance. Orders have been issued repeatedly at eleven o'clock at night for certain companies to report to a sheriff at a point ioo miles away, and they never failed to be at the seat of trouble and on duty the next morning. In several instances entire regiments were mobilized and carried to the seat of trouble from two hundred to two hundred and fifty miles away in from fourteen to sixteen hours after orders were issued at Springfield, and the bearing of both officers and men was in the highest degree commendable. In many cases, especially in Chicago, the conditions under which they had to do duty for many weeks were very severe, but they bore all hardships like veterans. It may be a satisfaction to the peo- ple of Illinois to know that they have one of the best military establishments in America, and that it is^maintained at small expense. In this connection I must call your attention, to the fact that the expenses incurred during, first, the coal strike, and then the railroad strike were far in excess of the appro- priation which had been made, the appropriation not covering any such con- tingencies as arose. When the trouble was over in the summer, while there was money in the treasury, there was no appropriation under which these ex- penses could be paid. To have convened the legislature in special session to make such appropriation would have entailed an expense of upwards of $50,000 upon the State, and, as the regular session would convene in a little over four months, I was naturally anxious to avoid this extra expense, and as many of the men to whom the State was indebted for service, were dependent upon their wages for the support of their families, and needed their money, the money was finally advanced by private individuals for the payment of a large part of these bills. This was done with the understanding that there should be no discount to the men, but that the State would pay interest. Inas- much as the liberality and patriotism of these men has saved the State a large amount of money, I respectfully submit that the honor of the State requires that an appropriation be made immediately to pay these bills, together with six per cent interest from the time they accrued. There was a time during the strike when it seemed that the trouble might spread and be protracted. Deeming it wise for the State to be prepared for any emergency, the Adjutant General was directed to at once purchase enough arms to put ten or twelve more regiments in the field if necessary. Although arms could not be found in large quantities in any one place, in less than forty-eight hours over 6,000 stands were in the possession of the State in Chicago, and we have these in addition to those the troops have. In my judgment the State is now prepared for any emergency. COAL STRIKE. In the spring of 1894, the now famous coal strike in the bituminous coal fields of America began, started for the purpose of establishing living prices for the mining of coal and more uniform rates for the sale of it. The mining population had found its condition getting steadily worse for a number of years, until those who had worked hard all their lives and had been sober men found their families in rags and often without bread. They vainly hoped to be able, by means of a universal strike, to bring about a change whereby they and their children might be able, by honest effort, to at least make a living. §22 LIVE QUESTIONS. Work was suspended in most of the mines in this State, as well as in otnef States. Many of the operators were anxious to make an adjustment upon a basis where both operator and miner. could live. Other operators would have been glad to effect such an adjustment, but found insurmountable difficulties in the way of doing so, while still other operators cared nothing about the miner and his family, but looked upon miners as tools with which to make money. These resolved not to shut their mines, but to defeat the strike by importing other men. The strike continued until the country was almost par- alyzed for want of coal. While the majority of the miners were anxious to preserve law and order, a very small per cent, of them, recruited by the more vicious elements of society, created disturbances. In some States these lasted for weeks and were so extensive as to paralyze the operation of certain rail- roads and do serious damage. Our coal field is the largest in America, being 250 miles long and over 100 miles wide, having mines all over it, yet during the entire strike both the local and the State officers were so vigilant that there was no interference with the operation of a railroad but what was at once stopped, and there were only two serious cases of destruction of property, one at Centralia and the other near Pekin. In both of these cases the mob had slipped in stealthily from an adjoining county, and committed the acts of violence almost before the local peace officers learned that there was any trouble. But in these cases, as well as in every other case where there had been any violation of law, the offenders were promptly arrested and lodged in jail. No difficulty was experienced anywhere in maintaining the supremacy of the law. Considering the desperate condition in which most of the miners found themselves and their families, they displayed a remarkable love of order and respect for the law by everywhere discountenancing these acts of violence. - During this strike arms were sent to every civil officer in the State who asked for them, and troops were sent promptly to every point where it appeared that there was any reason for sending them. We endeavored in all of these cases to send a personal representative onto the ground in order to be cor- rectly advised of the situation. While troops were refused many places, it was because it was known that there was absolutely no danger there, and events showed that in all of these cases we were correctly advised. RAILROAD STRIKE. Toward the end of June, when the country was beginning to rally from the effects of the coal strike, one of the most extensive railroad strikes ever wit- nessed in this country was begun. The operatives on almost every railroad in the Mississippi Valley simultaneously stopped work, thus completely paralyzing nearly all of the great railroads upon whose daily operation the welfare of our people depended. Illinois being the greatest railroad State and Chicago the greatest railroad center in the Union, the effects of the strike were felt more severely here than anywhere else. The railroad managers soon endeavored to replace their old men with new ones. The old employes, partly out of respect for the law and partly because they believed that violence must defeat their ends, not only abstained from violence, but everywhere counseled against it. The National Commission, which has investigated this strike, found that only a very small per cent, of railroad men were guilty of violating the law, but the conditions were such as to attract crowds of idle people, and soon the lawless element, always found in great center's of population, resorted to rioting and 'APPEMDlX. 923 destruction of property. Again, arms were sent at once to all civil officers who asked for them, and, on the application of the respective sheriffs and civil officers,, troops were sent to almost every railroad center, outside of Chicago, in the State, and order was everywhere maintained, and the railroads were operated wherever they could get men to man their trains. The majesty of the law was everywhere promptly and thoroughly maintained. A large number of telegrams coming from all parts of the State were re- ceived and answered every day. The following few dispatches are fair speci- mens and show the attitude of the State government at that time. On the evening of July 1st, a telegram, signed on behalf of five hundred passengers, was sent from Decatur; it stated that five hundred American citizens were at Decatur on tied-up Wabash trains, no effort being made by company to move them, and demanded immediate assistance. The following telegram was promptly forwarded to the sheriff: Springfield, July 1, 1894. Peter Perl, Sheriff, Decatur, 111.: I have dispatch purporting to come from five hundred passengers now detained at the depot in Decatur because trains are obstructed by strikers, and they ask for assistance. Wire me the situation fully. Are railroad officials making proper efforts to move trains, and are you able to furnish the traveling public the necessary protection and to enforce the law? JOHN P. ALTGELD, Governor. To which the sheriff replied that he had been able to preserve order so far, but could do so no longer, and asked for troops, and the following reply was sent: Springfield, July 1, 1894. Peter Perl, Sheriff, Decatur, 111.: Have ordered troops to your assistance. They should reach you before sunrise. See that all trains unlawfully held are released at once. JOHN P. ALTGELD. The Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railway Company, on July 1st, sent the following telegram: Chicago, July 1, 1894. Governor Altgeld: For more than forty-eight hours past all mail trains on Eastern Illinois road have been tied up at Danville, forcibly prevented from moving by crowd of strikers and sympathizers. Sheriff seems utterly paralyzed and will do nothing, although repeatedly called on. We have full crews of competent men on mail trains and are trying to move trains now, but crowd of two thousand persons surround train and prevent its moving. Will you not help us? W. H. LYFORD. General Counsel Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad Company. To which the following reply was sent: Springfield, 111., July 1, 1894. W. H. Lyford, General Counsel of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Ry. Co.: We can furnish assistance promptly if the civil authorities show that they need it. Thus far there has been no call for assistance from any of the t>H UVE QUESTIONS. officials of Vermilion county, either sheriff, coroner, mayor of town, or the county judge. JOHN P. ALTGELD, Governor. At the same time, the following was sent to the sheriff of Vermilion county, at Danville: Springfield, July i, 1894. Sheriff of Vermilion County, Danville, 111.: Officials of the E. I. R. R. complain that their trains have been tied up at Danville for forty-eight hours by strikers, and that they cannot get sufficient protection to move them. Please wire me the situation fully. Can you enforce the law and protect the traveling public with such forces as you can com- mand? JOHN P. ALTGELD, Governor. A similar telegram was sent to county judge and other local officers. The following reply was received from the sheriff: Danville, July 1, 1894. Governor J. P. Altgeld: Your message received. Send me one hundred rifles and ammunition by first train and I will try to protect the C. & E. I. R. R. Co.'s men and property. As to the situation, there are from three hundred to seven hundred strikers on the ground and oppose the movement of any and all trains or cars excepting mail cars. They are usually quiet and duly sober, but very deter- mined. I will advise you if I am not able to afford protection. J. W. NEWLON, Sheriff. On receipt of the above, the following telegram was sent: Springfield, 111., July I, 1894. J. W. Newlon, Sheriff, Danville, 111.: We have not got 100 stands of arms left here. From information we get, we consider the situation serious at Danville and, therefore, send you troops. They will be there early in the morning. All those trains unlawfully held should be moved before noon. JOHN P. ALTGELD. Where a railroad could not get men to man its trains, . the State could give it no help, and in several instances where a road had asked military protection for its men, and troops were promptly furnished, it was found that the road had no men willing to work, and we had to find soldiers who could act as engineers and brakemen in order to transport the troops. In Chicago nearly all of the large railroad yards are out on the prairies adjoining the city, some of the most extensive of them being some miles away from the city limits. The sheriff of the county applied for arms, and arms were promptly sent him. He swore in a large number of deputies and the mayor of the city greatly increased the police force, but the sheriff never asked for any other assistance and the mayor did not apply for assist- ance until the 6th of July. The strike did not seem to be any more serious than numerous others had been in prior years, when the local officers found themselves amply able to control the situation. This fact, together with the APPENDIX. 925 Unexpected appearance of the federal troops, as hereafter explained, is no doubt the reason why the Democratic mayor did not sooner apply for aid from the State, and why the Republican sheriff never applied for it. Finally the mob resorted to rioting and the destruction of property, and as the railroad yards were scattered and covered so many square miles that it would be difficult for a very large army to protect them in such a manner as to prevent men from stealthily committing incendiarism, it followed that numerous cars were burned. While the rioting was no more serious than was witnessed at Buffalo, New York, several years ago, and at different points in Ohio during last year, and was not half as bloody as numerous disturbances that have oc- curred in the State of Pennsylvania, still there was a systematic effort made by a portion of the press, for partisan and sensational purposes, to exaggerate everything, and make it appear that the city itself was in danger and that there was scarcely a limit to the destruction of property. The United States Labor Commission, which investigated this strike, heard the evidence of railroad men and of all others who knew any of the facts on the subject, and reported as follows: "According to the testimony, the railroads lost in property de- stroyed, in the hire of the United States deputy marshals and other incidental expenses, at least $685,783." It will be observed that this sum includes the hire of deputy marshals and other incidental expenses. Consequently, the actual destruction of property was very much below this sum. The Chicago fire department, which officially investigated every case where there was a car or any other property burned, reports as follows: "During the first three days of the month of July, no efforts were made to damage the property of corporations. After that the destruction of property was as follows: July 4 $ 2,150 July 5 3,435 July 6 338,972 July 7 3,700 July 8 575 July 9 1,500 July 10 850 July 11 2,100 July 12 565 July 13 "5 July 14 2,300 Total $355.6i2 Subsequent examinations have shown that even this sum is exaggerated. It will be seen by the table that nearly all of this occurred on the 6th of July, and was due to the fact that a fire had broken out in a very large railroad yard south of the city, where there was no water and where the fire depart- ment was consequently powerless. It seems that most of the burning occurred in the evening after the rioting of that day in that locality had been suppressed and after both the police and the State troops had arrived on the ground, but owing to the absence of water but little could be done to arrest the flames. One fire engine put out over half a mile of hose, but was unable to reach the cars. A mere glance at the facts shows that the reports that were sent out as to the actual condition in Chicago during the strike were malicious libels upon the city. They have created an unfavorable impression in the East v- :>r. LIVE QUESTIONS. and abroad, and have done our people a great wrong. In some cases this was due to partisan malignity. In other cases men who knew little or nothing of the facts and who had very little, if any, practical knowledge of our insti- tutions, slandered the city and our institutions for no other apparent reason than that it seemed to be popular for a while to do so, and that by doing so the smiles of a class could be won. In order to understand the significance of some things that happened at Chicago, the dates of the various events are of vital importance. It will be noticed that according to the report of the fire department it was not until the 6th of July that the rioting became extensive. As it has been claimed that the intervention of the federal government by the appointment of a special counsel to represent the government at Chicago in this strike, and the subse- quent sending of troops was largely for the purpose of moving and protecting the mails, I call attention to the following: On June 30th the superintendent of the railway mail service at Chicago, sent the following dispatch to Wash- ington: "No mails have accumulated at Chicago so far. All regular mail trains are moving nearly on time, with a few slight exceptions." Yet, notwithstanding this dispatch, on the very next morning, before any- thing more had happened, Mr. Walker, a distinguished corporation lawyer, was appointed special counsel to represent the United States government by Mr. Olney, the Attorney General of the United States. After this, when the "trouble became more serious, there was some delay in getting the mails in and out of Chicago, but the officials in charge displayed such ability and vigilance that the delay at no time was great. The superintendent of the railway mail service, upon whom the duty of getting the mails in and out of Chicago rested, when lately interrogated upon this point, writes, that while there were interferences and delays during a number of days yet, that "With the exception of some trains that were held at Hammond, Ind., Washington Heights, Danville and Cairo, 111., the greatest delay to any of the outgoing and incoming mails probably did not exceed from eight to nine hours at any time. "LOUIS L. TROY, Superintendent." Whatever may have been the delays and interferences at other points, it is apparent that there was nothing in Chicago in connection with the mail service that called for federal intervention. In fact, the strikers made it a point not to interfere with mail trains, but only to cut off Pullman sleepers, and in a number of cases, outside of Chicago, where a mail train was de- layed it was because the strikers had cut off a Pullman sleeper and the railway officials then flatly refused to move the train until they could carry the Pull- man sleeper. On July 2d, the day after the appointment of a special counsel and when there had been little, if any, destruction of property, the United States troops at Fort Sheridan were already, under orders to be ready to march to Chicago at a moment's notice. Some days prior to this, the man- agers of all the railway lines centering in Chicago formed an organization to fight the strike, and they were in daily conference. At 6 o'clock p. m. of July 2d, after the troops at Fort Sheridan had been ordered to be in readiness, the managers of the various roads gave out a detailed report showing the con- ditions on their lines: 'Appendix. 927 Wisconsin Central — All passenger and freight trains moving and business resumed its normal condition. Chicago and Northern Pacific — Suburban trains all running about on time; freight moving without interruption; night suburban trains discontinued for fear of being stoned by loafers. Chicago, Burlington and Quincy — Thirty-seven carloads of dressed beef loaded in Kansas City yesterday morning have passed over this road safely and delivered to Eastern lines this afternoon, and are now moving all right. Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul — All passenger trains have arrived and departed on time; no freight moving here, but it is moving on other parts of the line. Chicago and Northwestern— All through passenger traffic has been con- tinued without interruption; suburban service practically suspended for the night; not trying to handle freight. Lake Shore and Michigan Southern — No interruption to business; both passenger and freight trains have come and departed as usual. Baltimore and Ohio — All passenger trains with full equipment met with no delay and all very nearly on time. Chicago and Great Western — Passenger trains moving as usual with the regular Pullman equipment; freight service partially resumed on the Chicago division. Chicago and Erie — All passenger trains are running out on time; not at- tempting to do freight business; have had trouble at Marion, O. At 10 o'clock on the morning of July 3d, a consultation was held between the special counsel for the United States, the United States district attorney and several others, in which it was decided to urge the sending of federal troops, and a dispatch was dictated by the special counsel for the government for this purpose and was sent to the Attorney General at Washington, and in the afternoon of that day the United States troops at Fort Sheridan were ordered to Chicago and they arrived in that city that evening, and ostensibly went on active duty. Up to this time, no application had been made to the State authorities by anybody for assistance in maintaining order in Chicago. Both the local authorities as well as the State government were entirely ignored and neither was asked whether it could enforce the law or not. Several weeks prior to this date, during the coal strike, the United States Court for the Southern District of Illinois issued an injunction against some of the coal strikers and then issued process for their arrest. The United States marshal met with resistance in attempting to serve these warrants. The United States' Judge wrote to the Attorney General in reference to having United States troops assist the marshal, and the Attorney General telegraphed an answer, reading as follows: "Washington, June 16, 1894. "Allen, U. S. Judge, Springfield, 111.: "Understand State of Illinois is willing to protect property against lawless violence with military force if necessary. Please advise receivers to take proper steps to procure protection by civil authorities of the State. If such pro- tection proves inadequate, the governor should be applied to for military assistance. "OLNEY, Attorney General." 928 LIVE 'QUESTIONS. This kid down the correct doctrine. Immediately after the date of this telegram, and again on several occasions thereafter, during the coal strike as well as during the railroad strike, the United States marshal for the Southern District of Illinois, finding that the local civil authorities could not furnish the needed assistance, applied to the governor for military aid to enable him and his deputies to execute these processes of the United States Court, and, in each instance, troops were promptly sent to his assistance, and inside of a few hours after being furnished the marshal discharged his duties promptly and thor- oughly and without the loss of a single life, and in no case was there any delay in enforcing the law, and the State administration stood equally ready to fur- nish the United States marshal for the Northern District of Illinois any assistance he might require. As the Attorney General had stated he understood the State of Illinois would furnish military assistance where necessary, and that civil authorities of the State must first be applied to for protection, and if they could not furnish it, then the governor should be asked for military assistance, and, further, as a number of such applications had just been made to the gov- ernor and had in each case been promptly granted, and all the assistance necessary had been furnished without a moment's delay, and the federal officials had in every case been enabled to discharge their duty thoroughly, it is ap- parent that the Attorney General would naturally refer the federal officials of Chicago to the State authorities if they needed assistance. And it is reasonable to assume that if the protection of property and the enforcement of the law was all that was aimed at, this would have been done. And the fact that it was not done, and, on the contrary, all State authorities were ignored and an entirely new and revolutionary policy was pursued, warrants the conclusion that some other and ulterior object was aimed at. The special counsel for the government apparently directed matters for the railroads, and assistance from the State was not wanted, but every energy was bent and every possible step taken, to establish a new precedent that might be useful in the future, that is, to have the federal government step in and take the corporations of the country directly under its immediate protection, so that no matter whether the local authorities were in any case amply able to enforce the law or not, the corpor- ations could in the future ignore them and deal directly with the federal gov- ernment and have federal troops at pleasure. At about 6 o'clock on the evening of July 3, after the United States troops had been ordered to Chicago, the managers of the different railroads reported the conditions on their railroads briefly as follows: Sante Fe — Six regular passenger trains on time; moving freight. Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul — All passengers on time and without interference; moving freight. Chicago and Alton — Trains stop for want of firemen. Baltimore and Ohio — Trains moving; one engine detached by withdrawal of coupling pin; police detailed and protected train at once. Chicago, Burlington and Quincy — Passenger trains running as usual; no freight handled, because firemen and engineers refused to work with new men. Lake Shore and Michigan Southern — Trains moving as usual; freight trains delayed at Englewood, but prompt action by the police department raised the blockade. Chicago and Eastern Illinois — Situation is better than yesterday. Illinois Central — Ties found on track nearing crossing, but did not delay APPENDIX. 929 trains; matters getting along as nicely as could be expected under the cir- cumstances. , Chicago and Great Western — Passenger trains all moving; freight train started; went through without trouble. Chicago and Grand Trunk — Completely blockaded at Battle Creek, in Michigan; will send out no trains from Chicago until that is raised. Monon Route — Men cannot be had to take strikers' places. ' Chicago and Erie — Passenger trains moving all right on time. Wabash — Account of trouble at other places, but none at Chicago. Panhandle — Trains moving all right; none more than twenty minutes late. Chicago and Northern Pacific — All day suburban trains on time; business being handled without interruption. , Rock Island — Trouble at Des Moines, Iowa; at Blue Island and at other places, but none at Chicago. On the 4th day of July there was some disturbance, and on the evening of that day the managers of the railroads again reported the conditions on their roads briefly as follows: Chicago and Alton — Local trains between Chicago, Joliet and Dwight are running; through trains are held at Bloomington by strikers. Santa Fe — Everything in pretty good shape; passenger trains on time; ran five freight trains in Missouri and eleven in Illinois in past twenty-four hours, and have resumed local freight service between Chicago and Streator. Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul — Trouble with firemen running on Coun- cil Bluffs line; with exception of a local train, all passenger trains departed and arrived on time; no trouble on the line between Chicago and St. Paul. Baltimore and Ohio — Passenger trains on fairly good time; no delays due to strikers. Nickel Plate — Regular passenger trains left and arrived on time; freight switching business is at a standstill. Chicago and Northwestern — All through trains on the Galena division gotten out last night, but suburban traffic on that division was hampered by the inability to find engineers; are operating all passengers in and out of Chi- cago on Wisconsin division and are rapidly getting suburban traffic on Galena division running; handled no freight yesterday, but resumed to-day; brought in a train of fruit from the West and have several trains of beer coming in from Milwaukee; no acts of violence on our lines in city. Wisconsin Central Lines — Passenger and freight trains ftioving and about on time. Chicago and Northern Pacific — All suburban trains running regular except night trains; freight business is being handled promptly. Michigan Central — Handled all freight that is tendered; moving all trains and doing regular work; a train of beef, consisting of forty cars, which was held at Halsted street, has been pulled through the jam and is moving east- ward. Illinois Central — The conditions on this line are more favorable than since the beginning of the strike; there is no suburban service to-day, but this service will be resumed to-morrow morning; handled 100 cars of merchandise and coal yesterday, placed on tracks for unloading. Chicago and Eastern Illinois — Moving some passenger trains and resuming business gradually. 59 93Q LIVE QUESTIONS. Chicago and Grand Trunk — Started out mail train for the East this morn- ing; have no equipment at Chicago with which to make up through trains, as this is tied up by the strikers at Battle Creek, Mich. Chicago, Burlington and Quincy — Had trouble in attempting to move a freight train; last night Pullman cars were cut from a passenger train, but with assistance of police were promptly recoupled and train moved forward; all other trains of last night and to-day are running without interference of any kind. The entire force of switchmen in St. Louis left the service of the road yesterday evening. We are not trying to handle freight to-day; every- thing is quiet. On the 5th of July the conditions appeared to have been very much the same as on the 4th, but there were rumors, of an extension of the strike. On the morning of the 6th of July, I sent word to the mayor of Chicago that if he could not easily control the situation the State would furnish him any assist- ance that might be needed. About the same time I tetegraphed the officials of the Illinois Central. Railroad Company, who complained that their property was being destroyed by a mob, to apply to the local authorities, and that if neither the mayor nor the sheriff could maintain order, and if both of these officials should refuse to apply to the State for aid, they should advise me of this fact and the State would then prpmptly do what was necessary to restore order and assist the local officers in executing the law. Toward noon of the 6th, the noting having become more serious than on any previous day, the mayor applied for assistance. At this time, the federal troops had been on the ground three days. The effect of their presence, instead of overawing 'the mob and preventing trouble, had served as an irritant. On receiving the mayor's dispatch, five regiments of infantry, two troops of cavalry and two batteries were at once ordered to the scene, and before midnight they were nearly all on duty, although some of them had to go 150 miles, and in thirty hours after the arrival of the State troops all serious rioting had been sup- pressed and the destruction of property practically ended, except where it was committed stealthily. It is a matter of gratification to every patriotic citizen of Illinois who is proud of his State that it was our own troops who assisted the civil authorities and restored law and order in Chicago. While they were not petted by fashionable society, they did deal directly with the mob. During the trouble, thousands of men all over the State tendered their services to the executive, and I am satisfied that an army of 200,000 men could have been mustered in a few days if they had been called for. This spirit of patriotism was especially manifested by the old soldiers of the State." Inas- much as there was at no time, according to the statement of the railroad managers above quoted, even on the worst days of the strike, any serious delay in the coming in or going out of the mails, and inasmuch as the special counsel for the government had been appointed the next morning after the superintend- ent of the railway mail service had telegraphed that there had been practically no delay in receiving or sending out trains, and as the United States troops were brought on the ground three days in advance of any serious rioting, and at a time when the local officers believed themselves absolutely able to control the situation, it is evident that there had to be some other pretext on the part of the federal government for its action than the mere protection of the mails or the supression of riots. That pretext was the enforcement of the processes of the federal courts. Although the United States marshal at Chicago had APPENDIX. 93 1 sworn in 4,402 deputy marshals, mostly on the recommendation of the rail- roads, still this did not answer the purpose that was apparently aimed at, that is, to establish a precedent for using the federal army. They must have federal troops, and these had already been applied for and were specially asked by the counsel for the government, who represented both railroads and government, on the morning of July 3d, and the processes of the courts which these troops were to enforce were not the legitimate processes of the United States Court, for it does not appear that any special trouble was experienced in serving any process of the courts issued in accordance with the Constitution and laws of the country* but these processes were warrants for arrest issued by federal judges charging men, hot With the Commission of a crime and not with the violation of a law, but with being guilty of a contempt of court. Government by Injunction: During the last two or three years the usur- pation of power on the part of the federal judiciary, which had been steadily going on for a long time, has assumed a form where is it destroying the very foundations of republican government. The Constitution divides the powers of government into the legislative, judiciary and executive, and contemplates that no two of these shall be lodged in the same person, but during the last two years the people of this country have repeatedly witnessed the operation of an entirely new form of government, which was never before heard of among men in either monarchy or republic, that is, government by injunction, whereby a federal judge, not content with deciding controversies brought into his court, not content with exercising the judicial functions of government, proceeds to legislate and then administrate. He issues a ukase which he calls an injunction, forbidding whatever he pleases and what the law does not forbid, and thus legislates for himself without limitation and makes things penal which the law does not make penal, makes other things punishable by imprisonment which at law are only punishable by fine, and he deprives men of the right of trial by jury when the law guarantees this right, and he then enforces this ukase in a summary and arbitrary manner by imprisonment, throwing men into prison, not for violating a law, but for being guilty of a contempt of court in disregarding one of these injunctions. During the last two years, some of these judges actually enjoined men from quitting the employment of a railroad. These injunctions are a very great convenience to corporations when they can be had for the asking by a corporation lawyer, and these were the processes of the court, to enforce which the President sent the federal troops to Chicago. During the coal and railroad strikes last summer, the United States marshal for the Southern District of Illinois swore in altogether over 300 deputies, chiefly for the purpose of enforcing injunctions of this character issued by the United States Court and directed to the marshal to enforce, and about 191 men were arrested at Cairo and other points in the State and brought to Springfield in charge of officers, a distance of from 100 to 200 miles, and lodged in jail. Nearly all were charged with contempt of court and were tried not by a' jury, but by the court whose dignity they were said to have offended; 121 were convicted and most of them sent to jail for from thirty to ninety days. Many had to be set free when it came to a hearing because it did not appear that they had even violated an injunction, let alone committed a crime, and nearly all when set free found themselves on the streets from 100 to 200 miles from their homes without money and without friends. In very many cases the United States marshal, prompted by the instincts of humanity, 932 LIVE QUESTIONS. gave them something to eat and secured transportation for their, return, while some of the corporation agents who were responsible for it all appeared to regard the proceedings as a good lesson for the men. During the railroad strike the marshal for the Northern District of Illinois, who had already the necessary deputies to serve the regular and legitimate processes of the courts, swore in 4,402 deputy marshals almost for the sole purpose of enforcing some of these injunctions. Some of these injunctions were obtained as' early as June 29th and 30th. They were issued without notice, they ran against all of the inhabitants of the three States comprising that judiciary circuit, and were not served personally, but in some cases were simply posted on some wall, and in others attempts were made to read them to a vast mob under circumstances that made the whole proceeding look farcical and indicated that the mob was not expected to obey them, but that these proceedings were had simply to lay the foundation for another step. After these injunctions had been issued the United States marshals, according to their own statements, arrested about 450 men, nearly all on the mere charge of being guilty of contempt of court, and so far as can be learned not twenty men have been convicted on any charge. These injunctions served as a sort of side-door convenience, and were used in some instances to terrorize the men. At different times men who could have been found at any hour of the day were arrested toward evening, in some cases on a Saturday evening, when the officers who could admit to bail had gone home, so as to compel the men to spend a night or a Sunday in jail. George Lovejoy, a trainmaster at La Salle, was a member of the A. R. U.. and when the strike began he simply quit work, but did nothing more. A warrant was sworn out for his arrest. He was taken 100 miles to Chicago in charge of officers and remained in their custody two days and was then bailed out, and when the case was about to be heard it was dismissed with the simple statement that they did not care to prosecute. Had the machinery of justice been left in impartial hands, and had there been no other object in view than merely the enforcement of the law and the protection of property, it is manifest that these abuses would not have happened. The federal gov- ernment had already the complete machinery of justice in Chicago which had been found to be sufficient for every and all purposes. It had never interfered on similar occasions in the past. Consequently, the fact that it should inter- fere at all here was remarkable, and that it should step in at such an early date was still more remarkable, but more significant than all these things was the selection which it made of a representative. There were in Chicago at that time thousands of able lawyers who had no personal interest to serve, but they were not wanted. The administration claimed to be Democratic and there were hundreds of Democrats capable of filling any office in the govern- ■■ t ment, but they could not be trusted. A man was selected who was not only of ! opposite politics, but who was one of the most prominent corporation lawyers in the country, who was at that time the hired attorney of one of the railroads involved in the strike, and who was at that time personally engaged in fight- ing strikers, and therefore had an interest in the outcome, yet this man was clothed with all the powers of the government and he brought to the use of himself and his clients, without expense to them, the services of over 4,000 > United States marshals, of a specially picked United States grand jury, of . several United States Judges, and of the United States army. Never before were the United States government and the corporations of the country so APPENDIX. 933 completely blended, all the powers of the one being at the service of the other, and never before was the goddess of justice made a mere handmaid for one of the combatants. Surely, if there had not been a special object to attain, if there had . been nothing wanted except to preserve order and enforce the law, then common decency would have suggested that the machinery of justice remain in impartial hands. It is evident that if the Attorney General of the United States did not outline and advise the policy that was pursued, it re- ceived his approval and was carried out through his assistance. Referring again to Government by Injunction: Some of the federal judges based these remarkable orders on the Inter-State Commerce Law. This was an act passed by Congress some years ago for the express purpose of protecting the public against unjust charges on the part of the railroads, and particularly of protecting the farmers and the shippers of the .country against ruinous discriminations. The railroads refused to obey this law and carried it into the federal courts, and these same federal judges proceeded to hold section after section of the law to be unconstitutional, until they had absolutely destroyed it for the purpose for which it was enacted and had made it as harmless as a dead rabbit. Then, after having thus nullified an act of Congress intended for the protection of the people, they turned around and made of it a club with which to break the backs of the men who toil with their hands — men whom Congress did not think of legislating against. Others of these judges have recently held that they have the power to make these orders independently of the Inter-State Commerce Law. Another innovation is the operation of railroads by courts of chancery, whereby a court carries on a vast business enterprise, not simply for a short time, but frequently for years, and by an astounding fiction in the line of usur- pation of power, the dignity and the sacred presence of the court is supposed to extend over the whole line of the road, and the road is said to be not in the hands of the receivers, as other property is in the hands of the owner, but in the actual possession of the court, and anything done to the railroad is treated as a contempt of court. If you commit an offense against a railroad that is in the hands of its owners, you will be prosecuted in the county where the offense is committed, tried by a jury, and, if proven to be guilty, may be sent to the penitentiary. But if you tread on the grass or throw a stone onto a railroad that has been robbed by speculators and then put into the hands of a receiver to freeze out some stockholders, you will be guilty of a contempt of some court sitting several hundred miles away, and you will be liable to be arrested and carried to where it is, there to be tried, not by a jury or a disinterested tribunal, but by that court whose awful dignity you have offended. If the courts must go into the business of operating railroads, then these absurd fictions should be abandoned and the roads held to be in the hands of the receivers just as other roads are held to be in the hands of their owners. It is in connection with bankrupt roads in the hands of a court that most of the outrageous orders or injunctions were issued during the last two years. These injunctions are outside of the regular machinery of government. So far as they are outside the law they are usurpations, and where not usurpa.- tions they are wrong, for the Constitution has created other machinery to en- force the criminal law. Courts of Chancery were not created for this purpose. Further, they do no good. In Chicago they were issued long in advance of any serious rioting or disturbances; yet they did not prevent the burning of a 934 LIVE QUESTIONS. single freight car, nor the ditching of a single train. Our country has existed for more than a hundred years. During this time all our greatness and our glory has been achieved. Property has been protected, and law and order has been maintained by the machinery established by the Constitution; this ma- chinery has at all times been found to be more thah sufficient for every emer- gency. If both the Constitution and our past experience are how to be disregarded, and the federal courts are to be permitted to set up this hew form of government, then it will be equally proper for the State C&UrtS to dd- so, and we shall soon have government by injunction from head to toe> Ail of the affairs of life will be regulated, hot by law, but by the personal pleasure, prejudice or caprice of a multitude of judges. Formerly, when a man charged with contempt of court filed ah affidavit purging himself of the contempt — that is denying it— the matter ended, except that he could be indicted for perjury if he swore to a lie. But after thus purging himself, he could not be tried for contempt by the very judge whose dignity he was charged with having offended. In other words, when a man denied his guilt he could not be sentenced to prison without a trial by jury. But this protection of the citizen is now brushed away. "Federal Troops: The placing of United States troops on active duty in Chicago under the conditions that existed there last summer presents a question of the most far-reaching importance, and should receive the most serious consideration of every patriot and of every man who believes in free institu- tions. As already shown, they were put there without calling on the local authorities to enforce the law or making any inquiry as to whether any assist- ance was needed, and at a time when the local authorities felt they could easily control the situation. While the dates and the facts show that it was done in this case for the purpose of setting a precedent for having the federal govern- ment take the corporations under its immediate protection, the principle in- volved is much broader than even this violation of the Constitution, and contemplates the exercise of a power that cannot exist in harmony with re- publican institutions. This act was an entirely new departure in the history of our government, and a great Constitutional writer of the country in complimenting the President upon having taken this step, speaks of it as a great step taken in Constitutional construction and is thankful that it cost so little bloodshed, thus practically stating that this new departure was a violation of the Constitution as it had been understood for a century. The old doctrine of State rights is in no way involved. Nobody for a moment questions the supremacy of the Union. But it does involve the question whether, in connection with federal supremacy, there does not go- hand in hand the principle of local self-government. These two principles, i. e., federal union and local self-government, have for a century been regarded as the foundation upon which the glory of our whole govern- mental fabric rests. One is just as sacred, just as inviolable, just as important as the other. Without federal union there must follow anarchy, and without local self-government there must follow despotism. Both are destructive, not only of the liberties, but of the higher aspirations and possibilities of a people. The great civil war settled that we should not have anarchy. It remains to be settled whether we shall be destroyed by despotism. If the President can, at his pleasure, in the first instance, send troops into any city, town or hamlet in the country, or into any number of cities, towns or hamlets, whenever and APPENDIX. 935 wherever he pleases, under, pretense of enforcing some law, his judgment, which means his pleasure, being the sole criterion, then there can be no difference whatever in this respect between the powers of the President and those of Emperor William or of the Czar of Russia. Neither of these potentates ever claimed anything more. It is not a question as to whether the President must first get the permission of local authorities before he can interfere, but the question is whether the local and State authorities should first be called to enforce the law and maintain order, using for that purpose such local agencies and forces as the law has created, or whether he can ignore all these and bring - a foreign force and station it in any community at pleasure. In this respect federal civil officers and the federal army do not stand on the same footing. The federal civil officers always have acted directly in the matter within their , jurisdiction, but the American people, as well as all other free and intelligent people, are jealous of a central military power, hence great precautions have been taken to limit the use of such power, and these limitations have always been recognized in this country, and were recognized by the Attorney General so late as June 16, 1894. Again, the Constitution provides that the military shall be subordinate to the civil authorities, and in all cases where State troops are ordered out they are subject to the control of the local civil authorities and act under their direction, but the federal troops ordered to Chicago last sum- mer did not act under any civil officer, whether federal or State. They did not act under the United States marshal, but directly under orders from military headquarters at Washington and were subject only to those orders. So far as they acted at all, it was military government. Local self-government is the very foundation of freedom and of republican institutions, and no people possess this who are subject to have the army patrol their streets and interfere in the affairs of government, acting not under but independently of the local author- ities, and do this at the mere discretion of one man, or of a central- power that is far away. Such local self-government as would be possible under these conditions may be found all over. Russia. We grew great and powerful and won the admiration of the world while proceeding under a different form of government, and if we are to go on in the sanie line, then the American people must arrest and rebuke this federal usurpation. In all history no power pos- sessed by government was ever allowed to lie dormant long. Either the man or the class soon appeared who, for selfish purposes, proceeded to exercise it. If the acts of the President are to stand unchallenged and thus form a pre- cedent, then we have undergone a complete change in our form .of government, and whatever semblance we may keep up in the future, our career as a re- public is over. We will have a rapidly increasing central power controlled and dominated by class and by corporate interests. Holding these views and knowing that the law had been enforced, property protected and order main- tained for a whole century by constitutional agencies, and feeling that the mighty State of Illinois needed neither assistance nor interference from any outside. source, I considered it my duty, as the executive of the State, to protest against the presence of federal troops under the existing circumstances, and requested their withdrawal, and I herewith submit the correspondence upon that subject. It is a matter of special regret to many of our patriotic citizens that this blow at free institutions should have been struck by a President who was placed in power by a party that had made local self-government a cardinal principle 936 LIVE QUESTIONS. for more than a century. It was a stabbing of republican institutions and a betrayal of democratic principles. ANARCHY AND THE PRESERVATION OF GOVERNMENT. The marked feature of this age has been consolidation. The large concerns swallowing the small ones or destroying them. This done, the large ones formed trusts, thus destroying all competition as to the public and as to labor. They arbitrarily fix the prices of goods on the one hand, and the rate of wages on the other, and neither the public nor the laborer have any remedy. The one is compelled to pay what is asked, for necessity is at its throat; the other is compelled to accept what is offered, for hunger is in his home. The Scotch brigands never had more effective weapons. The amassing of millions under these conditions is an easy matter, and as they grow more powerful these trusts get beyond the control of the government. Prompted by the instinct of self-preservation, the laborers of the country are endeavoring to form com- binations. They see that standing alone as individuals in the presence of the mighty combinations of capital, they will be ground to atoms. That unless they can meet combination with combination, they and their children must soon be reduced to abject poverty and hopeless slavery, differing from African slavery in this, that while the African had a master who had to feed and, in the end, to bury him, the white slave will have only a master to take his earnings. Now, the men who formed the great combinations of capital are opposed to combinations among laborers, and the federal courts that have been the special guardians of corporations and combinations seem to be determined to crush labor organizations. Some of these judges, not being content with their de- cisions, drag their ermines over the land to preach against united action by the toilers. In recent years the Constitution seems to have become an insur- mountable barrier to every measure intended for the protection of the public, while its most plainly expressed provisions for the protection of the liberty and the personal rights of the citizen are blown. away with a mere breath. This subserviency on the part of the federal judiciary when dealing with powerful corporations, followed by usurpation of power, and the assumption of an awful dignity when dealing with the men who have to earn their bread by the sweat of their brows, is not calculated to create respect for either the law or its machinery, and does tend to create unrest among our people, for it is the height of folly to imagine that the people do not understand the character of these acts. At present the status seems to be this: Combinations by capital against the public and against labor have succeeded, no matter by what means, and the men who accomplished it are now patriots; while combinations among laborers for self protection have failed, and the men who advocate it are ene- mies of society. If these conditions are to continue, then the fate of the Amer- ican laborer is sealed. He must be reduced to the lowest conditions of exist- ence, and this must destroy that very capital which is now pushing him down; for with the destruction of the purchasing power of the American laborer will disappear our great American market, and whenever this happens — when- ever the American laborer, like his brother in the poorer countries of the Old World, can only buy a little coarse clothing and some poor food and cannot afford to travel, then many of our great manufacturing and railroad properties will not be worth so cents on the dollar. Further, this process must produce discontent, disturbance and hatred and will increase the expense of watching Appendix. ^ property, and greatly increase the expense of government, and consequently the taxes. Russianizing a government is an expensive business and has never yet succeeded — not even in Russia. It has always resulted in choking enter- prise, and in the end destroying capital. Capital to-day does not seek invest- ment in any country where the laborers are slaves, and where there is an ever present system of police and espionage, for the taxes are destructive and there is no market. Capital seeks those countries where liberty stimulates activity and enterprise. Again, the government is interested in preserving the highest order of citizenship. This is impossible where the laborer is too poor to educate his children and is kept in the condition of a beast of burden. The spirit of self-preservation alone requires the government to take notice of these conditions. If the government is impotent in dealing with combina- tions of capital,, then it should at least give the laboring men of the country a fair chance to protect themselves by peaceable means. It will be a sorry day for our country when we shall have only the very rich on the one hand, and a crushed and spiritless poor on the other. These conditions, if not arrested, will change the character of our government, and give us in time a corrupt oligarchy, the worst form of government known to man. For several years there has come from certain classes a loud cry of anarchy intended to cover every man who protested against the destruction of American liberty with obloquy. It was a cry of "Stop thief" by a class that apparently wished to direct attention from what it was doing. Even if we had anarchists in our coun- try, they could accomplish nothing, for men in rags never yet destroyed a gov- ernment. They can sometimes destroy some property, but never a government. We have our fair share of criminals of every grade and kind, and the law is amply able to deal with these. Our government never has been and is not to-day in the slightest danger from the anarchy of a mob. Our people are loyal, and no government can be found on earth that is stronger than ours in this regard, for it is as yet entrenched in the hearts of our citizens. Half a million men would rush to the defense of the government in our State alone in a day if it were in the slightest danger from any violence. Our danger lies in another direction. It comes from that corruption, usurpation, insolence and oppression that go hand in hand with vast concentration of wealth, wielded by unscrupulous men, and it behooves every friend of republican institutions to give these things most serious consideration. Being required by the Con- stitution to report the condition of the State, and seeing that the ground is being dug from some of its foundation, I have felt it to be my duty to call attention to it, earnestly hoping that a remedy will be found for all of the evils that threaten us. Let us bear in mind in all we do that we are legislating for one of the greatest States on earth, a State that is yet in itsinfancy, and has already won the admiration of mankind; a State which if guided by those prin- ciples of liberty and true republican government ordained by the fathers, must have a career of unparalleled grandeur and glory. Therefore let us build for the centuries. JOHN P. ALTGELD. 938 LIVE QUESTIONS. SPECIAL MESSAGE ON THE LEASING OUT OF SCHOOL PROPERTY IN CHICAGO. State of Illinois, Executive Office, Springfield, March 6th, 1895. To the Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives: I desire to direct your attention to the importance of more thoroughly protecting the productive properties belonging to the school fund of the State, and also of striking from the statutes all provisions under which vast amounts of property escape taxation. 1st. In some portions of the State, particularly in Chicago, there are very valuable lands which belong to the school fund, and the rent of which was intended to maintain the public schools. Some of the most valuable land in the heart of that city is of this character. Besides numerous other pieces there is the entire block bounded by Dearborn, Madison, State and Monroe streets. Years ago all school lands were leased by the Board of Education to various parties for a long term, but with the provision that there should be a revaluation every five years, and that the rent should be six per cent, per annum on this valuation. The purpose of this was to enable the school fund to get the benefit of the advance in the value of the land as the city grew larger. Under this arrangement the lessees all erected buildings which were similar to other buildings in the vicinity that were not on leased ground. Revaluations have been had from time to time, each much higher than the former, but the lessees, many of whom are prominent citizens, have been able to exert such an influence that the rent produced by this ground has always been far below that paid for ground belonging to private individuals, in the same locality and no more desirable, so that these school leases have become very valuable over and above the value of the buildings. Some of them have been sold for large sums and others are held at over half a million dollars, whereas, if a fair rental were paid, this would not be the case. It is found that the owners of four great daily newspapers hold leases of school lands. Three of these papers are actually published on school lands, and it has happened in the past that when certain men made a strong effort to compel the payment of a fair rent on this land they were made targets of abuse by at least one of these newspapers. The original lease provided that the Board of Education should alone select the three appraisers. The theory on which the contract was made was that the lessee should pay all the ground was worth from time to time and that, as the members of the board were not personally interested, they would not ask more. This was the contract. But eight years ago, after an appraisement had been made and there was some litigation, this Board of Education took the remarkable step of waiving this right and entered into a contract whereby it was in the future to select only one appraiser, and the other two were to be selected by two different judges of Chicago. Now, while these judges will always be honest and able, yet experience has shown that as a rule judges are as sensitive to newspaper influence as other men. When, therefore, the board gave up the right to name the appraisers it lost what was of great value to the public. The time has now arrived for making a new appraisement, and it is proposed by some of the parties in interest, who pose as patriotic citizens, that the board shall waive the right to have revaluations from time to time APPENDIX. 939 altogether. This would prevent the school fund getting the benefit of the appreciation in the value of land in the future and would be practically robbing the school fund in advance. Further, as we are just emerging from a panic, this is not a good time to fix values for the future. Not only should this be prohibited by emergency legislation, but, if possible, measures should be adopted that will compel the payment of such rental in the future as the ground is worth. At present the entire block above described pays only $166,521 per year, while the corresponding piece of ground on the opposite side of the street is worth more than twice this sum in addition to the taxes. These school grounds are exempt from taxes. The law contemplated that the rent should be that much higher. Instead of this, it has been kept lower. For example: The southwest corner of State and Madison streets is the most valuable corner in the city. The lot is 48x80, and leased to Mr. Otis, who pays $15,120 a year rental on the ground, and no taxes. The building is old and of little value, yet he sublets it at a rental which, after paying the ground rent and all expenses, nets him over forty thousand dollars ($40,000) per year. As this is due to the value of the ground, most of this sum should go to the school fund. The southeast corner of Dearborn and Madison streets is leased to the Chicago Tribune Company. The ground is' 72x120 feet and at present pays a rental of only $12,000 a year, while on the opposite corner, diagonally across Dearborn street, a piece of ground 20x40 feet, having only 800 square feet, is rented at an annual sum of $10,000 in addition to the taxes, which at present amount to $2,240, bringing the annual cost of the ground tQ over $12,000. Again, on the southwest corner of Dearborn and Madison streets a piece of ground 50x92^, being but little more than half as large as the Tribune lot, and just across the street from it, is rented at an annual rental of $26,900 in addition to the taxes, which now amount to over $3,000, making the annual cost of the ground alone $30,000. In comparison with what other property in the same locality is paying, it is clear that the Tribune lot is worth nearly three times the rent it now pays, and that the owners of the Tribune have for a number of years been pocketing in the neighborhood of $25,000 a year that should have gone to the school fund. Second. For the purposes of general taxation other property is assessed at from one-fourth to one-fifth of its market value. This newspaper, aside from the real estate, has a cash market value of over three millions of dollars and for many years has been paying dividends on this sum. If it were assessed on the same basis as other property, its assessment would be at least $600,000, and it would have to pay upwards of $40,000 a year taxes, yet it manages to escape with an assessment of only $18,000, and pays only about $1,500 taxes, so that the owners of this paper have for many years been able to pocket in the neighborhood of $40,000 a year that should have gone to the public treasury for taxes. This added to what should have gone to the school fund makes over $60,000 a year that has been diverted from the public into the hands of private individuals in this one instance. As these newspapers have much to say about patriotism and a higher citizenship, they should set a better example. Waving the flag with one hand and plundering the public with the other is a form of patriotism that is getting to be entirely too common and is doing infinite harm to our country. Under the Constitution new legislation does not take effect until July I, unless it contains an emergency clause, and, as the next assessment of 940 • LIVE QUESTIONS. property for purposes of taxation will be made before that time, I respectfully urge immediate emergency legislation which will wipe out all laws under which glaring injustice and wrong can be perpetrated. > VETO OP THE MONOPOLY BILLS. To the Gentlemen of the Senate: I herewith return without my approval Senate bill No. 138, entitled An act concerning street railroads and to repeal a certain act therein named. Also Senate bill No. 137, entitled An act concerning elevated railroads and to regulate the same. I have also returned to the House without my approval House bill No. 618, entitled An act to regulate the granting of franchises and special privileges by cities, villages and incorporated towns. While these three bills relate to different subjects they all involve the same •principle and are subject to the same fundamental objections in this, that they legalize monopoly. In giving my reasons at length for withholding my ap- proval, I deem it best to point out the objections to the three bills in order to more clearly show the "principle involved, so that in case your honorable body should decide to amend the measures you can the more readily meet, the difficulties presented. The law now provides that corporations may be formed for ninety-nine years,, but a city council can only grant an ordinance to operate a street rail- way in a street for twenty years. The purpose of this limitation is to enable cities at certain intervals to impose such conditions in respect to revenue, or ac- commodations, or rates of fare as may be deemed necessary to protect ttie public interests. Now, each of the first two bills gives a city council power to grant an ordinance for the full life of the corporation, that is, ninety-nine years, so that it would be in the power of a city council to give away to a street railway not only the rights of this generation, but the rights of future generations, and these bills make no provision for securing to the public any compensation or protection in return. Second. The law now provides that an ordinance to build a street rail- way in a street can only be granted on condition that the company will pay all damages which owner of abutting property on the street or public ground may sustain by reason of the building of such road, such damage to be as- certained by court proceedings under the laws relating to eminent domain. Bill No. 138 repeals this, provision. Third. There can be no competing street railway unless it can get into the heart of a town. In large cities, especially in Chicago, all of the down- town streets are already occupied. As a street railroad gets no title or ex- clusive right to a street, it has happened in the past that a new company was given a license by the city to put down a second track for a few blocks on a street already occupied. In such a case each of the rails of the second road is laid a few inches from the rails of the old road, so that the cars have practically to move over the same ground. But Section 5 of _ Bill 138 con- tains a proviso which would enable an old company to prevent such a privilege being granted to a second corporation if it in the slightest degree delayed or interfered with the old company's operations. Fourth. Both of these bills, 137 and 138, expressly provide that any "APPENDIX. 941 property holder can enjoin any new company from beginning work, by alleging that it did not have a petition signed by the owners of a majority of the frontage before the city council granted an ordinance. None of the old companies were subject to this provision, as it was generally held that the attorney representing the State could alone maintain such a suit. But under this new provision an old company could get some resident property holders to commence a large number of suits in the different State courts, and some non-resident property owners to commence suits in the United States court, and thus not only tie up any new company in the courts for years, but wear it out before it could lay down a rail. Legislation to protect a property holder is very much to be desired, but legislation which is manifestly intended to enable corporations to use a property holder as a convenience in order to establish or perpetuate a monopoly can never benefit the public. Fifth. These bills provide that no company shall have the right to even go into the court and condemn any part of or anything pertaining to any of the existing roads, or of any road which may be built under privilege already obtained, so that, when applied to Chicago, no matter how much the city may grow in the future, no new or competing road can be built, because the existing roads have been so located that it will be impossible for a new line to get into the heart of the city without at some point having to strike and, to a limited extent at least, interfere with an existing road. Should a loop be built in Chicago for the elevated roads on streets now contemplated it would then be impossible for any new road to get into the heart of the town. This clause of the bills was evidently intended to prevent any further effort at competition and thus to practically give a monopoly for a century, and that without giving the public anything in return. Sixth. Again, each of these bills contains a provision which expressly authorizes consolidation on the part of any number of roads, so that they can in the end all come under one management. That is, this provision expressly legalizes monopoly. It is true there is a clause in Bill No. 137 which says that competing lines shall not consolidate, but practically there are no com- peting lines in Chicago now, and, as the other provisions of the bills will prevent any competing road from being built, it is evident that this clause does not signify anything. Taking all of the provisions of the two bills, it is evident that they were intended to create, and if they become laws will create, a monopoly in Chicago of both the street railway and the elevated railway business for nearly a hundred years to come. House Bill No. 618 provides that before a city council can grant a privilege to lay gas pipes or to string wires for conducting electricity a petition must be presented, signed by the owners of a majority of the land frontage of each block or any street or alley in which it is proposed to lay such pipes or string such wires. All of the old gas companies have their pipes in the streets of Chicago and several new companies recently formed have their permits to put in pipes and string electric wires where they choose, and consequently would not be affected by this bill. A brief examination of this measure shows that if it were to become a law it would be in the power of the existing companies to prevent for all time any new or competing company from putting down pipe or string- ing any wires, for they would only need to prevent the new company from getting the signatures of the owners of a majority of the frontage of one 942 LIVE QUESTION'S. block on any street proposed to be occupied by the new company. Had the bill provided in express terms that the existing companies should for all time have a monopoly of furnishing gas, electric light, etc., in the city of Chicago it could scarcely have been more effective. So that this bill, like the other two, aims to legalize monopoly. In considering these three bills the fundamental question arises at the threshold, whether we have reached a point in our career where we are willing to legalize what during our whole history and by all civilized nations has been condemned. Are we prepared to reverse the entire policy of all government on this question, and that too without securing any compensation. It is true that in some instances other governments have sold special privileges or granted monopolies and the State derived a consideration for them, but this was at the. beginning of an enterprise and not after it was established. On the contrary, making a monopoly, has for years been a crime punishable by both fine and imprisonment in England and in this country. It is the business of government to protect all interests alike, and if any interest is to receive special attention it should be the weaker and not the more powerful. Again, these bills would instantly increase the value of the properties of the various corporations interested many millions of dollars, to say nothing of the future, and all this without any effort on their part. It is a flagrant attempt to increase the riches of some men at the expense of others by means of legislation. It may be true that there is now in Chicago practically a monopoly in all of the lines of business covered by these bills and it may also be true that this condition will continue whether these bills become a law or not, but there is a great difference between enduring an evil which can not be avoided and deliberately taking it into your arms. Some of the largest, most conservative and best governed cities of Europe and America now furnish their inhabitants gas, electric light and even street car service, and do this at greatly reduced rates and yet derive a large revenue from this source, just as Chicago now does in furnishing water. If we had a law permitting cities to do the same in this State, then, if these bills were adopted, the people could at any time free themselves from the monopoly by building or acquiring plants and furnishing the service themselves, or, if the corporations could be compelled to pay a part of their gross earnings into the treasury, then the public would get some compensation. Or if any citizen who suffers from the exactions of monopoly could on certain conditions go into a court of record and get protection against excessive charges the case would be different. It is asserted that combinations do not injure the public, but I remember that about eight years ago gas sold at one dollar per thousand feet in Chicago. Then the trust was formed and the price was at once advanced to a dollar and a quarter. It has also been argued that the entire trend of mod- ern civilization is toward concentration and consolidation and that no power can arrest this force; that all the anti-trust laws are a dead letter and have accomplished nothing; that while the law may now forbid one corporation from combining or consolidating with other corporations, yet men who own stock in one corporation cannot be prevented from owning stock in other cor- porations and consequently a number of corporations cannot be prevented from acting in harmony or working together; that great concentrations of capital can and will control any situation and that consequently it is idle to talk about APPENDIX. 943 Competition in large cities in any business in which monopoly is possible; that in Chicago we have had monopolies for many years in the lines of business covered by these bills and that this condition will continue whether these bills become a law or not. It is sufficient to say in answer to this argument that, if it is true, then it simply shows the necessity for finding some other way of protecting the public, and it furnishes no excuse for an unconditional sur- render by the government to the corporations. If it is true that the days of competition are over, then some other method of protecting the public should be placed on the statute books before the State legalizes that which it has condemned for centuries. If the corporations involved require legislation to properly protect them then it should be promptly passed with just limitations. But to pass these bills under existing conditions and without any limita- tions would be to fasten a collar on the future and to levy tribute on genera- tions yet to come, and all this simply to further enrich a few private individuals. It is idle to say that the bills can be repealed in the future, for, if the existing corporations are now able to get affirmative legislation of this character, they can easily prevent its repeal. Besides, a repeal could not affect any privileges which any corporation might in the meantime have acquired under them.' I am therefore obliged to withhold my approval from each of these bills, be- cause they attempt to reverse tht theory and traditions of government by legalizing monopoly and make no provisions for protecting the public. Second. Because their effect would be to increase the riches of some men at the expense of others by legislation. Third. Because they would shackle a great city. I love Chicago and am not willing to help forge a chain which would bind her people hand and foot for all time to the wheels of monopoly and leave them no chance to escape. VETO OF BILL DECLARING POLICY OF THE STATE AS TO WATERWAYS. To the Honorable the Senate: I herewith return without my approval Senate bill No. 457, entitled An act to promote the construction of waterways. The main provision of the bill is as follows: "It is hereby declared the policy of the State of Illinois to procure as soon as practicable, the construction of a trunk waterway through the State from Lake Michigan, via the Des Plaines and Illinois rivers, to the Mississippi river, of such dimensions and capacity as to form a homogeneous part of a through route from the Atlantic seaboard, via the great lakes, to the Gulf of. Mexico, and it is hereby declared to be the further policy of said State to determine such a system of lateral and subsidiary waterways as shall be per- mitted by topographical and hydrographical conditions in order that the State may, by appropriate legislation, fully conserve the public interest in said system, to the end that the same be developed with the growth in resources and population and as public necessities shall demand. And in furtherance of the policy herein set forth the Governor is authorized to appoint, with the advice and consent of the Senate, a commissioner of waterways, who shall be a civil engineer of recognized standing and ability on waterway questions, said commissioner to report to the next general Assembly of Illinois such 944 LIVE &Un$tlOti$. data and conclusions with estimates, diagrams and maps in illustration thereof as may be germane to the subject, and said report shall be accompanied by recommendations in regard to. the means to be employed in carrying out any project that may be matured and the draft of any legislation that may be desirable." The bill further states that "in projecting said trunk waterway the com- missioner shall consider the sanitary and ship canal of Chicago and the con- nection of the same with Lake Michigan in relation to its use as a harbor for lake shipping; also for ocean vessels in accordance with such plans for con- necting the lakes with the Atlantic as may be projected by the commissioners of the United States, and said commissioner is authorized to co-operate with the United States commission and obtain any necessary data bearing upon said projects for ocean navigation." The commissioner of waterways to be appointed by the Governor and the Senate shall be paid $500 a month for twenty-two months, and he may appoint such assistants as he deems proper, and the bill then appropriates $25,000 to pay these salaries and expenses for the next twenty-two months. Had this bill simply appropriated $25,000 to make a survey of the Illinois and Des Plaines rivers to secure such information in regard to levels, etc., as a proper survey would furnish, there would have been no constitutional objection to it, but it will be seen that this is not the ohject or purpose of the bill. On the contrary, it is an open and direct declaration of a policy to be pursued by the State. It explicitly commits the State to the policy of undertaking an enterprise; that is, the dredging of a canal that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The Constitution expressly forbids any appropriations being made in aid of railroads or canals. This bill explicitly states that its object is to procure the making of a waterway; that is a canal, and the appro- priation is therefore unconstitutional. If such an enterprise is ever under- taken it will have to be done by the Federal Government. . It will be noticed that the canal or waterway is to provide for vessels drawing not less than fourteen feet of water, and is to be of sufficient width to admit of the passage of several large steamers having in tow other boats. It would be similar to the drainage canal now being dug from the western part of Chicago to Lockport, a distance of only about thirty-four miles and which will cost the people of Chicago considerably over $30,000,000. The canal proposed by this bill would commence at Lockport, where the drainage canal now ends, and would run to LaSalle, where it would strike the Illinois river, that is, a distance of about seventy miles. No man could tell exactly what this would cost. But taking other works of a similar character as a criterion it would cost from $40,000,000 to $50,000,000. From LaSalle by way of the Illinois river to the Mississippi river it is in the neighborhood of 230 miles and the average depth of water in the Illinois river is usually given at three and a half feet. At present it is much lower than that. I will not undertake to make an estimate of the millions of dollars that would be re- quired to deepen this so that it would admit the passage of vessels drawing fourteen feet of water, nor of the millions of annual expenses that would be involved in afterward keeping open the channel. From the mouth of the Illinois river to Cairo by way of the Mississippi" river is in the neighborhood of 200 miles, and the average depth of water is usually given at from four to four and one-half feet, but in recent years it APPENDIX. 945 has fallen below that during the summer season, which is the season of navi- gation, and at present the water in the Mississippi river is so low that the usual steamers plying between St. Louis and Cairo find difficulty in getting through and some smaller boats drawing but little water have been substituted. It would be impossible to estimate the millions of dollars that would be required to deepen the Mississippi so as to admit the passage of vessels drawing fourteen feet of water from Cairo up to the Illinois river, and inasmuch as the Missis- sippi is constantly shifting its channel it would become necessary to redig the channel every few years. From Cairo southward for hundreds of miles the average depth of water during the seasons of navigation is usually given at from seven to eight feet, so it will be seen that the project of this bill practically contemplates the dig- ging of a ship canal between 400 and 500 miles in length, besides deepening the depth of the Mississippi river for an equal distance. It would require hundreds of millions to carry out this project and the annual expense alone to keep such a deep channel from filling up would amount to more than any possible benefit which could be derived from such a waterway under exist- ing conditions. The idea of having a great national waterway from the lakes to the gulf is exceedingly enchanting and would arouse the enthusiasm of our people were it not for the cold fact that, in the first place, it is not practicable, and in the second place it would burden our people for generations with enormous taxes and be of comparatively little benefit if we had it. JOHN P. ALTGELD. VETO OF BILL AUTHORIZING CONSOLIDATION OF CERTAIN CORPORATIONS. State of Illinois, Executive Office. June 10, 1895. To the Honorable, the Senate: I herewith return without my approval Senate bill No. 362, being an act to amend Section 1 of an act in relation to the consolidation of in- corporated companies approved March 9, 1867. This bill provides for the consolidation of any number of corporations organized for the same or similar general purposes. Under it all corporations engaged in the same general line of business can consolidate and thus legally form a monopoly. If this bill or any existing law made provision for adequately protecting the public in all such cases then I would not hesitate to sign it, for it has been my desire to co-operate with the General Assembly as far as pos- sible; but for the State to deliberately legalize monopoly and make abso- lutely no provision for protecting the people of Illinois from extortions and oppression would be a crime. .._,„,,,,,, JOHN P. ALTGELD, Governor. 60 946 LIVE QUESTIONS. YETO OF BILL TO STOP THE MAKING OF CIGARS IN PENITENTIARY. State of Illinois, Executive Office. June ii, 1895, To the Honorable, the Gentlemen of the Senate: I herewith return without my approval Senate bill No. 106, entitled An act in regard to the employment of convicts. This bill smacks a little of politics. It seeks to relieve one industry from the competition of prison labor, but it increases the burden of other in- dustries just that much. It provides that no cigars shall be made in our prisons. Had it gone farther and provided that the men now making cigars should not be put to work at any other industry in the prison then it would at least have been free from this element of injustice. But under the law as this bill would leave it the prison officials would be obliged to take the men who are now making cigars and put them to work at other industries, and as all other industries in the prison are already overcrowded, this would increase the burdens of the outside free laborers in those lines, for it would increase the output; merely shifting the burden from one industry to another does not help matters and is unjust. This question of prison labor must be treated on a higher plane and must be solved in such a way as to relieve all free labor of competition with prison labor. The Constitution having been so amended as to prohibit contract labor in our prisons and as the law requires the prisoners to be kept at work this administration has adopted the policy of work- ing the prisoners on State account, and in order to reduce the competition with free labor to a minimum the prison officials have endeavored to increase the number of industries, so that no more than one hundred men would need to work at any one line. A large number of new industries have been intro- duced, but as we have about 1,700 convicts at Joliet and it is difficult to find new industries suitable for a prison, it has not as yet been possible in all cases to keep the number quite down to this point. But only fifty-eight are working in the cigar shop, so that the cigar industry is as yet hurt less than any other industry. The cigar makers of this State are industrious and loyal citizens and like all men whose bread depends on. daily toil they are suffering severely from the depression of the times. I would gladly assist them in every way in my power, but cannot do so at the expense of others, whose condition is just as bad. In my message to the General Assembly in January I stated: "It is to be deprecated that convict labor should in any way, even in the slightest degree, be brought in competition with free labor. If the Legislature can suggest a plan better than the one now in force and which will make less the competition with free labor we will be most happy to co-operate in its enforce- ment." I sincerely hoped that the Legislature might furnish a solution of this question and I very much regret that it has not been able to do so. But as long as the law compels the prison officials to keep the prisoners at work this bill would simply aggravate the situation. There is something said in the bill about manufacturing chewing gum and similar articles, which nobody has thought of and which were evidently intended to conceal the principal purpose of the bill, viz.: to prevent cigar making. The argument about un- cleanliness is without foundation, as there is not a shop in the country in which 'APPENDIX. 947 both the surroundings and the men present a more tidy and cleanly appear- ance than at Joliet. JOHN P. ALTGELD, Governor. PROCLAMATION. State of Illinois, Executive Department, Springfield. To the Members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives, consti- tuting the General Assembly of the State of Illinois, and to all other per- sons whom it may concern: Gentlemen: Aside from the two million dollars which the law requires to be levied and collected for school purposes the General Assembly has made appropriations for various purposes to be expended during the next two fiscal years, amounting to about $7,600,000. The income from the Illinois Central Railway, and from the various State offices and other sources during these two years will be about $1,600,000, thus leaving about $6,000,000 to be raised by taxation. Yet in spite of this fact the General Assembly has authorized a tax levy of only $2,500,000 a year, or $5,000,000 for the two years, thus forcing a shortage of $1,000,000 on to the State treasury, and doing so by legislation. I cannot understand this method of financiering, and I submit that the good name and credit of this great and wealthy State should not be thus trifled with, neither for partisan nor for any other purpose. If any of these appropriations are for improper purposes, then they should Hot have been made; but having been made, both the honor of the State and good business methods require that the money be raised to pay them. So far as I am advised the appropriations as a whole are all right and are necessary to promote the welfare of the State; and considering the fact that half a million had to be appropriated to pay the expense of suppressing the riots of 1894, and of rebuilding the Anna' Asylum, they are not extravagant but compare very favorably with those of prior sessions. In fact those made for State government purposes are lower in proportion to the work to be done than they ever have been in the history of the State. At present the affairs of the State are, as a rule, in splendid order, and notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary, for partisan purposes, the State treasury is in excellent condi- tion, and can be kept so if the General Assembly will permit a tax levy for a sufficient sum to meet the appropriations which the General Assembly has itself made. Again, when the last General Assembly began early in January, there were a number of questions vitally affecting the welfare of our people, which de- manded legislation. After being in session upwards of five months, the Gen- eral Assembly has adjourned without taking action on these important measures. Second. The State has demanded a revision of the revenue law, because at present a very large proportion of the wealth of the State escapes all taxation and the burdens of government fall heavily on the people of moderate means. Third. The people demanded a State Board of Equalization that would not shield certain great corporations from taxation. 948 LIVE QUESTIONS. Fourth. A class of abuses has grown up in the justice and police courts of larger cities which have for years been called infamous. Fifth. Chicago has over one and a half million of inhabitants, is one of the great commercial centers of the world and has one of the most ex- pensive judicial systems to be found, and yet its citizens have practically to submit to a denial of justice because it takes almost half a generation to get through with a law suit, because of a bad system. Sixth. Since the recent decision of the Supreme Court relating to the factory inspection law, thousands of children under fourteen years of age are being crowded into factories and stores, often doing the work of adults for a pittance, stunting their lives and growing up to be inferior men and women, and yet nothing has been done to prevent this degeneration. Seventh. A year ago one of the large employers of the State went to the sea shore and the Thousand Islands, while his men were on strike, and it cost the city of Chicago and the State a very large sum of money to protect his property, and the State could not even inquire into the cause of the trouble. As we have one of the greatest industrial States in the world and similar con- ditions constantly arise, the public demanded some measure of conciliation and inquiry in regard to the cause of the trouble in such cases. A mild measure was proposed, but the corporation lobbyists objected, and the public, which pays the bills, is left helpless. Eighth. Sleeping cars are as much of a necessity to the business traveling public as are railroads. While railroad charges have fallen more than a third with a reduction of business and while the prices of other things have fallen, sleeping car charges are practically as high as they ever were, although the business has increased more than fivefold. Justice calls for relief from this extortion and for a reasonable regulation, such as exists in regard to railroads, but the monopoly objected, and no relief has been given. Ninth. At present a few individuals can select and thus practically pack a grand jury in Chicago, so that a few men have it in their power to shield some offenders, and also to use a grand jury to carry out partisan schemes.- Consequently the grand juries of Cook County have been used repeatedly in recent years to influence public sentiment with reference to a prospective election by indicting upwards of one hundred men on sensational charges, and when the elections were over and the public had lost interest in the matter the cases were all thrown out of court because nothing could be proven. This method of prostituting the machinery of the court should be stopped, and the law should be so changed that it will not be in the power of a few men to name- or control a grand jury. Tenth. Although the General Assembly was in session over five months it did nothing towards further solving the prison labor problem, but on the last day of the session it approved a report of a committee recommending the adoption of a system said to prevail in New York, thus apparently taking a position on the subject without assuming any responsibility. Now if the New York system or any other is really better than ours, then steps should have been taken to adopt it. Now the time has come when those millionaires and great corporations of the State which pay little or no tax must be made to bear their share of the burdens of government. APPENDIX. 94g The time has come when the State has a right to insist on such reasonable legislation as is necessary for the highest welfare of our people. The time has come when the State has a right to say to all of us that if we are not willing to do her work honestly and faithfully then we should make way for men who will do it. Therefore, by virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution, I do hereby convene the General Assembly of the State of Illinois, to meet in extraordinary session, in the Capitol, at Springfield, at 2 o'clock, on Tuesday, June 25, 1895, for the purpose of considering the following named subjects and enacting such legislation in regard thereto as may be deemed proper, to-wit: First. For raising revenue equal to the appropriations. Second. The creation of such a revenue law as will compel all persons and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes on the property owned or held by them, and to compel foreign corporations to pay a reasonable license fee or tax for the privilege of doing business in our State. Third. The abolition of the State Board of Equalization. Fourth. The enactment of such legislation as may be deemed necessary to correct and put an end to the abuses and scandalous conditions prevailing in and about many of the police and justice courts of the State, particularly in large cities. Fifth. The enactment of such legislation as may be deemed necessary to establish such a system of practice and procedure in our courts of record as will prevent the unnecessary accumulation of business and as will insure a speedy and final determination of all proceedings at law or in equity, and pro- ceedings based on statute as well as criminal or quasi-criminal proceedings. Sixth. The enactment of such legislation as may be deemed necessary to prevent the employment of children in such a manner as to stunt their devel- opment physically, intellectually or morally, and thus prevent the enforced growth of a low order of citizenship. Seventh. The enactment of such legislation as may be deemed necessary to create the proper machinery, agencies or boards of conciliation, inquiry and of arbitration in all cases where there is a dispute or disagreement between employer and employes, making special provisions in such legislation for thorough examination and investigation by such board as to the causes giving rise to such disagreement or trouble, the actual facts and conditions con- nected therewith, and for reporting the same. Instead of a standing salaried board I would recommend such legislation as will enable the parties to the dispute, alone or with the aid of a county judge, to- select their own board in each case so that there may be no question about its impartiality, on the one hand, and no unnecessary salary paid, on the other. Eighth. The enactment of such legislation as may be necessary to fix a reasonable maximum limit to charges for sleeping car service in this State, or to make some reasonable provision for regulating the same in some other manner. Ninth. The enactment of such legislation as will insure fair and unbiased grand juries. Tenth. The enactment of such legislation relating to the employment of the convicts of this State as will be an improvement on the system now in vogue 9SO LIVE QUESTIONS. and will relieve outside free labor of competition with prison labor without doing violence to the taxpayers, if such a system can be devised. Eleventh. The revision and amendment of the law relating to slander and libel. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused to be affixed the great Seal of State, this 17th day of June, A. D. 1895. By the Governor: JOHN P. ALTGELD. W. H. Hinrichsen, Secretary of State. [Seal.] BIENNIAL MESSAGE TO LEGISLATURE. Executive Department, Springfield, 111., Jan. 6, 1896. Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives: I submit the following information and recommendations in regard to the condition of the State, and as this message is practically the closing act of the present administration, it may be proper to glance at the policy that has been pursued and the results that have been achieved during the last four years. In order to avoid inordinate length, I refer, for a full discussion of many of the subjects herein mentioned, to the biennial message submitted to the General Assembly January 9, 1895. POLICY AS TO APPOINTMENTS. The policy adopted at the beginning of the administration, in the matter of making appointments, when other things were equal, was to give prefer- ence to men who were politically in sympathy with this administration, but in all cases, where, by reason of some special fitness or some peculiar condition, it was believed that the State could be best served by the appointment of a Republican, such appointment was promptly made. This applied to superin- tendents of institutions as well as to boards upon which it was thought best to have both parties represented. The superintendent of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum at Jacksonville, and the superintendent of the Reformatory at Pontiac, are Republicans. In a number of cases wjomen were appointed to important offices because they were believed to be peculiarly fitted for the duties to be performed, and some Re- publicans were appointed on most of the important boards of the State, such as the West Park Board, the Lincoln Park Board, the State Board of Health, the State Board of Charities, the State Board of Education, the various boards to locate institutions, etc. In regard to attendants in State institutions, the rule enforced was to keep every competent man and woman so long as they did their duty. INSTRUCTIONS TO APPOINTEES. The following instructions were given to all appointees for their guidance: First. Do not put a man upon the payroll who is not absolutely needed. Second. Do not pay higher salaries in an institution than the service or ability which you get would command. Third. Do not keep a man an hour after it is discovered that he is not APPENDIX. 95 1 just the man for the place, no matter who recommended him, or what political influence he may possess. Fourth. Require vigilance and careful attention of every employe, and promptly discharge any attendant who is guilty of brutality to patients, or who is guilty of any serious neglect of duty, and remember all the time that the institutions were founded and are maintained for the care and comfort of the unfortunate, and not for the comfort of the management. These instructions have been rigorously insisted upon, and I believe have, in general, been observed. BUSINESS METHODS. The new system of purchasing supplies, which was fully described in my last message, has been continued with the same gratifying results. Under it a list is made of the articles that may be needed for a given time.- Nearly a dozen copies are made of this list and sent to as many different establishments as deal in the line of goods required, requesting them to send bids and samples of goods. The bids are then opened and the samples inspected in the office of the institution and the purchase made there, the right being reserved to reject any goods that are not satisfactory when they are delivered. Under this system it has been found that the institutions can buy their supplies at from 10 to 20 per cent below the current market rates, and get a better grade of goods than they otherwise could get, and each institution saves, in addition, the salary of an officer who was formerly employed and who was known as the purchasing agent. The salaries of these officers alone amounted to upwards of $25,000.00 a year. In addition to the financial aspects of the case, there are moral considera- tions, still more important, for, under the new system, the favoritism, cor- ruption and scandal that are the natural outgrowth of the old system, can be entirely avoided. The net saving in the charitable institutions alone resulting from improved business methods averages $153,473.94 P er year, or $613,895.76 for the four years. While there has scarcely been any increase in the appropriations for main- taining these charitable institutions the number of their inmates has increased more than fifteen hundred. Not only has this increased number been cared for without producing a deficit, but two years ago there was $233,482.00 turned back into the State Treasury, and $126,000.00 has just been covered back into the treasury by the following institutions: Central Insane Asylum, $45,000.00; Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, $9,000.00; Institution for the Blind at Jacksonville, $12,000.00; Southern Insane Asylum, $25,000.00, and Soldiers' and Sailors' Home, $35,000.00. The buildings have been overhauled so far as possible and are in good condition. SCIENTIFIC METHODS. Soon after taking charge of the institutions the superintendent of each was instructed to make an investigation of the methods, the theories in vogue and the results of the experiments in similar institutions to his own, both in this country and in Europe, and see wherein such institutions differed from ours, and if anything was found anywhere that was thought to be an improve- ment upon the methods pursued here, to at once adopt it if possible, and also to submit a full report of such investigation to the governor. These reports 952 LIVE QUESTIONS. have heretofore been submitted. Some of them are very able. While there are institutions elsewhere that maintain a more showy executive department for the officers, I am satisfied that so far as relates to care and comfort of the patients and general methods of treatment, the institutions of this State, taken as a whole, are unsurpassed anywhere in the world. The total number of in- mates in all of our institutions is 8,948. PENITENTIARIES. Owing to the severe business depression great difficulty has been expe- rienced in all of the States in managing the prisons because of the difficulty of finding a market for the product of prison labor. In those States in which the contract system still prevails prisoners were offered at prices that were far below the cost of keeping them, but found no takers. The system of contracting out the labor of convicts having been abolished by our Constitution, the State was practically forced to work the prisoners on its account as soon as the contracts which had been formerly made expired. A large number of these contracts expired just before the beginning of the present administra- tion, but some did not expire until October, 1894. Formerly as high as from two hundred and fifty to four hundred prisoners worked at one trade, and that with machinery, so that the output was enormously large and seriously affected the market in those lines. In order to reduce the competition to the minimum, the policy adopted by this administration was to introduce more trades, so as to reduce the number of convicts working in each to about one hundred if possible, and also whenever practicable to do so to dispense with machinery, and work by hand, the health of the prisoners making it neces- sary that they should work, and the law requiring them to earn something toward their support. Under this system the industries have been greatly diversified and the total output for the prison is much reduced from what it formerly was. When the contract system was most prosperous and prisoners were let at high prices the prison at Joliet was self-sustaining, but before the beginning of this administration this ceased to be the case and the reports of the then outgoing commissioners, spread upon the records of the institution, showed that during the four months immediately preceding the date when the present board of commissioners took charge, that institution was running behind at the rate of $7,542.00 per month, or about $90,000.00 per year, due largely, it was claimed, "to the expiration of high priced contracts for convicts." The State account system has now been established there and, notwithstanding the hard times and the fact that all industrial establishments are having trouble, the prison at Joliet has been brought to a point where it is absolutely self- sustaining under the new system. The report of the commissioners herewith submitted shows that the deficit for the last two years was only $6,387, and they are convinced that even if times should remain as they are there will be no deficit whatever for the future, and that the penitentiary requires no ap- propriations of any kind or character, and asks no money whatever at your hands. Not only this, but there is a balance of $50,000 on the old appropriation that has not been drawn and that can lapse into the treasury. The success of the State account system has been established, and it may be remarked generally on this subject that contractors never go into a penitentiary for the purpose of losing money. Whenever times are good so that they make money, 'APPENblX. 953 then the State would make money if it were running the institution on State account, and whenever times get so that the contractors would lose money in the institution they would manage in one way or another to get out and throw the loss upon the State anyhow. PHYSICAL CONDITION OF JOLIET PRISON. The prison at Joliet was for many years occupied by contractors. Naturally they made no improvements that they were not obliged to make, and when' they moved out there was not a shop or a building us»d by them that was fit for further occupancy, and most of them had to be practically rebuilt. The State at that time had scarcely any means for lighting and heating, and absolutely no power plant of any kind, although the commissioners had nearly fourteen hundred men on hand whom they were obliged to work. At that time the hospital was in the end of an old shop, utterly unsuited for the purpose, and patients suffering from all kinds of diseases were crowded to- gether; and there was no female prison, the female prisoners being kept on the upper story of the main building, owing to the fact that the other buildings were crowded, so that it became almost impossible to let them out where .they could get fresh air. All of these things together made large appropria- tions necessary. The commissioners built some new shops, they built a large heating, lighting and power house, and have one of the best plants of that character now that there is in the country. They built a large hospital, thor- oughly modern, and they have just finished a prison for females which is believed to be the most modern and best arranged and best equipped prison for females in the world, and the whole institution taken together is superior to any penitentiary upon this continent. CHESTER PENITENTIARY. This prison has never been self-sustaining. Under the contract system the annual deficit had, for many years, been $100,000. The same difficulties were encountered there in introducing the State account system that were met with at Joliet, except that the number of prisoners was not so large. Two years ago the commissioners believed that owing to improved business methods and economies which they had introduced, they could reduce the annual deficit to $50,000, and accordingly the last legislature appropriated only that sum to meet the deficit, but owing to the difficulty of disposing of their goods, the low prices prevailing, and an increase of several hundred prisoners above the number contemplated by the appropriations, the commissioners find that the actual deficit for the year will be about $75,000 instead of $50,000, as they had hoped. Consequently an immediate appropriation will be neces- sary. The physical condition of the prison is excellent. STRIPES. The law never provided that prisoners should wear stripes: the punish- ment which the law provided for its infraction being imprisonment and hard labor. -Putting stripes upon prisoners originated in those conditions and in those times when convicts were turned over to the care of men who for all practical purposes were brutes, and who soon succeeded in reducing every- thing to the level of the brute. 954 LIVE QUESTIONS. The effect of putting stripes on convicts has been found, to be this: That it does not affect those already hardened except to make them a little more desperate, nor does it affect those who are by nature dull and brutish except to lower them a little, but it tends to crush whatever spark of self-respect and manhood there may be left in a higher grade of prisoners, and in that way tends to still further unfit them for an honorable struggle in life, and an irreparable injury is thus done to society as well' as to the convict, which was not contemplated by law. Acting upon these principles, the commissioners of the prison at Joliet, on the first of July" last, clothed the prisoners in plain gray suits, and since that time have been using the striped suits only as a means of punishment for an infraction of the prison discipline. The effect of this change upon the spirit, the moral tone and character of the convicts has been so gratifying that I have recommended its adoption in the prison at Chester also. PRISON LABOR. In a general way the history of prison labor, or rather of the effort to work. convicts in this country, may be stated as follows : First. The leasing out system, whereby the State turned the prisoner over to the lessee and parted with all control over him, a system which still prevails in a few Southern States, and is productive of conditions that are a disgrace to civilization. Second. The contract system, by which the State contracts the labor of the prisoner at some price per day, but keeps control of the prisoner, a system which, while a great improvement on the leasing system, has yet been found to be destructive of the prisoners and of the best interests of the State, but which in good times enabled many men to make fortunes out of the prisons. Third. The piece-price system, so closely akin to the contract system that in most cases it has been difficult to distinguish it. Under this the contractor furnishes the material and superintendents and the State does the work, but it has to be done under almost the same conditions that prevail in the contract system, and therefore it is open to most of the objections that apply to that system. Fourth. The State account system, under which the State alone comes into contact with the prisoner, and no outside money-making agency brings its blighting shadow into the prison. As already stated, this system has been established and is self-sustaining at Joliet, even in these hard times. From a business standpoint it involves some risk to the State, for it is evident that where so many large industries are carried on, there must be ability and thor- ough integrity, or the chances of incurring heavy losses will be great. But I believe that the time has come when this State, which is now in many ways the leading State of the Union, must take another step forward in the matter of prison labor. There is a principle involved here which rises above all considerations of small economies, and that principle is that the State ought not in any manner to enter into competition with those who have to make their living by the sweat of their brows, and therefore the prisoners should be taken out of all employment in which they directly affect the wages of free laborers, and I recommend legislation that will bring about this result. Under this system the prisons would not be self-sustaining, but it is not clear that in the long run, it would cost the State much more money APPENDIX. 955 than it does now. Just what the prisoners should work at under such a system will perhaps be impossible to prescribe by law, and will have to be left largely to the judgment of the warden and commissioners from time to time. PARDONS AND COMMUTATIONS. So malicious and persistent an effort has been made to misrepresent the facts and make a false impression upon the public mind in regard to granting of pardons and commutations by this administration that justice requires a statement of the figures as shown by the records. During the four years just closing, the average number of pardons and commutations per year has been 79; the average number, per annum, of convicts in the two penitentiaries during that time has been 2,201 ; consequently, the pardons and commuta- tions amounted to 33-5 per cent, of the convicts in prison; and for the twenty years preceding the beginning of this administration the average number of pardons and commutations per annum was 83 2-3, and the average number of convicts in the penitentiaries per annum during that time was 1,868, so that there were 4J4 per cent, of the prisoners pardoned or commuted, on the average, each year. In other words, considering the number of convicts in prison, the number of pardons and commutations granted each year on the average for twenty years prior to the ' beginning of this administration was 25 per cent, greater than has been the number of pardons and commutations granted by this administration. While this administration has been much more con- servative in this regard than former administrations, it is not a matter for which it should receive either credit or blame, for the granting of pardons and commutations is somewhat judicial in character and requires the execu- tive to act conscientiously on the merits of each case. PAROLE. The system of paroling prisoners which was provided for by the last legislature, and which has just been established in our penitentiaries, will, I believe, for the future, relieve the executive of the great labor and responsi- bility of considering the almost innumerable applications for pardon. If this system is conscientiously carried out it will release and find homes and em- ployment for the young, after they have undergone the minimum punishment required by law, and will, on the other hand, retain in the prison the hardened offenders and those who have shown themselves to be vicious and dangerous. REFORMATORY. The Illinois Reformatory at Pontiac now has 1,170 inmates. The aim of the institution is to teach young men steady habits; to teach them industry; to teach them to use their hands as well as their brains, in order to make a living; to give them in a limited way an English education, and a certain degree of moral instruction; and there are now in operation there 10 English schools and 12 workshops or labor schools for that many different industries, and every young man there has to spend a certain number of hours each day in the workshop, and a certain number of hours in the school, besides having • performed other tasks. There are only a few large reformatories conducted on this principle in the world, and we believe the one at Pontiac stands at the head. 956 'LIVE 'QUESTION. NEW INSTITUTIONS AND NEW BUILDINGS. During the last four years there have been founded by the State two new Normal Universities, one at Charleston, in the eastern part of the State, and one at De Kalb, in the northwestern part of the State; also two new insane asylums, one at Peoria and the other at Rock Island; also a girl's reformatory at Geneva, near Chicago, and a home for soldiers' widows at Wilmington, and in addition to these there have been erected the. following buildings: At the University of Illinois at Champaign: A large civil and electrical engineering building, an astronomical observatory, a large library building, now nearing completion, a large mechanical workshop for the students, a President's house, the necessary buildings for the establishment of a vaccine farm, and the necessary buildings for a complete dairy establishment for purposes of instruction. In addition the chemical laboratory building, which was partially destroyed by fire, has been rebuilt. At the Normal University near Bloomington: A library and gymnasium building. At the Normal University at Carbondale: A library and gymnasium building. The main Insane Asylum at Anna, which was destroyed by fire, has been rebuilt. The Eye and Ear Infirmary at Chicago has been greatly enlarged. At the Joliet Penitentiary: Some shops, power house, a new hospital and a large new prison for females. At the Soldiers' Orphans' Home near Bloomington: A new building for manual training. At the Elgin Insane Asylum: A new hospital for the physically ill, and extensive general repairs. At the Reformatory at Pontiac: A large cell house, a number of shops, power house and a large executive building. At the Lincoln Monument, Springfield: New home for the custodian. At the State Fair Grounds, Springfield: Three very large and a number of small buildings. At the Institution for the Blind at Jacksonville: A workshop and also a gymnasium. At the Deaf and Dumb Institution at Jacksonville: A boys' cottage and general repairs. At the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home at Quincy: A new hospital. The Asylum for Insane Criminals at Chester has been greatly enlarged. At the Penitentiary at Chester: A number of small buildings. All of these buildings are under roof and nearly all of them are completed and occupied, and those which have been built during the last two years have, with the exception of a couple of small buildings, been built absolutely fireproof and nearly all of them have been built of stone. In order to give a better idea of the general character of the buildings that have been erected within the last four years, I submit herewith photographic views of some of them. APPENDIX. 95; MONUMENTS. There has also been erected during the last four years a monument to Governor Ford, at Peoria, upwards of sixty granite monuments on the battle- field at Chickamauga in Tennessee, to mark the positions of the Illinois troops in that great battle, and a splendid granite monument to the memory of Elijah P. Lovejoy at Alton. STYLE OF ARCHITECTURE. Owing to the rapid growth of our population and the great demand for room in public institutions, but little consideration was given to the subject of architectural design in public buildings, in the past, the principle effort being in each case to get as much floor space as possible. Consequently, while the State has a large number of buildings, there are but few whose exterior architecture is commanding or impressive. The appropriations made during the present administration were so small as not to admit of ornamentation; but it was felt that the time had come when we should not only build fire- proof buildings, but give a little more attention to their external appearance. After an examination of the subject I became satisfied that the most inex- pensive, as well as the most impressive architectural style for buildings that are to stand alone in a grove, or in a field, is what has been called the Tudor- Gothic style, as the effect is produced by simply carrying the mason work, that is the wall, above the cornice line, and there breaking the lines in such a way as to produce small towers, battlements, etc. This style has consequently been adopted in most of the buildings that have been erected during the last two years, and is found to be very effective. Had we possessed large ap- propriations so that Grecian columns, Roman arches, and other forms of ornamentation could have been indulged in, it is probable that some other style of architecture would have been selected; but for the money which the State has expended it would have been impossible to get the same desirable effects in any other style. LEGISLATION. In addition to the usual legislation and to numerous amendments to the laws intended to correct abuses, there have been a number of measures placed upon the statute books, some of which were entirely new in this State. Among the latter may be mentioned the following: An act providing that no man shall be imprisoned for non-payment of a judgment or fine unless he has been granted the opportunity of being tried by a jury. Second. An act which requires State, county, city and school treasurers, and all other custodians of public funds, to account for interest on such funds whenever they are kept in a bank. Third. An act intended to arrest the sweat shop and child labor evil which provides for inspection of factories, workshops, etc., and aims to prevent the employment of young children in factories, etc. Fourth. A civil service law for cities. Fifth. An act to reform the method of land conveyancing in this State, introducing an entirely new system known as the Australian system and in- • 958 LIVE QUESTIONS. tended to do away with the vast expense that now accompanies the transfer of land titles in large cities. Sixth. An act to provide for paroling prisoners from the penitentiaries, intended to do away with the gross inequality of sentences which have here- tofore prevailed for the same offenses, and to make it practicable to keep professional and hardened criminals in the penitentiary for long terms and to release the young and those who are comparatively innocent, after serving a minimum term in prison. Seventh. An act which provided that a graduated tax shall be paid on all legacies and inheritances. Eighth. An act to provide for founding a pension fund for school teachers in certain cases by a small deduction from their salaries. Ninth. An act creating a board of arbitration for the purpose of adjust- ing disputes between employers and employes in certain cases. Tenth. An act for making the kindergarten system a part of our public schools under certain conditions. INSURANCE DEPARTMENT. The insurance department of this State now stands at the head of all similar departments in this country, and it is believed that our people are better protected against the operations of dishonest and worthless insurance companies than those of any other State. Formerly this department con- tributed scarcely anything to the State treasury from the large amount of fees which it collected. During this administration the sum annually turned into the treasury by the insurance department is very large, and for the year 1896 will amount to over $170,000, which is the result of a strict enforce- ment of the law. EDUCATION. It is gratifying to report that during the last four years the cause of education has made tremendous strides in our State, both in public and in private institutions. Our public schools are being steadily brought up to a higher plane than they ever occupied before. Appreciating the fact that it is the teacher who makes the school, and that it is consequently the duty, as well as to the interest of the State, to look after the education of teachers, the facilities in the existing Normal Universities have been enlarged and improved, and two new ones have been founded. The University of Illinois, located at Champaign, has moved forward and taken a position as one of the best institutions of the country. In the matter of civil and electrical engineer- ing it is unsurpassed anywhere. Its work in other departments is of a high order and it now offers many advantages to both young men and young women that are not to be found anywhere else. The institution needs a large gymnasium. Inasmuch, as Illinois now leads nearly all the States of the Union in the matter of enterprise and material prosperity, her educational institutions should be so perfected as to be models for the world. AUXILIARY BOARDS OF CHARITY. During the last twenty-five years humane and thoughtful men and women have given their best efforts to the subject of caring for the dependents and unfortunates, and as a result splendid theories have been worked out and APPENDIX. 959 have been in part put in practice; but experience has shown that it is one thing to work out a theory and to apply it on a limited scale, but a more diffi- cult thing to see that it is generally applied, and while we have provided complete machinery for looking after matters in the aggregate, we did not get down near enough to the source of the trouble. In other words, our jails and poorhouses and our street children were neglected. It was necessary to- have a better oversight of these matters, to get more sunlight in on them. Accordingly, the General Assembly authorized the appointment in each countjr of three persons who were to be known as auxiliary boards of charity; and they were to work in conjunction with the State Board of Charities. They were to serve without pay, but were given full powers to visit and examine- jails, poorhouses, etc., at pleasure. These auxiliary boards have done ex- cellent service. Their chief efforts are devoted to getting children out of the poorhouses and out of the jails, and in a general way to have the conditions for other unfortunates made as comfortable as possible. NATIONAL GUARD. During the last two years our National Guard has performed exercises and maneuvers never before witnessed in this State, and I deem it sufficient to say that while there are larger military establishments, there is not a better one on this continent than is possessed by Illinois. FREIGHT RATES. The freight classification had scarcely been changed for twenty years by the Railroad and Warehouse Commission of this State and had become compli- cated, and in many respects worked an injustice, .and the merchants and manu- facturers of Chicago found that it was almost impossible for them to do business, in central and western Illinois because of the fact that the railroads entering the State from the East had adopted a classification which made freight rates from Qeveland and Cincinnati to that section of the State much lower than they were from Chicago. To overcome this difficulty the Railroad and Ware- house Commission performed the almost herculean task of making an entirely- new freight classification, bringing our State more nearly in harmony with the States east of us, and they have thus made it possible for the merchants, and manufacturers of Chicago to again compete in territory from which they were formerly almost excluded. ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN CANAL. Prior to the beginning of this administration this canal did not turn any- thing into the State treasury. The principle business on the canal was carry- ing stone to Chicago from the quarries at Joliet and Lemont, and owing to the hard times and the falling off in building operations the business of the canal was necessarily greatly reduced, yet it has turned into the State treasury $50,000 and besides has built over half a mile of new docks, and made other extensive improvements. WESTERN PARK SYSTEM AT CHICAGO. Although the matter of connecting the West Park system with the Lincoln Park system and the South Park system had been discussed for more than 9<5o LIVE QUESTIONS. twenty years, practically nothing was done toward bringing this about. The present West Park Board undertook the task of making the connection, and although it involved the laying out of new streets and the building of a bridge over the river in the northwestern part of the city, in order to connect with Lincoln Park, that connection has been made. To the southwest it is necessary to build several bridges and cross a number of railroads, and also to build several miles of boulevard to connect with the South Park system, and that work is now being done, and it is believed that by the begin- ning of summer the connection will be complete, so that the three great park systems of Chicago will have a direct boulevard connection around the outer edge of the city. In addition to this the West Park Board has endeavored to make the park of the greatest possible use to all classes of citizens. It has built many miles of boulevard for the accommodation of those who drive, has built a large natatorium and gymnasium in Douglas Park for the accommodation of the public, and a bicycle race track in Garfield Park. This, in connection with the other attractions to be found there, make the West Park a perfect system for the purpose of furnishing pleasure and amusements to all classes of people. LINCOLN PARK. Owing to its advantageous location and high state of improvement this park is considered the finest on the continent. The present commissioners have put in an entirely new system of lighting, and have greatly improved the park in other respects. It was felt that this park should be extended to Evanston, and could be so extended without great expense to the public by taking the proper steps in time. The waters in Lake Michigan are shallow for about twelve hundred feet out from the shore, and by building a break- water and a driveway out that far from the shore and parallel with it, from Chicago to Evanston, it would enclose the shallow waters lying between that and the shore, which could be filled by degrees, leaving an open channel, so that there would then be a driveway out in the water, an open channel ■west of it, and a strip of park the entire way; and almost the only expense in- volved in this would be the building of a breakwater and driveway,, for in this way the land would cost nothing and the riparian rights of the shore- owners would cost very little, as many of them have offered to deed their riparian rights if the improvement was made. Legislation authorizing this move was secured in the spring of 1893, but was afterwards found to contain some defects, and at the last session of the General Assembly another act was passed to authorize this improvement, and great efforts have been made by the park board, as well as by the executive, to carry it out. A plat has been filed in pursuance of the act which will vest the title to the submerged land in the public for the use of a park, but so much captious opposition was en- countered from people who had little selfish ends to serve that the work could not be started, but it is believed that this opposition can all be over- come and that the next administration will be able to secure to the people ©f Chicago this addition to its park and boulevard system. ARBITRATION OF LABOR TROUBLES. For a number of years the conviction has been deepening in the minds of patriotic and intelligent men, that some more enlightened and just method" APPENDIX. 961 of settling labor disputes should be found than a mere resort to brute force, which in the form of strikes and lock-outs frequently disturb the peace of society, destroy property and do great injury to non-combatants who are dependent upon the regular operation of the industries involved. The con- viction has grown that these disputes, like all other disputes between citizens of a civilized community, should in some way be decided by an impartial tribunal, representing at least in some degree the State. Apparently insur- mountable difficulties are in the way of universal compulsory arbitration of these troubles, but experience in other States has demonstrated that a board of arbitration, with somewhat limited powers, could adjust many difficulties, and has been of great service to the public. During the closing hours of the special session of the legislature in the summer of 1895, an act was passed to create a board of arbitration for this State, but the measure was opposed by some strong interests, and the board was so limited in its powers as to almost entirely destroy it. Yet during the seventeen months that have elapsed since the board has been created, it has acted as a mediator in 41 cases, each of which involved more or less serious differences between employer .and employe. In 38 out of these 41 cases a satisfactory adjustment was effected and farther trouble avoided. In the other three cases the employers haughtily refused to take any notice of the board or its friendly efforts. In addition to these 41 cases, the board arbitrated two cases which were sub- mitted under the law, and its decision was accepted by both parties and ended the trouble, and I recommend such farther reasonable legislation upon this question as will enable this board to properly perform the functions for which it was created, and increase its usefulness. The results of its labors as above given are most gratifying, and show the wisdom of its creation. In the 40 controversies successfully adjusted by the board, there were involved as employes 5,780 persons, whose daily wages amounted to $9,537. LANDLORDISM. The principle of self-protection and self-preservation requires this State to adopt some reasonable legislation for the purpose of guarding against the evils of landlordism. In the past, land was plentiful and no notice was taken of this system, but now its evils are daily becoming more apparent. There are sections of the State where whole townships, and in some cases nearly half a county, are owned by one individual and are occupied by tenants who feel no interest in the soil and have no inducement to make improvements. ' The landlord, on his side, has no interest in our institutions or State except to get money out of it, and as improvements would increase the taxes to be paid, neither landlord nor tenant will make them, and the result is that some of the best sections of the State are arrested in their development and must fall behind in civilization. The American republic has depended largely upon the intelligent and patriotic yeomanry of the land, who, as a rule, owned the soil they cultivated. There seems to be a tendency now to wipe this out, to allow the land to pass into the hands of men who live in cities and feel no interest in it except to get money out of it, and as population and the con- sequent demand for land increase, the condition of the tenant will be constantly lowered and in time this must produce a lower class of citizenship that will in no way be equal to the independent farmers that have been the boast of our country. It is far better for the State that the farmer should own his own land 61 962 LIVE QUESTIONS. even though he be in debt for it, than that he should feel no interest in the soil and see all of his earnings go to the landlord. REMEDY. I do not venture to make any suggestions as to the best method of dealing - ■with the subject, farther than to say that nothing should be done that would impair the value of the lands in the hands of the present owners, but some reasonable time in the future should be named after which every individual will be limited in the quantity of land which he may own in this State. ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN LARGE CITIES. I repeat with emphasis what I said in a former message on this subject: "The condition of business in the courts of Chicago almost amounts to a denial of justice. It takes years to get a case finally settled by the courts, while the expense, annoyance and loss of time involved in watching it are so great that the poor cannot stand it and the business men cannot afford it. Litigants are worn out and the subject matter of dispute often becomes useless before the courts get done with it. This is not the fault of the judges, but of the system, which, in its practical workings, often discourages the honest man and encourages the dishonest one, for it enables him to wear out the former. "Urged by the bar, the number of judges was greatly increased by the last General Assembly, but the conditions are almost the same. We now have twenty-eight judges in Cook county alone, while there are only thirty-four in England, Ireland and Wales. In England, most cases are disposed of at •once. The dishonest man does not find it to his interest to go into the courts there, while we, with our system of distinctions and delays, almost offer him a premium to do so. "We borrowed our system of jurisprudence from England more than a century ago, when it was loaded down with absurd distinctions and formal- ities. We have clung tenaciously to its faults, while England long ago brushed them aside. Three-quarters of a century ago that country began to reform its judicial procedure by wiping out all useless distinctions and formal- ities and making all procedure simple, and disposing of each case promptly on. its merits, and their appellate courts now revise cases only when it is shown that an actual injustice has been done, and not simply because some rule or useless formality has been disregarded. As regards the administration of justice, we are to-day three-quarters of a century behind that country from which we borrowed our system. We may be great in politics but do not yet lead the way in statesmanship. The whole system should be revised and sim- plified so that it will give our people more prompt and speedy justice and less fine spun law. "JUSTICE COURTS. "I must again call attention to the conditions surrounding the police and Justice courts of Chicago. They are a disgrace, and we will not rise to the demands of the occasion if we do not devise some remedy for these evils. I also again call attention to the subject of permitting any officer connected with the administration of justice to keep fees. This is the very foundation upon which the whole structure of fraud, extortions and oppression rests. APPENDIX. 963 No man's bread should depend upon the amount of business he can 'drum up' around a so-called court of justice." At present the practice prevails in Chicago of making raids in the evening and running in from fifty to one hundred women and a few men at a time on no particular charge. Then the justice gets a dollar from each for taking a bond, thua making from fifty to one hundred dollars a night, and a lot of cormorants known as special bailors and other hangers-on make four or five hundred dollars if it can be wrung from the miserable creatures. In many instances certain police officers are believed to share in the plunder. In this way the machinery of the law is used to gather a harvest off of vice, and the people arrested are simply forced into deeper degradation; whatever self- respect they have left is broken. Not only should the whole fee system be abolished, but the law should not require any person to give bond before con- viction except in cases where the charge is a serious one. MONEY IN STATE TREASURY AND TAX LEVY. Owing to the fact that it required nearly $600,000 to pay the expenses of the National Guard during the riots of 1894 and to rebuild the Anna Insane Asylum, which burned down, both being matters which were unforeseen and for which, therefore, no taxes had previously been levied, the funds in the treasury ran short last winter, and some of the institutions had to make temporary arrangements for money, but all bills have been paid and several hundred thousand dollars which had been appropriated for the purpose of erecting buildings and which were 'to come out of the taxes to be collected next year, have been advanced because the State was needing the buildings, and, owing to the low price of material and labor it was better for the State to build at once than to wait, .and there are now over $300,000 in the treasury, and as soon as the taxes are collected there will again be a surplus. The tax levy had to be increased for two reasons. One was the extra expenditure already named, and the other was the remarkable fact that the assessments of property in this State are constantly growing smaller. For example, the total assessed value of property in this State for the year 1896 is $16,508,847 less than it was for the year 1895, and is less than it has been since 1890. REVENUE SYSTEM. Every governor for more than twelve years has urged a revision of our revenue laws and pronounced the existing system a gigantic fraud. The facts have been so frequently stated that it seems almost a mockery to repeat them, and yet nothing has been done. Great concentrations of wealth and un- scrupulous individuals possessed of large fortunes in many cases contribute nothing to the support of the government, while men of moderate means and those men of large means who refuse, to resort to corrupt methods, are obliged to bear burdens that belong to others. It is no longer a secret that the machinery of the whole system, .especially as it applies to large cities, and to the assessment of some corporations is thoroughly corrupt and should be wiped out. Corporations in this respect fare like individuals; those corpora- tions whose officers refuse to resort to dishonest methods and who endeavor to meet all questions openly and fairly, are loaded with unjust burdens, while other corporations contribute little or nothing, and frequently it is found that the men who resort to dishonorable means in these matters are the ones who 964 LIVE QUESTIONS. have the most to say about patriotism. There has been so much agitation recently upon this question that it is probable that those interests which have heretofore labored to prevent any revision of the revenue law will now change their tactics, and will attempt themselves to shape the revision, so that while the public demand for a new revenue law will be for the time met, still it will be found that in the end matters have not been much improved. Real estate is usually found by the assessor and where no corrupt methods are resorted to there will, as a rule, be no inequality in assessments. So far as real estate is concerned, especially in large cities, the chief difficulty to be overcome is to stop the operation of the corrupt "go-betweens," who go to rich men and their agents and offer to save from five to twenty thousand dollars in the taxes of one year in consideration of cash 'payment, and who, on the promise of such cash payment manage to get the assessments reduced. But in regard to personal property an entirely new system from that now existing must be adopted. Each individual must be compelled to furnish a statement of what he has subject to taxation. The present system of allow- ing the assessor to guess at what the individual has when no report is made results in no assessment at all. Under it the very rich make no returns and consequently escape with little or no taxation. If every man were required to himself sign a written statement and return it to the assessor showing what he had, and in the event of his failure to do so he were cited to go before some court to make such schedule," and the court were required to double the assessment as a penalty, it would add millions to the taxable prop- erty of the State, and thus reduce the burdens of those men and corporations that now are trying to honestly pay their taxes. Corporations are assessed chiefly by the State Board of Equalization, and here the greatest inequality has arisen. " Most of the corporations of the State, doing a legitimate business,- pay their full share of taxes, and in some cases perhaps more, while other very large concerns pay almost nothing. A sleeping car company, whose office and headquarters are at Chicago, and which has over $60,000,000 worth of property — whose stock sells in the market at figures which aggregate that sum — which annually earns dividends that amount to a high rate of interest on that sum, and which, by reason of the fact that it is located in Chicago should, under the law, pay taxes there on all it? personal property, especially on such as is not assessed elsewhere — is as- sessed in our State at only $1,561,955. Correspondence with the officials of all. the other States in this country, and of Canada, shows that all the taxes that it pays on this continent, Illinois included, do not amount to a fair rate of taxation on $20,000,000 and that consequently it has over $40,000,000 that should be taxed in Chicago, upon which it does not pay a cent. As a rule, other property is assessed at from one-fourth to one-fifth of its market value. If this corporation were assessed in proportion, its additional assessment would amount to in the neighborhood of $8,000,000, and its annual taxes on this sum in Chicago would be considerably over a half a million of dollars. This money, although in a sense belonging to the public, is pocketed by the owners of that corporation. Two years ago it cost the State a large sum of money to guard the property of this corporation, yet, when it comes to bearing the burdens, of the government, it manages to shift them on the shoulders of others. APPENDIX. 965 EFFECT OF DIVIDING RESPONSIBILITY. Experience has shown that division of responsibility in public bodies is productive of corruption and unjust measures; that when the public can put its finger upon the individual and hold him responsible, he will be more careful and circumspect in his actions and will make more effort to keep up, at least, a semblance of fairness, than he will if there are a large number of others to share the responsibility with him. It rarely happens that the mayor ef a city is charged with corruption, while the charge against city councils is very common. These considerations, taken in connection with the experience of this State, as well as other States, show that a board of equalization, com- posed of twenty-two members, as ours is now, for the purpose of assessing corporations, will never be useful or satisfactory, and is almost certain to continue to be the constant subject of scandal and its work to be tainted with the greatest injustice. REFORM IN LAND CONVEYANCING. The great bulk of the real estate of Illinois, when measured by value, is in Cook county, and owing to the numerous transfers that have taken place there and the complications in the title to many large tracts of land which have since been subdivided into lots, conditions have arisen which make the transfer of even the smallest piece of real estate a very expensive proceeding. In the first place an abstract must be furnished, showing the chain of title down from the government. This in some instances posts hundreds and even thousands of dollars, and in those cases where it is possible to get copies of old abstracts it is still necessary to have a continuation made every time there is a transfer, and no matter how frequently a title may have been examined and pronounced good, it is at present necessary to have it re- examined every time there is a transfer. The result of this is the imposition of burdens which bear very hard upon the owners of small properties, and these burdens are daily becoming more onerous. They have to be met not only at every sale, but every time it is sought to get even a small loan on a house and lot. The last General Assembly endeavored to remedy this evil by pro- viding for a new system of land transfer in which it would be unnecessary to trace the title back to the government every time that it was sought to make a loan or a sale of a small piece of land. The system adopted was one which has for years been in use in many countries of the world and has worked admirably. The Supreme Court recently nullified this law by holding that it was unconstitutional. The subject therefore calls for further attention at your hands. The burdens complained of attach not only to most of the real estate in Illinois, but they affect more than half the people of the State, and as they arise out of a primitive and antiquated system which is thoroughly in- adequate to modern needs, it is the business of the government to provide a new method that shall relieve the people from this heavy expenditure of money for which they get absolutely nothing in return. MINERS AND FACTORY EMPLOYES. Illinois is now one of the largest mining States in the world, owing to its limitless deposits of coal. It is also one of the greatest manufacturing States in the world. Therefore we are vitally interested in the conditions 966 LIVE QUESTIONS. affecting these two industries, especially in so far as they affect not only the prosperity of our people, but affect the physical and mental development, and consequently the standard of citizenship, among those engaged in them. Mining is a peculiar industry, and is attended with a greater degree of danger than exists in most other industries, and as the miners are to a great degree isolated from the rest of the community and as a rule are not so able to represent their interests as other elements of society are, there is a constant tendency toward conditions which bear hard on the miner and prevent him from keeping his family on the same plane of advantage with other members of the community, and which ultimately affect the intelligence and the stand- ard of citizenship of the mining population. Consequently it has been found necessary in all countries for the government to throw its protection around the miner, both for the purpose of preventing his being unjustly dealt with and also for the purpose of elevating his standard of citizenship. Nearly a century ago England found that the conditions in her mines were so lowering the moral, physical and intellectual condition of her people as to make them unfit for military and naval service, and make them unfit to maintain the dignity and the greatness of the British Empire, and she began a system of mining legislation which has been extended and improved from time to time and has been adopted by nearly all of the civilized countries, and similar legis- lation has been enacted in all of the older States of the Union. This legis- lation is based on the ground, not simply of humanity and justice, but that it is the duty of the State to take every necessary step for its own preservation. This legislation, of necessity, affects in a greater or less degree the relations between the miner .and the employer and is intended to prevent his being cheated in weighing and being cheated in the screening of the coal, from his being forced to buy the necessaries of life at what are called truck or "pluck me" stores, maintained by the employers, etc. Following the line of legislation which had been adopted by and was in force in the older States of the Union, this State has, during the last fifteen years, passed a number of laws for the protection of the miner. Several acts have been passed to regulate the weighing of coal at the mines. In May, 1891, an act was passed to put an end to the truck store system, so that miners should no longer be obliged to accept their wages in the goods of the so-called "pluck me" stores of their employers. About the same time a law was passed requiring miners to be paid their wages weekly; but all of these laws were nullified by the Supreme Court, on the ground that they conflicted with some provision of the Constitution. FACTORIES. With the invention of machinery came great factories and great concentra- tions of population, and as in many cases physical strength was not necessary to attend a machine, factories were soon filled with women and with children, because they would work for less wages than had to be paid to men. These women and children stood on their feet and worked long hours, and the result was that in time the factory population was found to be stunted and weak, physically and intellectually, so that a parliamentary investigation, more than fifty years ago, discovered the fact that as a rule the young men in factory communities were utterly unfit for military service, most of the children born of women who worked in the factories were weak and rarely developed into APPENDIX. 967 . healthy manhood and womanhood, and that the boys and girls employed in the factories soon grew old, became physically and intellectually stunted and morally weak. It was also found that by reason of machinery not being properly guarded, and matters of ventilation and sanitation not being carefully looked after, operatives in factories were being constantly maimed for life, and becoming charges upon the community, and their health was being under- mined because of bad sanitary conditions. The committee reported to Parlia- ment that unless these conditions could in some way be arrested, the tendency would be to endanger if not destroy the perpetuity of the empire, because there would be produced an inferior race of people who could not maintain themselves either intellectually, commercially or martially in the fierce com- petition with the rest of the world. Out of this parliamentary investigation there grew in the end a system of factory legislation which has been greatly improved and expanded, and adopted by all the civilized countries of the old world, and by nearly all of the older States of this country. It may be of interest to note that both the mining and the factory legislation was opposed by the wealthy classes of England, and for a third of a century met with the opposition of the influential classes who were deriving a benefit from the evils aimed at. But the statesmen of England persisted and ultimately tri- umphed, and some of the great men of England to-day regard her achievements in mining and factory legislation as among the most important things she has done, not only for her own prosperity and perpetuity, but for the world. Several years ago it "was found that the conditions which once existed in England were rapidly growing up in our State. Shops and factories were full of children and women who slaved long hours and received but a pittance. In many cases dangerous machinery was not properly guarded, and the sani- tary conditions were indescribably bad. To remedy these evils, an act was passed in 1893, which was far less stringent and less comprehensive than laws which were already in force in some of the older States, and which had been held constitutional there. The act was limited to factories and shops. Under this law the abuses of child labor in the factories of our State were greatly reduced and an attempt was made to enforce the provisions of the law which forbade the employment of women for more than eight hours a ■day in shops and factories. But the interests which were coining the lives of women and children into dollars and which wanted to escape the paying of the wages of men were powerful. They combined to resist its enforce- ment, and the Supreme Court has held a portion of the law to be unconstitu- tional, and the decision leaves the whole of the act in such a condition as makes it difficult to enforce any of its provisions, and including those not employed in factories, there are in Chicago alone over fifteen thousand chil- dren working long hours daily, many of them becoming stunted physically and intellectually and weakened morally, and what is known as the "sweat shop" evil is spreading at an alarming rate. Other countries have found it necessary to protect themselves against conditions which tend to lower the vitality and the physical and intellectual development of their citizens, and our Slate must do the same. The Constitution was not intended to be an insur- mountable barrier to all corrective legislation. Whether a law is or is not constitutional is nearly always a matter of construction and depends upon the 968 LIVE QUESTIONS. point of view from which the subject is considered, sometimes depending" largely on the bias or learning of the judge. While the decisions of the Supreme Court are conclusive and final in the cases in which they were rendered, they do not become a rule of political action. They do not deprive the people of the power to regulate their affairs, nor can they in any way prevent farther efforts to cure the evils that were aimed at. In his first inaugural message President Lincoln, in speaking of the Supreme Court of the United States, said: "The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by the decisions of the Supreme Court the instant they are made, as in ordinary decisions between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically released their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal." On various other occasions Mr. Lincoln declared in public that the decisions of the Supreme Court on constitutional questions, while entitled to respect and while conclusive upon the individuals involved in the litigation before them, did not constitute a rule of action politically and did not deprive the people in any way of their power of self-government, and did not prevent the people from proceeding in an orderly manner to bring about in the end . the establishment of a principle different from what the Supreme Court had enunciated. Neither the executive, the legislative nor the judicial branches of the government, nor in fact all combined, have the power to foreclose the people on a question of government, nor to prevent the people from in the end enforcing such policy as they deem proper. CRITICISM OF DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT. I am aware that there are people who will urge that this is a criticism of the courts, but nothing of the kind is intended. I have simply stated historical facts, and have endeavored to make clear the fundamental principle which the Legislature must always keep in view when dealing with great problems. So far as the question of criticising is concerned, the Constitution has di- vided the government into three departments, and each of these departments is alike subject to criticism. It may be said that the life of a republic depends upon the intelligent scrutiny and criticism which the people give to all branches of the government. It has been urged by some of the greatest men of our country that inasmuch as judges are human and possess the same prejudices, passions and weaknesses that other men do, and inasmuch as the public can impose its will more easily upon the executive and legislative offices because their terms are shorter, that therefore there was all the greater need of thorough examination and free criticism on the part of the public of the acts of the judiciary. While the public has this right to the fullest extent, there is a question of propriety involved in one department of government indulging in mere criticism of the other, but there is no rule of propriety which pre- vents either branch of the government from stating historical facts or point- ing out difficulties which must be met by all; in fact the judicial branch has at various times criticised the acts of the legislative branch of government with the greatest freedom. While I have thus stated the general principle, I believe that no serious difficulty will be encountered in enacting all necessary legislation without com- APPENDIX. 969 ing into conflict with either the Constitution or the decisions of the Supieme Court. NEWSPAPER LICENSES. The Legislature owes it to the people of this State to devise some reason- able protection against the outrageous newspaper license on the part of great journals, of which the people are now victims. Newspaper abuse terrorizes the people and deters many of our best citizens from taking part in public affairs. Men have a right to look to government for protection, for a govern- ment is unworthy of respect that simply imposes burdens on its people and then leaves their lives or their reputations at the mercy of those who shoot from ambush. No measure can be considered which will in any way interfere with the fullest publication of the news, or with full comment on current events, and there must be reasonable allowance for mistakes honestly made. What should be aimed at is to do away with the anonymous and dark alley features of modern newspaperism. This is where cowards roost and where sneaks take refuge. As yet there are but few great journals in the United States that meet the definition of a newspaper. Many of them are personal and partisan organs often used maliciously, and instead of publishing the news fairly they make it their daily business to garble and misstate it. This in itself is perhaps not a proper subject for legislators, but when men, who are ashamed to give their names, hide behind a newspaper hedge and throw mud at people who are walking on the highway, then the public has a right to complain, and has a right to insist that this be stopped, or, if it is impossible to stop it, that then it should be known to the world who are the offenders. It has been urged that this species of journalism brings its own punish- ment; that anonymous abuse reacts on the author and weakens his char- acter and destroys his manhood; that early in our history when every news- paper writer had to face his fellow men and be personally responsible for his utterances, the profession produced some of the greatest men in the land who exerted a powerful personal influence on the nation, while since anonymous writing has become the rule on great journals the profession seems to be blighted; that all are reduced to the same level and are swallowed. Even if this were so, it does not justify continued license. It has also been urged that public good is promoted by anonymity. It may be a strange coincidence, but the marauding white-caps in neighboring States have like- wise defended their cowardly operations on the ground of public good. There is a principle involved here, and that is, that no man can be per- mitted fo set himself up as a public censor and proceed to wrong those whom, for many reasons, he does not like. The mere fact that a man is able to buy presses and hire a lot of men who must do his will, does not give him any more rights than are possessed by other people. The existing statute is comprehensive in defining libel, but it can only be enforced through a prosecu- tion or a law suit which will last years, and not only subject the individual to additional notoriety, but will wear him out; so that for the average citizen there is no protection whatever against newspaper abuse. Two years ago an act was passed which provided that when, in cases of libel, it is sought to punish an editor, in addition to making him pay damage, that then he should be permitted to show the facts in the case. This principle is correct, for when a man is to be punished he should be permitted to show 970 LIVE QUESTIONS. all the facts connected with the act for which he is to be punished; but the trouble with all existing legislation is that an individual is worn out with delay and expense before a case reaches the point where sentence is to be imposed. It is doubtful whether the possibility of collecting damages furnishes any practical protection to the public. In my judgment the public would be much better off if there were no provisions for ultimately getting damages, except in rare cases, provided the authorship of every abusive article were at once known, for in that case the article would receive such credence from the public as the character and standing of the author would secure for it, and no more. This would tend to secure accuracy of statement. It is the anonymous article which is careless and reckless — which is full of insinuation and invention. At present there is but little complaint about the country weeklies and small papers because generally the authorship of every article is known. Even when such a paper resorts to vilification, it makes no impression except what is secured for it by the character of the writer. It is clear that the public does not want damages so much as it wants a preventive. It wants less firing from ambush. Any measure that will stop this will be beneficial, and if no other remedy is practicable I believe that a measure which would grant reasonable immunity to the writer in all cases in which an article was signed, while it provided for summary penalties where the authorship was not disclosed, would at least tend to limit existing abuses. THE REAL ENEMIES OF THE STATE. In a monarchy, government can be maintained for a time by brute force, but in a republic, government can be maintained only by justice. Those men and those policies which beget injustice are mortal enemies of republican in- stitutions. No government was ever overthrown by the poor, and we have nothing to fear from that source. It is the greedy and the powerful who pull down the pillars of state. Greed, corruption and pharisaism are to-day sapping the foundations of government. It is the criminal rich and their hangers-on who are the real anarchists of our time. They rely on fraud and brute force. They use government as a convenience and make justice the, handmaid of wrong. We are developing a kind of carbonated patriotism which seems to derive its most sparkling qualities from respectable boodleism. Our country has great vitality, but these conditions must be arrested or else we are lost. Only those nations grow great which correct abuses, make reforms and listen to the voice of the struggling masses. DESTINY OF ILLINOIS. Illinois is yet in the morning of her career. Seated at the heart of the continent the centuries are before her. Excelling in resources, in enterprise, in achievement and in the spirit of her people she must lead the way. Destined to be the center of intellectual activity her genius must guide the republic. Directed along the paths of justice and humanity not even the stars can measure her glory. This is the State which I commit to your care. Again: "Let us build for the centuries." JOHN P. ALTGELD. INDEX. PREPARED BY HON. GEO. H. SHIBLEY. Academy of Science — Address at laying of cornerstone Acceptance of gubernatorial nom- ination Accidents, see Coal Mines. Adams, President John A Federalist Administration of Aesthetics Aggression Agitators Agriculture, State Board of "" State Fair Agricultural school and experi- ment station, see University of Illinois. Aldermen, see City Government. Aldrich report on wages and prices See also Wages and Wage Earners. Alger, Hon. Russell A., History of Alien and Sedition Laws Alliance with Foreign States.... See also England. Allison Law Almshouse. Conditions of Care for insane Local visitors Support of old soldiers 126, 127, Altgeld, John P. Acceptance of nomination for Governor Inaugural address, 1893 Reception speech, January, 1897 ' Altgeld, John P.— Continued. 402 Record as Governor 604 Veto of gas and street railway 226 bills 836 Protest against federal inter- 694 ference 668 787 President Cleveland's reply to 670 737 Gov. Altgeld's second tele- 470 - gram .'.. .: 671 331 Letter to William S. Forman. 604 406 Retiring speech from govern- 914 orship 697 913 Minority candidate for Sen- ate 701, 824 Presidential Bee 525 111 health of, 1896 692 On the election of 1896 691 Altruism, Growth of 609 621 Ambition 332 American Bar Association 418 American Bankers' Association. 861 See also Bankers. 842 American commerce, effect of 787 monopolistic rule 227 808 See also International Com- merce. 543 America, see United States. "ANARCHISTS," 902 Reasons for pardoning 365 8g6 See also Pardons. 901 Meeting of 1886; 202 Labor Day address 348 129 "Men in rags never yet de- stroyed a government." .... 937 See also Pardons. 226 Criminal rich are the real 308 ones 970 Anarchy in Illinois, Inter- 701 view on 405 971 972 INDEX. "Anarchists'' — Continued. Is un-American 367 Cry of "Stop thief" 937 Anglo-Saxon Alliance, see Eng- land. Anglo-Saxon Republic 818 Anonymous journalism and its ef- fects 151 A. P. A. Movement 407 Appreciation of money, see Fall- ing Prices, Gold Standard. Appropriations, sums unexpended 416 Arbitration, in civil cases 138 ARBITRATION OF STRIKES Changed methods of produc- tion and transportation.... 108 Duty of State... 107, no, 217, 249 It is practicable in, 113 Is recommended 3'S Board for adjustment of dis- putes—reform effected un- der Gov. Altgeld 114, 958 Satisfactory workings 961 Attitude of Republican party 948, 949 Value of special boards 919 Appeals US Costs of Arbitration 115 See also Labor Troubles. Architecture, Recommendations by Gov. Altgeld 957 Photographs of State Build- ings 885, 893 ARISTOCRACY, Opposition to factory and mining laws 967 Establishment — prevention of. 87s Monied, now established .... 871 British aristocracy — motives.. 232 Jefferson's attitude 785 Army, see standing army. Arnold, Benedict 749 ARRESTS. Number of, Chicago, 1882, p. 7; 1884, p. 94; 1888, p. 101; 1891, p 311 Estimated number for U.S... 8 Evil effects of 21, 101 Effect on relatives and friends 9 Effect of unreasonable arrests. 94 Unnecessarily encouraged ... 22 Arrests — Continued. Evils of fee system, 36, 44, 96, 312, 410 411 Evils of fee system — recom- mendations of Gov. Altgeld. 962 Imprisonment before trial.... 96 Treatment of misdemeanor cases 95 Probation officers — good re- sults 49 See also Fines, Sentences. Assessments, see Taxation. Assessors, bribing of 520 Asylums, veto of bill to enlarge. . 896 Atlanta Exposition, speech at.... 511 Auditorium speech, 1898 825 Augustine Age 61 1 Australian Ballot, see Elections. Australia, shorter hours move- ment 171 Austria and Gold Standard. .214, 543 AVERAGE PRICE OF PROD- UCTS. Should be stable 636 Bimetallism — steadiness 642 Quantity Theory, i. e., effect of quantity of money, credit and the things against which they are exchanged. 534, 541, 550, 595, 623, 626, 649, 857 Supply and demand, effect on prices 560, 572, 623 Volume of money, effect 213 See also Volume of Money. Government demand com- pared with production from mines 551, 552 Effect of legislation 642, 649 Power of governments 631 Increasing demand for gold.. 631 Government controls average prices — Prof. Laughlin 858 Control of by speculators.... 876 Effect of credit instruments 628, 858 Increase of banking facilities 551, 552, 554 Bank clearings compared.... 840 Increase of production. . .552, 628 Effect of Sherman Law...... 213 INDEX. 973 Average Price of Products — Cont'd. International trade — level of prices 615 See also Purchasing Power of Money; Bimetallism; Gold Standard; Silver Standard. Babcock, J. W., letter to 457 BANK MONEY. Creature of government 862 Volume of, see Paper Money; Money. BANKS AND BANKERS. Bankers' control of legislation — Object lessons 858 Attitude of 852 Why for gold standard /. . 598 Legislation on money — "Time to tear off disguise" 861 Foreign bankers' operation in United States 870 Attempt to control both par- ties 861 Campaign funds 538 Bank Trust — American Bank- ers' Association 861 Restoration of silver — effect. . 569 See also Money Question. Branch banks — banking trust. 863 Speculative banks — political banks 862 Bartlett, Hon. David, letter to 139 Bastable, C. F 550 Baths, Public 754, 755 Battle Fields, see War; Monu- ments. Beauty 470 Belgian monetary commission. .. . 550 Belligerent rights 530 Berenger, Report of 544 BIMETALLISM. Two metals combined in one standard 533, 549, 587. 641 Essential elements — De Lave- laye 550 Statement of Baron Roths- child 549 Practically constant market ' ratio 533, 620 Cause of constancy in ratio.. 561 Effect of mint demand 546 Bimetallism — Continued. Mint ratio in U. S 546 Mint ratio in Europe 546 Steadiness of standard 642 Par of exchange in foreign trade 563 Statement of Alexander Ham- ilton 546 Attitude of Jefferson and Hamilton 786 In England and Germany, '98. 845 Re-establishment of 876 Restoration, effect on cred- itors 5691 Independent action. Argument for 646 Effect on creditors 636 "Repudiation" 636 Independent action, effect of 568, 619, 632, 643, 747 Would restore old ratio and par of exchange 568, 571 Will, cheapening of gold. . 633 Effect in detail 569, 571 "Fifty cent dollar". .600, 633, 649, Effect of remonetization — Chicago Tribune 553 16 to 1, need for 566, 581, 877 Rich miners 632 See also Money Question; Demonetization; Rising Prices; Falling Prices; Av- erage Prices; International Agreement; Sherman Law. Birmingham — Municipal owner- ship 755 Blackmail, by State Legislators.. 822 Prevention of— city councils.. 51a Of fellow ex-convicts 71 Blaine, James G., On Demonetiza- tion 547 On Walker Tariff 281 Bland-Allison Law 543 Blind, Industrial Home for...*... goo- Board of Education, Leases of school lands 938 BOLTING. Bolt dishonest candidates.... 823 Scratch the boodlers 835 Of Gold Democrats 540 974 INDEX. Bon.b throwing, see "Anarchists." BONDS, Payable in coin 636 Change of contract by Con- gress , 639 "Credit strengthening act" . . . 637 Effect of gold standard 640 Sale of 870 Issues of, under Cleveland. .. . 795 Issued during Spanish war. . 841 Gold bonds 796 Payment of 240 Bonfield, Capt. John 365 Boodleism 821, 823 "Brains" 332 Bribery 520 Australian ballot an improve- ment 142 See also Elections; Corruption. See also Corruption. Bridewell, bad conditions in 410 Classification of offences 102 See also Jails; Prisons. Brooklyn, speech at 733 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, letter to. . . 781 Brotherhood of masses 609 See also Humanity; Labor Or- ganizations. BRYAN, HON. WILLIAM JENNINGS. Another Andrew Jackson .... 883 How defeated 814 Election frauds against 721 Vote for, compared 721 Who supported him 708 Nomination in 1900 845 See also 603, 619, 633, 696, 702, 881 Build for the centuries 970 Building and Loan Associations, Report on 917 Building Contracts, Suggestion for 470 Burke, Hon. Richard, Letter to. . . 141 BUSINESS DEPRESSION. Effect of falling prices 341, 541 Effect of 341, 537 Effect on penitentiaries. .904, 952 Situation Oct. 30, 1894 428 See also Falling Prices; Panics. Business Interests, lack of patriot- ism 521 Cabinet positions 526 Calamities, rarely come singly.... 650 Campaign of 1896, Silyer Repub- licans 526 See also Money Question; Bryan; McKinley; Republi- can Party; Democratic Party, etc. Campaign funds. By bankers 538 See also Monopoly; Corrup- tion. Canada, admission to U. S....... 806 Canal, of State 911 Earnings of — reform under Gov. Altgeld 959 See also Waterways. Capital, is indispensable 342 Capitalism, is in control 460 Captains of industry. Their struggle for justice 179 Carlisle, Hon. John G. Comments on 531 Attitude on money question 1878 532 Carnegie 692 Against organized labor. 220 Carpet Baggers 512 , Carter, Hon. Orrin . N 706 Cemeteries, Public 755 Chamberlain, Hon. Joseph 755 Chapman, reasons for pardoning. . 516 Character 352 Charitable institutions of Illinois, address before 354 Charitable institutions of Illinois, compared 610 Charities, State Board of 901 Auxiliary boards, i. e., Local Visitors — adoption of re- form under Gov. Altgeld. . 958 Charity, evil effects of 315 See also Philanthropy. Checks on Banks, see Average Prices. Chickamauga, speech on battle- field of 490 INDEX. 975 CHICAGO. Greatness of Duty of , Compared Record of Need for Exposition BIdg Population and voters, 1892 1896 711, 71 Street railways, see that title Corruption in Mayor — Job hunters See Arrests; Bridewell; Jus- tice, Administration of, etc. CHICAGO CONVENTION. Principles involved 589, Prediction as to outcome Speech before Demands of gold men Johnny Bull described New Declaration of Inde- pendence Attitude of monopolists Effect of Remedies proposed compared No time for compromise History repeats itself The situation Jan. '99 Chicago Courts, see Courts. CHICAGO STRIKE. Causes of Importance of, compared. . . . Call for federal troops unwar- ranted See Federal Interference; Pullman Strike. Chicago Tribune, on Money Ques- tion Lease of school lands Chicago University CHILD LABOR. Reforms recommended Doings of Supreme Court — recommendations of Gov. Altgeld Reforms effected under Gov. Altgeld Legislation — record of Repub- lican party Children, dependent and neglected — care in private families 407 403 323 943 914 8, 719 520 725 702 576 585 588 589 689 814 843 612 590 590 871 793 656 660 552 939 874 316 967 957 496 316 Children's Aid. Society, letter to.. 501 China, trade with 802 Conditions in 574, 644 Christ, inspiration of disciples.... 799 Christian Endeavorites, letter to.. 522 Cicero 498 Citizenship, duty of government. . 937 Cities, need for progressive 488 Municipal ownership in Great Britain 752 Monopoly bills, veto of 940 CITY GOVERNMENT. City Councils 187 Need for general laws 188 Division of responsibility is bad 187 Reform of 185 Blackmail by aldermen 189 See also Monopoly; Street Railways; Gas; Electric Lights; Police; Courts; Jails; etc. City Sewerage — fertilizers 754 Civic Federation of Chicago.. 516, 520 CIVIL SERVICE. Evolution of 293, 722 Evils of Spoils System 355 Machines — use of spoils 723 Office hunting, evil effects. .. . 824 National civil service law — provisions 723 Basis of appointment 458 Life tenure — not the best. . . . 724, 736, 911 Evils of high salaries. 313, 339, 780 Thirty-six years of Republican rule — change of personnel. . 897 Need for change in manage- ment 457 Business principles should pre- vail 230 Competition in purchase of supplies 413 Rules adopted by Altgeld 355, 414, 458, 95o Pay rolls published under Alt- geld 415 Division of esponsibility — evil effects 916 976 INDEX. Civil Service — Continued. Divided responsibility — rec- ommendation of Gov. Alt- geld 96s Value of special boards 9 J 9 Appointees vs. elective offi- cers J 86 Commissions should be small. 895 Reforms recommended ..313. 9 11 Useless offices — recommenda- tions 893 Reform in law, under Gov. Altgeld 898, 957 Attitude of President Cleve- land 792 Opposition from Republic- ans ..263, 729 In Chicago, 1897 724 Attitude of Republican machine 7 2 6, 729 Cost of Boards 727 Non-salaried Boards .725, 728 Cost, $12.75 per head.:.. . 729 Recommendations of Gov. Altgeld 725 Office holders — moral cow- ards 338 Office holder — greatness of. . . 330 Public office an honor 354 Proper spirit of officials 418 Stuffed pay rolls 723 Recommended for state insti- tutions 314 Public ownership of railroads. 766 Labor defined 728 Women 904 Deaf Soldiers 129 Civilization, interdependence .... 919 See also Evolution. CIVIL WAR. Won by common people 739 Benefit of 492 Character of Confederates.... 491 Speech at Atlanta 512 Class Struggles, see Money Ques- tion. Clay County 712 Clearing house certificates 557 CLEVELAND. For dear money 630 Cleveland — Continued. Wall street tool. .... .455, 469. 472 Against the income tax 465 Precipitation of panic of 1893 . 860 Precipitation of panic Febru- ary, 1895 860 Stock speculator 796 The bond deal 535. 634, 795 Coin bonds 636 Altgeld's protest against fed- eral interference 668 President's reply 670 Gov. Altgeld's second tele- gram 671 Treason to Democracy 577, 691, 936 Politically dead 882 Un-Democratic conduct .440, 455 Nomination — forces that se- cured 695, 781, 79° Bryan's vote compared 721 Chicago platform, effect of . . . 843 Letter on silver, Altgeld's comments 467, 471 Jefferson contrasted 697, 783 Jackson contrasted 697 Attitude toward Cuba 794 Clevelandism 467, 527, 530 Cleveland Recorder, letter to 774 Club Houses, uses of 353 Clubs, failure of 353 Coaling Stations 804 COAL MINES. Submerged classes 761 Public ownership 762, 763 Inspectors, instructions to.... 505 False weights 5°6 See also Competition. COAL STRIKE, 1894. Causes ,:... 761 Condition in Ohio compared. 651, 652 Cochran, Hon. Bourke, answer to. 612 Coinage, uniformity 545 Decimal system, how to se- cure 785 Coin Obligations 635 Colleges, private colleges in Illi- nois 910 See also Universities. INDEX. 977 College of Physicians and Sur- geons 463 Columbus, greatness of 320, 322 Columbus Club House, address at opening 351 Commerce, international struggle. 802 See also American Commerce. Commissions, see Civil Service; Monetary Commissions. COMMON PEOPLE 480 Relation to free government.. 693 As reformers 238 Not destroyers of wealth 521 Honor of, compared 493 Victories of 738 Relation to university 485 Common Schools, see Schools. COMPETITION. Law of 488, 523 As a regulator 506 Difference in breadth of field. 218 Competition in Life 330 The struggle for existence. . . . 502 Between various interests.... 453 Class' struggles, see Money Question. Rise of standards 182 Suspension by law 941 , In business. Its days are over. 758, 943 Helplessness of employers 762 As regulator of wages is past. 772 Submerged classes — coal min- ing 761, 920, 921 Submerged classes — govern- ment ownership 763 What shall we substitute? — a speech 506 Banks consolidating 862 In coal industry 920, 921 Modern methods of warfare. . 480 Purchase of public supplies . . . 412, 898 From prison labor 904 History of shorter hours 171 See also Evolution; Monop- oly. Comptroller of the Currency, see Treasury Department. COMPULSORY EDUCATION 149 Universal education a necessi- ty 228 In Europe 757 System exists in Philippines . . 80s Illinois — Edwards law ....228, 272 Prosecution under Edwards law 273 Repeal of Edwards law 310 Attitude of Lutherans 224 Attitude of Democracy 222, 272, 274 Attitude of Republican party. 274 See also Education; Schools. Concentration, see Evolution. Congress of Religions 409 Conkling, Roscoe 155, 487 Conspiracy law, repeal by Democ- racy 270 Constables, number of, cost, re- sults 10 Office should be abolished. . . . 139 Constitution, U. S. — revision of. . . 319 Constitutional Construction, see U. S. Supreme Court. Contract, changes by Congress... 639 Contraction of the currency, see Volume of Money; Falling Prices. Conventions, see Chicago Conven- tion; Table of Contents for State Conventions. Conversion of Carlisle & Co 533 Cooley, Hon. T. M 298, 418, 674 Cooperage. Effect of prison labor 294 CO-OPERATION. Benefits of association 488 Political power 34s, 346 Need for in politics 480, 481 "Divide and Conquer" 440 See also Organization; Labor Organization; Political Par- ties; Government. Cooper Union, speech at 647 Corporation Lawyers, tendency of 451, 659 CORPORATIONS. Evil powers of 481 978 INDEX. Corporations — Continued. Complaint is against monop- oly 743 Powers of — judiciary 4S 2 . Federal judiciary 687 Legislatures 860 Use of federal troops 441, 665 Blackmail of 583 Escape of taxation 452 Assessment — recommenda- tions 9!S Taxation — recommendations of Gov. Altgeld 963 Exemption from war taxes . . . 841 Bill for consolidation — veto. . 945 Fee for incorporating 319 See also Monopoly; Corrup- tion. CORRUPTION 461 Is born of private monopoly. 494. S20, 704, 822, 836 1865-1896 750 Growing power of 528 An invisible enemy 494 Small legislative bodies — ease of corruption 781 Control of both parties 540 Purchase of committee men . . 538 In elections 227 Sapping foundations of gov- ernment 226, 970 Money power — how operates. 576, 876 To maintain gold standard.538, 646 St. Louis Convention 701, 706 Under Republican rule... 263, 265 Henry George's alarm 779 Chicago platform 688 Abolishment — government ownership' of monopolies... 293, 509 Evil effects of concentration. . 742 Boodleism 821 In Illinois — selling of legisla- tion 748, 826 Conditions, 1897 748 In Chicago 520 State Board of Equalization.. 916 Division of responsibility, evil effects 916 Corruption — Continued. Conviction — difficulties of 833 Enlargement of foreign policy. 808 Polluting the flag 780 Record of Chauncey M. Depew 483 Hamiltonism 694,871 See also Hamiltonism; Han- naism; Lobbyists; Civil Ser- vice; Monopoly. Corruptionists, enumeration of some 692 Attitude in 1896 607 County Jails, see Jails. COURTS. In Chicago. Judges, number compared 912 Recommendations ...894, 912: Of county, should displace Justice Courts 139, 913 Recommendations of Gov. Altgeld 962 See also Judges; Procedure; U. S. Supreme Court. Crawford law 539 Crawford, William H 547 Credit Instruments, see Purchas- ing Power of Money. Creditors, effect of restoration of silver 569 See also Money Question, Fall- ing Prices, Debts. CRIME. Causes of 14 Effect of heredity 16 Effect of unfavorable environ- ments 16 Benefits of schools 15 Effect of home influence 15 Analysis of Chicago arrests.. 101 Punishment — essential ele- ments 32 Human justice a clumsy ma- chine 19 Punishment. Distinction be- tween wealthy and poor of- fenders 34 Average age of criminals. .... 15 Capital punishment — abolish- ment of 908 INDEX. 979 Crime— Continued. Legislation recommended . . . 318 Police raids 312 World is growing better 143 Procedure is unscientific 39 Reform of — recommenda- tions 894 See also Criminals; Prisoners. Criminals. What shall we do with them . . 99 Crocodile Tears 867 Dana, Charles 156 Darwin and Henry George com- pared 777 Davis, Director General 319 Speech at banquet to 400 Dead languages 333 Deaf and Dumb 609 Recommendations 901 Deaf soldiers. Justice to 129 Dear dollar. See Falling Prices; McKinley. Death. Henry George memorial 781 DEBTS. Standard of deferred payments — stability in purchasing power of money 636 Effect of falling prices 569 See also Falling Prices. Fixed charges and falling prices 534, 536 See also Falling Prices. Increase of weight under gold standard 562, 565, 640 U. S. a great debtor nation. . . 575, 586, 641 Effect of demonetization 575 See also Demonetization. Effect of independent action, i. e., rising prices, see Bi- metallism. Falling prices, effect, 1897 741 Debs' case 459 DECLARATION OF INDE- PENDENCE 784 Attitude of influential classes. 735 New one wanted 747 Speech at Brooklyn 733 Degeneration — American 645 De Lavelaye, Prof 550 Demagogue 736 DEMOCRATIC PARTY. History of 809 Called Republicans at first 735 Fundamental principles. ..261, 442 See also Jefferson; Jackson. Principles of 787 Its spirit is immortal 578 Not a one man party 701 Implies independence o f thought 229 Bolt dishonest candidates.... 823 Independence — co-operation . 746 Attitude toward education. .. . 222 1865, 1896— History 695, 750 Captured by monopolists 529, 691, 812 1884 695 1888 695 1892 248, 695 Democratic conventions, how manipulated 781 President Cleveland's ac- tions characterized .... 440 Illfortune of 528 Defeat in 1894 — cause of. . 453 1896, Declaration of Independ- ence 581, 689, 696 The issue 648 Causes of defeat 700, 706 Defeat, closeness of 702 Regenerated Democracy . 691 Fusion on money question '95 486 Attitude toward monopoly 879 Alienation of east ern states 570 Gold Democracy, tactics of. . . 526 Wall street influences 528 Democrats, division of, 1897. . 746 Advice to, 1898 850 Status of party '99 881, 882 Nomination of upright men. . 821 Federal interference, attitude toward 674 Civil service 725, 727 See also Civil Service. Position of Corruptionists. .. . 834 980 INDEX. Democratic Party — Continued. Cuban War and Expansion. . . 799 Effect of Spanish war 844 Naval policy 808 Foreign commerce policy.... 838 Equal rights 299 Favors the working man 434 For Humanity 585 Illinois politics — civil service. 897 Democratic legislation . . 270 Pledges to Illinois ful- filled S83 The Allen Bill... 834 Democratic State convention, 1896 577 See also Chicago platform. DEMONETIZAT ION OF GOLD. Attempt 545 DEMONETIZAT ION OF SILVER. Was by stealth 575 Chicago Tribune 553 An act of government 534 Commerce obeys statutory law 546 Origin of movement 543, 545 Effect of .: 575, 631 Effect of — Chicago Tribune. . 553 Effect on prices 614 See also Falling Prices. Effect of on Germany, Den- mark, France, U. S., etc... 213 Motive for demonetization. . . . 596 Broken par of exchange — world divided commercially. 563 Evil effects prophesied by Senator Hunter, 1852 547 James G. Blaine, 1878 547 Roger Q. Mills 547 John G. Carlisle, 1878.... 530, 532, 548 Secy. John Sherman 548 Leon Fanchet, 1873 549 M. Wolowski, 1869 549 Baron Rothschild 549 Prof. De Lavelaye, 1873.. 550 Westminster Review, 1876 550 Goschen, 1878 55* Demonetization of Silver — Continued. Leech (Director of Mint), 1892 558 Evil effects prophesied 554 Denmark and Silver 543 Dependent children, care of 501 Systems should be changed . . . 501 Should be placed in private families 502 See also Alms-house; Chil- dren. Dependents. See also Prison La- bor. Depew, Chauncey M 692, 874 Interview on 481. Depression. See Business Depres- sion. Deputy Sheriffs. See Sheriffs. Despine, Dr 61 Despotism 675 Detectives, number, cost, results.. 10 Diegan, Mathias 365 Dingley Bill, see Protective Tariff. Direct legislation 745 Director of Mint, see Treasury Department. Diseases among animals, see Live Stock Commissioners. Disease, see Health, State Board of. Dishonesty. Bolt disnonest candi- dates . . . '. 823 Distribution of wealth. Unearned increment 260 See also Industrial Evolution; Wage earners; Money Question ; Monopoly; Wealth; Poor, etc. Divide and conquer 441), 527 Dixon, Hon. Sherwood, letter to. 131 Docks, Public 754 Dodge, Gen. George M., letter to. 466 Drafts. See Purchasing power of money. Draper, Dr. Installation of 484 Dred Scott Decision 673 Lincoln's criticism 685 Drunkenness — effect of overwork. 173, 178 INDEX. 981 Drunkenness — Continued. Effect of shorter hours 176 Dudes 336 Dunlap, Senator 827 Duty 337 Ebersold, Chief of Police 392 EDUCATION. True meaning of 333 In America 323 Fundamental principles of in- stitutions 500 Higher education — state insti- tutions 910 Higher education — recommen- dations 909 Attitude of Democrats 222 Ignorant vote in elections.... 703 See also Schools; Universi- ties. Edwards, Gen. Oliver 125 Egypt — Concentration of wealth — downfall 249 EIGHT HOUR MOVEMENT. 218 An address 170 Effect of shorter hours 174 Effect of overwork on next generation 173 Haymarket Riot 365 Ela, letter to 467 ELECTIONS. Enlargement of elective fran- chise ) 319 Australian plan favored 141 Crawford law — advocates of. . 539 Redistricting 318 Machine politics 709 Frauds, endless chain method. 715 Difficulty of conviction. . . 715 Punishment of 851 Frauds of 1896 703, 706, 708 Keeping voters from polls. .. . 714 1896, Colonization 715 1896, Ignorant vote 703 Laws — recommendations 912 Power of wealth 479 Reasons for pardoning Mc- Nulta and Chapman 516 Electrical engineering — University of Illinois .' 910 ELECTRIC LIGHTING. Municipal ownership in Ger- many 756 Great Britain 756 Glasgow 754 Municipal ownership recom- mended, 1895 942 Monopoly bill — veto 941 Elevated railroads — Bills — veto of. 940 Elevator Trust 828 Eliot, Dr 19 Elmira Reformatory 56, 60, 909 Employers — See also Captains of Industry; Arbitration. Engineering. At University of Illinois 910 ENGLAND. Adoption of gold standard. . . . 544 Great creditor nation ....403, 575 Shorter hours movement 171 Effect of luxury 336 Alliance with 800, 807, 875 Engle, George .' . . 365 Enlightenment, see Crime. ENVIRONMENT. Effect on morals, see Morals. Rich men's sons 332 Effect of governmental poli- cies 778 See also Crime; Evolution. Epochs 880 Equality of man 489, 500 Equalization, State Board of 916 Equal rights — Democratic policy. 299 Europe — Prices of American pro- ducts 614 EVOLUTION. Principles of 361, 733 Integration and disintegration 733, 494 Centripetal and Centrifugal forces 699 Environment, see that title. Heredity, see that title. Constant development essen- tial 523 Is eternal ^77 No repose in the universe. . . . 699 Through spread of intelli- gence 185 982 INDEX. Evolution — Continued. A groping toward ideals 335 Belief in— effect of 777 Intelligence overcomes brute force 480 Development of altruism 609 Forces go in groups 488 Powerful forces — how over- come 880 Survival of the fittest 451 Stronger destroys the weaker. 479 Industrial development and tariff 219 See also Industrial Evolution. Concentration 345, 453, 478, 507, 522, 528, 742, 871, 877 Is increasing 205, 420 Effect on taxes 914 Consolidation of banks. . . 862 Effect on competition.... 478 Benefits of 508 Of wealth, see Wealth. Monuments are milestones... 490 Marked by epochs 473, 880 Reforms emanate from the bottom 523, 694 A new epoch at hand 825 Mankind is advancing 290 Progress — how recorded 608 Development of U. S 645, 818 New civilization 609 Politics, Law of natural selec- tion 608 Of freedom 809 Applied to labor problem. .... 179 Of government 478, 697 Development of institutions. . 476 Of civil service 722 Of educational institutions... 463, 484 Of the status of women 475 Of war 490 Of heroes 361 Outgrown constitution provis- ions 807 Foreign policy of U. S 800 Calamities rarely come singly. 650 Gold standard vs. Bimetallism 559 See also Demonetization. Expansion, article on attitude of Jefferson 788 Exposition, see World's Fair; At- lanta Exposition. Eye and ear infirmary 610 Factory Inspection, see Factory Legislation. FACTORY LEGISLATION. . Is desirable 146 Development, inspection 902 Law for inspection 902 Opposition of wealthy classes . 148, 523 Reforms effected under Gov. Altgeld 957. 966 See also Coal Mines; Eight Hour Movement. Attitude of Republican party. 948, 949 FALLING PRICES. Dear dollar 644, 867 Fixed charges 534, 536, 542, 587, 632 Disorganize industry T. 532, 541. 562, 564. 574, 587, 595, 623, 632, 649, 867 Business depression, caused by, see Business Depression. Effect on wages 564, 622 Under-consumption not over- production 560, 564 Effect of demonetization 429, 432, 575 See also Demonetization. Effect of legislation 429 Government controls average prices 858 1865-1873 562, 596 Effect on debts 534> 569 See also Debts. Who benefited 472, 598 Effect on local creditors 644 1896, Political issue , 689 Restoration of 876 Volume of money, see Aver- age Prices. Effect of, Senator Hunter 547 Secretary Crawford 547 Alexander Hamilton .... 546 Carlisle's attitude— 1878. .. 531 INDEX. 983 Falling Prices— Continued. Sherman on contraction 542 McKinley on Dear Money 630 McKinley Tariff 612 Plethora of money — savings banks 618, 633 Falling and rising prices com- pared 645 Restoration of bimetallism, see Bimetallism. See also Average Prices; Pur- chasing Power of Money; Rising Prices. FARMERS. Falling prices — effect of 867 Hard times — crocodile tears of money power 867 Effect of gold standard 555 And legislation 454 In politics 481 Organizations 454 Outlook in 1896 591 Silver mine owners compared. 632 Unduly taxed 583 Effect of McKinley tariff 221 Elevator trust 828 Landlordism in Illinois 961 Farmers' Institutes. Democratic legislation 270 Fashionable Set 523 Fauchet, Leon 549 Fawcett, Prof. Henry 179 FEDERAL JUDICIARY. Importance of 768 Corporation lawyers as judges. 439 Power of corporations and trusts 436, 687 Corporations in control 460, 465. 481 Non-protection of public 936 Judges — attitude of •_;■•• 736 ' ~ Debs' case — government by injunction 459 Jefferson's attitude 785 Hamiltonism 873 Contempt — change of rule.... 934 The Income Tax 464 Federal interference 438, 455,648,650, 688 Federal Judiciary— Continued. Excuses for 513 Attitude of President Grant 676 Attitude of Republican party . . . . 672 Attitude of Jefferson 673 Attitude of Democratic party 674 In Chicago 419, 930, 934 Railroad receiverships 933 Use of gowns 466 See also Injunctions, Govern- ment by; United States Su- preme Court. Federal Troops 455 In Chicago strike 665 FEDERALISTS. History of 735 Policies of 787 See also Hamilton. Feeble Minded, care of 502 Asylum for •. . 610 Rf commendations 901 Fees, see Fines. Fielden, Samuel 365 Fifer, Governor, Retiring speech. . 692 Fifty-cent Dollars, see Bimetal- lism. FILIPINOS. Republican mle — possibilities of 874 See also Compulsory Educa- tion. FINES. Evils of 37 Who pays them 38 Fine system is mediaeval 101 Salaries should be provided. . . 140 See also Arrests. Fischer, Adolph 365 Fish Commission — Useless offices. 893 Fithian, Hon. George 441 Fixed charges, see Falling Prices. Ford, Governor 957 Foreign Corporations, taxation of. 916 Forman, William S., letter to 604 Foster, Capt. Wallace, letter to. .. 129 Fourth of July Address 230, 733 Florida, Annexation of 807 9 8 4 INDEX. France and Silver. .. 543 FRANCE. See also Bimetallism. Frederick the Great 493 FREEDOM. Relation to social progress... 300 In America . '. 3 2 3 Right of jury trial 312 Effect on negro .' 327 Of speech 200, 202 In colleges 775 Alien and Sedition laws.. 787 See also Strikes. FREE TRADE. Effect on England 259, 300 Effect of in U. S -. 259 Frenneau, Phillip 152 FUSION 527 Future Life 326 Galesburg, speech at 476 GAS. Municipal 1 ownership in Great Britain 756 Glasgow 75.6 Manchester 755 Germany 756 Municipal ownership recom- mended, 1895 942 Formation of trust — advance of prices 94 2 Development of monopoly. . . . 5°7 Monopoly bill — veto 941 Chicago Gas Trust... 508, 511, 830 G. A. R., value of organization.. 241 General Assembly, see Legisla- ture. GENERAL PRICES, see Aver- age Prices. Genius 341, 781 Geological specimens, recommen- dations 894 Geological Department, recom- mendations 894 GEORGE, HENRY. Alarm over threatening dan- gers 779 Memorial address on 776 GERMANY. People — characteristics of .... 731 Economic conditions, 1898... 845 Germany — Continued. Demonetization of gold 545 Demonetization of silver 543 Effect of gold standard 559 See also Bimetallism. Giffen, Robert 552 Giles, William A., letter to. 515 Girls, Reformatory for 901 Girard, Speech at 591 Glasgow — Municipal Ownership . 752 GOLD DEMOCRATS. Endorsement of, spurned 536 And Chicago primary election 537 Gold Democracy. See also Democratic Party. GOLD STANDARD OF PRICES. Attempt to demonetize gold. . 545 Demonetization of silver, see Demonetization. Appreciated 100 per cent — A 200 cent dollar. 562, 621, 640, 649 Restoration of silver would cheapen gold 568, 572, 633 Supply and demand — effect on gold 572 Evils of Gold Standard ... 342, 645 See also Falling Prices; De- monetization. Effect of continued falls in average prices 646 Who defends it 645 Classes against masses 645 Disastrous to the people 648 Defended through deception and sophistry 645 Vilification and abuse 650 Sophistry of advocates 867 1898, the so-called prosperity. 817, 839 Grave of 692 - Gold— Volume of 558, 868 Volume of in U. S 535, 617, 619 Monopoly of 559 Effect of law 546 See also Purchasing Power of Money. U n i v e r s al gold standard — prophecies as to effect. 550, 551 INDEX. 985 Gold Standard of Prices — Continued. Progress of in Europe 543 Gold standard in England .... 544 Republican party, change of front 838 Attitude of boodlers 823 Wages — figures juggled 564 Carlisle's advocacy .*. 533 Contest in Illinois 469 In the Civil war 739 Clevelandism 79 2 Bond sales 634 Cost of gold standard 562 Stability compared, see Bimet- allism. See also Falling Prices; Vol- ume of Money; Money Question; Republican Par- ty; Purchasing Power of Money; United States. GOLD RESERVE. Preservation of— endless chain 869 Good Roads, see Roads. Goschen, ex-Chancellor 213, 551 GOVERNMENT. History of 334 Duties of 366 Evils of Centralized 435 Evils of concentration 674 Beginnings of self-government 325 Founding of American 435 Principles of self-government. 235 - - Universal intelligence a neces- sity 237 Separation of powers 435, 459 Judicial interpretation, impor- tance of 450, 481, 7.68 See also Federal Judiciary. Military power 675 Protection of life and proper- ty 651 Enforcement of law 230 Policies of Federalists 787 Evolution of government. 478, 697 Size of unit growing 5°7 Changes required 919 New conditions must be met. 700 ; Changing conditions, adjust- ment to 7 22 Functions of 435. 5°8 Government — Continued. Question of business 752 Attitude of monopolists.. 759, 764 Wrongs of 335 Conflicting interests 451 Who controls 345 Motive of legislators 334 Legislation controlled by bankers, see Bankers. Legislation can affect prices. . 642 Distribution of products 774 Henry George's theories 778 Legislation for shorter hours. 171 Attitude of the wealthy 648 Destruction by the rich. . . .521, 687 Representative government — successful for a time 745 Duty as to monopolies 509 See also Monopolies. Popular government at stake. 226 Dependence on wage earners. 478 People to be trusted 679 Effect of Democratic spirit... 489 Extension of federal authority. 935 See also Federal interference, Home rule. Military government un- American 235, 675 Government b y Injunction, see Injunction. Free education 463 Ignorant vote in elections .... 703 Freedom 300 Equality before the law... 694, 734 Duty to unemployed 343 Value of private individuals.. 338 Growth of humanitarianism. . . 6op Consent of the governed 233, 291, 694, 734 Value of Republican institu- tions 514 "Build for the centuries" 937 Not a philanthropic affair 479 Duty of officers 698 Duty as to pensions 119 Paternal government 111 Oligarchy . .' 937 See also Popular Government; Political Parties; Evolution. 986 INDEX. GOVERNMENT OF CITIES. An address 185 Government Ownership, see Mo- nopolies. Governor, acceptance of nomina- tion 226 Graduates, address to 328 GRAND JURY. Use to influence public opin- ion 948, 949 Retention, attitude of Repub- lican party 948, 949 See also Juries. Grant, Gen., letter on 466 Grant, President— Federal inter- ference 676 Gray, William i77 Great Fortunes, how made 476 Great Men 5?_5 Greatness, what judged by 33° Greece 402, 498 Greed 699 Greeley, Horace, as an editor 152 GREENBACKS. Jefferson's attitude 696 Redemption in coin 637, 857 Redemption in gold 639 Legislation — Power of bank- ers 860 Retirement of— McCleary Bill. 851 See also Paper Money; Treas- ury Notes, etc. Gresham, Hon. Walter Q 298 Grinnell, State's Attorney.'. 397 Grosscup, Judge Peter S 681, 874 Grosvenor, Gen 721, 729 Hurd, Hon. Harvey B., letter to. . 501 HAMILTON. Principles of 237, 694 Wanted aristocratic govern- ment 73S Compared with Jefferson 786 Establishment of n a t i onal bank 872 On Bimetallism 546 Hamiltonism 302, 746, 791 How overthrown 880 The situation Jan. '99 871 HANNA, MARK A. Nomination of McKinley 781 Hanna, Mark A.^-Continued. "Mark Hanna's Trust" 582 Co-operation with Alger 842 Army scandals 849 Election to U. S. Senate 817 Indictment for bribery. ..874 Attitude toward manhood.... 882 Hannaism 646, 647, 688, 692, 702, 703, 718, 721, 749 Harbors 804 - Harlan, Mr. Justice 686 Harrison, Benjamin 227 Causes of defeat, '92 528 Harrison, Hon. Carter H., Sr. ... 397 Harvey, W. H., letter to 525 Hay market Riot, description of . . . 365 Hayti 803 Health, State Board of 902 Henry, Patrick 734 Herbert, Secretary 523 HEREDITY. Rich men's sons 332 Value of pedigree 335 See also Crime. Heroes 361, 524 Henry George 779 Heroism — Characteristics 779 Hertz 834 HIGHER IDEALS 324 HIGHER THOUGHT 290, 497 Henry George 776 Letter to Christian Endeavor- ites 525 Highways, see Roads. Hill, Sir Frederick 61 "Hired men" 862 Historical Library Board 903 Hogg, Hon. James S., letter to. . . 525 Holland, demonetization of gold. . 545 Demonetization of silver 543 Home Influence, value of 502 HOME RULE. Need for 514 Local self-government denned 678 Attitude of Republican party. 672 Attitude of Democratic party. 674 Jefferson's attitude 674 Reconstruction period 5 X 3 HOMESTEAD STRIKE. See McKinley Tariff; Strikes. INDEX. 987 "HONEST MONEY" 472, 538 See also Gold Standard; Banks. "Honest Primaries" 538 Honor, National Honor 635 Hopkins, Congressman, reply to.. 219 Hopkins, Mayor 676 Horticultural Specimens, recom- mendations 894 House of Correction, method of- conducting 47 Housing of the Poor, see Wage Earners. Hoyt, Governor 54, 87 Hubbard, Police Inspector 197 Hull, Perry 729 HUMANITY 498, 603, 698 Voice of 749 Sympathy toward 778 Of Democracy 809 Battle for 489, 585, 878 Criterion of greatness 321 Appeal to young men 825 Struggle of Cubans 531 Hume 548 Hunter, Senator R. M. T 547 Hypocrisy 816 IDEALS 335, 403 ' Higher Ideals 324 Need for universal industry. . 513 Ignorant vote 703 ILLINOIS. Brief history of 308 Growth of 351 Resources of 477 Its greatness 245, 406 A guiding star 699 Grandeur of 485 Glories of '93 408 Destiny of 970 Status of 910 The debut of, an address 349 Address at opening of Illinois building 321 Past and future 698 Compared 323 Protection of life and prop- erty 437 Rapid advancement of 499 Illinois — Continued. Intellectual and literary activ- ity 499 Statue of, address on 473 Educational advantages 500 Mining and manufacturing in- terests 965 Water ways — policies — veto. . . 943 Its coal fields 651 Charitable institutions com- pared 610 Historical Library Board.... 903 1894 Republican machine .... 709 Corruption in politics 712 Selling of legislation 828 1896 elections — fraudulent votes 704 Population and vote '92 and '96 711 Political corruption, 1897 748 State treasury deficit 826 State issues, 1898 819 January, '97 — The outlook... 705 The new civilization 609 Railway strike, 1894 664 Militia at Pullman strike 482 ILLINOIS NATIONAL GUARD 651, 914 Description of 920 Riots of 1894 963 Commendation of 959 IMMIGRANTS. Party affiliation 161, 164 Participation in Civil War 163 Contract labor 170 1896, election — vote analyzed. 702 Election frauds 720 Value of 364 IMMIGRATION. Character of immigrants 236 Competition of immigrants. . . 169 See also Pauper Labor. Coal industry 920 Restriction of 160 Effect of 246, 276 See also Protective Tariff. Immortality 326, 609 IMPRISONMENT. Evil effects of 21 988 INDEX. Imprisonment — Continued. Effect of, on relatives and friends 9 Unnecessary imprisonment.89, 98 System is mediaeval 89 By magistrates 3 11 Reforms effected under Gov. Altgeld 957 IMPROVED METHODS OF PRODUCTION. Effect on prices 560 Distribution of benefits 774 See also Eight Hour Move- ment. Inaugural Address, 1893 308 INCOME TAX. A Democratic measure 440 And the Supreme Court 464 Federal judiciary — Chicago platform 683 Increase of population, see Pur- chasing Power of Money. INDEPENDENT ACTION IN BIMETALLISM, see Bimetal- lism. Independence, declaration of, see Declaration of Independence. INDETERMINATE SEN- TENCES 93 Recommended 318 Trial of— results 908 Paroling of prisoners reform effected under Gov. Altgeld 958 See also Parole. Independence of England 646 INDIA. Closure of mints, evil effects of 573 Conditions in 644 ■ Protest against gold standard. 844 See also Silver Standard. INDIANAPOLIS MONETARY COMMISSION 851 INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVE- MENT 321, 330, 824 Henry George 780 INDUSTRY, EVOLUTION OF 204, 34s Concentration is taking place 247 Statistics 249 Industry, Evolution of — Continued. Concentration of wealth— his- tory of early peoples ...:... 249 Causes of concentration 260 Concentration — bad laws. .249, 250 Capitalism in control 460 See also Capitalism. Remedy for unequal distribu- tion 248 See also Distribution. Need for universal industry.. 513 Evolution of labor 343 Outlook 239 Industrial liberty to be at- tained 879 INHERITANCE TAX. Graduated — recommended.318, 917 INITIATIVE, see Referendum. INJUNCTION, GOVERN- MENT BY, A usurpation, pp. 436, 459, 648, 660, 681, 688, 692, 744. . 768 Usurpation by U. S. Supreme Court 679, 686 Not allowed in England 772 In Chicago strike, data 931 Against wage-earners 453 Dangers from federal judi- ciary 684 INJUSTICE. Evils of 489 A boomerang 318 Corrupt fortunes, effect of 822 INSANE. Evolution of care of 608 Treatment for recovery 896 Care of — recommendations. . . ". 316, 896- INSANE ASYLUMS. System unsatisfactory 502 At Rock Island — address" at laying of corner stone 608 INSPECTION. Of live stock 903 How to inspect coal mines... 505 How to inspect public institu- tions Inspectors, see Inspection; Coal Mines. INDEX. 989 INSURANCE DEPARTMENT. 902 Effectiveness 958 INTELLIGENCE 346, 497 Greatness of 332 Overcomes brute force 480 In directing labor 341 Effect of exhausting labor. ... 173 Interest on bonds, who pays 635 Internal Improvements, in Illinois '309 INTERNATIONAL BIMET- ALLISM 572 Independent action will bring it 567, 571 Attitude of bankers 861 Duplicity of McKinley admin- istration 841 See also Bimetallism. INTERNATIONAL COM- MERCE 802, 838 "Open door" policy 802 Interstate Commerce Commission 879 INTERSTATE COMMERCE LAW. Object 452, 768, 933 Nullified by judiciary 439. 453, 660, 933 International law, humanitarian principles 53J Invention, in America 323 Distribution of benefits 774 Iroquois Club, tenets of 467 Israel, Children of 344 Jackson, Andrew 696, 873 Principles of 696 Why great 883 Against the money power 599, 693, 696, 737, 810 Bankers, power of 859 Clash with U. S. Supreme Court 685 Jackson Day speech 696 JAILS. Are nurseries of vice 20 Number of prisoners during 1880 9 County jails, bad condition of 19 Local visitors 901 Evil effect of fee system 20 The remedy 20 See also Prisons. Jamison, Hon. Egbert, letter to. . 503 Jamison, Hon. Thomas N 833 JEFFERSON. Principles of 674, 694 Contributions to free govern- ment 693 On the federal judiciary 679 Federal interference 673 On Bimetallism 547 Reforms advocated by 694 Wanted popular government. 735 Denounced as a demagogue. . 736 Left office a poor man 788 Cleveland contrasted — Central Music Hall speech 783 Clevelandism contrasted 467 Hamilton contrasted 786 Louisiana purchase 807 Jenkins, Judge 681, 770 JOLIET PENITENTIARY. Under Republican rule 263 See also Penitentiaries; Prison Labor. Journalism, see Newspapers. Judas .- 608 JUDGES. Should be elected 340 Salaries of 339 Use of passes 194 Should not wear gowns 194 Number employed in criminal cases — costs 10 See also Courts; Judiciary; Federal Judiciary. JUDICIARY. Why controlled by wealth. . . . 480 Need for intelligent criticism. 968 Doings of corporations 452 Tendency of corporation law- yers 451 Judgments — Arrests, imprison- ment — reforms effected by Gov. Altgeld 957 JURIES. Grand juries should be abol- ished 48, 62 Number of — cost — results. ... 10 Reforms effected under Gov. Altgeld 957 Government by injunction 770 99Q INDEX. JURY TRIAL. In police courts 409 See also Injunction, govern- ment by. JUSTICE. Will be attained ; 880 Goddess of liberty 5.1.3 Reforms — Record of Repub- lican party 496 Relation to popular govern- ment 970 Effect of powerful navy 802 JUSTICE, ADMINISTRA- TION OF. Delay is unreasonable 132 Losing party to pay costs. .. . 132, 134, 137 Public burden is too great... 134, 138 Oral charges to the jury 136 Evils of unanimous verdict in civil cases I3i> 137 Frivolous technicalities ...I3 r > 138 Reform procedure 138, 312 Recommen dations of Gov. Altgeld 912, 962 Attitude of Republican party 949 In Chicago 13 1 Responsibility of Repub- lican party 948, 949 See also Courts. JUSTICE COURTS. Procedure is infamous 410 Recommendations of Gov. Altgeld 962 Responsibility of Republican party 948 See also Courts; Procedure. Kindergarten, see Schools. Know-nothing party 228 Kraus, Adolph, letter to 409 Kunz, William 81 LABOR. Usefulness of 331 Importance of 363 Nobility of 349 Its dues — the history of 343 Relation of capital to 342 Labor — Continued. Early condition of white la- borers : 180, 181 Freeing of Russian serfs 180 Is not treasonable » . . . 345 Is not rebellious 345 Value of organization 345, 346 Right of assemblage and free . speech 196, 205 Attitude of Henry George 779 Reforms recommended 314 Address to 34° Labor legislation by Demo- crats .- 442, 448 Prison labor, history of 265 Effect of pauper labor 252 See also Labor Unions; Strikes; Prison Labor. LABOR DAY. Address in Chicago, '93 34° Address at Philadelphia 750 LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. Necessity of 214, 420 Value of intelligence 346 Co-operation the watchword.. 216 On the side of law and order. 184 Are educational 185 Position on labor question... 184 Opposition of federal courts.. 936 Banishment of, by Carnegie.. 220 State buildings — union labor... 471 Labor Question 169, 179 LABOR TROUBLES. Temporary boards 949 Attitude of Republican party. 948, 949 Compulsory investigation rec- ommended 919 See also Arbitration; Strikes. LABOR UNIONS. Growth of monopolies 478 Speech to American Railway trainmen 476 Effect on wages 286 Union labor compared with non-union 47i~ Scab labor defined 471 Lake county, population and vote, 1892 and 1896 717 Lake Front, how to utilize 205 INDEX. 991 LAND. Monopoly of land 777 Land transfers — Torrens sys- tem, reform effected under Gov. Altgeld 957 Torrens law unconstitu- tional; new law advo- cated 965 Landlordism in Illinois 961 Lanehart, John W 605 Languages, see also Dead Lan- guages. Latin Union and Silver 543 See also Bimetallism. Laughlin, Prof. J. Laurence 851 Law schools 464 Lawyers, number employed in criminal cases — costs 10 See also Corporations. Lee, Capt. J. M., record of 666 Leech, Edward 558 LEGISLATION. Who shapes it 339 Selling legislation 828 Repeal — hard to secure 943 See also Government. Legislature, evils of adjournment. 319 LIBEL. Anonymous journalism 156 Element of law — recommen- dations of Gov. Altgeld 969 Revision of law — recommen- dation 950 LIBERTY. Civil liberty 231, 809 Religious liberty 231 Province of government 237 Best form of government. . . . 674 Defended by the citizens 493 Infringement by Supreme Court 968 Magna Charta — Not for em- ployer or workman 180 An infringement of — 1796 — 1800 737, 872 Industrial liberty, to be at- tained 879 '896, new Declaration of In- dependence 689 Liberty— Continued. In 1776 and 1896 602 Attitude of Democrats and Republicans 225, 227 Jeffersonian principles 694 Relation of poverty to 650 Goddess of cj^ United action for short hours. 176 See also Injunction, Govern- ment by; Government; Freedom; Standing Army. LINCOLN, ABRAHAM. Contributions of 237 Party of 849 Compared with McKinley 875 Denounced as a demagogue.. 739 How ministers voted 739 Criticised U. S. Supreme Court 685, 687 Lincoln Park Extension, letter on 503 Development under Gov. Alt- & e 'd 912, 960 Ling, Louis 365 Literature, value of 333 Littler, Senator David T 827 Liverpool, Lord, and finance 544 Live Stock Commissioners 903 Lobbyists, power of 451, 496 Lobbying, record of Chauncey Depew 483 Lockouts, see Strikes. Lockups, see Prisons. Lodging houses, Public 754 Lorimer, Hon. William R 833 Louisiana purchase 807 Lovejoy, Elijah P 957 Lowell, James Russell 880 Lutherans and education 224 LUXURY 336 Effect of 524 Machinery, labor saving, effect of. 172 Improvements, distribution of 774 Macloon, C. R., letter to 476 MacVeagh, Wayne 297 Magistrates, see Justices of the Peace. Magna Charta, see Liberty. Mahoney, Senator 697 Majority rule, in civil cases before juries 137 992 INDEX. Majority Rule — Continued. See also Government; Polit- ical Parties. Mammon, American degeneration 645, 647 Manchester — Municipal owner- ship 755 MANHOOD 476, 522 Attitude of Mark Hanna 882 Fear, effect of 747 Manning, Daniel 529 Mansfield, Lord 734 MANUFACTURERS. Falling prices — effect of . . . , . . 867 Dominated by money power. . 575 Effect of gold standard 555 Restoration of silver, effect . . . 569 Markets, Public 754 Marriage 328 Martyrs, Henry George compared 777 Mattoon, Speech at 428 Maxwell, Hon. Hugh 24 Medical practice act of Illinois . . . 462 Medical schools 464 MERCHANTS. Dominated by money power.. 575 Outlook in 1896 591 See also Falling Prices, Ris- ing Prices. Mershon, letter to 522 Mexico, Effect of silver standard. 573 McClaughry, Major R. W., letter to 196 McCleary, Congressman 853 M'KINLEY, MAJOR WIL- LIAM. Cause of hard times 631 On dear money 630 Effect of demonetization 631 "Open the mills" 643 Nominated by monopolists... 782 Relation toward the trusts . . . 704 How elected 881 Elected by purchasable and ignorant vote 814 Analysis of vote 702 Popular government 875 Favoritism in war appoint- ments 846, 849 .Favoritism toward Sampson.. 846 McKinley — Continued. Altgeld on 692 McKinleyism 688 M'KINLEY TARIFF 430 Forty per cent increase 280 Framed by beneficiaries 593 Effect 579, 613 Effect on clothing 286 Effect on wages 286 Repeal of 433 See also Sweat Shops; Pro- tective Tariff. McNulta, reasons for pardoning. . 516 Miles, General, railway strike, 1894 •••■• 666 Military power ... ^ 675 See also Standing Army. Militia, value, compared 920 See also Illinois National Guard. Militarism, Attitude of Governor Tanner 705 Military science, in University of Illinois 910 Million, how to make 476 Mills, Senator Roger Q 547 Milwaukee, speech at 488 MINES AND MINING. Democratic Legislation 270 Truck stores, abolishment of.. 966 Inspection, necessity for — rec- ommendations of Gov. Alt- geld 966 Mine operators and workers — Outlook in 1896 591 Ministers of the Gospel 334 Attitude toward Lincoln 739 Minority party, see Political Par- ties. Modesty, indispensable to great- ness 779 MONEY.' A good servant and bad mas- ter '.. '.'. . .479, 882 Has neither soul nor senti- ment '.1% . 479 Volume of in United States.. • .........207, 535 Appreciation of, see Falling Prices. INDEX. 993 MONEY QUESTION. The issue in 1896 647, 688 Battle of civilization 469, 705 Not a partisan question 600 Non-partisan speech on 541 Silver has not appreciated — gold has 561 Motive of creditor class 545 See also Bankers. Class against class 641 Price of American exports.... 614 Effect of law 545 Effect of Demonetization, see Demonetization. Bryan, how defeated. 707, 716, 814 See also Elections — Frauds. Campaign of '96 — Size of cor- ruption fund 718 Freedom of speech in colleges 77$ Republican misrule 811 Comments on Carlisle's speech 531 Quantity theory, see Average Prices. Independent Action, see Bi- metallism. Ratio, see Bimetallism. International Level of Prices, see Average Prices. Outlook, 1897 705, 749 1899,. political issues 876 Uniform coinage 545 Bland- Allison law 543 Sherman law 544 Indian mints — closure 544 Silver Convention of June, '95 468 See also Gold Standard; Democratic Party; Repub- lican Party. MONEY POWER. Dominant power 575, 589, 881 In Civil War 739 Hypocrisy of 852, 867 Historical instances 859 Campaign of 1896 707 Attitude of Jefferson and Jackson 693, 696 Under Republican rule 692 Its destruction is near 881 MONETARY CONFERENCE. International, for gold stand- ard 545 Monetary Commission, see In- dianapolis; Belgian, 550. MONOPOLY. Benefit of 508 Private Monopoly — Growth of 478 Issuing paper money— ef- fect 876 Of gold 559 Stealth of 943 Special privilege, evil ef- fects of 777 Cost to consumers 942 Corruption — Destruction of government ••743, 75i, 758, 767,774, 943 Corruption fund 764 Campaign -of 1896 607 Situation, 1899 •. 877 Veto of bills 940, 945 Relation to federal courts 687, 873 Freedom of speech in col- . leges 775 Capture of Democracy... 812 Republican party, attitude of 227 Grover Cleveland 790 Trusts are illegal 507 Control of, by commis- sions 510 Futility of regulation. 511, 942 Americans must meet it. . 511 Remedy — Government Ownership 743 Development of government ownership- 752 Government ownership a ne- cessity 750, 758, 768 Reason for 509, 877 Industrial Liberty 879 "Equal rights" 767 Benefits enumerated 766 Lowering of charges. .760, 764 Public service 767 Patronage 879 Criterion of 752 994 INDEX. Government Ownership — Continued. Attitude of monopolists . . 764 Reform — conditions 1898 810 New Declaration of Inde- pendence 747 Nicaragua canal 802 See also Railroads, Telegraph, Telephones, Street Rail- roads, Gas, Water, Electric Lighting, Land, Protective Tariff. MONROE DOCTRINE 788, 796 MONUMENTS. Meaning of 325, 490 " 'Tis deeds that live" 49 2 Erected by state 957 See also Chickamauga, Illi- nois, Shields. MORALS. Effect of shorter hours 176 Effect of overwork 173 Effect of governmental poli- cies 778 Environment, effect of change 753 Fear, effect of 747 Corrupt fortunes — effect of... 822 Surroundings of wage-earners 966, 967 Social evolution 290 "Moral leprosy" 692 Anonymous journalism 153 World is growing better 143 See also Higher Ideals; High- er Thought; Schools; Uni- versities; Evolution. MORTGAGES. Effect of Republican policies. 227 See also Debts. Mugwump presidential adminis- tration 791 Municipal Governments, see City Government. MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP... 509 Need for 878 Recommended, '95 942 Satisfactory where tried 756 Savings to consumers 756 Benefits enumerated 766 Patronage 879 Municipal Ownership — Continued. Private ownership — poor serv- ice 7S5 See also Monopoly. Municipal ownership recom- mended, 1893 ■ 316 Municipal ownership in Great Britain 752 NATIONAL BANKS, see Bank Money. NATIONAL CONVENTIONS. Number of delegates — pro- posed changes 781 See also Chicago Convention. National Honor, see Honor; Pa- t r i o t i s m ; Bimetallism ; Bonds. NAVY. Need for 802 Under Democratic rule 808 Prize money — antiquated laws 845 Neebe, Oscar 365 Neglected Children, see Depend- ent Children. NEGROES 702 Effect of freedom 327 In coal industry 920 New England 403 NEW PARTY 526 "Divide and Conquer" 440 NEW SOUTH, Achievements of — speech 511 NEWSPAPERS. Definition of 969 Weeklies and small papers distinguished 970 Domination of by slave power 881 Dominated by monopoly, in- cluding money power ■ 479, S23, 574 Evil doings of 969 American — unscrupulousness.. 731 Press must remain free 156 Power of the press 156 Anonymous journalism and its effects 151 Abolishment of anonymous journalism — recommenda- tions of Gov. Altgeld 969 Hired men 565. INDEX. 995 Newspapers — Continued. Escape of taxation 917 Leases of school lands 938 In Philippines 80S New York Chamber of Commerce Banquet 875 New York, Speech at Cooper Union 647 Nicaraguan Canal 802, 818 Government ownership 806 Nomination by petition to head off corrupt nominees 823 "Nonpartisan" 851 Normal universities, History of. . . 501 Norway and Silver 543 Oblivion, deodorizing lime of.... 882 Ohio, Fraudulent vote in '96.. 703, 720 Old Soldiers, Speech to 242 Olney on Federal interference. . . . 654, 65S, 677 For president — comments .... 527 Omaha Monetary Debate 853 Omaha speech, "The Situation". . . 870 Oppenheimer, Moses, letter to... 749 Oglesby, Governor 266 ORGANIZATION. Of wage-earners 261 Moral effects 262 To meet centralized wealth. . . 454 See also Political Parties; Labor Organizations. Ornamentation — Suggestions for state buildings 470 See Illustrations, 885, 893. Ornithological Specimens, recom- mendations 894 Qssilation in politics, see Political party. OUR PENAL MACHINERY, see Penal Machinery. OVERPRODUCTION, theory of 560 See also Falling Prices. PANICS, Cause of 342, 54*. 634 Bankers' power — historical instances 859 Bankers control — McCleary bill 857 Panic of 1873 623 Of 1893— cause of.342, 542, 634 Panics — Continued. Diamond Match stock specu- lation - 618 Plethora of money after 557 Statement of Robert Giffen. . . 552 Restoration of silver will not cause panic for money 572 PAPER MONEY. Government controls average prices — Admission by Prof. Laughlin 858 Government should issue di- rect 863 Banks in the governing busi- ness 863 Bankers' power — historical instances 859 McCleary Bank Bill 851 Indianapolis Monetary Com- mission 851 Bank money — attitude of Jef- ferson 786 Monopoly of issuing, effect of 876 During Civil War 542 Volume of Money, see Money. Paper certificates preferred . . . 568 PARDONS. Small number of, by Altgeld. 516, 907 Misrepresentation of Gov. Altgeld— facts 516, 955 Of McNulta and Chapman... 516 Parker, Prof. A. K 874 Parker, George N 51 PARK SYSTEM. Development of, under Gov. Altgeld 938 In dense districts 754 PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS 271 See also Schools. PAROLE SYSTEM. Benefits of 92 Recommended by Gov. Alt- geld 908 Reform effected under Gov. Altgeld 057 Good results 955 See also Indeterminate Sen- tences; Probation. Parsons, Albert R 365 996 INDEX. Partisanship, rich men compared. 168 Party Machinery, control of by Gold-Democracy 487 See also Political Parties; Civil Service. Passes, judges should not accept. . 194 Paternalism, see Government. Patriotic Sons of America 276 PATRIOTISM. Where flourishes 494 Does not depend on birth. .. . 363 Lack of, in business interests. 521 East of the Alleghanies 647 Wealth, attitude of 480 Attitude of established society 733 Tories, attitude of 523 Talks on — Diversion of atten- tion 851 Last resource of scoundrels. . . 730 Record of Chauncey Depew. . 483 "Carbonated patriotism" .... 970 Of Chicago newspapers 939 Dangers from greed 699 Cuban inhumanities 846 See also pp. 328, 337, 353, 416, 476, 522, 800; also Pharisee- ism. Patterson, W. D 52 PAUPER LABOR. Of Europe 220 Under McKinley Tariff 430 See also 169, 250, 305; also Competition; Submerged Classes; Sweat Shops. Government ownership 763 Payne, Henry C 680 Pedigree, see Heredity. Penal Legislation, see Crimes. PENAL MACHINERY AND ITS VICTIMS (a treatise).... 7 PENAL MACHINERY. Its cost 11, 99 Is not a success — effects 12 Expiatory system is wrong. . . 100 Remedies 44 See also Arrests; Peniten- tiaries; Procedure, etc. PENITENTIARY. At Joliet 17 Southern Illinois, at Chester. 14 Penitentiary — Continued. Number in confinement dur- ing 1880 9 Cost of, compared 952 Improvement of physical con- ditions 9S3 Physical condition under con- tract system 953 Stripes — Abolition of 953 Policy of Gov. Altgeld 952 Report — recommendations.. 317, 904 Reforms under Gov. Altgeld — results 90s Party policies compared 820 Condition of, in 1896 584 Republican misrule 294, 308 Prison labor, cigar making — veto 94s, 946 Paroling Prisoners, see Pa- role. PENSIONS OF SOLDIERS... 116 Service pensions 123 Indigent soldiers' pensions... 125 Private pensions 125 Objections of Wall street 124 Pension frauds 125 PEOPLE. Successful efforts of 704 Masses of the people 504 See also Common People. Peoria — Democratic State Con- vention '. S77 "Perseverance wins the day" . 331 Persia, concentration of wealth- downfall 249 Pessimism 337 Petit Juries, see Juries. ' Pettifogger in politics 615 PHARISEEISM. Tendency towards 704 Republican attitude, 1896. .. . 707 See also 495, 687, 695, 730. Phidias 498 Philadelphia, speech at 750 Philanthropy — How to spend a million dollars 404 PHILIPPINES. Area and population 804 Spanish misrule 805 INDEX. 997 Philippines — Continued. Right to establish republic. . . . 806 Proper policy toward 804 Will acquire their independ- ence 844 Phillip of Macedon 418 Phillips, Wendell — was ostracized 167, 738 Photographs of state buildings. . ,885, 893 Physicians, study of medicine — standard 902 Physicians 462 Physicians and Surgeons, College of 463 PINJCERTONISM ,221,314 See also Protective Tariff. Platitudes '.' 790 Plato 498 PLUTOCRACY— Outlook in '92. 239 See also Wealth. Poland 514 POLICE COURTS. Procedure in 410 Amount of fees 4 1 1 Jury trial 4°9 Responsibility of Republican party 948, 949 Police Districts, should be small. . 46 Police Department of Chicago, yearly cost u POLICE FORCE. Number of, cost, results 10 Chicago strike, 1894 666 Police raids 312 Brutality — protest against . . . 196 Reforms recommended ..312, 962 Police Power of State, see Arbi- tration of Strikes; Coal Mines. Police Prisons, see Prisons. POLITICAL PARTY. What it is 248 Political organization — need for 480 Ideas, the distinguishing fea- ture 70i Motive of 693 Policies, how determined 744 Should stand for principles... 749 See also Bolters. Political Party — Continued. Political independence com- mendable 732 Minority party, advantages of 699 Majority party, disadvantages of 699 Ossilation — D i s satisfaction with opposite party 695 Value of new party 440 Control of both by special privilege 695 Punch and Judy shows 851 Money — value of 882 Money in campaigns — fraud. . 707 Machine politics 709, 712 Office hunting an abomination 578 Flag, use in campaign 730 Nonpartisan, an abused term. 851 Minority party, mission of... 578, 693; 799 Law of natural selection 608 Deception of people 472 Principles and nominees con- trasted 290 "Time serving politicians''. .. . 487 "Dilettante" 487 "The man milliners and the carpet knights of politics" . . 487 Political economists — Henry George 777 Pontiac Reform School, under Re- publican rule 263 POOR. Never overthrew government , 687, 970 Injustice suffered 311 Discrimination against 409 Absence of postal savings banks 758 Imprisonment for nonpayment of fines 103 Infractions of their liberties. . 95 Hamilton's principles 694 Position of Cleveland 630 Republican tendencies 529 Outlook in 1892 240 City corruption 520 See also Common People; Rich. Poorhouse, see Almshouse. 99 8 INDEX. POPULAR GOVERNMENT. When safe 7°3 Maintained only by justice... 970 Need for intelligent criticism. 968 Republics are grateful 698 Attitude of aristocracy 875 Government by injunction... 772 Drift of recent years 229 Tendency to oligarchy 648 .Effect of falling prices..;.... 646 See also Government; Polit- ical Parties. POPULIST PARTY S26 The money question 647 "Divide and Conquer" 440 See also Political Parties. POSTAL SAVINGS BANKS— Attitude of bankers 759 In Europe. Absence of, in U. S 758, 878 Postal Service System, Govern- ment Telegraph 759 Poverty, no bar to success 364 Powderly, T. V 220 Preachers — Dominations of slave power 881 See also Lincoln. Presidential timber, where grown. 528 Presidential Bee 5 2 5 Press, see Newspapers. Price, J. R., M. D., letter to 462 PRICES. See Average Prices; Falling Prices; Rising Prices; Mo- nopoly. Primaries, Crawford law 539 Primogeniture 694, 784 PRINCIPLES— evils of excep- tions 412 Birth of new ones 473 See also Political Parties. Printing, see State Printing. Prison, see Penitentiaries; State Prison Aid Association. PRISONERS. From whence they come 12 Should be diminished one- half 76 Number of for 1880 9 Repeaters, number of 17 Prisoners — Continued. Age 13 Parentage 13 Average cost of 11 Discharged prisoners, e m- ployment for 907 See also Sentences; Parole. PRISON LABOR. History of 954 Make time of discharge de- pendent in part on surplus earnings 84 Existing system makes pris- oner independent 69 Object — benefit to prisoner and society 86 Four systems 64 Evils of "public account" sys- tem 74 Evils of "contract system" ... 75 Should be diminished one- half 76 Loss of support to family. ... 66 Give prisoners part of earn- ings 76, 93 Reward to industry — benefi- cial results 79, 83 Effect of unwilling labor 68 Aids in preserving discipline. . 84 Need for humane treatment. . . 86 Right of prisoner to labor. ... 73 Loss to society 65 Stripes, use of 953 Earnings and cost of prison- ers 65, 77 Should be divided up among industries 74 Effect on cooperage 294 Kinds of work done 64 Competition 954 Reforms recommended . .317, 584 Diversification of industries, policy under Gov. Altgeld. 952 Under Republican rule 266 Attitude of Republican party. 948, 949 Party policies compared 820 The situation, Jan. '95 904 Cleanliness 947 INDEX. 999 Prison Labor — Continued. Should be largely outside of prison walls 76, 85 Piece price system the best. . . 78 See also Prisons; Peniten- tiary; Prisoners. Discipline should develop character 28 PRISONS. Character of police prisons or lockups 18 Leasing convicts, evil effects. 29 Discipline — effect of kindness and cruelty 25, 30 Imprisonment of women 35 Prison hospitals 30 National Prison Reform Con- vention, 1870 28 National Prison Reform As- sociation, address before... 89 See also Prison Labor; Peni- tentiaries and Criminals. Private individuals 338 PROBATION. Probation Districts — Statis- tics 104 Probation Officers, see Ar- rests. See also Indeterminate Sen- tence. Problems, that confront us 774 PROCEDURE. Reform of, rec- ommendations 894 Civil and criminal distinguish- ed 410 See also Courts. Profession, see Vocation. Progress, how recorded 608 "Progress and Poverty" 778 Prohibitionist. Money question 647 Prophecies. Election in 1900 881 See also Demonetization; Gold Standard. PROTECTIVE TARIFF. History in U. S 301 Attitude of people, 1898 801 Effect on people , 297 Does not cheapen production. 283 Protective Tariff — Continued. Diversification of home indus- try 284 Home market 284, 302 Fundamental principle — does not protect wage earner or farmer. 219, 258, 280,285, 304, 305 Free competition among wage earners 254 Pauper labor 250 Effect on consumers 254,256, 258, 303 Who benefited 306 Effect on prices 303 A false remedy 592, 613 Cleveland's un-D e m o c r atic policy 455 Effect on trusts and combina- tions 255, 256, 3°S Protection and Pinkertonism. 221 Superior knowledge a protec- tion 757 In Europe, effect of. .259, 300, 431 Degradation of labor 579 Effect of free trade in England 259 Effect of free sugar 258, 304 Republic system described... 251 Infant industries 302 Walker Tariff 281 McKinley Tariff, effect of 220 Effect on wages 256, 257 Repeal of 433 See also McKinley Tariff. Dingley Bill 802, 836 Reply to Congressman Hop- kins 219 Conditions in 1896 579 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION. See State Institutions; Civil Service; Government. Public Buildings, suggestion for. . 470 Architecture 61 1 Photographs 885,893 Public Discussion, value of 408 PUBLIC FUNDS, who shall re- ceive the interest 310 Democratic legislation 442 Interest payment to state — re- forms effected by Gov. Alt- geld 957 IOOO INDEX. PUBLIC MEN, Examples of "trimmers" 574 See also Statesmen. PUBLIC opinion: How shaped 479 Need for agitation 487 Formation of by money power 574 Anonymous journalism and its effects 151 Who moulds it 339 Force of 503 See also Universities; News- papers; Schools. Public Service, see Civil Service. Public Warehouses, see Elevators. Puerto Rico 803 PULLMAN STRIKE 651 Letters to George M. Pull- man 421, 422, 424 Federal interference 455 Effect of using federal troops. 482 Effect of Illinois militia 482 Answer to Depew 482 Effectiveness of state legisla- tion 437 See also Chicago Strike. Pullman — escape from taxation... 916 Pulpit, see Ministers. Punishment, see Crime. Purchase of Supplies, see State In- stitutions. PURCHASING POWER OF MONEY. Should be stable 636 History of, see Gold Standard; Falling Prices. Supply and Demand, see Quantity Theory, next line. Quantity theory, i. e., effect of quantity of money and cred- it 626, 649 See also Average Prices. Increase of population, effect. 628 How money gets into circula- tion 626 Cost of production theory 626 Fifty-cent dollars, see Bimet- allism. Quay, Senator 874 Railroad Receiverships 933 RAILROADS. Private Ownership — Rates compared 765 Discrimination in Illinois. 918 Freight rates — adjustment reform under Gov. Alt- geld 959 Discrimination in rates.. . 766 Discrimination in trusts. . 766 Railroad wrecking — stock jobbing 766 Undue profits 764, 766 Corruption fund . . ._. 764 Regulation by commis- sion 879 Government ownership — in foreign countries 764 Needed in the U. S... , 745,764. 878 Savings 764 Patronage 87^ No political danger 766 For protection of life 765 Railroad and Warehouse Commission 918 Sleeping car charges— recom- mendations 918 Pacific railroads 803 Northern Pacific fraud 453 Effect of rising and stable prices 563 Effect of falling prices 563 Restoration of silver, effect. .. 569 See also Railroad Strike of 1894; Arbitration of Strikes; Federal Interference; Passes. RAILWAY STRIKE OF 1894. History of 652 Protest of Gov. Altgeld 668 President Cleveland's reply to. 670 Gov. Altgeld's second tele- gram 671 Application for federal troops before rioting began 656 State troops promptly furnish- ed 653 Federal troops useless 665 Railway Men. Importance of 477 See also Labor Unions. INDEX. IOOI Railroad Wrecking 260 Railway Commission of Illinois. . 509 Ramsey, Rufus 606 Real property, Landlordism in Illi- nois 961 Rebellion, see Civil War; Shay's Rebellion; Whiskey Rebellion. "Reciprocity," a farce comedy... 227 Redemption, in Coin 857 See also Bonds; Greenbacks. Redistricting 318 Reed, William F Si REFERENDUM AND INITIA- TIVE. Weapon for this age. .745, 768, 882 REFORMS. Evolution of 694 Come from the bottom 335, 336, 523 Let in the light 408 Who oppose them 524 Established society against... 733 Attitude of "scholars". 777 Overthrow of slavery 738 Along the line of evolution. . . 74s Mission of minority party. 693, 7°o "Reform" papers 789 Existing conditions, 1898 810 Enlargement of foreign policy 808 See also Political Parties; Ev- olution. Reformatory, aim of 955 At Pontiac 9°8 Compared 955 RELIGION. Freedom of 694, 809 Jefferson's Contributions. 784 Separation of Church and State 292 Evolution— effect of belief 777 See also Higher Thought. REMONETIZATION. England a creditor nation 55 1 See also Bimetallism. Renegade 607 Repeaters, see Prisoners. REPUBLICAN PARTY. Abolishment of slavery— atti- tude of monopoly and mon- ied classes 811 Republican Party — Continued. Principles at founding of. .496, 732 Principles have changed 227, 465, 496, 695 Of 1892 248 Captured by money power 581 Owned by money power. . 434, 692 For private monopoly. . . . 878 Became a rich man's par- ty 530 Has legislated for Eng- land 430 Position of Corruption- ists 834 Republican misrule 811 For gold standard. . . .701, 706 St. Louis Convention. .. .701, 706 Who in control 706 St. Louis platform — who ben- efited 576 In favor of England 582 Comment of London pa- pers 588 Principles of (1896) 702 1896, the issue 647, 648 1896, Corrupt in all the states 584 Leaders, status of, 1899 874 Drift of, an interview 496 McKinley's election — analysis of vote 702 1896 elections — frauds 703 Hamiltonian policy described. 250 And Federal interference..... 672 Democracy compared 949 Attitude toward greenbacks . . 852 Attitude toward free silver. . . . 487 Independent voters 850 Presidential nominees — terri- torial distribution 528 Blackmail of corporations.... .583 Enforcement of the law 819 Illinois legislation — responsi- bility for 947 Republican machine 709 Gas legislation 830 Allen Bill 830 Machine men suddenly be- come rich 833 1002 INDEX. Republican Party — Continued! 1898, Corruption in . . „ . . . 819 Treasury deficit 827 United Order of Deputies 276 Patriotic Sons of America. .. . 276 See also Civil Service. Republics, see Popular Govern- ment. Repudiation, see Independent Ac- tion. Revenues, see Taxation 319 Reward 337 Rogers, Thorold 181 RICHES. How to make 476 Enervating effects 335 Rich men's sons 332 Rich are not reformers 238 On side of power 233 Ries, Florian J 31 Right, Is eternal ._. 880 Will in the end prevail 700 RISING PRICES. Volume of money, effect of. . 534 See also Average Prices. Effect of California gold. .547, 548 1880-1882, Cause of 543 Brings good times 564 Effect of rising prices. .. .534, 541 Hume 548 Bastable 55o Restoration of silver 568 Effect on labor 534 Condition of Mexico •. . . 562 Rivers, as dividing lines 515 Roads, good roads recommended. 317 Good Roads, an address 191 Material changes 192 Division of expense 192 Proper location 193 Robbery 636 Robinson, Hon. N. W., letter to. . 463 Rock Island, Hospital for Insane. 608 Roman Empire, effect of luxury. . 336 Rome 402 Concentration o f wealth — downfall 249 Romero, Senor 563, 573 Ross, Judge 681 Rothschild, Baron 549 Rothschilds. Power of 576 Rulers, greatness of compared with individual achievement.... 321 Russia and Gold Standard ....... 214 And silver 543 Sailors' Home 609 Salisbury, Lord 751 Sampson, Rear Admiral 845 San Domingo 803 Savings Banks, see Postal Savings Banks; Falling Prices. Scab labor defined 471 Scholars, traits of 776 Not the most intelligent 167 School property, leasing of 938 SCHOOLS. Common schools are benefi- cial i85_ Evolution of 291 Free common schools — Jeffer- son's contributions " 784 Moral training desirable 144 Universal intelligence a neces- sity 237 Dominant power — false teach- ings 881 Scholars dependent on wealthy Jj6 Freedom of speech in col- leges 775 Professional — should tuition be free 463 Illinois school system 271 Development of system under Gov. Altgeld 958 Kindergarten in Public schools, reform effected un- der Gov. Altgeld 958 School teachers' pension — re- form effected under Gov. Altgeld 958 In the New South 514 Technical schools in Europe. 755, 757 Trade schools in Europe 757 Foreign languages 224 Parochial schools 222 See also Education; Univer- sities. INDEX. 1003 Schley, Commodore , 846 Schurz, Hon. Carl, answer to.. 612, 634 Science. See Academy of 400 Searles, W 66 Secession. Effect of Lee's surrender 237 See also War; New South. Secret proscriptive societies 407 Selfishness 261, 699 See also Greed. SENTENCES IN CRIMINAL CASES. What should it be? 49 Iniquities 39 Inequality of — recommenda- tions 907 Indeterminate sentences— good results 52, 106 Probation — good results 5° See also Probation. Seyd, Ernest 548, 575 Seymour, Horatio W., letter to. .. 521 Shay's Rebellion 345 Sheriffs, Deputy Sheriffs. Num- ber of, cost, results 10 SHERMAN LAW. Effect of 213, 544 Effect of repeal 792, 793 See also Bimetallism. Sherman, Senator John. Evil effects of demonetization 548 Evil effect of contraction 542 Shibley, Geo. H., letter to 775 Shields, speech at unveiling of statue of 360 SILVER. Overproduction of considered 561 Answer to Carl Schurz. .. 620 Redemption in gold 869 Amount in United States in 1895 617 India — Cessation of free coin- age 214 Jefferson — suspension of coin- age 615 Cleveland's letter, Altgeld's comments 471 Silver — Continued. See also Bimetallism, Silver Standard, Money Question, Falling Prices, etc. SILVER STANDARD OF PRICES. Silver has not appreciated. . . . 562, 572, 621 Bounty from gold price coun- tries 563 Silver standard a benefit to United States 563 Argument for in 1802 544 Condition of Mexico, 562 International level of prices... 615 Silver Republicans, Presidential nominee 526 Single tax 261 See also George. Slander — Revision of law — recom- mendation 950 Slave girls of Chicago 146 SLAVERY. Abolishment of 234, 291 Slavery agitation 523 Attitude of Jefferson 785 Attitude of Democracy 811 Growth of abolition sentiment 694 Slave power 738, 881 Fugitive slave law 678 See also Labor, Evolution of. Sleeping cars — Reduction of rates — attitude of Republican party 948, 949 See also Railroads. Smith, Secretary Hoke 533 Socialism 751, 757, 877 "Society men" 336 Soldiers' and sailors' home. ...609, 900 SOLDIERS. Reunion, speech at 238 Deaf soldiers and civil service 129 Should be compensated 241 Wages 120 Pensions 116 Soldiers' monument, Speech at unveiling oi 324 Soldiers' Orphans, Asylum for... . 609 Solidarity 342, 344 Sophistry, Abuse of opposition. ... 852 ioo4 INDEX. "SOUND MONEY." 867 See also "Honest Money;" Gold Standard; Paper Money; Republican Party. South — reconstruction period 513 See also New South. SPANISH WAR 799, 817 Barbarities in Cuba 530 See also Government, Mc- Kinley, War Department, Alger. Specie Basis •._ 543 Specie Payments, resumption of.. ■ •■•■ S62, 557, 623 Speech, Freedom of 809 Spies, August 365 Springfield, Election frauds of '96. 714 STANDARD OIL TRUST.. 508, 864 See also Monopoly. STANDING ARMY. Size of 233, 692, 802 Menace of 419 To be enthroned 871 See also Federal Courts; Fed- eral Interference. Stars — Letter to Christian En- deavorites 525 State Fair, see Agriculture. State, Duty in case of strikes no See also Government. STATE INSTITUTIONS. Problem of 897 Comparison 412 Duty of trustees .'. 416 Superintendents 899 Private business distinguished 458 Purchase of supplies — Com- petition 358, 412, 898, 951 Saving 051 Useless offices — recommenda- tions 893 Economy in 897 Pay rolls, publishing of 911 Scientific methods — report of superintendents. . . .417, 6io, 900 Convention of superintendents 901 Change of management — let- ter on 457 Civil service rules under Gov. Altgeld 414, 453, 951 State Institutions — Continued. Under Republican rule, Civil service rules 263, 264, Needed overhauling, 1892 Cost under Republican rule... Savings under Gov. Altgeld... Reforms recommended Power of executive ; _ How to inspect Standard of living ._. Bill of fare .357, Condition, July, 1898 Employment of pathologist... Care for patients Buildings, suggestions for .... Building contracts, sugges- tions New institutions and new buildings under Gov. Alt- geld Photographs of 611, 885 Style of architecture State charities State Regulation of Schools State Printing w . . . . State Rights See also Federal Interference. Statesmen — Definition See also Public Men. State's Prison Aid Association — should be organized .'. State Treasurer, see Public Funds. STATISTICS. Of Treasury Department jug- gled 555, Erroneous government Juggled by Mr. Schurz 615, 618, Aldrich report on wages and prices Wages — juggled with STATE UNIVERSITY — Great need of See also University^ Stephenson County, Development of Stetson, George R., letter to Stone, Gov., letter to. Stock- — "Watering" of stock Stock Speculation 296 230 307 899 313 501. 356 899. 413 819 grxr 898 470 471 95& 893 957 354 223 902 438 574 73 616 556 : 620 . 621 564 463^ 242 143 486, 260 797 INDEX. 1005 STREET RAILWAYS. Development of monopoly... 507 See also Monopoly. Municipal ownership in Glas- gow 753 Municipal ownership in Ger- many 756 Ninety-nine-year franchise — veto of 940 Municipal ownership recom- mended, 1895 942 Damages to abutting owners — repeal — veto 94° Competition . — Abolishment — veto 940 Eminent domain suspended — veto 941 Length of franchise 831 Proper rate of fare 831 Allen Bill 830 STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS. Arbitration recommended .... 3 J S Duty of non-union men 216 "Individual freedom" 216 Law in England 772 Picketing 772 False pretenses of employers. 217 ; Coal strike of '94 921 'Railroad strikes '94, Data.... ~ : 922, 930 1894, cause of 455 ' Pana strike 840 Of April, 1890 215 Oshkosh strike 840 Homestead strike 221 See also Coal Strike; Chicago Strike; Federal Interfer- ence; Labor Organizations. Succession Tax, see Inheritance Tax. SUGAR TRUST 508 Campaign funds of 1896 837 Effect of Dingley law 837 Sugar trust law 793 See also Protective Tariff; Monopoly. Sumner, Senator 685 Sumner, Professor 859 Suri, see Truth. Sunset Club, Address before 99 Supply and Demand, see Average Prices. Supplies, see State Institutions. Suoreme Court, see U. S. Supreme Court. Survival of the fittest, see Evolu- tion. Schwab, Michael 365 SWEAT SHOPS, Defined.... 252, 866 " Conditions in 253 Spreading at an alarming rate 967 Effect of tariff on goods. ..... 253 Effect of immigration 150 Reforms recommended 316 Democratic legislation 442 Reforms effected under Gov. Altgeld 957 Sweden and Silver 543 Swift, Mayor — Civil service law. . . 726 Switzerland — Telegraph system.. . . — Symoathy 778 Taney, Chief Justice, see U. S. Supreme Court. TANNER, GOV. JOHN R. •Inauguration — Military pomp. 705 Discourtesies to Gov. Altgeld. 697 Conduct in J895 604 Approved Allen Bill and gas bill 836 Treasury Deficit, 1895 827 Illinois National Guards 705 Tariff for revenue 580 See also Protective Tariff. TAXATION. Bad laws 307 Corrupt methods of assessors . 964 Escape of, by centralized wealth 452, 841 Of corporations 915 Foreign corporations 916 Newspapers 917 Pullman assessment 425 Revenue system — need for re- form 583 State board of equalization — unjust assessments by 964 Abolition of 947, 949 Illinois, assessments growing small 963 ioo6 INDEX. Taxation — Continued. Revenue system — recommen- dations ..318, 914 Recommendations of Gov. Altgeld 963 Reform — attitude of Republic- an party 227, 948, 949 Record of Republican party.. 496 State Treasury deficit 827 Insufficient revenues— special session 947 Graduated inheritance tax, re- form effected under Gov. Altgeld 958 Unearned increment 260 See also Single Tax. War taxes 121 TEACHERS. Ministers of the Gospel 334 Curse of existing conditions. . 334 TELEGRAPH. Public ownership abroad — Conditions in the United States 759, 760 Per capita — comparison 760 Government ownership 878 TELEPHONE. Private monopoly — unduly large profits 760 Temperance advocates 523 Texas, Annexation of 807 Thompson, Fred L 14 Tuley, Judge 519, 829 TORIES. In 1776 238 In i860 238 Were fashionable people 523 Torrens Law, see Land Transfers. Trades Unions, see Labor Unions. Tramps — Attitude of Republican party 227 See also Business Depression. Treasury Department — Coin obli- gations 635, 636 Comptroller of the Currency.. 865 TREASURY NOTES. Redemption in coin 637 Redemption in gold ti . . . 639 Retirement of 851 Treasury Notes— Continued. See also Greenbacks; Paper . Money. Tribune, see Chicago Tribune. TRUSTS. Origin of, an interview 203 Development of 507 Effect of 871 Savings effected by 204 - Power of, when unrestrained. 936 , Have destroyed business com- petition ; 758 Effect on prices and wages . . . 203 Who against trusts 704 Democratic legislation 270 ,» Attitude of Republican party.. 227 Bank Trust — American Bank- ers' Association 861, 864 Gas Trust 204 Elevator Trust 828 See also Monopoly. TRUTH 403 Value of 337 The pole star 489 Forever on the scaffold 880 Deprecation of discussion. .. . 645 Freedom of speech in colleges 775 Will in the end prevail 700 "Wrongs thrive in secrecy". . . 335 Mission of minority party. 693, 700 Unearned increment 260, 777 Unemployed, Winter of 1890 103 See also Business Depression; Falling Prices. Union, see United "States. United Labor, Address before 170 United Order of Deputies 276 -*' UNITED STATES. Example in free government.. 698, 870 , The way to greatness 970 - ' People govern themselves 679 Destiny of .£09, 818 Division of powers 675 Local self-government 935 Sphere of state government. . . 934 Character of early colonists... 231 1796-1800 872 From 1812 to i860 234 Civil War 234 INDEX. 1007 United States — Continued. Reconstruction 235 Wonderful development of . . . 235 A great debtor nation 575 1898 — Issues JJ09, 836 The situation January, 1899. . . 870 1899 — political issues 876 Election in 1900 — prophecy... 881 UNITED STATES BANK, De- feat of by Jackson 738 See also Bankers. United States Senate 701, 824 United States Senators 776 UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT. Encroachments of 679 , Right to criticize 683 Legislation by 686 Usurpation by . 648 Impeachment of Judges 773 Attitude toward wealth and monopoly 768 Destruction of self-govern- ment 684, 685 Jefferson's opinion 679 Lincoln's criticism 685, 968 Clash with President Jackson . 685 Income Tax — Chicago Plat- form 683 Taney, Chief Justice 686 See also Federal Judiciary. UNIVERSITIES. Scholars — dependence on wealthy 776 ' Professors — freedom of speech 775, 862, 881 "Scholars" not the most in- telligent 167 Practical knowledge, value of. 333 True meaning of education. . . 333 Influence of university _. . 484 Value of university training. . 333 University of Illinois — De- scription of 910 What it should be 485 Recommendations 910 Agricultural Experiment Station 485 Electrical engineering . . . 485 Engineering school 485 Universities— Continued. Military training 485 Installation of President Draper 484 Geological Department . . 894 Address to graduates 328 Care of specimens 894 Normal Universities — Recom- mendations 909 Normal, at De Kalb, address at laying of cornerstone 497 Northwestern 500 Lake Forest 500 Chicago 500 University of Illinois 500 University of Virginia 785 Vaux, Richard 80 Venezuela, boundary dispute 796 Veragua, Duke of — Banquet to... 319 Villages — Monopoly bills, veto "of. 940 Vocation, Selection of 330 VOLUME OF MONEY. In foreign countries 557 In United States, 1880-1882. .. 543, 623 Close of Civil War 542 Falling prices, 1866-9 623 In United States, 1895 556, 617 Per capita circulation, 1895 . . . 615, 618 Increase of population 792 Effect of contraction 595 Under McCleary Bill 857 Government demand com- pared with product from mines 550, 551 International trade — level of prices 615 Juggled statistics 616 Voters' League of Chicago 732 WAGES AND WAGE-EARN- ERS. Benefits of high wages 262 History of shorter hours 171 Effect of shorter hours 175 Effect of falling prices 622 See also Falling Prices. Degeneracy of — effects. ._ 936 Effect of demonetization 621 Evils of gold standard 537 ioo8 INDEX. Wage- Earners — Continued. Benefited by restoring silver.. 568 Effect of monopolies 767 Development of trusts 5°7 Effect of trusts 936 Government ownership of mo- nopolies — effect 763, 767 Effect of municipal ownership 754, 755 Sophistries toward 855 Attitude of President Cleve- land 793 Cochran on Wages 643 Figures juggled 564 Hard times — crocodile tears of money power 867 Campaign of '96, Promises — fulfillment 707, 716 Campaign of 1896-pCoercion . . 707 McKinley — "Open the mills". 643 Political co-operation neces- sary 774, 775, 936 Organization the remedy 261 Conspiracy law, repeal of 270 Right to labor 343 Charity, effects of 315 ' [ Competition and living wage. 76i, 763, 772 Living wages — coal strike 921 Labor-saving machinery 172 Housing of the poor 753, 756 Anti-truck store 270 In factories — effect of immi- gration and protection .. 150, 151 Effect of McKinley tariff 220 Effect of Dingley tariff 837 Pauper labor of Europe 220 Effect of free trade 301 Wage-earners — Dependence of Republic 478 Outlook in 1896 591 1898, conditions of 839 The future 342 Wages of soldiers 120 See also Factories; Labor Organization; Injunction (Government by). Wales, Prince of 648 Walker, Hon. Joseph i ... 863 Walker, U. S. Attorney 659 WALL STREET. Objections to pensions 124 Cleveland bond deal 535 See also Monopoly; Gold Standard. WAR. Evils of 325 Belligerent rights 530 Battle fields — why consecrate. 490 Civil War described 325 Civil War, Primary cause 49 J Civil War, character of sold- iers 238 Of 1812 — Causes 233 With Spain 799 Honor of nobility compared. . 493 Warfare — Modern methods . . 480 Industrial Develo'pment 327 WAR DEPARTMENT. 1898, Neglect and incompe- tency 847 Appointments — favoritism of McKinley 846, 849 Washburn, Governor 173, 176 Wash Houses, Public 754, 755 WASHINGTON, Political policy 737 WATER. Municipal ownership. 753, 75s, 756 Waterways of Illinois, Policies — veto 943 WEALTH. Benefits and evils 494 Material achievements com- pared 497 Concentration of, causes of.. 204 WEALTHY CLASSES. Attitude toward Declaration of Independence - 73s The enemy of liberty 871 Greedy and powerful over- throw government 970 Opposition to factory and mining laws 967- - Control the press 523 Pharisaical attitude .520 And patriotism 480 Leisure classes, evils of 494 - Fashionable society 7 734 Escape taxation 583,914 INDEX. 1009 Wealthy Classes — Continued. Taxation in Illinois, attitude of Republican party ....948, 949 Landlordism in Illinois 961 Business interests — lack of pa- triotism 521 City corruption 520 See also Monopoly; Riches; Poor. Weber, Albert G., letter to 468 Weed, Thurlow 152 Western Union Telegraph — profits 759 Wheat, Price of 624 Elevator trust 828 Whisky Rebellion 345 White, Mr. Justice 686 Whitney, Hon. Wm. C 529, 78i, 790, 791 Wines, Rev. Frederick H j 18, 20, 29, 81 Winston, F. S 397 Wolwoski, M. ; 549 Womanhood, Need for 522 WOMEN. Evolution of status 475 Appointment to office 904, 950 Equal wages for equal work.. ISO, 415 Higher justice to 475 Homage to woman 329 Industrial independence 328 Slave girls of Chicago 146 At the Columbian Exposition. 324 Women — Continued. Statue of Illinois designed and modeled by 473 Illinois Woman's Exposition Board 913 Value of world's congress. . . . 409 Imprisonment of women 35 Number of arrests 94, 101 Few should be imprisoned. ... 46 In Bridewell 102 Female physicians in asylums. 357 Wood, Judge 681 WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EX- POSITION 499 Described 404, 474 How suggested 292 Part taken by Illinois 710, 913 The debut of Illinois 349 Illinois Board — funds 911 Address at opening of Illinois building 321 Banquet to Veragua 319 WRONGS. Supported by established so- ciety 733 Forever on the throne 880 Winking at 69& See also Reforms; Truth. YOUNG MEN. Advice to 476, 49s, S 22 Example of Henry George. .. 780 Outlook for 82s .... _ Cornell University Library HN 64.A46 1899 Live questions 3 1924 010 470 247 mmm n&dimAi