I 
 
Class EntO 
 
 ni uyySif 
 
& 
 
5^^5J53IH^^^H^HiHi^H^®$$# 
 
 ty 
 
 m ^ 
 
 * kW^ 
 
 &&* 
 
 iiii 
 
 3Y 
 
 1 lb 
 GENERAL PERCY DANIELS, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 
 A CRISIS FOR THE HUSBANDMAN." 
 
 "A hurry of hoofs in the village street, 
 "A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark 
 "And beneath from the pebbles in passing, a spark 
 btruck out by a stepd flying fearless and fleet- 
 That was all! And yet through the gleam and the light, 
 i he tate of a nation was ridine that night." 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 p RICE 25 OEIMTS 
 
 PITTSBURG KANSAN PRINT. 
 
 -51896.5- 
 
 Iff 
 
 •(Is* 
 *s» 
 
 <i§> 
 41* 
 ♦stli- 
 *.§.» 
 
 it 
 
 •cs* 
 •iiS* 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 4$* 
 *s> 
 
 ii» 
 
 111 
 m 
 #§* 
 «» 
 
 <S* 
 f» 
 
 I 
 
 41# 
 
 *S> 
 <§» 
 
 4§» 
 
 1» 
 
 tR 
 
 *s> 
 
 si* 
 
 w 
 
 Jp 
 
 *s> 
 
 *i» 
 
 •IS* 
 
 +'S* 
 
 *!► 
 
 4f> 
 •IS* 
 
CUTTING THe 
 
 GORDIftN KNOT, 
 
 BY 
 
 GENERAL PERCY DANIELS, 
 
 AUTHOR OP 
 "A CRISIS FOR THE HUSBANDMEN." 
 
 Awaken, ye toilers ! Arouse from your dreams ! 
 Put your ballots together to stop the huge streams 
 Of booty that flows to the coffers of wealth, 
 From the pockets of labor by channels of stealth. 
 Unceasingly flows in flood or in drouth 
 To plunder the toilers of the North and the South, 
 That is the warning, the hour is here, 
 When the startling message of Paul Revere, 
 With its cry of defiance, its notes in the night, 
 Will call forth the patriot hosts for the fight ; 
 
 Will awaken the slave 
 
 To fetter the knave, 
 Now lord of a Nation he used to fear. 
 
 ,.it 
 
 Entered according to Act, of Congress in the year 1896, by 
 
 — = PERCY DANIELS,=- 
 
 [n the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 
 
 V 
 
 PITTSBURG KANSAN PRINT. 
 
 1896 
 
10 
 J/2 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 (Cutting the Goudian Knot.) 
 
 1 ,.L" 
 
 IV 
 VII 
 VII 
 19 
 
 Sir 
 
 Line 
 
 n 
 
 14 
 
 48 
 28 
 
 For 
 
 belonged 
 
 discard 
 
 and 
 
 the dollar 
 
 He.id 
 
 belong 
 discarding 
 end 
 the #100 
 
 30 
 
 5 
 
 12 
 
 the roads 
 
 the two roads 
 
 30 
 45 
 
 5 
 2 
 
 13 
 21 
 
 the long- 
 enable 
 
 the "a,-, long 
 to enable 
 
 43 
 
 
 9 
 
 ? 
 
 
 67 
 
 3 
 
 24 
 
 24,977 
 
 24,997 
 
 69 
 
 
 10 
 
 the best 
 
 In r best 
 
 71 
 
 Table 
 
 — Arkansas, per 
 cent, wealth 0.3 
 
 0.7 
 
 72 
 
 12 
 
 2 
 
 with several 
 
 with tin- several 
 
 73 
 75 
 
 
 15 
 23 
 
 thin struggle 
 of bold 
 
 tin' struggle 
 of tin bold 
 
 75 
 
 
 23 
 
 and brave 
 
 and the brave 
 
 75 
 
 
 25 
 
 knew 
 
 know 
 
 75 
 
 77 
 
 19 
 
 28 
 11 
 
 dredges 
 banishes 
 
 dregs 
 banished 
 
 77 
 
 19 
 
 19 
 
 of 
 
 or 
 
 78 
 79 
 
 20 
 
 10 
 1 
 
 estranges, anc 
 whatever 
 their 
 
 estranges, whatever 
 the 
 
 79 
 
 
 22 
 
 > 
 
 5 
 
 81 
 
 22 
 
 3 
 
 aid 
 
 Aid 
 
 85 
 86 
 
 
 8 
 9 
 
 has just put 
 apostle 
 
 has put 
 apostles 
 
PRepftce. 
 
 Cutting the Gordian Knot is a blending- 
 of two proposed articles each of which is ab- 
 breviated, and they are united for lack of 
 time, that they may reach, during the coming 
 campaign, those who may have to chose this 
 year between Democracy and Despotism. 
 
 The arguments in support of A Graduated 
 Property Tax as a defensive measure against 
 the advance of imperialism, are the conclud- 
 ing arguments in the series which I began as 
 a Republican in 1888. 
 
 The discussion of the political situation in 
 Kansas and of some events in our recent 
 history, is a warning torpedo placed on the 
 Populist track by a friendly hand. 
 
 The hosts of Plutocracy are already in the 
 field. Their three branches of service are all 
 actively at work on their respective lines of 
 Intimidation, Deception and Purchase. 
 
 The People's party columns are in motion 
 to meet them. Forward! is the word sent 
 along the line. Forward! for the rescue of 
 the Republic. FORWARD! as promised at 
 Omaha; that we '"would never cease to move 
 Forward till every wrong is righted.'' 
 
 Politics is a form of warfare. Its rational 
 armament is the sword of the ballot. The 
 art of war teaches how to take advantage both 
 of natural formations and an enemy's errors; 
 how to discern and reach, and when to occupy 
 
([ 
 
 stragetic positions; and how to hold or push, 
 to concentrate or scatter the various parts of 
 an army, so they may best support each other, 
 or confuse an enemy. 
 
 The history of the great struggles of races 
 and states, is a history of blunders of one 
 side or the other, and often of both, that have 
 changed the destiny of nations. Their varied 
 experiences illustrate the folly of ignoring 
 strategy. They illustrate too, the folly of 
 ignoring the lessons of blunders made, and 
 disaster earned. Nor should the lessons from 
 such blunders be confined to the written 
 history of the past. They may be studied and 
 profitably studied from the text book of contem- 
 poraneous experiences. 
 
 Cutting the Gorolian Knot is written and is- 
 sued at this time partly to aid in locating the 
 shoals and snags among which our Populist 
 navy is maneuvering, that it may keep in the 
 channel; and to show the danger to a cause 
 from granting too much power to a party 
 ring: but more especially as a sequel to iK The 
 Sunfloioer Tangle" to develop the strong 
 points in the measure it advanced and de- 
 fended, through which the over burdened 
 toilers may be relieved of the necessity of 
 supporting an ornamental squad of idle aris- 
 tocrats in luxury, and keeping an army of 
 5,000,000 tramps and paupers in rags and 
 want; — a measure by which these useless ex- 
 tremes of society may be reclaimed and re- 
 stored to the fold of industrious, useful, and 
 contented citizens. The propriety and ne- 
 cessity of discussing some Populist errors for 
 the first two purposes stated above, may be 
 partly seen in the extracts from two of a 
 large pile of letters on these questions, ap- 
 pended hereto. 
 
1] i 
 
 The imperative demand for the enactmenl 
 of some measures for accomplishing that 
 which the bill endorsed by the People's 
 Party Legislature and state officers of Kan- 
 sas in L893, would accomplish if made law, is 
 too well known, and the need too urgent, to 
 require any consideration in the preface. 
 
 The argument itself makes plain, 
 
 Why we must break the bondsman's chain 
 
 And set the farmer free again. 
 
 It will also then reveal 
 
 How we may raise the tyrants heel, 
 
 And write for him "Thou Shalt not Steal" 
 
 PERCY DANIELS. 
 Narragansett Farm, June 18th, 1896. 
 
 Joliet, III., Jan. 8th, 1896. 
 Gen. Pi rey Daniel*, 
 
 Girard, Kansas. 
 
 Dear Sir: — 
 
 ******* 
 
 I have just read your pamphlet, '■'■Free Coinage of 
 American Labor" with much interest. I feel called 
 to urge you in the name of the anxious Populists of 
 the land to put in a pamphlet more fully and ex- 
 plicitly the real reasons for the backset received by 
 our party in Kansas in 1S94. I ask you as the most 
 reliable authority I know of, to tell the people Wie- 
 the leading Populist state did not keep at the head 
 of the advancing column. Kansas used to be the 
 pride of the Republican party as the state most 
 most noted for patriotism, enlightenment and educa- 
 tion when it gave that party 80,000 majority. When 
 it turned Populist the Republicans cried it down as 
 the abode of ignorant hay-seeds and long haired 
 cranks. 
 
 ******* 
 
 It is evident that the hard times— Cleveland— Sher- 
 man "object lesson"— was too much for the integ- 
 rity of some of our office holders and seekers in 
 Kansas— leading them to imitate the "practical 
 politics" of the old parties. 
 
 Now please tell us the worst and the best. Give 
 us some hope if you can, that as far as Kansas is 
 concerned, this is not becoming a nation of thieve.s 
 and liars as some assert. * * * 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Samuel Leavttt. 
 
IV 
 
 •Girard, Kas., Jan. 27th, 1896. 
 Hon. Samuel Leavitt, 
 
 Joliet, III. 
 
 My Dear Sir:— Your letter of the 8th is received. 
 It is full of good sense and hard questions. I realize 
 the detriment which the result of the Kansas election 
 of 1894 was to the reform movement in other states, 
 on account of some of the causes that contributed to 
 that result; but as is always the case, the farther the 
 charges and stories get from home, the bigger and 
 more mischievous they become. Those who belonged 
 to the party for the hope they have that its work 
 will be to promote good government, are forced to 
 concede that the record of the PopuJist administra- 
 tion was not above reproach, but they now see that 
 its faults and delinquencies have already been over- 
 shadowed by those of our successors who have not 
 the inexperience or the difficulties to contend with 
 that hampered the Populists. 
 
 Those who have worked with the party for the 
 good they expect and demand it shall do for them, 
 have followed the practices they learned in the old 
 parties, covering up as far as possible methods and 
 acts that deserve condemnation, and trusting to 
 denials, and labeling them political yarns, to break 
 their force. While the latter class are relatively 
 small, they are slick — good mixers — good dodgers— 
 and always reaching for something, if it is only 
 standing room from which to reach for something- 
 else, and they live at the front and can thrive on the 
 noise they make when unable to do better. 
 
 The Populists have a share of this class and in the 
 rapid gathering of their forces it was impossible to 
 know them at once. Some of these still occupy con- 
 spicuous seats in party councils, and their work and 
 methods— the following well known and disreputable 
 party tactics, and the ease with which they have 
 been able to have questions of party policy settled 
 by their standard, so shook the faith of the rank and 
 file in the righteousness of the purpose of those who 
 direct party movements, and for the time at least, 
 control its destiny, that interest ebbed, enthusiasm 
 languished, and the battle of '94 was lost. 
 
 Other influences had some effect in bringing 
 disaster, like the woman suffrage question and a 
 third ticket; but not enough to restore the Republi- 
 cans to power without the failure of the Populists to 
 abandon and condemn the disreputable methods of 
 the old parties, and to denounce instead of screening- 
 some serious irregularities among their officials. 
 
 As you probably remember, I did nothing either 
 for or against a renomination, caring more to see 
 the Populist position strengthened, and its efforts 
 centered against the main stronghold of the 
 enemy's position, and the main cause of present un- 
 rest, than who should be chosen to carry its banners; 
 but I was retired not on that account, but because of 
 the use made by some of the slick twisters of what I 
 -aid in "The Sunflower Tangle," by which I was 
 
made to appear as attempting to dictate the plat- 
 form. Some wanted to use my name for first place 
 on the ticket, but I refused to permit that as it 
 would not have been fair treatment of Governor 
 Lewelling as well as for other reasons. 
 
 All of my efforts in politics have been in behalf of 
 measures I have thought essential to good govern- 
 ment, good order, and the welfare of the classes on 
 whose prosperity and content is the only sure or 
 proper foundation for our insitutions; and I oc- 
 casionally get as earnest in support of them as the 
 wire pullers who are the mastodons of political manip- 
 ulation and the pigmies of statesmanship do in fix- 
 ing up their slates and setting them on a hill, o" in 
 pushing their intrigues. What I have done and 
 said has been entirely without reference to the in- 
 fluence it might have on individual success before a 
 convention. Measures, not men has been my policy, 
 and so I have not been m touch with tbose whose ef- 
 forts were expended in behalf of the individual es- 
 pecially 
 
 Party manipulation in behalf of individuals, is one 
 of the baneful habits of political leaders, and instead 
 of being in touch with, I have won the displeasure 
 of some of the strongest manipulators in our party, 
 because, not having any instructions to report to 
 them for orders, I have failed to recognize their 
 whims as party law, or their whips as its executive. 
 
 April 19th, '96. 
 
 Well Mend Leavitt, I laid this letter aside twelve 
 weeks ago, was taken sick a day or two after, and 
 did not read or write for ten days, and this like 
 other correspondence got laid in a pile "awaiting at- 
 tention," and one thing and another — a multitude of 
 calls on my time — has kept me from completing it 
 as soon as I would have done, had I known just what 
 to saj'. 
 
 I have thought much over the questions raised by 
 your letter, and I have also received many othei s 
 discussing the disorder in Populist ranks I have 
 watched too with increasing interest and expecta- 
 tion the greater disorder and turmoil in the enemy's 
 lines What will do most to increase the uproar 
 among the enemy and restore confidence and har- 
 mony among Populists, is a difficult question to 
 answer. The state (Republican) administration, and 
 the National (Democratic) are doing more for this 
 than are the Populists. There are too many of our 
 friends willing to approve a trimming and truckling 
 policy, and to give free rein to expediency. The 
 growth of this practice in all parties weakens my 
 faith in Republican institutions 
 
 You urge me to make a statement in pamphlet, 
 giving the worst and the best features of the Populist 
 administration here. The worst features were not 
 near as bad as our enemies made out or as our dis- 
 tant friends believe; nor were the best features as 
 good as we or our friends wished. We have not done 
 all we should have done with the opportunities we 
 
VI 
 
 have had, but for what was accomplished under 
 trying and perplexing conditions, the Populist party 
 are entitled to the gratitude of the whole people. 
 Both the experiences of the two years control, and 
 the defeat which followed will enable them another 
 time to do better than they did before, or than they 
 could have done without the clarifying and invigor- 
 ating disaster. 
 
 A better understanding too of the circumstances 
 and perplexities surrounding us, and a realization 
 that every trival misstep was the basis of sensa- 
 tional critici-m by hostile reporters seeking notoriety 
 and sore-beaded Republicans seeking revenge, has 
 developed a more considerate feeling in ascribing 
 some of the errois to treacherous scouts or a fallible 
 judgment, rather than a corrupt intent or a vicious 
 purpose. If we can now subdue and civilize the 
 wire pullers, we will be in a position to again draw 
 reinforcements from the Lana-aeUr. 
 
 No one of our administration could fairly become 
 a critic of its work as a whole; but the relation of 
 personal experience in some cases might allay an 
 unreasonable distrust and relieve the party of unjust 
 censure. For one thing they deserve more of cen 
 sure than they have ret eived. That is in letting a 
 supposed party interest decide too many issues. A 
 state officer in his official capacity should be in- 
 fluenced but very little by the siren's song of party 
 interest. This is a weak excuse for screening jug- 
 glery; and when jugglery is covered up on that plea, 
 it uncovers the tact that the party needs clarifying. 
 
 The Populist party has been censured for what 
 should have been put on individuals where it belongs, 
 as the party had an opportunity to do through a 
 • investigating committee, I appointed the 
 first week ot the session of 1895; but on the last day 
 of the session.* by a little sly work on the part of the 
 Republicans and the R. R. lobby, they indue ed enough 
 of our men t > a d in defeating the investigation by. 
 accepting the report of a conference committee on 
 the miscellaneous appropriation bill, with the item 
 for expenses of the committee stricken out. It was 
 a great mistake which the Republicans and the rail- 
 road interest chuckle over, and our people now see 
 and regret. 
 
 There are records and documents to support an 
 effort to relieve the party of some censure, by assist- 
 ing individuals to shoulder their share of the respon- 
 sibility; but there is a hostility among party officials, 
 to anything that would indicate a lack of complete 
 harmony, or of unanimous out ward commendation 
 of all of our record. Our papers do not give the drift 
 of feeling over these matters, or the facts about the 
 situation in our lines; and in attempting to deceive 
 the enemy, they also deceive some of our own side. 
 
 'The new adminisl ration was iii power and the Senal 
 Republican President. 
 
VII 
 
 I concede that something should be done to quell 
 the disorder in our lines. While it is worse in the 
 Republican camps, and they could hardly do more 
 for our cause than they are doing here in Kansas, yet 
 we should not depend for success on their folly; but 
 should re-establish confidence in the justice of our 
 plans and the integrity of our purposes by hewing to 
 the hue as demanded by the rank and file of the party. 
 If we can do that, we would again win in spite of the 
 vicious devices of a snarling and unscrupulous 
 opposition. The only way I can see to re-establish 
 the confidence necessary to success is by abandoning 
 the methods and practices that have destroyed it; 
 and discard the faithless leaders and recreant ser- 
 vants who have attempted to graft the reprehensi- 
 ble practices of the old parties on the new one Men 
 who have left the old party to seek something better 
 will not be satisfied or pacified with the assurance 
 that the new party is no worse. 
 
 Really, the People's party is, both in method and 
 purpose, superior to the others; but it is not what it 
 should be. There are too many who get into front 
 seats who are always ready to resort to the dubious 
 ways of the old parties, and to sell favors for votes 
 and drown principle in pottage, for it to command 
 the full confidence of a great body of the independ- 
 ent voters, whose support it needs and should win. 
 Leaders have failed to realize the integrity of pur- 
 pose in the ranks, and as yet hardly see why, if the 
 Republicans never lose a campaign by the activity 
 of their moral natures, the populists should not 
 have the same license. Such a course breeds dis- 
 content among those who intend their banner of 
 reform to be something more than a pretense; and 
 this is the sentiment of a majority in the ranks 
 The sentiment of this class which is the backbone of 
 the party, must be respected, and their protest 
 honored, and their purpose considered, if the party 
 is to be held together to overthrow the forces of 
 corruption and a monied despotism No one person 
 can stop the tendency to fall into old party ways, 
 but each of us who despise them can exert some in- 
 fluence in that direction ; and no one person can 
 undo the mischief caused by a failure to do as well 
 as the party promised their agents should do, or be 
 held to a strict accountability; but there are many 
 who can each do a little toward it, and I may con- 
 tribute something to that, and before summer. 
 
 I am at work now on an article to close a series on 
 Graduated Taxation. I presume you have noted the 
 growth of Graduated Tax sentiment. The N. Y. 
 Populists adopted it last fall. The Penn. Alliance 
 endorsed my bill last Dece "ber and petitions for its 
 passage are now being circulated in several states, 
 under the auspices of The Graduated Taxer of Berlin, 
 Pa. 
 
 I have just prepared my petition to send to Con- 
 gress for the third time. Mr. Baker will introduce 
 the bill. This graduated tax question is destined to 
 
VIII 
 
 become one of the leading questions of the near 
 future, — possibly of the coming campaign. Both 
 Judge Allen and I are on the St. Louis delegation 
 and we would like to see graduated taxation put into 
 the platform. 
 
 This article I am now at work on will uncover 
 some heretofore unseen features of the bill which no 
 one has caught onto. If this principle can only be- 
 come a leading topic, the party that embraces it 
 
 will sweep the country. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Percy Daniels. 
 
The Midnight Message of Paul Revere. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Contents. 1. The Shadows of Nineteenth Century 
 Civilization. 2. Drifting into the Breakers. 
 3. Every Man's Right. 4. Hypocritical Statutes 
 5. The Great Coal Trust. 6. Home use for the 
 Monroe Doctrine. 7. Public Sentiment and the 
 Common Thief. 8. The Great Pipe Line. 9. A 
 Sleeping People. 10. A Protest in Behalf of the 
 Victims. 11. The Promise to Move Forward. 
 12. The Consistency of Change. 13. Diabolical 
 Devices for Plundering the Masses. 14. An 
 Infamous Order. 15. " Possessed of a Devil." 
 
 16. Moloch Franchised and Justice Enjoined. 
 
 17. Galling Taxation. 18. How it Works Under 
 Present Customs. 19. The Serfs Will Take the 
 Knout. 20. Keep Cool: File Closers. 21. Packed 
 Courts and a Subsidized Press. 22. Paul Revere's 
 Ride. 23. His Message That Echoes Forever- 
 more. 24. The Startling Call to the Slaves of 
 To-day. 
 
 I. THE SHADOWS OP NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 CIVILIZATION AND PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 fHREE-FOURTHS of the progress of the 
 world during the last two centuries, in 
 mechanics, in the sciences — in what we call 
 civilization and culture, has been crowded 
 into the last half of this wonderful nine- 
 teenth century, and where do we find our- 
 selves? 
 
 Our civilization is a civilization of sordid 
 and debasing greed; of wild intoxication and 
 of a sensuous and senseless vanity. Oui 
 ethics is the philosophy of ignoring the great 
 
CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 duties of life for the purpose of making 
 butterflies noble and drones exalted; and our 
 religion, as exemplified in a composite per- 
 spective of the whole people, and by the 
 priests and prelates who honor and serve 
 these butterflies and drones first, and then 
 Jehovah, is too largely made up in mumbling 
 prayers to God, asking Him to prolong our 
 folly; to bless our lust for mammon and our 
 efforts in teaching contented pagans the 
 enervating vices and dubious philosophy of 
 our vaunted culture and our watered and 
 capitalized parody of civilization, to let the 
 true spirit of Christianity find room in the 
 composite picture. A pellucid theology has 
 formed a combine with mammon worship to 
 drive Christianity from the churches, and in 
 many cases the doors of so-called sanctuaries 
 are alread y closed against the humble fol- 
 lowers of the Son of God by the bespangled 
 and besotted sentries of greed, conceit and 
 pride; and going into the highways and by- 
 ways, the fields and forests where the God 
 of prophesy, of science and of nature still 
 holds communion with His loyal children, 
 they find rest and strength and consolation 
 in a sanctuary where the "mountains and 
 the hills break forth before them into sing- 
 ing, and the trees of the fields clap their 
 hands. - ' 
 
 The rapid development of the influences 
 and growth of the impulses that have 
 brought forth these unhallowed results, and 
 the wonderful strides that have been made 
 under the direction of pampered priests and 
 petted professors in the overthrow or sub- 
 jugation of every force hostile to their sense- 
 less sway, or that even questions their wis- 
 dom, threaten the fabric of our institutions 
 
THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OP PAUL REVERE. 
 
 
 2. DRIFTING INTO THE BREAKERS. 
 
 From thousands of reliable sources in the 
 past few years has come the information 
 that the nation is drifting from her once safe 
 anchorage and fast going toward the break- 
 ers. Evidences of this have accumulated 
 until information has become knowledge; and 
 yet how few among the millions who sup- 
 pose they are patriots, stop in their mad 
 chase after their tawdry idol to comprehend 
 the portentious meaning of this startling 
 statement. The shifting scenes and wind 
 tossed spray and distant roar seem but to 
 offer a transient amusement. 
 
 Do you not know what it means — that mil- 
 lions are cringing in want in a land of plenty 
 — famishing in the shadow of the graneries 
 they have builded and filled? Do you not see 
 them lying in the gutter, thirsting, beneath 
 the puncheons of wine they have trodden 
 out? Can you not hear their pleas for 
 shelter as they crouch in the doorways of 
 the homes they have made, from which they 
 have been cast out? 
 
 We know these things. We see- and hear 
 and know them all; but the sea of greed on 
 which we float awhile has blurred our com- 
 prehension. Our Christian impulses are 
 dormant. Our understanding of right and 
 wrong is seared and our conception of human 
 obligation is paralyzed by contact with the 
 grating, grinding forces about us, the danc- 
 ing wreckage and projecting rocks — till the 
 tales of woe and knowledge of wrong only 
 touch our senses like some grand picture of 
 a storm at sea. 
 
 A vivid, life-like picture of the mighty 
 ocean's fury, of frightful waves ancVtreacher- 
 ous crags, a sinking ship and drowning men, 
 
4 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 hardly disturbs our placid contemplation of 
 the work of art; but we pause to pay a tribute 
 to the genius of the artist. 
 
 Much in the same spirit we have come to 
 look on the latter-clay conditions under 
 which we live; the boundless sunshine for 
 the few, the endless shadow for the many; 
 the feasting and revelry of the classes, the 
 long hours of labor and short bill of fare of 
 the masses; the marble castles and summer 
 villas, the flying yachts and numberless at- 
 tendants for the masters, the comfortless 
 quarters, the scant raiment and lack of rec- 
 reation for the slaves, — as incidents in the 
 grand picture of our civilization; and we 
 daily join the giddy throng who go to wor- 
 ship the genius of the great crooks, with cun- 
 ning and brass and brains enough not only to 
 plunder the multitude and escape their ven- 
 geance, but to rob them of the honor of the 
 great works they have reared, the laurels for 
 the grand victories they have won. 
 
 3. EVERY MAN'S RIGHT. 
 
 By the laws of God and of nature every 
 human being who comes into this world is 
 entitled to an opportunity and place to work 
 to procure the necessaries of life. This is 
 his right as much as to have air at his nos- 
 trils for every respiration. 
 
 The Divine command, "In the sweat of 
 thy brow shalt thou eat bread," does not 
 simply carry the order to labor. It carries 
 with it the privilege, the opportunity, the 
 right to do this; and he who denies this is 
 preaching the doctrine of damnation as an 
 amendment to the plan of salvation. 
 
 Our organic law reiterates the Divine com- 
 mand; and those who are not willing to see 
 it enforced, or even ready to help enforce it, 
 
THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OF PAUL REVERE 5 
 
 are traitors to the flag that protects them and 
 Pharisees of a civilized idolatry. Republican 
 governments are organized to protect the indi- 
 vidual in the enjoyment of this right to labor; 
 and to guarantee to him against all forces and 
 aggressors the inalienable right to life, lib- 
 erty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is 
 the promise to, and contract of our govern- 
 ment with every one of its loyal citizens. It 
 is maintained by them and its expenses paid 
 for this purpose, and in keeping this con- 
 tract it must defend him in the full enjoy- 
 ment of the rights it confers against any 
 and all combinations. The facts above 
 stated are evidence that it is not keeping its 
 contract or fulfilling its mission. They are 
 evidence that instead of keeping its contract 
 with the individual citizen it is aiding the com- 
 binations and has joined the forces oppress- 
 ing him. 
 
 There are ample laws to protect him from 
 his assailants, but most of them cannot be 
 enforced because the courts and the law's 
 representatives hold their positions by the 
 favor of these powerful interests. Some of 
 the laws too that have been passed osten- 
 sibly to prevent these outrages, have been 
 cunningly drawn to be inoperative and to 
 prevent the passage of real remedial meas- 
 ures. 
 
 4. HYPOCRITICAL, STATUTES. 
 
 There are law T s to prevent discrimination 
 between shippers by railroads; but most of 
 them grant rebates to their selected friends. 
 If the full penalties could be enforced, they 
 would be compelled to forfeit their charters, 
 which are accepted under the condition that 
 the rights they convey shall be properly 
 exercised. 
 
CUTTING THE GORD1AN KNOT. 
 
 There are laws against the combinations 
 of corporations for the purpose of controll- 
 ing prices or the quantity of their product. 
 The Sherman law against trusts was passed 
 with a great blare of trumpets and a great 
 show of virtue, but it is as harmless and im- 
 potent as any of the acts which have been 
 passed for the purpose of preventing or head- 
 ing off real remedial measures. When the 
 U. S. Senate as now organized, passes an 
 act for the suppression of the trusts it will 
 include a section for the extinction of the U. 
 S. Senate. 
 
 5. THE GREAT COAL TRUST. 
 
 The most gigantic combination ever made, 
 a combination controlling the output and 
 price of anthracite coal and the railroads 
 taking it to market, has recently gone into 
 operation. 
 
 The New York World of Feb. 3rd, 1896, 
 describes it as follows: 
 
 "A new trust, greater, richer, stronger, more im- 
 portant than any other trust in existence, has been 
 formed and begins actual operations to-day. 
 
 "Involving thousands of miles of railroad and 
 more than 82,000,000,000 capital of the Vanderbilts 
 and J. Pierpont Morgan, it is far ahead of the 
 wildest dreams of wealth and monopoly which the 
 lateJay Gould ever conceived. J. Pierpont Morgan 
 is the master spirit and originator in the new trust, 
 the magnitude of whose operations makes the profits 
 of a gold ring seem insignificant and trifling. The 
 anthracite coal mining and railroad companies sold 
 last year 46,000,000 tons of coal at an average whole- 
 sale price of .$3.08. It is proposed by the new trust 
 to raise the price to $4 a ton. On decreased pro- 
 duction an increased profit of $38,000,000 is assured 
 and will be divided among 11 companies. It is easy 
 to estimate what a per capita tax this means upon 
 the country. 
 
 "The great Coal Trust begins its operations to- 
 day by advancing the price of coal 35 cents a ton. 
 Tbis increase is only the first step, but it means over 
 $15,000,000 increased cost to consumers and even 
 greater profit to the Trust, as many middlemen and 
 selling agents are to be dispensed with. 
 
THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OP PAUL REVERE. 7 
 
 "The permanency and success of the Trust is not 
 doubted by the most skeptical in Wall street, be- 
 cause the companies which have broken every pre- 
 vious trust agreement are now absolutely controlled 
 by Mr. Morgan or the Vanderbilts. The new trust 
 is a giant, compared to which the Standard Oil, the 
 Sugar, the Tobacco and the Leather Trusts are 
 mere pigmies. A. A McLeod, during his meteoric 
 career as President of the Reading Railroad and 
 coal mines, tried to form such a trust five years ago, 
 but the New Jersey Legislature annulled his lease 
 of two rival companies and J. Pierpont Morgan fin- 
 ished his career by shutting him out of New Eng- 
 land and forcing the securities McLeod had pledged 
 to carry through his Boston and Maine deal on to the 
 market in a panic. Now more than 90 per cent, of 
 the Reading Railroad stock has been deposited with 
 Mr Morgan for reorganization and a voting trust 
 created for five years. 
 
 "The magnitude of these interests since the mo- 
 nopoly of anthracite coal mining has now been 
 added to the enormous railroad interests already 
 centralized is so vast and far reaching that bankers 
 and railroad men cannot estimate its ultimate effect. 
 
 "Excluding the bonds the new coal and railroad 
 trust stands for nearly $1,900,000,000 capital and 
 24,530 miles of railroad. This capital stands for two 
 and a half times the entire bonded debt of the United 
 States." 
 
 This new trust can organize an army as 
 
 •'Iron police," and by advancing the price of 
 
 coal to pay them, quarter them on the 
 
 families of the East. 
 
 6. HOME USE FOR THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 
 
 The Monroe Doctrine applied to the de- 
 fense of the rights of the people demands 
 that a measure for the suppression of this 
 and similar combinations be enacted at once. 
 Though we in Kansas burn very little anthra- 
 cite coal, we use oil. sugar, matches, and a 
 hundred other articles that are produced and 
 distributed under similar restrictions; and 
 every new one of these illegal combinations 
 formed, helps in organizing others and taxes 
 the people for the funds to enable them to do 
 it. Every one of them destroys more and 
 more of our constitutional rights, encroach- 
 ing farther and farther on the limits of indi- 
 vidual liberty.. 
 
8 CUTTING THE GOEDIAN KNOT. 
 
 This new trust has now the power to lower 
 the wages of every anthracite miner, or to 
 cut off their supplies of food and fuel at any 
 whim or caprice, any tyrannical impulse or 
 sudden craving for more dividends, of the 
 management. The new profit they notify 
 the public they demand, is a notice to East- 
 ern manufacturers and their help, to the men 
 who handle their goods, and to the railroads 
 that take them to the consumer, to add 
 another item to their expense account. 
 Their new profit is to begin with an addition- 
 al tax of $38,003,000, and this is levied, not 
 simply on the consumers of anthracite coal, 
 but on the industries and people of the whole 
 country. 
 
 This new combination is in open defiance 
 of law, and its expressed purpose is a notice 
 that in violation of statutes it will confiscate 
 and steal from the people the coming year 
 $38,000,000 more than last year. 
 
 7. PUBLIC SENTIMENT AND THE COMMON 
 THIEF. 
 
 If a horse thief or a safe cracker was 
 known to' be lurking in the neighborhood 
 seeking an opportunity to ply his vocation, 
 officers would expend the value of a horse or 
 a safe if necessary, to prevent his operations 
 or catch the little miscreant, for the purpose 
 of showing their efficiency. Public senti- 
 ment is brave enough to require the enforce- 
 ment of law against the ragged and hungry 
 pilferer, but not against our spangled and daz- 
 zling pirates. Individual sentiment favors the 
 enforcement of the law against both classes 
 of criminals, but public sentiment, that teaches 
 the officer what law to enforce and what to ig- 
 nore, cowers before the frown of these petted 
 pirates, and cries for the release of Barabbas. 
 
THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OF PAUL REVERE. 9 
 
 8. THE GREAT PIPE LINE. 
 
 So in open violation of law, these leeches 
 have been permitted to prosecute their de- 
 signs and protected in perfecting their ap- 
 pliances for plundering the masses, until 
 they have practically got a pipe line laid and 
 in operation, from every grainery and feed 
 lot in the West; from every cotton field, rice 
 swamp, and truck patch in the South; from 
 every forge and bench and case and block. 
 North or South — a pipe line through local 
 trade centers to the great commercial marts, 
 that carries all the profits, and often more, of 
 our industrial and producing classes to the 
 coffers of the great speculators and bond 
 manipulators and usurers and plunderers 
 who own the lines. And gliding along 
 through this dank and sinuous way, is a cur- 
 rent that never turns — a tide that never ebbs 
 — flowing without cessation and with con- 
 stantly increasing volume, always and ever 
 pouring its stream of spoils into the coffers 
 and vaults and warehouses of the great 
 pirate chiefs. 
 
 Public sentiment has been gradually edu- 
 cated and trained by influential papers, and 
 by public speakers and instructors who are 
 owned or leased by the owners of these pipe 
 lines, into assenting to the wild theory that 
 the ability shown and success achieved in 
 designing and constructing these gigantic 
 systems of fraud, have given present claim- 
 ants vested rights in their plunder. When 
 this present appalling and seemingly im- 
 pregnable system of brigandage and impos- 
 ture was in its infancy, the Editor's Historical 
 Record in Harpers Magazine for April, 1873, 
 contained the following in an article on 
 transportation (p. 787). 
 
10 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 In railroad operations, financially considered, 
 there has been the same tendency which has been 
 shown in the operations of the Western Union Tele- 
 graph Company. The railroad, like the telegraph, 
 owed its existence in the first instance to necessity — 
 a necessity absolutely imperative in a country of 
 such extent as ours. The wealth of far-seeing capi- 
 talists came forward to meet this necessity before 
 the latter can be said to have been fairly appreciated 
 by the people, or even by our legislators. The 
 last decade has been the beginning of the specula- 
 tors' Millennium. Our civil war opened up to them 
 the promised land In the fluctuations and uncer- 
 tainties of a troubulous era, the country, standing in 
 need of wealth that could immediately be trans- 
 formed into supplies for its armies in the fields, was, 
 or seemed to be, compelled to enter into a hasty 
 compact with the capitalists, whereby, the latter 
 gained marvelous advantages — first, in securing a 
 most profitable investment of their wealth; and 
 secondly, in securing for themselves not only an 
 extraordinary rate of interest, but also immunities 
 from the taxation usually incident to remunerative 
 investments. Thus a heavy burden of taxation fell 
 upon labor and upon productive industry. The era 
 of railroad speculation followed; and a new burden 
 was added to the monetary exaction upon industry 
 expressed in taxation. 
 
 ******* 
 
 "These railroad speculators also seemed to respond 
 to a pressing need, and they went to Washington 
 with grand schemes for "developing the resources 
 of the country. ' ' They knew of what stuff politicians 
 are made. Oakes Ames knew his ground. Thomas 
 C. Durant boldly confesses having paid for the 
 election of an Iowa Senator So with Burbridge and 
 the rest. Land grants were necessary to furnish a 
 basis for mortgages, and these could be obtained 
 only by Congressional action. The grants are se- 
 cured, the bonds are issued, the roads are built, the 
 stock becomes valuable, and at the proper time is 
 sold, passing into the hands of other speculators, 
 who neither care for nor study the interests of the 
 community. In this case the owners of the bonds 
 are helpless The speculators and the politicians 
 banded together have entangled them in hopeless 
 embarrassment. 
 
 "The plea under which this system originates — the 
 necessity of railways for the development of the 
 resources of the country — is a just one The fault is 
 in the system and its inevitable results. The evil 
 will only be removed when railroads are owned by 
 those who construct them, and who manage them 
 in the interests of commerce, clearly understood 
 and adequately met. 
 
 "The internal commerce of the United States is 
 greater than that of any other five nations. But 
 the fruits of this vast industry are harvested by mo- 
 
THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OP PAUL REVERE. 11 
 
 nopolists who oppress the agriculturist and pro- 
 ducer on one hand, and the consumer on the other 
 They control legislation, and assume imperial powers 
 over citizens as over the industry of the country. 
 The rates of transportation are raised to the highest 
 point that will allow of the bare existence of in- 
 dustry. 
 
 If those who were directly interested in the in- 
 dustry of the country had built our railroads, the 
 carrying interests would have been subservient and 
 secondary, as it should be. We should have now 
 more as well as cheaper facilities of transportation, 
 and the wealth which is now drained from industry, 
 and which drifts into speculative channels, would 
 return into the legitimate channels of industry. 
 Labor, both agricultural and mechanical, would 
 have been emancipated from serfdom, and the dig- 
 nity of labor would have led to a universal system 
 of industrial education. The exorbitant cost of 
 transportation has more than any thing else en- 
 hanced the difficulties of the labor problem. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 The universal opposition of labor and industry 
 throughout the country to the railroad monopolies 
 is evident. Every trade congress, and especially 
 every agricultural convention, makes this the most 
 prominent element in its discussions. 
 
 ******* 
 
 The railroad is of necessity a monopoly, and the 
 tendency to consolidation is natural, and is not in it- 
 self an evil. The simplicity and unity of manage- 
 ment are economical and desirable. It is the pur- 
 pose of consolidation that is offensive, because it is 
 tyrannical because the concentration is one of despot- 
 ism. 
 
 The State has these powers. It can revoke the 
 charters, or it can buy the property of the railroads, 
 or it can supervise their operations by commissions, 
 as in Illinois and Massachusetts. 
 
 The State can plainly prevent frauds like those 
 perpetrated upon the public by the Erie Railway 
 Company, which pays dividends on stock fraudently 
 issued. 
 
 The report of the Massachusetts Board of Rail- 
 road Commissioners is extremely discouraging, es- 
 pecially in the conclusions which it arrives at indi- 
 cating the inefficacy of mere legislation. The better 
 success of European nations in the management of 
 railroads has been accomplished almost exclusively 
 through the machinery of the executive. 
 
 9. A SLEEPING PEOPLE. 
 
 The American people have been sleeping 
 since the above article was written and al- 
 lowed the trusts to multiply; the corporations 
 to increase their power; the courts to feed 
 
12 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 them from our cribs; politics to become the 
 science of making plunderers appear re - 
 spectable and aiding pirates to call themselves 
 honest, and the slickest band of thieves that 
 ever the sun shown on to complete their sys- 
 tem of pipe lines and garner the spoils 
 
 The great problem before us now is how to 
 devise and construct a channel for a counter 
 current without the use of a bayonet or the 
 startling blasts of war. 
 
 When we can start a counter current that 
 will carry a volume twice as large as the one 
 that now drains the pockets of labor, we will 
 send an invitation to the usurping Plutocrat 
 to lay aside his brief authority and abdicate 
 his crown; an invitation that will be as effect- 
 ive as the call of the archangel, or the united 
 tramp of labors legions in marshal array, to 
 restore their exiled Prince. 
 
 10. A PROTEST IN BEHALF OF THE VICTIMS. 
 
 The Omaha platform is a living protest 
 against these conditions. It is a warning to 
 the owners of these systems of drainage, not 
 to make their capacity any greater, and not 
 to extend the system. While it says •'Wealth 
 belongs to him who creates it," it fails to say 
 that wealth acquired by the new processes of 
 stealing gives present possessors no more 
 vested rights in it than that taken by the gen- 
 tlemanly highwayman. It says to these 
 plunderers, as the Republican party first 
 said to the slavery extremists. Stop where 
 you are ! Showing that those who have the 
 wealth of the country have done the least to 
 create it, it does not propose a way by which 
 those who have created it may yet acquire 
 some of it. It concedes it contains no meas- 
 ure adequate for that object; and yet that is 
 the inspiring purpose of the People's party. 
 
THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OF PAUL REVERE. 13 
 
 But at the same time it extends an invitation 
 to all its members to suggest something that 
 will restore a part of America's wealth to its 
 creators. It asked for projects that might 
 be more effective, far reaching, and accepta- 
 ble to the Farmers Alliance voters than the 
 chance to borrow on products which was of- 
 fered to the farmers in the sub-treasury bill. 
 
 11. THE PROMISE TO MOVE FORWARD. 
 
 The Omaha platform is not only a living 
 protest against the conditions under which 
 we live, but it contains a most lucid and 
 truthful description of them. Denunciation 
 of unjust conditions, discriminating laws and 
 corrupt practices are useful, both for calling 
 public attention to them, and when made by 
 as earnest and patriotic an assemblage as 
 convened at Omaha, July 4th, 1892, as the 
 index of a purpose to aid in their correction. 
 This was the object of the statements in the 
 platform. It was not simply to testify to 
 their existence, but to record an intent to 
 right them, which from its organization has 
 been the purpose of the People's party. 
 
 As a member of that convention I know 
 they did not consider that the changes and 
 legislation called for in the declaration 
 would restore the wealth of the nation to 
 those who have earned it. These would be 
 a first and long step in stopping the spoliation 
 but not in correcting the wrong. It was not 
 supposed that the party would be satisfied or 
 its mission fulfilled by the enactment of the 
 measures outlined in the declaration; and in 
 fact the preamble asserts that "The forces 
 of reform this day organized will never cease 
 to move forward until every wrong is reme- 
 died and equal rights and equal privileges 
 securely established for all the men and 
 women of this country." 
 
14 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 Their purpose was and is to right every 
 wrong; and they expected to add to their 
 propositions as investigation revealed the 
 necessity. 
 
 12. THE CONSISTENCY OF CHANGE. 
 
 Emerson says: 
 
 "Speak now what you think in hard words; and 
 to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard 
 words, though it contradicts every thing you said 
 to-day." 
 
 This same idea appears in the introduction 
 to Pope's Homer as follows: 
 
 "To be content with what we at the present know 
 is for the most part to shut our eyes against con- 
 viction; since, from the very gradual character of 
 our education, we must continually forget, and 
 emancipate ourselves from knowledge previously 
 acquired. We must set aside old notions and em- 
 brace new ones and as we learn, we must be daily 
 unlearning something which it has cost us no small 
 ]ibor and anxiety to acquire." 
 
 At Omaha we spoke what we had fully 
 thought out, but we left many ideas and 
 dimly seen thoughts to grow and mature. 
 
 A to-morrow has come with its more com- 
 plete view of the situation : — a to-morrow with 
 its new light, its brighter opportunities, its 
 additional incentives, and looking at the 
 covenant there made with the toilers, we 
 find we have promised to "never cease to 
 move forward until every wrong is remedied. ' r 
 
 13. DIABOLICAL DEVICES FOR PLUNDERING 
 
 THE MASSES. 
 
 Since the date of the Omaha convention 
 the conditions we deplore and hope to correct 
 have been rapidly growing worse. At the 
 same time our knowledge of the causes and 
 conception of the danger they threaten has 
 steadily increased. The more diabolical 
 financial policy of government has been a 
 wonclerous help to the masters in their 
 schemes of spoliation; but even this has played 
 •second fiddle to the use made of the ever in- 
 
THE MIONTGHT MESSAGE OP PAUL REVERE 15 
 
 creasing power which constantly flows into 
 the hands of the few, in putting in operation 
 new and more intricate machinery for carry- 
 ing out their plans of plunder and persecution. 
 The developments of the past four years 
 have revealed something beyond the necessity 
 of adding more stringent projects to the foun- 
 dation laid at Omaha. They have shown the 
 utter absurdity of trying to restore a part of 
 the wealth of the nation to those who have 
 created it, by any multiplicity of projects that 
 leaves in the hands of the few, the billions 
 they have forced labor to halt and deliver by 
 standing in the highway, armed with legisla- 
 tive mandates and court decrees, which they 
 have bought and paid for the same as the 
 relatively honorable and prosperous highway- 
 man pays for his Winchester; or by any new 
 devices for borrowing that would be out of 
 reach of those who need help the most. 
 Hence we realize that the necessity for reme- 
 dial measures becomes more urgent and im- 
 perative. The necessity for them could 
 hardly have a more cogent illustration than 
 the plans of the great coal trust already re- 
 ferred to, or the reports of financial trans- 
 actions furnished the courts in the Santa Fe 
 reorganization and receivership. 
 
 14. AN INFAMOUS ORDER. 
 
 Another telling illustration of recent oc- 
 currence, is the nefarious decision of the in- 
 come tax cases by the Supreme Court, that 
 practically amends the constitution by blot- 
 ting out a right under it which the people 
 have enjoyed and exercised at their pleasure 
 for a century. 
 
 This decision reveals anew the spirit of the 
 oppositions which the masses have got to 
 overcome, and the combinations that have 
 
16 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 been made to thwart them. The effort to put 
 an insignificant tax of one-tenth of one per 
 cent on a class that would not feel it, was 
 but a sop at best, and its defeat shows the 
 futility of striking a pawing, prancing bull 
 with a wisp of hay, when, as in this case, 
 there are effective weapons at hand with 
 which to force the threatening bovine back to 
 his stanchions, as there also are to drive this 
 audacious pack of mutineers back into the 
 ranks of patriots. 
 
 15. "POSSESSED OF A DEVIL." 
 
 Our constitution has grown in the past 100 
 years. It is putting out horns now. In 
 Washington's time an income tax was con- 
 stitutional. The men who made it were there 
 to keep its vital parts in order and in sight. 
 In Lincoln's day the brazen beast had not 
 the nerve or power to put his muddy hoofs 
 on this inherent right to blot it out. Now 
 the masses sleep. A traitorous gang is in 
 command. Their only aim is plunder. And 
 while the slaves are sleeping or cower before 
 the master's lash, this justice scorning, law 
 defying gang tear down what they please 
 that stands twixt them and what they seek. 
 
 Under these new incentives, is the propi- 
 tious time for the drum corps of the masses 
 to sound their reveille; and lines to form to 
 stop the imperious and usurping millionaires 
 in their mad rush to further loot the camps 
 of labor and then dash on to anarchy. 
 
 This income tax decision should be enough 
 to convince the West and South of the im- 
 possibility of ever again getting a show of 
 justice under our present constitution. Be- 
 fore this last straw was laid on our backs we 
 felt we had been robbed long enough by the 
 barbarities of capital in its control of com- 
 
THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OF PAUL REVERE. 17 
 
 mercial channels, by the operation of the 
 pipe lines it has constructed, and by methods 
 and measures of taxation that were inaug- 
 urated to meet other conditions than those 
 under which we now live. This last straw 
 is an order from Plutocracy's court to the 
 wealthy East to shirk more of their fair share 
 of public burdens than on special occasions 
 they had been before allowed to. They know 
 this was done for the purpose of fastening an 
 additional ratio on the impoverished pro- 
 ducers. 
 
 16. MOLOCH FRANCHISED AND JUSTICE EN- 
 
 JOINED. 
 
 Though made by Plutocracy's vassals it 
 carries the weight of the whole government 
 authority. It is not only an injunction 
 against molesting their smuggling pipe line 
 or disturbing, even by dropping a pebble, the 
 steady flow of the great current of the 
 nation's profits, at the outlet; but it conveys 
 to the owners of this line a perpetual and ex- 
 clusive franchise; prohibiting the people, 
 whose profits it sucks up, from constructing 
 a dandelion stem pipe to start a counter 
 current. 
 
 The people of the West and South under- 
 stand what this decision signifies. They 
 realize the portentious meaning of the notice 
 it serves. This notice never would have 
 been served did not the masters in their 
 castles feel secure in the belief that the 
 slaves in the fields were powerless to resist. 
 
 17. GALLING TAXATION. 
 
 The appalling injustice of our system of 
 taxation was too much for the masses to 
 patiently bear without this last straw. Be- 
 fore this last encroachment our constitution 
 permitted and authorized the wealthy to 
 
18 CUTTING THE GORD1AN KNOT. 
 
 shirk their just proportion of public burdens. 
 As now amended by the courts, it orders them to. 
 The plundered masses will now demand of 
 these haughty tyrants, who were not satisfied 
 with the unequal privileges they before en- 
 joyed, a change in the constitution if they 
 have an ambition to again possess the man- 
 hood and enjoy the opportunities of a free 
 people. They will demand too, that the 
 more oppressive, galling, and piratical pro- 
 cesses of plunder shall be terminated; and 
 they are deliberately debating the question 
 whether the present possessors of the bulk 
 of the nation's accumulations have acquired 
 vested rights in their booty, and whether 
 some of it may not be rightly restored to the 
 pockets of the victims, by a peaceable pro : 
 cess of taxation and public expenditure. 
 
 But very few yet realize the full injustice 
 of our constitution under the present dis- 
 tribution of values, w T hich says in Art. 1. 
 Section 2, ' 'Direct taxes shall be apportioned 
 among the several states according to their 
 respective numbers." That is, that it must 
 be in proportion to the number of people in 
 each state. 
 
 18. HOW IT WORKS UNDER PRESENT CUS- 
 TOMS. 
 
 The methods of indirect taxation also, 
 under which most of our present national 
 revenues are derived, are practically the 
 same, amounting to a per capita tax. So if 
 we see how the direct tax provided for in the 
 constitution, would work under present con- 
 ditions, we will see with very little deviation, 
 the injustice of present methods. The wrongs 
 the latter have already accomplished are 
 beyond computation, but they are not beyond 
 the power of a Republican government, 
 
THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OP PAUL REVERE. ID 
 
 justly administered, to correct, so far as the 
 living- go. That they are beyond the pur- 
 pose of our present ruling forces needs no 
 argument to sustain, as they are a result of 
 their schemes and efforts and our apathy and 
 blind confidence. The question now is: Are 
 they beyond our power and ability to remedy? 
 
 To know by how serious an imposition the 
 funds for the support of the National govern- 
 ment are collected, will certainly stimulate 
 the efforts for a change. In round numbers 
 it costs us seven dollars apiece to pay the 
 yearly bills of the government. The assessed 
 valuation per capita of some of the states in 
 1890 was as follows: Massachusetts, $962; 
 Rhode Island, $931; California, $911; New 
 Hampshire, $699; Iowa, $272; Kansas, $244; 
 Georgia, $226; Illinois, $212; Nebraska, $174; 
 South Carolina, $146; North Carolina, $145. 
 
 The people of all these states are practi- 
 cally taxed seven dollars apiece per annum, 
 so the man in Massachusetts where the valu- 
 ation averages $962, with a family of five, 
 pays $35 on $4,840, and the man in Kansas 
 pays $35 on $1220, and the man in North 
 Carolina pays $35 on $725. Reduced to the 
 usual formula, it shows that the Massachu- 
 setts man pays 73 cents on the dollar; Rhode 
 Island, 75 cents; California, 77 cents; New 
 Hampshire, $1.00; Iowa, $2.57; Kansas, $2.87; 
 Georgia. $3. 10; Illinois, $3.30; Nebraska, $4.02; 
 and the Carolinas $4.80 and $4.83. Thus 
 when $1.00 on the $100.00 is levied on the 
 people of Massachusetts, we in Kansas have 
 to pay $3.93 per $100.00, the citizens of Ne- 
 braska $5.51 and the Carolinas $6.58 and $6.62. 
 
 This computation is based wholly on the 
 assessed valuation; and while being reliable 
 enough to show the abominable injustice of 
 the system and of the constitutional pro vis- 
 
20 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 ions, there are two other factors that would 
 have to be considered to reach a perfectly 
 accurate result. These factors are the ratio 
 of assessed to true value and the amount of 
 property assessed in the several states which 
 is owned by non-residents. There is no 
 available data for ascertaining these other 
 quantities. The census reports give tables 
 that jump at the former, but there are no re- 
 ports that even jump at the latter. Taking 
 the census ratios of assessed to true value as 
 a basis, the disparity as between states, in 
 the above figures, wo aid be reduced in some 
 cases; and taking the actual ownership of 
 property by residents, the relative burden on 
 the people of many of the debtor states would 
 be increased. The following are some of the 
 ratios of assessed to true value reported by 
 the census of 1890. 
 
 Percent. Percent. 
 
 New Hampshire 81 Massachusetts 77 
 
 Rhode Island 64 Maine. 63 
 
 New Jersey 62 Vermont 61 
 
 Georgia 49 New York 44 
 
 Pennsylvania 43 South Carolina 42 
 
 Indiana 41 North Carolina 40 
 
 Kansas 19 Illinois 16 
 
 Nebraska 14 
 
 Taking the states of New York and Georgia 
 as illustrations, we see New York, assessed on 
 the basis of 44 per cent., has $631 per capita; 
 and Georgia, assessed at 49 per cent. , has $226 
 per capita. So if assessed on the same basis 
 the people of Georgia pay three times as 
 much on the $100 as the people of New York 
 on all the property in the state. As they own 
 a less per cent of the state's wealth than the 
 people of New York do of their state's wealth, 
 the disparity and injustice is increased. The 
 only way these two factors can be used is to 
 let one offset the other, as in some instances 
 the influence of one would predominate and 
 in some the other. 
 
THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OF PAUL REVERE. 21 
 
 19. THE SERFS WILL TAKE THE KNOUT. 
 
 All classes save professional bandits and 
 their fawning: vassals deplore so great an in- 
 justice. It seems too great a wrong to 
 meekly bear as long as we already have; and 
 would be for our sturdy predecessors who 
 laid the foundations of a Republic, or for any 
 save a race of slaves; but it is really a much 
 less burden of wrong than others we are now 
 bearing with all the grace of serfs. 
 
 The plundered masses have however de- 
 cided that additional burdens must not be 
 imposed. To prevent- this they will demand 
 a change in our fundamental law to meet the 
 changed conditions under which we live. 
 
 They will do more. They will demand that 
 the machinery of these plundering schemes 
 be stopped. 
 
 They ivill do more. They will demand of 
 the robbers that the machinery be reversed 
 for the purpose of gradually restoring a part 
 of that which they have earned and lost, by 
 being compelled at the command of boughten 
 legislatures and pensioned courts to stand 
 and deliver. This is the great question they 
 now have under consideration in " Committee 
 of the whole. " It is not the masses in any 
 one party simply that are considering this 
 question. The masses of all parties are en- 
 gaged in the discussion. 
 
 Every day brings new friends to the 
 measure, as the heated debate unfolds the 
 perfidy of its opponents. A convention is 
 coming in the near future, at which this will 
 be a leading subject, They prefer a consti- 
 tutional convention, held under legal condi- 
 tions as a deliberative body; but the burden of 
 injustice has reached that point,— the shackles 
 of their bondage have become so galling, 
 
22 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT 
 
 that the convention will be called if they are 
 forced to meet at a drum call that sounds the 
 "Long Roll."' 
 
 20. KEEP COOL: FILE CLOSERS. 
 
 Five years ago during a debate in the U. S. 
 Senate Mr. Stewart said on this question, 
 • "If there is no humanity in the possessors of 
 accumulated capital, there is power in revo- 
 lution." And in an address to the Kansas 
 Bar Association on Jan. 26th, 1892. Judge 
 Seymour D. Thompson (testifying to the 
 propriety and relevancy of such statements 
 and conclusions), said: 
 
 "The right of trial by jury has been set aside in vast 
 reaches of country; the courts have gone into the 
 business of the common carrier; the by-laws of the 
 corporations have overtopped in the 'judicial esti- 
 mation, the legislation of states which were on e 
 called sovereign; the constitutional ordinances, 
 earned on the battle field and intended as charters of 
 human liberty, have been turned into the shield of 
 incorporated monopoly. The barons of corporate 
 powers, outrivaling in wealth and splendor the 
 merchant kings of Venice, have purchased of venal 
 legislators seats in the Senate of the United States, 
 and have found no difficulty in placing their allies on 
 the judicial bench. Throughout all this the press, the 
 fiei/i* of a free people has been directly or indirectly 
 subsidized into silence " 
 
 21. PACKED COURTS AND A SUBSIDIZED 
 
 PRESS. 
 
 The courts have not only been packed to 
 sustain the usurpation of capital and corpora- 
 tions, and legislatures bribed to pass shield- 
 ing and abetting laws, and the press sub- 
 sidized into silence, but these same allies 
 have conspired to uphold, defend, and ap- 
 plaud our unjust and pernicious adjustment 
 of schemes and rates of taxation. 
 
 There is no excuse but that of a desire to 
 be smeared with the same infatuation as 
 possesses those who worship at the shrine of 
 the Golden Calf and have discarded all sensi- 
 ble consideration of their duty to their fellow- 
 
THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OF PAUL REVERE. 23 
 
 men or their country, that will prevent the 
 wronged masses of the American people from 
 resorting to the use of muscle to re-establish 
 their rights and repossess their lost freedom 
 and treasure, just so soon as they realize 
 that the last chance to do this by the use of 
 the ballot is gone. 
 
 22. PAUL revere's ride. 
 
 No more pointed illustration of the absurd- 
 ity and iniquity of our present systems of 
 taxation can be found, than that illustrated 
 above. Verily '"to him that hath shall be 
 given" in Republics when run by him who 
 hath money but not mercy; — who hath cheek 
 but not charity. How long think you. that 
 the men who, on not a tenth of the injustice, 
 burned the Gaspee in Narragansett bay in 
 
 1772, or made a teapot of Boston Harbor in 
 
 1773. or adopted the Mechlenberg Declara- 
 tion of Independence in 1775, would meekly 
 and supinely bear so amazing an injustice ? 
 How long before a Paul Revere would start 
 from every state capital to ride to every 
 county seat and country hamlet to call Free- 
 men(y) and Patriots from shop and field. 
 
 How long before a Paul Revere would be, 
 with 
 
 23. HIS MESSAGE THAT ECHOES FOREVER- 
 
 MORE. 
 
 "Ready to ride and spread the alarm, 
 "Through every Middlesex village and farm, 
 
 "For the country folk to be up and arm." 
 
 ******* 
 
 "But mostly he watched with eager search, 
 
 "The belfry tower of the Old North Church, 
 
 "As it rose above the graves on the hill, 
 
 "Lonely and spectral and sombre and still: 
 
 "And lo! as he looks on the belfry's height; 
 
 "A glimmer and then a gleam of light. 
 
 "He springs to the saddle; the bridle he turns, 
 
 "But lingers and gazes till full on his sight, 
 
 "A second lamp in the belfry burns, 
 
 "A hurry of hoofs in a village street, 
 
 "A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, 
 
24 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 "And beneath, from the pebbles in passing a spark 
 "Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet; 
 "That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the 
 
 light, 
 "The fate of a nation was riding that night, 
 "And the spark struck out by that steed an his flight, 
 "Kindled the land into flame with its heat." 
 
 * + # * * * * 
 
 "So through the night rode Paul Revere; 
 
 "And so through the night went his cry of alarm, 
 
 "To every Middlesex village and farm — 
 
 "A ery of defiance and not of fear. 
 
 "A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, 
 
 "And a word that shall echo forevermore! 
 
 "For borne on the night wind of the Past, 
 
 "Through all our history to the last, 
 
 "In the hours of darkness and peril and need, 
 
 "The people will waken and listen to hear, 
 
 "The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, 
 
 "And the midnight message of Paul Revere." 
 
 We in our history have reached an era of 
 "darkness, and peril, and need;'* an hour 
 when the people must ' 'waken and listen to 
 hear the midnight message of Paul Revere." 
 
 24. THE STARTLING CALL TO THE SLAVES 
 OF TODAY. 
 
 And what in this hour of peril and need, 
 
 Can curb the rank follies of passion and greed, 
 
 What from the light of that glorious fray, 
 
 Is the message he sends to the slaves of to-day? 
 
 And what in this night says his cry of alarm? 
 
 What warning sends he to each village and farm? 
 
 Awaken ye toilers! Arouse from your dreams! 
 Put your ballots together to stop the huge streams 
 Of booty that flows to the coffers of wealth, 
 From the pockets of labor, by channels of stealth ; 
 Unceasingly flows in flood or in drouth, 
 To plunder the toilers of the North and the South. 
 
 That is the warning: the hour is here, 
 When the startling message of Paul Revere, 
 With its cry of defiance, its note in the night, 
 Will call forth the patriot hosts for the fight, 
 
 Will awaken the slave 
 
 To fetter the knave, 
 Now lord of a Nation he used to fear. 
 
 The need of the hour is a new Combine ; 
 A coming together of once hostile ranks, 
 To call down the tyrant and twist the spine, 
 
THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE OF PAUL REVERE. 
 
 Of the greedy usurpers, the millionaire cranks. 
 
 A co-operation for saving the nation, 
 
 Of the bold Johnny Rebs with the brave Billy Yanks. 
 
 Then up and at them grenadiers: 
 
 Let us merge once hostile ranks. 
 
 We can stop the taunts and jeers 
 
 Of the millionaire cranks. 
 
 We can join to hush the fears, 
 
 Of the millions now called tramps. 
 
 And unite to dry the tears 
 
 Of despairing wife and maiden; 
 
 We can bring a future laden, 
 
 Not with doubt but with fruition 
 
 As we throttle superstition. 
 
 Brigadiers of labor legions, 
 Not the Piute's submissive vassal — 
 Called from North and Southern regions, 
 Ever faithful friends of freedom; 
 That from Justice's honored castle 
 We may drive the hosts of treason, — 
 That from Justice's honored castle, — 
 We may hurl the wild pretender 
 And install our old defender; 
 Muster! then to spread the story, 
 Of our exiled Prince's glory; 
 Muster ! now to sweep the plain ! 
 And seat hi-n on his throne again. 
 
 Then touch elbows for a nation, 
 That again will give salvation, 
 To the mass who've brought it glory: 
 That will strangle superstition, 
 And consign to long perdition, 
 The vicious measures of the classes; 
 And work out a quick fruition, 
 As wrong doers reach contrition, 
 For the toiling, burdened masses; 
 And recall the ancient story. 
 
 This is the message of Paul Revere, 
 
 His cry of defiance and not of fear. 
 
 'Tis his startling call from that famous affray, 
 
 To the tax plundered toilers, — the slaves of to-day . 
 
HEW TO THE LINE-THEN AND NOW. 27 
 
 Hew to the Line- Then and Now. 
 
 1856-18%. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Contents. 1. Then. 2. The New Slavery. 3. The 
 Case Stated to the Court. 4. A Precedent Ex- 
 amined. 5. The Two Paths. 6 A Good Witness. 
 7. A Press Comment:— Now. 8. A Lost Battle. 
 9. Will we win the Next. 10. A Talk to the 
 Jury. 11. Hewing to the Line. 12. A Steadfast 
 Purpose. 13. A Warning Torpedo. 14. No 
 "Triple Alliance" for Reformers. 15. The Grip 
 of a Great Corporation. 16. Blind Watchmen to 
 Retire. 17. Correcting the Records to "Hew to 
 the Line." 18. Kansans to the Front. 
 
 1. THEN. 1856. 
 
 jip^ANSAS was the preliminary battle 
 3P2 field of the great struggle of a third 
 of a century ago, that changed the peculiar 
 social system of half the country, and wiped 
 out the institution of slavery on which it was 
 based. For years before that conflict, the 
 policy of parties had been moulded and dis- 
 torted to serve the purpose of the excited and 
 aggressive leaders of the Southern people, 
 until the then old parties become their pliant 
 and submissive dupes. 
 
 2. THE NEW SLAVERY. 
 
 Another system of slavery has now suc- 
 ceeded the one then destroyed: a system 
 covering the nation instead of a subdivision 
 This new form of bondage is industrial 
 slavery — a system unknowm to law — in which 
 
28 
 
 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 the master has not even a property interest 
 in the slave. The great leaders who sup- 
 port and defend this new system have been 
 granted the power, the same as was given to 
 the impetuous Southern leaders fifty years 
 ago, to mould the intent and distort the 
 policy of the two largest political parties of 
 the present. The iron grip and the relent- 
 less purpose of the masters in this new sys- 
 tem — our Barons of commerce and Lords of 
 finance — find expression and consummation 
 through their control of these party leaders, 
 including a few Alopaths, a few Homeopaths, 
 but mostly the quacks of statesmanship. 
 
 By artifice and strategy — by such cunning 
 schemes and vicious methods as are unknown 
 to those who retain the common virtues of 
 civilized mankind, and which would add an 
 indellible disgrace to the common outlaw who 
 has not the means to corruptly enjoy the 
 favors of courts or the support of legisla- 
 tures — these two forces — the personation of 
 inordinate greed and of craftily acquired 
 power — the one as a reigning despot, the 
 other as a salaried vassal — have so perverted 
 and besotted these great political machines, 
 that their whole effort and energy and 
 strength is centered in the one diabolical pur- 
 pose, to enlarge, as steadily and rapidly as 
 the surrounding conditions, and the develop- 
 ment through their subordinates in the 
 direction of party affairs of the requisite sub- 
 serviance in the ranks will permit, the power 
 and jurisdiction of the master over the slave 
 and his family: And at the same time to in- 
 crease the restrictions on and curtail the 
 movements and opportunities of the slave; 
 gradually increasing the meagerness of his 
 food and raiment and shelter, and multiply- 
 ing the barriers against his escape. 
 

 HEW TO THE LINE-THEN AND NOW. 29 
 
 3. THE CASE STATED TO THE COURT 
 
 Another struggle between the forces of the 
 master and the hosts that protest against and 
 suffer from this new system of slavery has 
 commenced. The victims of industrial 
 slavery are raising their heads to find free 
 air. Again the camps of the contending 
 forces are pitched on Kansas soil and the 
 rumble of the first sharp encounter echoes 
 over her hilltops, and the thrilling peans of 
 victory sweep up her luxuriant valleys. 
 Once more the eyes of the Nation are turned 
 toward Kansas. The friends of the master 
 gaze in 'dread or dispair : The friends of the 
 slave see '-'our flag is still there." 
 
 4. A PRECEDENT EXAMINED. 
 
 When the compromises of Democratic leg- 
 islation opened this territory to the slave 
 driver with his chattels, the Nation was 
 trembling with excitement. The purpose of 
 the North that Kansas soil should not be pol- 
 luted by the blighting influences of slavery, 
 was not diminished when they were out- 
 generaled, and driven before the uplifted 
 mace of the courts and the threatening 
 gavels of congress into the open arena. 
 They at once made ready to prosceute their 
 case before the courts of the gods. The 
 South were no less active in efforts to hold 
 the advantage they had gained. In this ap- 
 peal from court and congress both sides 
 became plaintiffs. 
 
 Under such circumstances it was inevitable 
 that all classes of enthusiasts, and all shades 
 of adventurers should be drawn to the forum 
 of the prairies, and join the contending fac- 
 tions. Many came seeking homes; many in- 
 spired by a simple sense of duty; more by a 
 thirst for adventure; others by an inveterate 
 
SO CUTTING THE GORD1AN KNOT. 
 
 hatred, either of those from the North who 
 having fought long and earnestly to keep 
 slavery in quarantine, were ready now to 
 defy the authority of government as well as 
 those inarching to uphold the aggressive acts 
 and virulent purpose of the pro-slavery side, 
 or by a hatred of the latter for their bitter 
 defense of the institution: And still others 
 looking for a chance for booty, seeking a 
 freedom to plunder; considering little the 
 principles involved in the struggle, and 
 caring less. 
 
 5. THE TWO PATHS. 
 
 To-day, looking back to the efforts of the 
 struggling free state men and seeing the 
 factions into which they were divided; — the 
 lack of harmony in their councils and of co- 
 operation in their movements; the lack of 
 authority to cement them together, and the 
 plenitude of personal jealousies and local 
 interests to stir up discord and stimulate sus- 
 picion; — noting these adverse conditions, and 
 that the right was reached in spite of them, 
 we can see that destiny had offered the free 
 state forces the choice of the roads to success; 
 the long rugged dangerous, bloody, by 
 scattering charges and marches of separate 
 factions; the other shorter, and less danger- 
 ous; making their plans in harmonious 
 councils and moving with united forces and 
 a purpose that eliminates individual claims 
 and local interests. 
 
 There was not that sinking of individual 
 ambitions and blending of factional efforts 
 that would have enabled them to "Hew to the 
 Line" and close up their ranks. Discord and 
 jealousies, scattered and independent forces 
 and conflicting projects dragged the com- 
 batants over the long and rugged way. 
 
HEW TO THE LINE-THEN AND NOW. 31 
 
 (3. - A COO I) WITNESS. 
 
 Governor Robinson, inhis "Kansas C< nflict" 
 
 thoroughly uncovers this phase of their diffi- 
 culties and varying fortunes. On page 331 
 he says— speaking of one of the leaders: 
 
 "These are all of his exploits except stripping 
 Lawrence of its arms find men to help him escape 
 from 2800 Missourians in September. These particu- 
 lars are given simply because, on account of the 
 scribblings of hero worshipers, these men have been 
 made to appear as the saviors of Kansas, when from 
 the standpoint of the free state policy, Kansas 
 would have been saved with much less suffering and 
 bloodshed without than with them." 
 
 ", A PRESS COMMENT THEREON. 
 
 The '-Lawrence Gazette" in a comment on 
 the '-Kansas Conflict" says: 
 
 "It was a battle against the greatest odds that was 
 begun in Kansas in 1854." * * * * . "Horace 
 Greely said the chances were four to one that they 
 would fail. At their gateway was a .herd of ruffians, 
 bold, insolent, unscrupulous; always ready to dash 
 through and commit any kind of depredation. 
 Within the portals was another host of the enemy, 
 the pro-slavery settlers. And within their own 
 household were dangerous elements — some too timid, 
 some too aggressive, some thoughtful, not for the 
 cause of freedom, but for their own personal and 
 political ambition. 
 
 "Between misguided sympathizers, foolish friends, 
 unsafe leaders and overpowering foes, is it not re- 
 markable that the battle was won?" 
 
 But destiny had decreed that, while ambi- 
 tion and error, prejudice and discord might 
 prolong the struggle, the Free State forces 
 should win the fight, and win it on the open- 
 ing of a greater contest that their struggles 
 and sacrifices had made inevitable. 
 
 NOW. 
 
 In how far different a condition are tne 
 forces now rallying on Kansas soil to over- 
 turn the new system of slavery, from that 
 which disturbed the camps and confused tin- 
 councils of the early pioneers? 
 
 "Memories and emotions" will be a futile 
 and useless armament in the hands of the so- 
 called "Redeemers" for winning the next 
 
32 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 election; nor will bluff and bluster give the 
 assurance and bring together the forces 
 necessary to carry it for us, any more than 
 they did in 1894. 
 
 8. A LOST BATTLE. 
 
 The election was lost then, not because of 
 any change in the convictions or accepted 
 principles of voters, but because of disobe- 
 dience of orders and broken promises and vio- 
 lated instructions on the part of party offi- 
 cials; because of a failure to "Hew to the 
 Line" as demanded by the ranks and promised 
 by their leaders. Diminished confidence in 
 those who have controlled party policy was 
 the result; and a diminished confidence pro- 
 duced a diminished vote. Until this-diminish- 
 ed confidence is restored, and the influences 
 that produced it nullified, in every move they 
 make the Populists start with the chances 
 against them. There are too many men 
 whose support they need and have relied on. 
 — whom bluster will not disturb nor bluff 
 convince, who are too dissatisfied with the 
 methods and practices, as well as the pur- 
 pose of the old parties they have abandoned 
 to seek something better, to be pacified with the 
 assurance that their new home and surround- 
 ings are no worse. 
 
 9. WILL WE WIN THE NEXT. 
 
 The purpose of the Reformers must be 
 not only to advocate such a complete revo- 
 lution in the whole policy of government as 
 is necessary to re-establish a government of 
 the people, and to faithfully execute this pur- 
 pose whenever public confidence in their in- 
 tegrity and approval of their plans gives 
 them the opportunity; but the practice in 
 party manipulation, the tact ^'s in the school 
 
HEW TO THE LINE-THEN AND NOW. 33 
 
 of the party, must be an improvement on the 
 spectacular evolutions, the boomerang- twirl - 
 ings and the mortiferous clang of the old 
 party machines. 
 
 How shall the confidence, not of the bum- 
 mers and foragers in the rear, but of the 
 steady and conservative and reliable advance 
 guard of Reformers be restored? By aband- 
 oning the methods and practices that have 
 destroyed it By showing a purpose to de- 
 serve it. Bij Hewing to the Line. 
 
 10. A TALK TO THE JURY. 
 
 The arena of politics is not a battle field 
 where cheating is justifiable and deception 
 an honor. It is where conflicting policies of 
 government should meet in open rivalry to 
 be honestly explained and fairly presented to 
 an interested and intelligent jury, for in- 
 spection and dissection, to establish the best. 
 While, under the leadership of men who 
 practice what they preach and have lost no 
 campaign or position by the activity of their 
 moral natures, it has degenerated to a 
 scramble for office and a greedy struggle for 
 the spoils, this degenerated condition is not 
 satisfactory to the mass of voters in any 
 party. In the two great old parties, the ma- 
 jority of voters acquiesce in what they really 
 dislike and condemn, because this class in 
 each, thinks the defeat of their party would 
 be a worse evil than all the deception, wire 
 pulling, chicanery and intrigue practiced to 
 prevent it; and so they vote for a bad man, 
 big Indian or good devil without regret. 
 That is their primary theory which ultimately 
 becomes an idolatry; luring them to first 
 bow, then kneel, then wallow to serve this 
 dirty and seductive god of partyism. 
 
34 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 Politics is a wallow; and partyism is a 
 national curse that has made some of the 
 worst blotches on our history. It cultivates 
 deception, condones iniquity, and encourages 
 the most degenerate forms of ignorance and 
 the lowest shades of prejudice. 
 
 All crimes are committed; all iniquities. de- 
 fended; all honor cast aside; all laws defied; 
 the reasonable impulses of humanity seared, 
 and everything infamous and dishonorable 
 upheld; everything mean and despicable, 
 everything low and cowardly and' sneaking' 
 applauded, and everything honorable and 
 fair and true defamed in behalf of party. If 
 there is anything that is the complete antithesis of 
 statesmanship it is partyism, a seedling of j><<- 
 ganism propagated in the gutter. The older and 
 stronger a party gets, the more audacious 
 and corrupt it becomes, until the rights and 
 duties of the individual and the welfare of 
 the Nation are lost sight of in the grand 
 rush for the boodle at the goal. It would be a 
 blessing to the nation if the life of a party 
 were limited by charter, to a score of years 
 or less. Then men would inevitably learn 
 how much evil and injustice they had been 
 voting to defend; and how little of patriotism 
 and how much of selfish ambition was the 
 mainspring of every party plan. 
 
 11. HEWING TO THE LINE. 
 
 The People's party as a whole abhor the 
 methods and juggling of the old party 
 machines. They denounce and ridicule the 
 celebrated theory of our able ex-Senator 
 whose experience seems to have established 
 as an axiom of his political philosophy, that 
 intrigue and corruption are essential to 
 political success. The promise of the Re- 
 formers is to discard intrigue and the noxious 
 
HEW TO THE LINE THEN AND NOW. 35 
 
 methods of old party rings; and they generally 
 demand that the reprehensible practices of 
 these old parties be not grafted on the new. 
 Had this demand been obeyed, the party 
 would not have been groping its way in dis- 
 order to-day. 
 
 However gratifying success may be they 
 do not believe in the Ingall's doctrine of 
 reaching it by showing how little they de- 
 serve it. Those who have accepted respons- 
 ibility and position from the People's party 
 to a great extent manipulate its policy and 
 control its every move. To be able to call to 
 their aid the forces necessary to enable them 
 to repeal vicious laws, and supplant with 
 representatives of intelligent labor the 
 money changers and speculators who control 
 the councils of the nation, they should not 
 only be above reproach but above suspicion. 
 It is not enough to say or to be able to prove 
 that the new party is not as corrupt as the 
 old. The old parties make no serious pre- 
 tense of frowning on corruption. They glory 
 in the opportunities it gives them, and follow 
 the victories they win thereby with their 
 favorite species of triumph. They eat, drink 
 and get merry over what they have done. 
 
 People expect something better of Re- 
 formers. They expect them to "Hew to the 
 Line" as they promise. If they have had op- 
 portunities to do this that they have discarded. 
 and chances to prove their fidelity that they 
 have spurned, they must look to these short 
 comings for the loss of enthusiasm and con- 
 fidence and for recent disappointments and 
 present disorder. 
 
 That such opportunities have come within 
 their reach and that they have not been ac- 
 cepted are facts too well known to be denied. 
 
36 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 The important questions now are, first: Is 
 the party bearing the blame for these der- 
 elections and bearing it justly, and hence 
 liable to the penalties for important public 
 duties ignored? or, second: Does the respons- 
 ibility attach to individuals whom the party 
 has honored, for a failure to do their part? 
 My belief is that the party is being criticised, 
 censured and condemned for things the 
 whole responsibility for which belongs to, 
 and all blame for which should rest 01^ its 
 appointed servants and chosen representa- 
 tives. No party can be justly condemned, or 
 even honestly censured, for either the bad 
 judgment or the deliberate fault of its ser- 
 vants which it has had no opportunity to con- 
 demn, and of which the rank and file know 
 too little to form an intelligent opinion. 
 
 12. A STEADFAST PURPOSE. 
 
 The purpose of the People's party remains 
 as steadfast as it was before the election of 
 1892 to avoid all entangling alliances, and the 
 devious ways, the wire pulling tricks and 
 bulldozing practices of the old parties; but 
 they cannot shun what they but dimly see, 
 nor intelligibly analyze and label rumors or 
 insinuations, to give a proper influence in the 
 formation of opinion and passing judgment, to 
 the stories on which they are based. More 
 light is the need of the hour. More light 
 that they may see to hew to the line. 
 
 Those who have accepted responsibility 
 and position from the People's party will not 
 do their part toward the re-establishment of 
 that confidence which is essential to success 
 in the coining campaign, if they fail to un- 
 cover such specific and successful efforts to 
 follow the ward heelers tactics and resorts to 
 the reprehensible practices of the old parties 
 
HEW TO THE LINE-THEN AND NOW. 37 
 
 as have been met in their personal experience, 
 and had an important influence in promoting 
 the disorder in our ranks, that the party may 
 show their abhorrence and condemnation of 
 these exhibitions of cake walks after false 
 gods, and assist in the restoration of confi- 
 dence both in the righteous purpose and the 
 good judgment of those whom they may call 
 to direct its policy and execute its decrees. 
 
 13 A WARNING TORPEDO. 
 
 Anything that will help to keep the Popu- 
 list craft from drifting into the breakers, 
 anything that will help us to shake off our 
 stupor, to revive enthusiasm and restore con- 
 fidence should be willingly contributed. Un- 
 less we have the courage, the judgment and 
 the statesmanship required for this emerg- 
 ency, we cannot claim to have the qualifi- 
 cations necessary to turn the prow of our 
 Ship of State from the breakers, or expect 
 the recruits necessary to give us the oppor- 
 tunity to show our skill and to make the de- 
 tails for the quarter deck. Let us not hesi- 
 tate then to lay a warning torpedo in the 
 track of the Populist. If at the same time we 
 can show that while our side has in some 
 instances failed to keep its pledges; if we can 
 show that while our trusted and faithless 
 servants have occasionally "followed the de- 
 vices and desires" that only become the dis- 
 ciples of political iniquity; and that, even in 
 dealing with the great corporations who ex- 
 pect and intend to derive the greater benefit 
 from the public revenues while evading as 
 far as possible the taxes that produce them, 
 they have forgotten their pledges, forgotten 
 the interest of the state and the claims of 
 justice, — our opponents have shown their 
 vassalage to these petted and domineering 
 
38 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 creatures of the law, not only by sustaining 
 and endorsing the most serious Populist faults 
 and errors in unauthorized concessions to at 
 least one of the great corporations, but by 
 adding still more to this wrong, and enlarg- 
 ing the favoritism by a further release from 
 their public burdens to increase the load on 
 other interest, we will demonstrate to our 
 crafty adversories the greater opportunity 
 that they have of calling their faithless ser- 
 vants to account for their more brazen subserv- 
 ience to flu 1 outrageous claims <>f the Santa Fe 
 company. 
 
 1-4 NO TRIPLE ALLIANCE FOR REFORMERS. 
 
 Whenever this overpowering and seeming- 
 ly fascinating corporation can, with the Re- 
 publican party and the Populist party, form 
 a "triple alliance" for the purpose of defraud- 
 ing all other interests save those of this com- 
 pany, and for suppressing the evidence of 
 questionable concessions to it, the evidence 
 without doubt will remain intra parictes, or in 
 the shade. But it takes three parties to 
 form a triple alliance: and it requires the 
 presence and sanction of authorized agents in 
 so important a matter as that referred to, to 
 bind the principals. 
 
 The weak part in the chain of diplomacy is 
 the fact thai the Populists ore not a party to the 
 coalition. What ever their officials or servants 
 may have promised, or done, or failed to do, 
 was not only without authority, but in dis- 
 obedience of orders, and the Populist party re- 
 jects the bribe. Though through Populist folly 
 a great wrong has been done, it was the folly 
 of individuals whose sinuous course and old 
 party tactics the party itself has had no op- 
 portunity to either approve, whitewash, or 
 condemn. The party should not and really 
 
HEW TO THE LINE-THEN AND NOW. 39 
 
 cannot be held responsible for the duplicity 
 of its servants unless it endorses or hides 
 their dubious tricks. 
 
 The release from reasonable and proper 
 public burdens of the Santa Fe company was 
 not granted by a Populist board, but was 
 done after the board had completed their 
 work and adjourned sine die, and turned over 
 the minutes of their proceedings to their sec- 
 retary to be figured and footed, and the neces- 
 sary returns sent to the counties and com- 
 panies. 
 
 15. THE GRIP OF A GREAT CORPORATION. 
 
 Not so with the Republicans. What they 
 have done in endorsing the changes made in 
 the Populist board's figures they have done 
 as an official board; and the greater favors 
 shown the Santa Fe company, than the 
 ceived by the changes made in the Populist 
 board's figures after they had adjourned, were 
 granted by the present board in their official 
 capacity, and with the facts before them. 
 
 Either through carelessness or a lack of 
 judgment, the Populist Senate permitted the 
 opportunity to say whether or not they rati- 
 fied the coalition between Populist officials, 
 the Republican party and the Santa Fe com- 
 pany to pass by. They rejected the oppor- 
 tunity to make a record for the information of 
 the public; of the work of this heterogeneous 
 cabal. While in this failure, thej T made a 
 serious mistake, this does not make the party 
 responsible for the infamous favors shown 
 by its appointees to the Santa Fe Co. , or for 
 their successful efforts in suppressing the 
 evidence of their doings. It was this care- 
 lessness or lack of judgment which seemed to 
 sanction the doctored assessors report of 1894 
 that gave the new administration the oppor- 
 
40 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 tunity of granting greater favors to the Santa 
 Fe company than they obtained by the sur- 
 reptitious work on that report after the 
 board had adjourned. Had it not been for 
 the belief that the unauthorized concessions 
 granted this company by Populist officials, 
 and the refusal of the Senate to turn on the 
 light, indicated a strong enough power 
 among Populist wire pullers to force an en- 
 dorsment of this triple alliance, does any one 
 believe the Republican party would have 
 dared to not only uphold and approve this 
 enormous and unauthorized favoritism, but 
 to show their infatuation and servility by 
 still greater concessions to this then bank- 
 rupt corporation that as yet makes no pre- 
 tense of owning any state government but 
 that of Kansas'? 
 
 16 BLIND WATCHMEN TO RETIRE. 
 
 Kansas has been making history in the past 
 four years as rapidly as did the pioneers of 
 forty years ago. The Populist party have 
 contributed their share in this, without doing 
 all they should have done with the oppor- 
 tunities they have had. For what they have 
 accomplished under trying circumstances and 
 in spite of the multitudinous obstacles with 
 which a snarling, unscrupulous and baffled 
 opposition has attempted to surround or en- 
 trap them, they are entitled to the lasting 
 gratitude of the whole people. It would be 
 strange if a force so suddenly recruited — so 
 largely made up of comparative strangers — 
 should under the most favorable circum- 
 stances, accomplish as much as they hoped 
 to, or that they would move forward with 
 the quiet assurance of disciplined veterans. 
 It was inevitable that they should miscalcu- 
 late and misjudge; that they should straggle 
 
HEW TO THE LINE-THEN AND NOW. 41 
 
 and grumble even on trivial occasions, that 
 they should make mistakes. It is no less cer- 
 tain that as a party, they are ready to retrace 
 their steps, and to call down faithless guides, 
 imcompetent, leaders short sighted lookouts 
 and color-blind watchmen whenever their 
 errors are revealed or their defects exposed. 
 Nor is it less sure that a rugged road and a 
 brief and stormy experience have qualified 
 and fitted them to grapple with the serious 
 questions that confront the people of the 
 state and the nation. 
 
 17. CORRECTING THE RECORDS TO 
 "HEW TO THE LINE." 
 
 Two or three events during my connection 
 with the state government, in which I was 
 personally interested, require for the good of 
 the party and the cause of justice to be bet- 
 ter understood. Some who have scored for 
 me to hew have been displeased and disap- 
 pointed that my blade failed to follow the 
 wind and wobble of their scoring and they 
 have used the opportunities given them by 
 their positions as servants of the party to 
 encourage and support false impressions and 
 erroneous conclusions. These are matters in 
 which not only the Populist party but the 
 whole people of the state are interested. 
 The part I have taken with reference to 
 these transactions and events having been 
 misunderstood, my purpose at times misrep- 
 resented, and my reasonable requests as a 
 state officer denied, I should culpably ignore 
 the instructions I have received toassistthe Pop- 
 ulists to hen: to the line, if I did not help them to 
 reach conclusions on these matters not wholly 
 based on the sly insinuations or garbled allega- 
 tions of those interested in keeping the facts 
 in the back ground, or on the ex parte state- 
 ments of Populist fixers or railroad lobbyists. 
 
42 GUTTING THE GORMAN KNOT. 
 
 In doing my part in turning on the light to 
 enable the Populist party to see the breakers 
 ahead, and the wake — the foot prints and 
 earmarks of the wire pullers and fixers be- 
 hind. I shall confine myself to matters that 
 have been part of my personal experience; 
 matters which interest not the party alone, 
 but the whole people and which I learn are 
 neither fairly stated by some of my self ap- 
 pointed critics, nor generally understood by 
 my friends. Misunderstanding and a lack of 
 information, concerning these matters have 
 been a detriment to the party, and in doing 
 my part to aid in correcting them I can do no 
 less than make the evidence in reference to 
 these matters sufficiently plain to remove 
 this mischevious misunderstanding. 
 
 "I must be cruel only to be kind." 
 
 1 la i„ict, Act IIT, Scene IV. 
 
 Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace 
 To silence* envious tongues. Be just and fear not: 
 Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy countrys, 
 Thy God's and truths." 
 
 Henry VIII, Act ITT, Scene II. 
 
 18. KANSANS TO THE FRONT. 
 
 Men of Kansas! We must throw off our 
 stupor and cast aside the chalice of our 
 idolatry. We must throw ourselves "Once 
 more into the breach," to stop the march of 
 the present co-operating twin relics of 
 barbarism and rescue the Republic. The op- 
 portunity is again ours. We havq^jracries 
 of the down trodden and oppressed 1|||||p on 
 every breeze from North, South, Wsk and 
 West to aid us in throwing off our apathy, 
 and to incite us to emulate the noble and 
 historic deeds of our predecessors; to incite 
 us to cast to the winds the chalice of our 
 superstition and rend the vestments of our 
 idolatry. A thousand times more than forty 
 years ago when 
 
HEW TO THE LINE-THEN AND NOW. 4-> 
 
 "Freedom from her mountain height 
 Unfurled her standard to the air," — 
 
 A thousand times more than when 
 
 "She placed in Kansas' outstretched hand 
 The symbol of her chosen land," 
 
 have we the opportunity to break the spell 
 
 of the Golden calf, to light the funeral pyre 
 
 of Plutocracy's bastile, and set up again the 
 
 Ark of the Covenant in its ashes? Then it 
 
 was but a handful of hardy and adventurous 
 
 spirits who gathered here to defy the mighty 
 
 slave power of the South backed by the 
 
 Federal government. 
 
 They had the sympathy of but a bare 
 
 majority at the North when they turned their 
 
 cabins into castles to face the onslaught 
 
 from the South. In the marshaling of the 
 
 forces for the coming struggle we have the 
 
 full but undirected sympathy of a majority at 
 
 the North that will ultimately become our 
 
 allies, and we also have the chance to call to 
 
 our aid the valiant and oppressed men of 
 
 the South. It is for us to say, by acts rather 
 
 than words, whether we have the brawn and 
 
 the patriotism to improve it. 
 
44 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT 
 
 The Sunflower Tangle and Its Critics, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Contents: 1. A Surprise. 2. Political Chaperones 
 and the Independent Press. 3. Personal In- 
 terest Ignored. 4. A Reasonable Expectation. 
 5. Some Strong Endorsements. 6. Features of 
 the Bill. 7. The Suffragists Win — and Lose. 
 8. ALuckyMistake(?). 9. The National Outlook. 
 10. Build a Calf. 11. Side Issues of '96. 12 The 
 Great Questiou of the Present. 13 Why the ad- 
 dress to the Convention of '94. 14. My Purpose 
 in Untangling the "Tangle " 15. The Pledge to 
 Move Forward 16 Kansas Takes the Initiative. 
 17. Striking Conditions Summarized. 18. But 
 one Peaceable Corrective Possible. 19. Ameri- 
 can's not Made for the Constitution. 20. God's 
 Law still in Force. 21. Mathematics and Cy- 
 clones. 22. Amusing the Thieves; Stop It! 
 
 23. Taxing a Luxury to Enforce God's Law. 
 
 24. If not as Purifying as the Sword, Still Good 
 Enough for us. 
 
 1. A SURPRISE. 
 
 'HE appearance of "TJie Sunflower Tangle" 
 on the eve of the meeting of our State 
 Convention two years ago, created universal 
 surprise throughout the State. While there 
 was a strong desire among a few of the 
 "fixers" of the party to find some excuse for 
 booming a new candidate for Lieutenant 
 Governor, on account of my failure to partici- 
 pate in their projects and second all their 
 motions, their expressions of dissatisfaction 
 had been confined to an occasional subdued 
 growl, and it was conceded, as there was no 
 plausible excuse for a change, I would be re- 
 nominated with the major part of the ticket. 
 
THE SUNFLOWER TANGLE AND ITS CRITICS. !."< 
 
 The appearance however of my printed ad- 
 dress to the delegates just before the meet- 
 ing gave my opponents a position on which 
 to mass their batteries. 
 
 2. POLITICAL CHAPERONES AND THE INDE- 
 
 PENDENT (?) PRESS. 
 
 My experience at that time shows the 
 danger of incurring the displeasure o f the 
 party fixers. Had I fully realized this before 
 the address was issued, the "Sunflower Tangle" 
 would have been written and sent to the dele- 
 gates just the same; but I should have had it 
 out in time for them to have learned what it 
 said without the aid of a chaperone, that its 
 object might not have been misunderstood, 
 nor my purpose successfully misrepresented. 
 
 It came out but a few days before the con- 
 vention met and was received by but few be- 
 fore they left their homes. 
 
 The independent press — independent of 
 any veneration for the truth as such — with 
 their usual willingness to promote discord in 
 Populist ranks, gave a sufficient twist to its 
 statements to boom the schemes of the w T ire 
 workers whose 'claim that the lieutenant 
 governor was trying to dictate the platform, 
 enable them to carry their point. I was cen- 
 sured, not only by those who became open 
 enemies for w T hat they called an arbitrary pur- 
 pose, but by my friends for giving the former 
 a foothold. Friends have wondered and 
 asked, they have imagined, surmised, queried 
 and guessed to learn my motive. They have 
 assigned various reasons, but none have di- 
 vined the full motive and purpose of "The 
 Sunflower Tangle." 
 
 3. PERSONAL INTEREST IGNORED. 
 
 As I had never bought political honors or 
 lobbied at conventions in hopes of a reward. 
 the address was not classed as designed for a 
 
46 CUTTING THE GORD1AN KNOT. 
 
 personal benefit. So far, critics were right. 
 My own interest or desires were not con- 
 sidered. "The Sunflower Tangle" dealt with 
 great national questions, without the slightest 
 consideration of individual ambition, interests 
 or preferences. The expectation was that 
 the importance of the main proposition it 
 contained, — that for the recognition of the 
 principle of Graduated Property Taxation in 
 the platform --if concurred in by the con- 
 vention, w T ould be developed by the discussion 
 that would inevitably have followed its 
 adoption. Had the measure been endorsed, 
 and its working when enacted become under- 
 stood by campaign discussions, the Populist 
 nominees would have swept the state. How 
 small then appears the efforts of the cabal 
 whose members or agents meandered between 
 the hotels and the depots to interview dele- 
 gates and cram them with pointers about one 
 man's efforts to dictate a platform. 
 
 4. A REASONABLE EXPECTATION. 
 
 Certainly there were substantial grounds 
 for the belief that the measure would receive 
 thoughtful examination from the convention. 
 It had many friends and supporters among 
 the delegates, and in addition to this fact, it 
 had received the endorsement of representa- 
 tive bodies enough in the state to have in- 
 sured under ordinary circumstances, not 
 only its consideration but its recognition as a 
 party measure. The suggestions in the "Sun- 
 flower Tangle" were also made in compliance 
 with an invitation in the Omaha platform, ex- 
 tended to all Populists to aid in the formula- 
 tion of amendments to that document, which, 
 conceding it was not complete, promised that 
 the forces there organized "would never cease 
 to move forward until every wrong is 
 
THE SUNFLOWER TANGLE AND ITS CRITICS. 47 
 
 righted. " This latter fact should have been 
 sufficient to annul the charge of presumption 
 used by my critics had their first consideration 
 been that of party welfare for the public good, 
 without the endorsements the measure had 
 received. 
 
 5 SOME STRONG ENDORSEMENTS. 
 
 But in addition to this invitation in the 
 platform, the measure at that time had re- 
 ceived the approval of 
 
 The Kansas Alliance in 1889, 
 
 The Crawford County Peoples Party con- 
 vention of 1891. 
 
 My nomination for lieutenant governor in 
 1892 was a result of my advocacy and defense 
 of this measure. 
 
 The Kansas Senate, after an all-day debate 
 on Feb. 10th, 1893, passed a concurrent reso- 
 lution (No. 15) as follows (Preamble omitted) : 
 
 " Resolved by the Senate of the State of Kansas, the 
 House of representatives concurring therein, that 
 our Senators in Congress be instructed and our Rep- 
 resentatives be requested to use their influence and 
 votes for the purpose of procuring the passage of 
 the said bill, House — No. 6595. 
 
 Rexolced, That a copy of this preamble and these 
 resolutions be sent to the President of the Senate 
 and Speaker of the House, to each of the Kansas 
 delegation in Congress and to the presiding officer of 
 every State Senate in the Nation." 
 
 The resolution was adopted without di- 
 vision after its opponents had exhausted par- 
 liamentary tactics to defeat a vote. On a roll 
 call on the resolution without the preamble, 
 the vote would have stood: For it 27, Against 
 13. *It went to the Dunsmore House Feb. 
 13th, was referred to the committee on Fed- 
 eral Relations, reported back Feb. 17th and 
 concurred in without opposition Feb. 21st. 
 The friend-; of the measure comprised a 
 
 *S*e Senate Journal pages 253, 297. 312. 13. 14, 15: And Duns- 
 more House Journal pp. 263, 298, 310. 
 
48 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 majority of the Kansas Legislature after the 
 Supreme Court decision had brought the 
 two hostile wings together and the Republi- 
 cans had completed their program of unseat- 
 ing Populist members. 
 
 6. FEATURES OF THE BILL. 
 
 H. R. 6595 was the Graduated Property Tax 
 Bill which I drew up in February, 1892, and 
 Representative Clover introduced on the 27th 
 of that month. The same bill was introduced 
 in the Senate by Mr. Peffer, being bill No. 
 2615 of the Senate Series. It provides: 
 
 First. For a tax of from one to eighteen 
 per cent, per annum, on the property in excess 
 of $1,000,000 owned by any one person. 
 
 Second. That the funds raised by it should 
 be apportioned among the states; one-third in 
 proportion to their wealth; one-third in pro- 
 portion to their population; and one-third in 
 proportion to their area. 
 
 Third. That the money should be expended 
 (after paying from it the cost of assessment 
 and collection) for three specific purposes, as 
 follows: 
 
 First: For paying the pensions and other 
 war charges. 
 
 Second: For employing all idle labor on ex- 
 tensive public improvements in every organ- 
 ized county of the country, in building and 
 improving roads, canals, reservoirs and parks. 
 
 Third: For paying all the expenses of the 
 state military establishments. 
 
 The bill was again sent to Congress in the 
 summer of 1893 and my petition for its passage 
 was approved, and endorsed by the executive 
 officers of the state from the Governor down. 
 
 As the request for the consideration of the 
 measure was made in compliance with an 
 invitation extended by our National platform ; 
 and with so generous a backing as the propo- 
 
THE SUNFLOWER TANC.LEAND ITS CRITICS. 4!) 
 
 sition had received, would it have been reas- 
 onable to expect that its deliberate consider- 
 ation could have been defeated by the most 
 energetic efforts of a small but mighty band 
 of wire pullers on the flimsy pretext that I was 
 trying to dictate the platform? I think not. 
 Under the circumstances it was reasonable 
 to expect that my position would ' be neither 
 misrepresented or misunderstood. In com- 
 pliance with the invitation of our national 
 platform I asked our convention to accept the 
 Graduated Property Tax — a measure which 
 had received the endorsement of their Legis- 
 lature and State Officers — as a substitute for 
 the Sub-treasury Bill. I felt satisfied that the 
 deliberate judgment of the party's represent- 
 atives was in favor of the measure, though 
 they might not be convinced of the propriety 
 of its adoption at that time; and so the expect- 
 ation that my appeal would be considered 
 without listening to the chatter of the "states- 
 men four", was neither presumptious nor un- 
 reasonable. 
 
 7. THE SUFFRAGISTS WIN — AND LOSE. 
 
 There were soni9 mitigating circumstances 
 in connection with the action of the com- 
 mittee on resolutions. They permitted the 
 women suffragists to monopolize almost the 
 entire time given to the consideration of 
 platform, incluling all the day (after their 
 appointment) and much of the night; becoming 
 so exhilerated and then dazed and finally worn 
 out by the logic, facts and millinery, that 
 when they awoke from their dreams in which 
 they seemed to have been '"Fighting like fiends 
 for conciliation" they voted to report against 
 the weight of the evidence and flutter of rib- 
 bons; then the convention reversed them. 
 and later the people sustained the committee. 
 
50 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 Another unfortunate circumstance was 
 that I was in such poor health at that time as 
 to be unable to be out in the evening; and 
 when the committee had heard the long story 
 of the suffragists through, they were so 
 nearly fagged out and I was not present to 
 defend the # graduated tax proposition that 
 they rejected it after a little superficial com- 
 ment and casual consideration. The conven- 
 tion reversed the committee on what the com- 
 mittee evidently considered the more im- 
 portant measure, but on the same crafty argu- 
 ment that prejudiced and prevailed with the 
 committee, they accepted the latters conclu- 
 sions on the tax question. Defeat followed. 
 Why. has already been considered. 
 
 8. A LUCKY MISTAKE(?) 
 
 Had this measure been included in the 
 platform, its discussion would have drawn 
 attention somewhat from the errors of our 
 administration, and brought to their aid 
 friends of the measure, some of whom did not 
 vote, and some voted other tickets. Six 
 weeks after the convention and but three 
 weeks before he died, ex-Governor Robinson, 
 who believed that success under then exist- 
 ing conditions was absolutely impossible, 
 w T rote me as follows: 
 
 "If the book (meaning the Sunflower Tn?igle^ and 
 other arguments in support of the measure it de- 
 fended) could be endorsed by the Populist party as a 
 campaign document and distributed by the com- 
 mittee and candidates, success would be assured." 
 
 The view of Governor Lewelling expressed 
 
 in a letter to me dated Nov. 13th, 1894, in 
 
 which he said, "lam inclined to think all is 
 
 for the best. Our party will now be stripped of 
 
 a number of spoils hunters,*' seems more and 
 
 more the right one. We can safely say the 
 
 errors of that campaign were our good 
 
THE SUNFLOWER TANGLE AND ITS CRITICS. 51 
 
 fortune; as without the defeat, the faults of 
 our administration could not have been cast 
 in the shade by the follies, scandals, and 
 dilly-dallying of our successors; and the 
 venom of our disappointed adversaries would 
 all the time have been spreading its poison, 
 while the disintegrating influences of the 
 spoils hunters among the Populists might 
 have gone on till they reached among us, the 
 pinnacle they now occupy in the Republican 
 camp, and made success impossible this year. 
 In Kansas we now have an opportunity that 
 probably would not have been within our 
 reach but for that defeat;— an opportunity to 
 call out the former stay-at-home vote, absorb 
 the Democratic kickers, and make a flying 
 switch for the Republican land slide that will 
 send the old party machine cavorting among 
 a yard full of "empties." 
 
 9. THE NATIONAL OUTLOOK. 
 
 In the Nation the situation is changing so 
 rapidly that with a judicious use of our op- 
 portunities, success there also now looks 
 possible. It was with National questions 
 that the "Sunflower Tangle" dealt, and National 
 success in 1896 was the object for which it 
 was written; but at that time we all felt that 
 success in Kansas in '94 would contribute to 
 National victory in '96. Now the wisdom of 
 that belief is not so apparent. But whatever 
 influence that might have had, is immaterial 
 
 now 
 
 The campaign of '96 is upon us. The 
 questions and conditions of '96 are here for 
 us to grapple with, and to solve. The meas- 
 ures advocated and defended in the Tangle 
 are more pertinent now than in '94. and the 
 necessity for such legislation is more readily 
 discerned. In these two years the millionaire 
 
5? CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 anarchists have tightened the screws on the 
 slaves. They have put in operation new 
 schemes of plunder. They have taken a new 
 mterest in sowing the seeds of our national 
 paganism, that they may be adored as its- 
 prophets. 
 
 10 - BUILD A CALF. 
 
 The great central principle of this creed 
 teaches men that the one great duty of life is 
 to build a Golden Calf. No matter how. just 
 build it, There is nothing else to strive for 
 on earth. Build a god and get into it. Then 
 you can enjoy the worship of fools and the 
 envy of the world. The more that are robbed 
 for supplying the treasure, the greater will 
 be your satisfaction. Build a palace. The 
 more bones worked into the foundation, and 
 tears in the mortar,— the more of labors homes 
 made bare or destroyed in the effort, the 
 greater your success. The more you can 
 plunder in doing it the greater the glory. 
 The more laborers that are thereby forced to 
 dress in rags and live in squalor, the better. 
 Spread inside a perpetual feast and fill the 
 nights with revelry. The more empty plates 
 and begging ones outside, the more you can 
 enjoy the Calf. This is the great theory we 
 are applauding the piratical schemers of the 
 present time for following; the great lesson 
 we have set for the rising generation to learn. 
 
 11 ■ SIDE ISSUES OF '96. 
 
 This species of paganism is the basis for 
 the worst form of imperialism. Republican- 
 ism does not and cannot share honors with it. 
 The antipathy between them is vital and end- 
 less. One or the other must go down. The 
 question of '96 is. which. The free silver 
 skirmish is only an incident(V) The tariff fake 
 is now but an incident. The per capita circu- 
 
THE SUNFLOWER TANGLE AND ITS CRITICS. 53 
 
 latioii has become but a feeble incident. 
 When those who have, by opportunity, 
 treachery, and favors gotten the property of 
 the nation want free silver or no silver, high 
 tariff or low, more money or less, these 
 changes will be made in a night. 
 
 The case is human rights versus money 
 rights. Man versus dollars. The true God 
 versus the Golden Calf. And men who are 
 lured by the fallacious twitter of the cunning 
 and corrupt servants of Plutocracy to ignore 
 the great main question for the purpose of 
 defending one side or the other of either of 
 these incidental questions, had as well ex- 
 haust their logic and expend their oratory to 
 decide, as they gather around the Calf they 
 worship, which their Aaron "fashioned with 
 a graving tool after he had made it a Golden 
 Calf* (Exodus xxxn, iv) whether the post of 
 honor is the head or the tail. 
 
 However important these questions of 
 tariff and silver and circulation may have 
 been in the past they have all become side 
 issues. They have dwindled to insignificance 
 now the wrongs that have been perpetrated 
 by a barbaric use of the opportunities their 
 discussion and manipulation has given the 
 "confidence" gang, are realized; and the 
 question of human rights versus money rights 
 is the one great question now before the jury 
 of 12,000,000 men. 
 
 12. THE GREAT QUESTION OF THE PRESENT. 
 
 The "Sunfloiver Tangle," while addressed to 
 the state convention, had no reference in its 
 purpose to state politics. The measure it 
 specifically advocated was drafted for the 
 double purpose of again making the industrial 
 classes prosperous, independent and content- 
 
54 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 ed; and for outlining a plan which the plun- 
 dered masses, North and South, would be- 
 mutually interested in pushing to success. 
 A plan 
 
 Of co-operation for saving the Nation, 
 
 Of the bold Johnny Rebs and the brave Billy Yanks. 
 
 It was intended as an effort first, to re-estab- 
 lish the rule of justice by overturning the 
 Golden Calf, destroying monopoly, and restor- 
 ing to the victims of its greed and lust its 
 concentrated forces; and second, to insure the 
 mustering of a force of patriots sufficient to> 
 carry out the first purpose. 
 
 The first purpose was apparent to the casual 
 reader; but the second, though the general 
 features of the project had been published 
 hundreds of times, discussed and debated 
 occasionally for years by reformers, and crit- 
 icised, berated and lampooned by its oppo- 
 nents, the important points in the details of 
 the project, by which 
 
 The Brigadier's of labors legions 
 Called from North and Southern regions, 
 Could call down the tyrant and twist the spine 
 Of the greedy usurpers, the millionaire cranks, 
 
 had not been discovered or disclosed. 
 
 13. WHY THE ADDRESS TO THE CONVEN- 
 TION OF '94, 
 
 In asking the convention to sustain the 
 action of the Populist legislature and state 
 officers, my wish was that there might be 
 ample time for these features of the measure 
 to be discussed and understood, and its far- 
 reaching effects be realized before the cam- 
 paign of this year began. But the mastodons 
 of political intrigue and pigmies of states- 
 manship, in prancing through the corridors 
 and meandering to the stations were able to 
 
THE SUNFLOWER TANGLE AND ITS CRITICS. 55 
 
 burn brimstone enough about the Sunflower 
 Tangle so that its contents could not be dis- 
 cerned or its meaning realized on account of 
 the smoke and the fumes. 
 
 14. MY PURPOSE IN UNTANGLING THE 
 TANGLE. 
 
 It is due to these wary and successful oppo- 
 nents of my request contained therein, to the 
 convention of two years ago, that they knew 
 how much of a detriment, even when judged 
 by the supple touch-stone of expediency, their 
 action was to the cause they support. It is 
 due to the disconcerted friends in Kansas of 
 graduated taxation, to know how little con- 
 sideration for the public good flavored the 
 inuendoes or spiced the councils of those who 
 then appeared as enemies of this project. And 
 it is due to the people of the state to realize 
 and understand how little of public welfare or 
 the interest of the community, — how little of 
 the true spirit of statesmanship imparts any 
 flavor to political intrigues; to know how 
 much of its crust is petty jealousies; how much 
 of its filling is loaves and fishes, and how 
 much of its spice is selfish and pernicious 
 ambitions. 
 
 The cultivation of these abnormal and mis- 
 chievous characteristics, is one of the leading 
 arts in our political life. The ability of men 
 who depend on their use to attract attention, 
 and command the support of others who 
 detest deception and intrigue, is one of the 
 unfortunate and mysterious circumstances of 
 American politics. Those who look at the 
 back of the mask the mandarins of this order 
 of Mamalukes wear as they meander and 
 prance and plead to auction off their favors, 
 see it is but a filmy texture of deceit. Culti- 
 vating these traits so industriously year after 
 
56 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 year, has finally made the greatest emulation 
 between political parties, the emulation of 
 fraud. The dangers that beset us now, not 
 only invite and entreat us, but they command 
 us to so modify our methods and harmonize 
 our purposes with the grand designs on the 
 first trestle board of the Republic, that the 
 jealousies and acrimony of the partisian may 
 be covered by the toga of the statesman. 
 
 My purpose in untangling The Sunflower Tan- 
 gle will be to show friends and enemies what 
 it meant, and what opportunities the project 
 it advocates offers to the victims of our new 
 system of slavery, to escape from an odious 
 bondage, and repossess their lost heritage by 
 utilizing an underground railroad, the plans 
 and profiles of which are on record therein; 
 an .underground railroad with a certainty of 
 operation and capacity of service equal to the 
 work of carrying the last one of the slaves of 
 to-day, from the bondsman's bare hut back to 
 the freeman's home. 
 
 In doing this, it is with a hope that the 
 knowledge of what it did mean, will so 
 nearly compensate the wire pullers that were 
 able to defeat its earnest and thoughtful con- 
 sideration, aside from the question of offices 
 and plums, that they as victors will ask no 
 indemnity ; but accept instead, the opportunity 
 it gives them for extending the field of their 
 labors in the political arena, beyond the nar- 
 row confines of political intrigue to balance 
 the account. 
 
 15. THE PLEDGE TO MOVE FORWARD. 
 
 The Omaha platform pledges the party to 
 continue to move forward till every wrong is 
 righted. Plundering the masses to enrich the 
 classes is the greatest wrong existing in 
 America in 1896. This is one of the wrongs 
 
THE SUNFLOWER TANGLE AND ITS CRITICS. D( 
 
 the Populist party is pledged to correct, but 
 the Omaha convention failed to find any one 
 project, or any assortment of projects that 
 would do this, on which a majority could agree. 
 
 16. KANSAS TAKES THE INITIATIVE. 
 
 As Kansas has headed the Populist column, 
 it is but natural that we should take the in- 
 itiative in agreeing on some project that would 
 supply this deficiency. The bill which was 
 petitioned for by the Populist state officers 
 and endorsed by a Populist Legislature in 
 Senate Concurrent resolution No. 15 three 
 years ago, is such a measure. It received the 
 sanction of the Populist Senate after an all- 
 day debate because it was such a measure: 
 And it received the endorsement without de- 
 veloping the strongest features in the bill for 
 disarming Plutocracy. Before proceeding 
 -with a consideration of these special points, 
 let us pause to summarize the conditions that 
 require the immediate application of radical 
 remedies. 
 
 17. STRIKING CONDITIONS SUMMARIZED. 
 
 A rough estimate of the nation's wealth is 
 $65,000,000,000. 
 
 Fifty per cent, of this property is owned by 
 less than 23,000 persons, or one one-thirtieth 
 of one per cent, of the people. 
 
 Thirty per cent, more of it is owned by 
 about 122,00J persons, and fifteen per cent, 
 more by about 155,000 persons. 
 
 So ninety-five per cent, of our accumulated 
 wealth is held by 300,000 persons. 
 
 Most of these accumulations are the result 
 of corrupt processes, unholy methods and 
 unjust legislation. 
 
 Most of this wealth has been produced by 
 the 'ninety -nine per cent, of the families of the 
 nation who still retain 5 per cent, of its wealth. 
 
58 PUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 All the destitution, present hard times, lack 
 of work, and discontent; and most of the 
 crimes committed and the cost of finding 'and 
 punishing violators of criminal laws, are a 
 result of these unjust conditions and of the 
 opportunities they offer, and the power they 
 give for their extension. 
 
 18. BUT ONE PEACEABLE CORRECTIVE 
 POSSIBLE. 
 
 The only possible way to either stop their growth 
 or to undo the wrongs we have permitted to 
 grow till they have enslaved the masses and 
 threaten, as they ought, the life of the 
 Republic, is to destroy the power of the men 
 who own the accumulated forces of money for 
 continuing their work: their power to hold the 
 battle-ax of starvation over the heads of labor. 
 
 We cannot by peaceable methods destroy 
 their power to do this without increasing the 
 ability of labor to resist it. 
 
 We cannot decrease the offensive armament 
 of the capitalist, without increasing the de- 
 fensive position of the laborer. 
 
 We cannot make restitution to labor for the 
 wrongs of the past without a re-adjustment of 
 economic condition and opportunities, that 
 Avill restore to the laborer, a part, at least, of 
 that which he has earned and lost because 
 the government of a republic,- — of this Republic 
 — has for a third of a century constantly aided 
 his oppressors, 
 
 Taxation is the only peaceable process by 
 which a re-adjustment of economic conditions 
 can be reached , or by which the power of capital 
 to continue its barbarities can be destroyed. 
 
 Taxation is the only avenue through which 
 the plunder now in the pockets of the multi- 
 millionaires can be collected for restoration to 
 its risrhtful owners. 
 
THE SUNFLOWER TANGLE AND ITS CRITICS ")i> 
 
 19. AMERICANS NOT MADE FOR THE 
 
 CONSTITUTION. 
 
 If a constitutional prohibition of such a 
 process has been recently discovered or in- 
 vented, we must admit, that, as the constitu- 
 tion was drawn to administer justice and not 
 to enforce injustice, our duty requires its 
 amendment. "The Sabbath was made for 
 man, and not man for the Sabbath.*' The 
 Constitution was made for Americans, and 
 not Americans for the Constitution. It is not 
 strange that men 110 years ago were not able 
 to quite make it fit our present conditions; 
 but they told us how to proceed to supply its 
 deficiencies — as we have done several times 
 already — or to make a new one. 
 
 20. GOD'S LAW STILL IN FORCE. 
 
 The most, if not the only, available methods 
 of restoring this plunder to the masses, are: 
 First, through its expenditure in the employ- 
 ment of all idle labor, at good wages on public 
 works, and in the purchase of supplies, 
 material, and sites therefor. Second, by de- 
 creasing the burden of present taxation. 
 
 This will not only start a process of com- 
 pensation to all present idle laborers, but at 
 the same time it will begin making restitution 
 to all other labor by increasing wages; by 
 stopping taxes for the support of the idle. 
 and by decreasing the cost of the criminal 
 classes; besides a decrease of taxation for the 
 regular appropriations of the National gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 The interests profiting by the reign o: in- 
 justice claim that they have repealed God's 
 law "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat 
 bread/' which carries with it the right— the 
 inalienable and inherent right — to an oppor- 
 tunity to do this, and the right to live. 
 
60 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 This claim is a fraud and a lie. Their vicious 
 use of boughten power has enabled them to 
 close the book in which it is written, and 
 render it inoperative; but the book will be 
 reopened and this righteous decree again 
 proclaimed from every house top, and the 
 thunder of this message will shake the foun- 
 dations of the palaces of those who protest 
 and turn for consolation and aid to the frail 
 god they have fashioned "with a graving 
 tool." 
 
 21. MATHEMATICS AND CYCLONES. 
 
 The existence of these evidences of injus- 
 tice, oppression and wrong, does not simply 
 excuse a resort to positive and radical meas- 
 ures for correcting them. The knowledge of 
 these facts comes with the force of a com- 
 mand to all honest people; and it is only the 
 dishonest or the timid that will protest against 
 again making dollars the servant of the 
 people, instead of the people a servant of 
 dollars. 
 
 Most writers on these questions discern the 
 cause of the wrong and draw vivid pictures of 
 the situation. Some of them depict truthfully 
 the inevitable result of the continued growth 
 of the evil tendencies and pernicious condi- 
 tions against which they protest, They 
 lament it as men naturally do to find they are 
 in the path of an approaching cyclone. When 
 such a discovery is made they will not stop 
 long to discuss how the cyclone was formed. 
 Their interest and efforts will be directed to 
 stopping it. 01 getting out of the way. 
 
 Now the danger threatening our social 
 system is seen, our efforts should be directed- 
 to remedies and means of escape. 
 
 The question is asked by those who rejoice 
 in present conditions because they profit by 
 
THE SUNFLOWER TANGLE AM) ITS CRITICS 61 
 
 them, "What are you going to do about it"? 
 The tired tramps, — the plundered producers, 
 — the toiling industrialists,-- the weary 
 workers say, "What can we do about it"? 
 
 Do something. No matter if it is not the 
 best. A coming cyclone won't wait for long 
 mathematical calculations. A lighted fuse is 
 not concerned about the distance to the 
 powder chamber. Do something: then if that 
 is not the best, do something else. Don't 
 Wait for the fuse to burn out while trying to 
 figure out the best. You had better do some- 
 thing that is not the best than to do nothing. 
 Then do something for your sake, for your 
 children's sake, for justice and your country. 
 
 22. AMUSING THE THIEVES, STOP IT! 
 
 Taxation is our certain and available weap- 
 on of defense. We certainly have a right to 
 tax luxuries. All nations have, and we have 
 enforced it when we chose. The precedents 
 of a century show we hold this power. The 
 voice of common sense commands us to use it. 
 The voice of God approves the dictates of 
 common sense. We are amusing the thieves 
 by pelting them with clods. Stop it. Use the 
 stones of taxation to call them doivn. Then you 
 can discuss and dally over better ways. 
 
 The taxation of income is childs play. In- 
 ordinate wealth is a luxury. Tax inordinate 
 wealth — the property itself — not the profit 
 the plunderers can make by using it. 
 
 If one million dollars is not inordinate 
 wealth, two million is. If one million dollars 
 is not a luxury, two millions are. Tax the 
 second million. 
 
 If one million is not a luxury, fifty are. 
 Tax the forty -nine that you know make the 
 fortune a luxury. If we err, let us err with 
 too much generosity, but at the same time let 
 
62 CUTTING THE GORMAN KNOT. 
 
 us say to the haughty Plutocrats; "We will 
 not see the masses deprived of the ordinary 
 comforts of life, and much less of its necessi- 
 ties, for the sole purpose of having a few 
 peacocks — of seeing you revel in luxury.'' 
 
 Legislatures, Congress and the Courts are 
 given their power by our votes. The}' are 
 owned and operated by the Plutocrats. 
 Turn the rascals out. Destroy the power of 
 their masters to own them, by using the 
 engine of taxation, and by imposing it in 
 proportion to the ability to bear it; by gradu- 
 ated taxation as recommended by the greatest 
 statesman of our early history. Of our right 
 to do this, Senator Sherman said during a 
 debate over one of his compromising intrigues 
 to protect the trusts: 
 
 "Congress also has power to lay and collect taxes, 
 duties, imports and excises. It may exercise its 
 own discretion in acting upon this power. All 
 parties, from the foundation of the government, 
 have held that Congress may discriminate in select- 
 ing the objects and rates of taxation." 
 
 The right to tax what we please and at the 
 rate we please has been so universally ad- 
 mitted, that even Mr. Sherman makes no ef- 
 fort to dispute it. And ex-Senator Ingalls 
 adds his testimony as follows: 
 
 "When the supreme court decided that taxation 
 need not be for raising revenue, and that the power 
 to tax was, under the constitution, the power to 
 destroy, they placed in the hands of Lazarus a weap- 
 on against which Dives has neither shield nor armor." 
 
 23. TAXING A LUXURY TO ENFORCE GOD'S 
 LAW. 
 
 Let us, as urged by Jefferson, tax inordinate 
 wealth because it is a luxury, and on account 
 of its ability to bear it. 
 
 Let us do this for the purpose of wiping 
 out the crime of poverty and exterminating 
 the sin of want. 
 
the suxf: ower tangle and its crittcs. 63 
 
 Let us do this for the purpose of feeding 1 
 the hungry, clothing the naked, and selling 
 homes to the homeless. 
 
 Let us do this that government may have 
 all the money it requires to settle every 
 reasonable account and claim of the late war, 
 pensions included, without wringing it out of 
 the laboring masses. 
 
 In the great case pending, the factions sup- 
 porting the two sides seem to wear the honors 
 of independent cranks or cringing toadies. 
 Let us who support the side of human rights 
 and intend to uphold God's command, be 
 cranks enough to act the part of men. Let 
 us help to overturn the tables and disperse 
 the councils of the money changers, and to 
 scatter their superfluous and ill gotten dollars, 
 by the silent and certain process of taxation 
 and public expenditure. 
 
 We have common sense enough to know 
 that present conditions will not long continue, 
 and continue to develop in a Republic. 
 There has got to be a change. There will be 
 a change. Let us concede that a readjust- 
 ment through the taxing power is not the 
 best way. One thing we know. It's action 
 is positive. It's grip is relentless. It's call 
 is certain. It can tap the "barrels" of the 
 multi-millionaires as deftly as they have 
 filled them; and with a spirit of charity, hu- 
 manity, and philanthropy which they have 
 never shown in their schemes to rob the 
 masses. 
 
 24. IF NOT AS PURIFYING AS THE SWORD, 
 STILL, GOOD ENOUGH FOR US. 
 
 It may not be as purifying or rejuvenating 
 as the sword. Granted that it is not; it is 
 good enough for us. Then let us adopt it 
 and enforce it while statesmen are evolving 
 
64 CUTTING THE GORDIA.N KNOT. 
 
 some better way, — turning over a new leaf in 
 1896 that will restore to all law abiding 
 American citizens an equal opportunity for 
 the enjoyment of life, liberty and the pursuit 
 of happiness. 
 
 Let us speak in '96 "what we think in hard 
 words, 1 ' and follow the light that we have in 
 '96; that is, to take the most available path 
 out of our present difficulties; holding our- 
 selves ready to follow some better way when 
 our present over- worked and not under-fed 
 statesmen are able to show us the way to it; 
 or when these sleek and crafty valets of 
 Plutocracy are succeeded by men not shorn 
 of the common instincts of humanity and the 
 reasonable and righteous impulses of man- 
 kind. 
 
THE TANGLE UNTANGLED. 65 
 
 The Tangle Untangled. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Contents: 1. Dissecting the Bill. 2. What it Meant. 
 3. Who does it Tax? 4. How Much? 5. A Mild 
 Cathartic. 6. By Birthright and Precedent Kan- 
 sas Should Lead. 7. Diffusing the Plunder. 
 8. How to do This. 9. Banishing Forced Idle- 
 ness. 10. Maintaining the Militia. 11. Allotting 
 the Readjusting Current. 12. Into the Pockets 
 of Honest Labor. 13 Feasible, Just and Certain. 
 14. As to the Union Soldier. 15 Lending Gold 
 and Giving Manhood. 16. A New Party De- 
 mands Justice for the Veteran. 17 Talmage on 
 the Victors Return. 18. Grady on the Going of 
 the Vanquished 19. Ex-Rebels and Reciprocity. 
 20 The American Idea 21. Attack the Million- 
 aires. 22 Lifting a Burden from the Shoulders 
 of Labor. 23 Are you Ready for the Question? 
 24 The Angel of Reciprocity. 25 As to the In- 
 dustrial Classes. 26. Reviving God's Law. 
 
 27. What say you, Brigadiers of Labor's Legions? 
 
 28. Routing the Guerrillas of Plutocracy. 
 29.. As to the Ex- Confederate. 30 Another 
 Channel of Reciprocity. 31. How it Would 
 Work. 32. The Sense in Reciprocity— the Non- 
 sense in Animosity. 33. Let us Have Peace. 
 34 Labor's Jubilee. 
 
 DISSECTING THE BILL. 
 
 RAVING noticed the surface conditions 
 that appeals to every patriot and 
 Christian for immediate and radical measures 
 to change them, let us dissect the specific 
 measure which the Pojiulist State Govern- 
 ment of Kansas approved in 1893 and which 
 has been four times introduced in Congress, — 
 
66 CUTTING TBE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 first in February, 1892, and the last time 
 May 1st, 1896, now standing on the calender 
 as H. R. 8618, 1st S. 54th Congress. Origi- 
 nally it was No. 6595 which was its number at 
 the date of the action of the Kansas Legisla- 
 ture. 
 
 Let us examine this measure to see if it 
 will correct some of the wrongs from which 
 we as a people are suffering, and if it has the 
 attributes that should commend it to the in- 
 dustrial classes and draw from them sufficient 
 support to ensure its enactment. Let us see 
 what it meant when the Kansas Legisla- 
 ture asked Congress to enact it, and 
 
 2. WHAT IT MEANT 
 
 When the writer asked the Kansas People's 
 party convention to make room for it in their 
 platform. 
 
 The wisest or wickedest political conven- 
 tion that ever convened in Crawford county, 
 adopted, as part of their platform, Oct. 1st, 
 1891, the following Resolution: 
 
 Resolved, That we recommend the substitution 
 of a Graduated Estate Tax for a graduated Income 
 Tax in our National platform, the tax to begin at 
 •$1,000,000. That estates in excess of one million and 
 under two million dollars pay a one per cent, tax on 
 the excess. Estates of from two to five million 
 dollars pay a three per cent, rate on all above one 
 million. Estates from five to ten million dollars, a 
 rate of five per cent, additional, or eight per cent, 
 on all above one million. And estates over ten 
 million dollars ten per cent, more, or eighteen per 
 cent, on all over one million dollars. 
 
 H. R. 6595 of 1892 was drawn incompliance 
 with the above resolution, and in addition to 
 provisions for the assessment and collection 
 of a graduated property tax annually, it pro- 
 vided for paying all pensions and other war 
 charges, employing all idle labor on public 
 improvements and paying the cost of state 
 military departments from this fund. 
 
THE TANGLE UNTANGLED li, 
 
 3. WHO DOES IT TAX? 
 
 There are 10,000 persons in the United 
 States who hold over $25,000,000,000 of our 
 national accumulations, having from $1,000,- 
 000 to $175,000,000, each This bill purposes 
 to tax each one of them on what he has in 
 excess of $1,000,000. Many of them have 
 barely the round million. They would be 
 exempt. This would reduce the number to be 
 taxed to the vicinity of 8,500. 
 
 There are 2.730 organized counties in the 
 States, with an average population of 25,000. 
 This project would tax an average of three 
 persons in each 25,000, and commence a pro- 
 cess of imposing taxes in proportion to the 
 ability to pay it. 
 
 Had this average of 24,997 persons in each 
 county who would be benefited by this pro- 
 ject to gradually re-establish justice, better 
 wait before taking action, for the consent of 
 the other three whose ideas of justice and 
 right have been cultivated in the sajne way 
 as was Mills* religion ? Shall we wait for the 
 consent of the three before deciding to be 
 just to the 24,977? We will if we have taken 
 the side of those who demand the obliteration 
 of God's law. 
 
 4. HOW MUCH? 
 
 It would collect from these 8,500 people 
 whom we are protecting in the enjoyment of 
 the luxury of inordinate wealth, and from a 
 graduated tax on inheritances (begining a1 
 $100,000) the sum of $2,033,000,000 the firsl 
 year. 
 
 5. A MILD CATHARTIC. 
 
 When the strong arm of the governmenl 
 reaches for $2,000,000,003 a year from the 
 multi-millionaires, there will be no necessity 
 for further dis sussion over percapita circula- 
 tion, as those whose call at any time will be 
 
68 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 heeded will demand an increase. If the gov- 
 ernment belongs irrevocably to the specified 
 10,000 through the perfidy of men who are 
 their political vassals, no effort will be made 
 to replevin this plunder. The strong arm of 
 government will continue to be directed to 
 the oppression and impoverishment of 65,000- 
 000 people for the further gratification and 
 glory of our 10,000 millionaires. In that 
 event the 65,CCO,0CO servants should con- 
 tinue to wax eloquent and enthusiastic over 
 local questions and side issues, like the tariff 
 and "circulation." They should continue to 
 spell at the wordsgiven out by the masters; — 
 to discuss the questions furnished, and take 
 their medicine as prescribed. If the govern- 
 ment has not become the absolute and irretrievable 
 servant of capital, the time, for the people to deny 
 it, and to resume their inalienable rights, is in 
 1896. The way to do this is to resume their 
 prerogatives, and call down the haughty 
 Plutocrat that they have unwittingly allowed 
 to assume the power of a dictator, by the cer- 
 tain and peacable process of taxation. 
 
 The propriety of and imperative necessity 
 for corrective measures is conceded. The 
 Populist state government of Kansas record- 
 ed the fact that they favored the project now 
 before Congress, 
 
 To call down the tyrant and twist the spine 
 Of the greedy usurpers, the millionaire cranks. 
 
 6. BY BIRTHRIGHT AND PRECEDENT, 
 
 KANSAS SHOULD LEAD. 
 
 In the struggle to wipe out chattel slavery, 
 Kansas took the lead; and in the pending- 
 contest for the overthrow of industrial 
 slavery, she placed herself at the head of the 
 advancing column in 1893. Individual ambi- 
 tion and personal interest has helped to 
 
THE TANGLE UNTANGLED. til) 
 
 soften the blow she then struck at Plutocracy, 
 
 but a love for justice that was planted on 
 Kansas soil forty years ago, has become as 
 hardy as though indigenous. While ambi- 
 tion and error, prejudice and discord have 
 brought disaster to the hosts of reform in 
 Kansas, and carried joy to the enemies of 
 equal rights throughout the country, Kansas 
 will again be faithful to the principles 
 planted at her birth, watered with the best 
 blood, and bred in the bone. She will again 
 take her place at the head of the advancing 
 column of liberty \s legions, — of enlighten- 
 ment and progress. 
 
 We have seen that the demands of justice 
 call for a heavy tax on the luxury of ill gotten 
 and inordinate wealth to protect and employ 
 those who have not the opportunity to get it. 
 Also that the measure under consideration. — 
 after permitting the plunderers to lay aside a 
 million dollars apiece from their booty, — pro- 
 vides for collecting two billion dollars an- 
 nually from the balance, to begin the great 
 work of readjusting economic conditions and 
 restoring to the masses the right to the fruits 
 of their toil and the comforts of life. 
 
 7. DIFFUSING THE PLUNDER. 
 
 It costs us now to be governed, a little over 
 a billion dollars a year (national, state and 
 municipal). So the sum collected by this 
 project would be nearly twice as large as all 
 other public receipts. 
 
 This immense fund should not only be used 
 in a way that would restore it to the people 
 without delay, but to leave evidences of en- 
 during benefits. 
 
 8. HOW TO DO THIS. 
 
 The first draft on this fund provided for in 
 the bill, takes from the shoulders of the over- 
 
70 CUTTING THE G >RDIA.N KNOT. 
 
 taxed masses, the whole cost of pensions, in- 
 cluding a service pension when that is ordered. 
 In addition to that it provides for the pay- 
 ment to the ex-soldiers, the amount due them 
 on account of the difference in value between 
 the money they were paid in and coin, with 
 interest at 6 per cent, from Jan. 1st, 1866, 
 compounded semi-annually. 
 
 9. BANISHING FORCED IDLENESS. 
 
 The second appropriation which the 
 measure proposes to make from the proceeds 
 of this tax, is to employ all idle labor — the 
 forces which the gamblers have got cornered 
 and are holding down in the Slough of Des- 
 pond — on public improvements, and to pay 
 for tools, materials, rights of way and sites 
 for the same, in every organized county. 
 
 10. MAINTAINING THE MILITIA. 
 
 The third call on this fund is for the main- 
 tenance of the state military establishments, 
 thereby permitting the corporations and the 
 wealthy to pay the expenses of these depart- 
 ments, as the service rendered by state troops 
 is almost entirely in behalf of these interests. 
 
 11. ALLOTTING THE READJUSTING CURRENT. 
 
 The fundamental forces on which all in- 
 crease in wealth is based, are land, labor, 
 and money; the latter being the least im- 
 portant factor. In a process of readjustment 
 all of these factors should be called into use, 
 and we should be philosophical enough to give 
 them all equal force— give them all an 
 equality of energy,— though in the reverse 
 process. — the taxation provided for in the 
 constitution— the indiv iduals— labor— h a v < - 
 had to carry the whole burden. This pre- 
 cedent would justify a resort to the one factor 
 — labor — on which to base our efforts to cur- 
 tail the power of the millionaire cranks. 
 
THE TANGLE UNTANGLED. 
 
 But the American Laborer seeks only justice, 
 not vengeance. Hence this measure provides 
 that the net proceeds of this graduated tax on 
 inordinate wealth, shall be apportioned 
 among the states in proportion to the three 
 factors combined; one-third to area (land) — 
 one-third to population (labor) — and one-- 
 third to wealth (money). 
 
 Under such an apportionment a state with 
 one per cent, of the area, two per cent, of the 
 population, and three percent, of the wealth 
 would draw one- third of six percent, of <f>2,- 
 000,000,000, or $40,000,000. 
 
 Using the statistics of the 1890 census, the 
 states of Kansas and Georgia would draw 
 exactly the same amount, as follows: 
 
 Per Cent, of Total. Kansas 
 
 Area 3.1 
 
 Population 2.3 
 
 Wealth 1.4 
 
 Georgia 
 2.3 
 2,9 
 1.6 
 
 Total, . . 6.8 6.8 
 
 Six and eight-tenths per cent, of $2,000,- 
 000,000, divided by three, equals 815,333,333, 
 to be expended in each of these states the 
 first year. The following table show the ap- 
 portionment to some of the other states on 
 the same estimate of net receipts: 
 
 STATE. 
 
 New York 
 
 Pennsylvania. .. 
 
 Texas 
 
 California 
 
 Massachusetts 
 
 Illinois 
 
 Missouri 
 
 Iowa 
 
 New Jersey 
 
 Colorado 
 
 North Carolina 
 
 Arkansas 
 
 Rhode Island .. , 
 Deleware 
 
 Per 
 
 Cent. 
 
 of Total. 
 
 c8 
 < 
 
 c3 • 
 
 3 ~ 
 
 5 
 
 Ol 
 
 14.9 
 
 7? 
 o 
 
 1.8 
 
 9.6 
 
 26.3 
 
 1.8 
 
 8.4 
 
 10.4 
 
 20.6 
 
 10.5 
 
 3.6 
 
 3.1 
 
 17.2 
 
 6.0 
 
 2.9 
 
 4.3 
 
 13 2 
 
 0.3 
 
 3.6 
 
 8.5 
 
 12 4 
 
 2.1 
 
 6.1 
 
 3.2 
 
 11.4 
 
 2.5 
 
 4.3 
 
 3.5 
 
 10.3 
 
 2.1 
 
 3.1 
 
 2.0 
 
 7.2 
 
 0.3 
 
 2.3 
 
 3.5 
 
 6.1 
 
 4.0 
 
 0.7 
 
 0.9 
 
 5.6 
 
 1.9 
 
 2.6 
 
 0.9 
 
 5.4 
 
 2.0 
 
 1.8 
 
 0.3 
 
 4.5 
 
 00.05 
 
 0.6 
 
 1.3 
 
 195 
 
 00.08 
 
 0.3 
 
 0.3 
 
 0.68 
 
 APPORTION- 
 MENT. 
 
 ••$175,333,333 
 
 137,333,333 
 
 114,666,667 
 
 88,000,000 
 
 82,666,667 
 
 76,000,000 
 
 68,666,667 
 
 48,000,000 
 
 40,666,667 
 
 37,333,333 
 
 36,000,000 
 
 30,000,000 
 
 13,000,000 
 
 4,333,333 
 
CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 12. INTO THE POCKETS OF HONEST LABOR. 
 
 Having apportioned this 12,000,000,000 
 among the states and deposited it with several 
 state treasurers, making them thereby Nation- 
 al depositories, the next step is to get it into 
 the people's pockets where it belongs. That 
 there may be no opportunity for dallying 
 over or meddling with the veterans dues, the 
 bill provided in Sec. 24 that, "The Treasury 
 Department of the United States shall, dur- 
 ing the last week in January and July of 
 each year, certify to the Treasurer of each of 
 the states their estimate of the funds that 
 will be required during the next six months 
 to meet the drafts for the ex-soldiers who are 
 residents of that state; and on receipt of this 
 notification, the said Treasurer shall deduct 
 and set apart from the proceeds of this tax 
 the amount so certified. , ' 
 
 Sec. 22 provides that payments shall be 
 made for pensions by draft of the Pension 
 Bureau on the Treasurer of each state, for 
 pensioners who are residents of that state. 
 (This Sec, specifies pensions "allowed by the 
 United States for service in the war between 
 the States.'' This should be amended to 
 cover the pensioners of all previous wars. ) 
 
 Sec. 25 provides that after these amounts 
 have been deductecTto meet the payments to 
 ex- soldiers, the balance of this fund shall be 
 expended by the state authorities on public 
 improvements and the state military estalish- 
 ment. 
 
 13. FEASIBLE, JUST AND CERTAIN. 
 
 Now having seen that the re-adjustment of 
 opportunities and conditions proposed by 
 this measure is feasible; that it is just; that its 
 action would be certain and its beneficent 
 effects immediately realized; let us see if it also 
 
THE TANGLE UNTANGLED. 73 
 
 has other attributes that should enable it 
 to command the support of the Union veterans, 
 of the industrial classes, and of the Confeder- 
 ate veterans; and thereby inaugurate a co- 
 operation foi saving the Nation, that would 
 insure its enactment. Let us resume the 
 consideration of what it meant when it received 
 the sanction and support of the Populist State 
 Government of Kansas. 
 
 14. AS TO THE UNION SOLDIER. 
 
 For thirty years the veterans have shown 
 their loyalty and leniency by not prosecuting 
 their claim against the Government for back 
 pay. They are entitled to their long withheld 
 dues. They should now demand them. They 
 not only risked their lives and poured out 
 their blood, but they gave more in actual 
 money value to the government than heavy 
 usury and light patriotism induced the cap- 
 italists to lend it. 
 
 In discussing this feature of the records of 
 the war and the nation's unpaid debt to the 
 veteran soldier, the National Tribune of May 
 4th, 1893, said in an article headed, 
 
 15 • 'LENDING GOLD AND GIVING MANHOOD."' 
 
 "Every man who answered the government's call 
 made a distinct and very large pecuniary sacrifice, to 
 say nothing as to the hardships and dangers he was to 
 encounter. The government wages — at first $11 and 
 then 8 13 a month— were very much lower than those a 
 man would receive at home working at anything he 
 chose to follow The Volunteer, filled with love of 
 country, started out by making a large monetary con- 
 tribution to the country in the difference between the 
 wages that he was then receiving and those that it of- 
 fered him. On the other hand the money lenders, who 
 ran no personal risk whatever, insisted on driving a 
 hard bargain with the government." 
 
 "Toward the last of 1862 it was clearly seen that 
 this struggle was to be a prolonged one. * 
 Up to this time the total loans to the government 
 were .$783,804,256, while 1,079,331 men had volunteer- 
 ed for three years, showing that the money lenders 
 had only loaned about $780 for every man who had 
 volunteered for three years." 
 
i-i CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 "By July 1864 the gold value of the greenback had 
 fallen to 38 cents on the dollar. A man would take 
 •slOO in greenbacks, the gold value of which was .$38, 
 and buy with them a bond for $100, upon which he 
 would receive $6 in gold for interest, or nearly 16 per 
 cent. 
 
 "In spite of this enormous profit, they absolutely 
 refused to lend any more money in July, 1S64. It 
 was the most critical period of the war. * * * * 
 The harassed Secretary of the Treasury rushed off 
 to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston to have per- 
 sonal interviews with the moneyed men, and beg 
 them to raise him $50,000,000 for the emergency. 
 Not a dollar could he get. 
 
 "In his despair he turned to the gallant men who, 
 with undaunted resolution, were facing the enemy 
 around Petersburg, Atlanta and elsewhere. He 
 made no mistake there. They were as ready to aid 
 the government with their money as they were with 
 their gallant hearts and stalwart arms, and out of 
 their scanty pay they loaned it over $20,000,000, 
 which greatly helped to tide over the crisis " 
 
 ******* 
 
 "In all, the money lenders lent -the government 
 $2,381,530,294 in paper money. As the average value 
 of the greenbacks in which these loans were made 
 was about 60 cents, this represents a gold value of 
 only $1,428,918,120. On this the bond holders have 
 received nearly $5,000,000,000 in gold, or about four 
 times the original lending." 
 
 "On the otner hand the 2,000,000 men who fought 
 the battles of the Union through to a triumphant 
 finish, each sacrificed fully $1,500 in the diminshed 
 earnings accepted in order to serve and save the 
 country. In other words they absolutely gave the country 
 hundvetis of million* of dollars more than the bondholders 
 >> nt it." 
 
 "Yet the men who, in addition to fighting for their 
 country as men never fought before, robbed them- 
 selves and their families of their scanty earnings in 
 order to help the Nation out of its mortal peril, have 
 received in pensions less than $1,500,000,000, while 
 the bondholders have received more than three 
 times as much." 
 
 16. A NEW PARTY DEMANDS JUSTICE FOR 
 THE VETERANS. 
 
 This bill and its endorsement by the Popu- 
 list State Government meant that a new party 
 was taking up the cause of the veterans: a 
 party that proposed to reimburse them for 
 their money loss, and cancel this debt, not by 
 collecting the funds for this purpose from the 
 impoverished masses, but from those who 
 
THE TANliLE UNTANGLED. 
 
 had received the greater benefits from the 
 
 war; a parly thai would not require the tes- 
 timony in behalf of an applicant for a disabil- 
 ity pension to show whether his trouble was 
 Republican rheumatism; — or Democratic rheu- 
 matism; only that il was a Union soldier's 
 rheumatism: a party that will do this because 
 they are pledged to "Never <■<■<!*<■ /<< >it<>v<' for- 
 ward ''ill i vt ry wrong is righted." 
 
 That is what the Sunflotver Tangle meant; and 
 it is what the Populist State Government 
 endorsement meant. But it meant more than 
 that. It meant that Kansas invited the loyal 
 South, — once wayward and rebellious — so 
 recently defiant and agressive, for aid in com- 
 pelling the Government to do justice to the 
 soldiers that defeated them, by settling this 
 immense balance due the Union soldiers, and 
 by granting them service pensions. That is 
 what it meant, and it meant more than that. 
 If meant 
 
 A co- operation for saving the. Nation, 
 Of bold J "I a a a Rebs n/ul brave Billy Yanks. 
 It meant a Treaty of Reciprocity between 
 these old time enemies who knew from bitter 
 experience what "turning loose the dogs of 
 war" means; and who, first one and then the 
 other had swallowed the dredges from the cup 
 of disaster. While the feeling of bitterness 
 on one side and exultation on the other was 
 inevitable at the time of the final surrender, 
 the philosophy that stirred "Bill Arp" to 
 say he ought to be satisfied as he had killed 
 as many of the Yanks as they had of him. 
 soon led all factions to rejoice over a Union 
 triumphant. 
 
 17. TALMAGE ON THE VICTOR'S RETURN. 
 
 There was a memorable reference to the 
 events of the closing days of the war at the 
 annual dinner of the New England society of 
 
CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 / 
 
 New York in 1886. The eloquent Henry W. 
 Grady spoke for the "New South," and fol- 
 lowed Dr. Talmage, who pictured the return 
 of the "boys in blue.*' He (Dr. T.) was a 
 spectator at the grand review, — possibly a 
 guest — and of that event he says: 
 
 "It was the greatest day I ever saw. The like was 
 never witnessed in this world and never will be 
 again. It was the day when the armies came 
 back from the South and marched in review before 
 the President at Washington. God knew that the 
 day was stupendous, and He cleared the Heavens of 
 cloud and mist and chill, and strung the blue sky as 
 a triumphal arch for the returning warriors to pass 
 under. From Arlington Heights the spring foliage 
 shook out its welcome as the hosts came over the 
 hills, and the sparkling waters of the Potomac tossed 
 their gold to greet the battalions as they came over 
 the long bridge in almost interminable lines. The 
 Capitol never seemed so majestic as that morning, 
 snowy white, looking upon the tide of men that came 
 surging down, billow after billow, passing in silence; 
 yet I heard in every step the roar of those conflicts 
 through which they had waded; and seemed to see, 
 dripping from their smoky flags, the blood of our 
 country's martyrs " 
 
 "For the best part of two days we stood and 
 watched the filing on of the same endless battalions, 
 brigade after brigade ; division after division ; host 
 after host; ever moving, ever passing; marching, 
 marching Tramp, tramp, tramp ! Thousands after 
 thousands. Commanders on horses, with their reins 
 entwined with roses, their necks enchained with 
 garlands — hundreds of thousands of heroes marching 
 on! Huzza! Huzza! Shall I ever forget the day?' 7 
 
 18. GRADY ON THE GOING OF THE 
 VANQUISHED. 
 
 In his eloquent tribute to the Southern 
 soldiers. Mr. Grady who followed Dr. Tal- 
 mage, said: 
 
 "Dr. Talmage has drawn for you with a master's 
 hand, the picture of your returning armies. He has 
 told you how, in the pomp and circumstance of war, 
 they came back to you marching with proud and 
 victorious tread, reading their glory in a Nation's 
 eyes ! Will you bear with me while I tell you of 
 another army that sought its home at the close of 
 the late war — an army that marched home in defeat 
 and not in victory — in pathos and not in splendor, 
 but in glory that equalled yours, and to hearts as 
 loving as ever welcomed heroes home? Let me 
 picture to you the foot- sore Confederate soldier, as 
 buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the parole 
 
THE TANGLE INTANlil.ED. 
 
 which was to bear testimony to his children of his 
 fidelity and faith, he turned his face southward from 
 Appomattox in April, 1865. Think of hi -n as ragged, 
 half starved, heavy hearted; enfeebled by want 
 and wounds; having fought to exhaustion he sur- 
 renders his gun, wrings the hands of Jhis comrades in 
 silence, and lifting his tear-stained and pallid face 
 for the last time to the graves that dot the old Wrginia 
 hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow and begins the 
 slow and painful journey What does he find, let me 
 ask you who went to your homes, eager to find in the 
 welcome you had justly earned full payment for four 
 years sacrifice? What did he find when, having: 
 followed the battle -stained cross against over- 
 whelming odds, dreading death not half so much as- 
 surrender, he reaches the home he left so prosper- 
 ous and beautiful? He finds his house in rains, his 
 farm devastated, bis slaves free, his stock killed, his 
 barns empty, his trade destroyed, his money worth- 
 less, his social system, feudal in its magnificence,, 
 swept away, his people without law or legal status, 
 his comrades slain, and the burdens of others heavy 
 on his shoulders. Crushed by defeat his very tra- 
 ditions are gone. Without money, credit, employ- 
 ment, material or training, — and besides all this 
 confronted with the gravest problem that ever met 
 human intelligence, — the establishing of a status for 
 the vast body of his liberated slaves." 
 
 19. EX- REBELS AND RECIPROCITY. 
 
 It might seem presumptuous for the victors 
 to ask the vanquished for assistance in forc- 
 ing the government to fulfil its obligations to 
 its defenders. It would be, under ordinary 
 circumstances, but the benevolent ans'el of 
 reciprocity can make many a rugged way 
 smooth. Times too have changed since the 
 Southern cross went down. The scars and 
 devastation of the war are mosth^ gone. The 
 questions of the way are settled and its bitter 
 memories banishes. New issues are upon us. 
 
 Believing as the Southern people did at 
 that time, it w T as their duty to rebel. Believ- 
 ing as w T e do. it was our duty to whip them. 
 They were entitled to the rights of belliger- 
 ents. I fought with the North. There are 
 those with us who fought on the other side. 
 It matters not to me now where they fough t, 
 of if they ever raised a dagger to strike me 
 
78 CUTTING THE GORDIA.X KNOT. 
 
 down. That was their privilege. We were 
 enemies then. We are friends now. No 
 people ever took up arms with a more sincere 
 and mistaken sense of duty than they did. 
 No people ever deserved to be whipped more 
 than they did. They deserved our enmity 
 and chastisement then. They were scourged 
 and beaten. No people ever resumed their 
 duties as citizens more readily or sincerely, or 
 renewed their loyalty more fully. They 
 deserve our confidence, our right hand of 
 fellowship, our sympathy, now. I have given 
 them mine; and I trust those whose knowledge 
 of war's horrors is not from personal exper- 
 ience, will do no less. 
 
 2 '. THE AMERICAN IDEA. 
 
 It is time the last of its animosities were 
 put as far behind us as are its atrocities, and 
 for a spirit of congeniality and reciprocity to 
 disarm and subdue any stray vestige of envy 
 and distrust. Sound and patriotic counsel on 
 ibis duty has been left us by Mr. Grady, who 
 in a speech in Boston on Dec. 12th, 1889, said: 
 
 "A mighty duty Sir, and a mighty inspiration im- 
 pels every one of us to-night to lose in patriotic con- 
 secration whatever estranges, and whatever divides. 
 We, Sir, are Americans and we fight for human 
 liberty! The uplifting force of the American idea is 
 under every throne on earth To redeem the earth 
 from kingcraft and oppression — this is our mission! 
 And we shall not fail. God has sown in our soil His 
 millenial harvest." 
 
 It is for us of to-day to see that the Amer- 
 ican idea resumes its pristine vigor and legal 
 position: to see that its fullness and suprem- 
 acy are restored, and the dupes and vassals 
 of its plutocratic enemies are officially notified 
 that their teachings are a heresy — their doings 
 treason. 
 
 Among the fallacies of their one-sided 
 philosophy there is nothing more fraudulent 
 than their method of taxation. Instead of 
 
THE TANGLE UNTANGLED. 
 
 imposing taxes in proportion to their ability 
 to pay or boar them, they are now 
 generally imposed in proportion to the 
 inability to escape or evade them while ex- 
 emptions arc in proportion to the ability to 
 pay. The bill in question not only proposes 
 to reverse the habit to commence a just pro- 
 cess, but also to correct some of the injustice 
 already done through the subservience of 
 government to plutocratic dictators. 
 
 It will not only relieve the toiling masses 
 of the West and South, from the great drain 
 for the pension fund, but of the East as well. 
 as it places the entire burden of this immense 
 sum on the class which received the greater 
 financial benefits from the war. and who have 
 used the power and opportunities which they 
 could not have acquired except through the 
 valor and sacrifices of the men who stood 
 between them and ruin — between their gov- 
 ernment and anarchy — to plunder and per- 
 secute, to impoverish and curse: the class 
 who have placed their country in the lead, in 
 the pathway of nations. 
 
 These favored few — the millionaires — now 
 have the property of the country. 
 
 21. ATTACK THE MILLIONAIRES 
 
 with the constitutional weapon of the bal- 
 lot. Dig the foundation from under their 
 piles by a hydraulic stream of taxation. 
 Diffuse the washings in the name of the Great 
 Jehovah and the Continental Congress. — by 
 the humane command of charity and the 
 biblical command of God. That is what the 
 resolution passed by the Kansas Legislature 
 meant. 
 
 It is what the bill now before Congress 
 means, and that the first payment from the 
 proceeds of this readjusting tax be for the 
 
80 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 purpose of meeting the claims of the Union 
 Soldiers against the government: and that 
 the partisan and penurious spirit displayed by 
 the government in its treatment of its de- 
 fenders be overcome by the aid of the ex- 
 Confederates. 
 
 Do you ask wherein is the spirit of Recip- 
 rocity in this proposition? 
 
 At present our 10,000 millionaires, who 
 have their railroads, their manufactories and 
 warehouses, their mortgages and pipe lines 
 all over the country, if they have a family of 
 four persons, pay $10 each to make lip this 
 fund. The laborer who makes $10 a week, 
 and the crippled veteran who may have to 
 live on his meager pension, pays about the 
 same as the millionaire. We(?) have two 
 millionaires whose income is about $10,000,- 
 000 a year each, and many who have $1,000,- 
 M »0 a year or $5.40 a minute. So the laborer 
 with a family of four and a $10 salary, works 
 a week to pay his share of this war account; 
 while the necessary amount rolls into the 
 other man's pocket in one and six-sevenths 
 minutes. 
 
 For thirty years the laboring men have 
 been paying this account. This bill proposes 
 that the millionaires shall pay it awhile. 
 Their vast possessions are scattered through 
 every state, and whether they cluster in New 
 York or Chicago, — whether they summer in 
 Europe or Newport — whether theyhybernate 
 in New York or Washington, this measure 
 shows them how they may do their part in 
 paying the debt of the Nation to its defenders. 
 
 That is what this measure means. It is 
 what the endorsement of the Kansas State 
 Government meant. Will the men whose 
 blood stained banner massed into the shadows 
 
THE TANGLE UNTANGLED 
 
 81 
 
 at Appomattox refuse to aid in lifting this 
 
 burden from the shoulders of their laboring 
 people and putting it on the shoulders of the 
 men who have been sharp enough to escape 
 it for 30 years? 
 
 22. LIFTING A BURDEN FROM THE 
 
 SHOULDERS OF LABOR. 
 
 One of the features in this measure of 
 Reciprocity says to the sturdy and patriotic 
 
 men of the South, aid us in forcing the Gov- 
 ernment to keep its obligation to the soldiers 
 that saved the country, and we united will 
 take this great burden from the shoulders of 
 all of our toilers and put it where it belongs, 
 on the wealth of the land instead of on the 
 poverty of the people. 
 
 Do the men of the South not see where is 
 the spirit and essence of mutual assistance 
 in this? 
 
 Take your statistical tables showing popu- 
 lation, pension payments, and oth<-r charges 
 on account of the war. The present annual 
 war charges amount to about $2.50 apiece, 
 which is collected from the citizens of all of 
 the states. Xow figure what the citizens of 
 the several states pay on this account Put 
 beside these figures the amount they receive 
 from pensions. The following gives a few of 
 these figures. 
 
 Pay on War Receive from 
 
 States Account. Pension- 1894. 
 
 New York •'$14,994'632 811,937,643 
 
 Ohio 9,180,790 14,737,192 
 
 Indiana 5,481,010 10,841,566 
 
 Iowa 4,779,740 5,760,364 
 
 Kansas 3,567,740 6,048,592 
 
 Tennessee 4,418'795 2,658,726 
 
 Texas 5,588,807 1,030,283 
 
 North Carolina 4,044,867 572,334 
 
 Georgia 4,593,382 511,271 
 
 The laboring masses pay the bulk of these 
 
 sums in the shape of what is really a per 
 
 capita tax. The scheme in question relieves 
 
82 CUTTING THE GORDIAX KNOT. 
 
 all but the millionaires of this charge, and 
 puts not only the whole of it on the latter 
 class, but also enough tax to completely 
 liquidate the union soldiers other claims. 
 Though the possessions of our 10,000 million- 
 aires are spread over the country from Gad 
 to Beersheba, their property would be re- 
 quired to pay in proportion to the owner's 
 ability. 
 
 This pension fund has been an onerous 
 burden to the Southern people. Under this 
 measure no state would receive any less than 
 now. Instead, , every state would receive 
 much more, but it would be collected from a 
 different source. 
 
 Every state would be benefited by a release 
 from the total amount its individual citizens 
 now pay on its accounts, as it would then be 
 gathered from the vast accumulations of 
 plunder that now are a curse to the masters 
 in their castles and the slaves in their cabins. 
 
 Releasing the industrial classes from this 
 load would practically release the state so 
 far as business prosperity is concerned, as 
 thriving business in a state or nation is de- 
 pendent upon the prosperity of the masses. 
 
 At present the Northern States get very 
 much more than they pay ; and the Southern 
 States pay much more than they get. Re- 
 leasing them both from the drafts on their 
 industrial classes will bless both and wrong 
 neither, even if it forces the millionaires to 
 disgorge for the purpose of enabling the 
 government to fulfill its obligations to the 
 Union soldiers. That is what the resolu- 
 tion endorsed by the Kansas State Govern- 
 ment meant, and it is what H. R. 861s now 
 before Congress means. 
 
THE TAK3J E UNTANGLED. 83 
 
 L , :». ARE YOU READY FOR THE QUESTION? 
 
 No Sir! The bill though pigeon-holed by 
 the finance committee is being" discussed by a 
 higher house. It is not going to be tabled 
 until it is debated. It is not going to be 
 passed without being understood. Nor is it 
 going to be sneaked out of the pigeon-hole 
 and skulked into the waste basket by thequiet 
 instructions of a wink to a janitor or cleric, 
 without an opportunity for its enemies to 
 point out its wickedness, or its friends to 
 understand its proposed effects. It is not 
 going to be expunged without a protest nor do 
 we ask that it be enacted loithout a roll coll. 
 
 24. THE ANGEL OF RECIPROCITY. 
 
 The measure contains not only the olive 
 branch of peace, but the Angel of Reciprocity 
 has come with his benignant smiles to help 
 carry its benefactions into 12, 0< H >.> " M I homes. 
 One of the paths he would follow has already 
 been outlined. Another will be discussed 
 after a brief summary of what the project 
 proposes for the toilers. 
 
 25. AS TO THE INDUSTRIAL CLASSES. 
 
 Business is never dull when the laborer 
 can find work at good wages. Times are 
 never hard when all are profitably employed, 
 and wages are never low when there are no 
 involuntary idlers. Times are dull now be- 
 cause of the millions of idlers unable to get 
 the things they need, and of the low wages of 
 those still at work, including the farmers 
 who now work practically for nothing. 
 
 Thirty million people seem to be a few 
 million more than our 10,000 millionaires care 
 to employ. A few millions idle and in want 
 makes it so much easier to adjust the rations 
 and pocket money of those they retain. 
 Really, as a business matter, it is best for 
 
84 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 them to keep a few millions idle. By keeping 
 5,000,000 idle and 5,000,000 more on short 
 rations, capital can hire labor at its own 
 figures; and so, to keep a good supply on the 
 anxious seat, the services of a few million are 
 not needed "just at present." 
 
 The millionaires with no other incentive 
 than cold blooded avarice are not competent 
 to ptirsue any different policy. Labor in self 
 defense must show them a better way. In a 
 spirit of fraternity it must rebuild their en- 
 vironment, reconstruct their disjointed ideas 
 of morality and duty to their fellowmen, and 
 clean out the fountain of their inspirations. 
 
 This measure which the Kansas State Gov- 
 ernment endorsed takes the laborer's side in 
 this struggle and furnishes upwards of a 
 billion dollars a year to the several states to 
 give employment to the idle, and thereby ad- 
 vance the pay of every other toiler. It pro- 
 poses to make the demand for labor exceed the 
 supply, and to get the fund for doing this by a 
 tax on the Plutocrats plunder, to be expended 
 in public improvements under state and 
 county authority. Sections 25, 26, 27 and 28 
 show how. 
 
 26. REVIVING GOD"S LAW. 
 
 This will revive God's law ' 'In the sweat of 
 thy brow shaft thou (have opportunity to) eat 
 bread;" and it will repeal the Plutocrats 
 amendment " The People be Ihrnoied." 
 
 It means— the laborer, being worthy of his 
 hire — he is going to get it without being 
 gouged and buncoed and swindled and bled 
 at every turn to keep a select bevy of useless 
 drones lounging in some shad}^ nook and 
 gloating over the success of their villainous 
 schemes to plunder the farmers whose mis- 
 
THE TANGLE [JNGANGLED. 85 
 
 placed confidence has given them the oppor- 
 tunity to show how fully they have betrayed 
 these friends of their childhood. 
 
 It means an end to the steady drain from 
 industry; an end to the demands of the usurer; 
 an end to the rule of Shy lock; and that the 
 gentle hand of justice will tear the motto 
 from the tenant's door, that Shylock has just 
 put there — "The People be Damned" — and 
 placard the gorgeous palaces of Fifth Avenue 
 with his revised version of the epigram — 
 "The Dollar be Damned." 
 
 It means an opportunity for every American 
 citizen to earn a home, and that 100 per cent, 
 of the citizens of New York may live under 
 their own roof, instead of six per cent, as 
 now. 
 
 It means somewhat of a return to the 
 Christian impulses of our fathers, a repudia- 
 tion of the alliance with Satan, an end to the 
 daily confession at the shrine of the Golden 
 Calf, and the restoration of, and a new lease 
 of life for the American Republic. 
 
 It means that the opportunities for im- 
 provement, for recreation, for having the 
 comforts of life, and a taste of its luxuries 
 now monopolized by the few. will be extended 
 to the many; and Reader, that your children 
 and mine will never be forced to go to bed 
 hungry or accept the cold crust of charity. 
 
 27. WHAT SAY YOU. BRIGADIERS OF 
 LABOR'S LEGIONS"? 
 
 Are you ready to sanction a new combine, 
 
 A coming together of once hostile ranks, 
 
 That will call down the tyrant and twist the spine, 
 
 Of the greedy usurpers, the millionaire cranks? 
 
 They have too long been shielded in prose- 
 cuting their grand schemes of plunder by the 
 aid of laws they have instructed their tools 
 in Washington to pass, and of funds these 
 
80 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 servants have extorted from the producers. 
 
 The toilers are on the border land of pov- 
 erty. Their persecutors stand by gloating 
 oyer their downfall, while figuring on new 
 schemes to grind them in the dust. Our 
 President is their servant. Our Congress is 
 made up of their vassals. Our Courts are 
 their valets. These servants of Mammon's 
 apostle are instructed what to do in behalf of 
 their masters, the same as a trusted and 
 faithful scullion is instructed how he shall 
 bring pleasure to his lord. They have been 
 protected in the enjoyment of the luxury of 
 inordinate wealth by the use of funds they 
 have had their vassals appropriate from the 
 scanty earnings of the toilers as before shown. 
 It is time they had a new idea in finance. 
 This bill proposes a new lesson. 
 
 It may not be as hard a lesson as they 
 should learn. It may not be the best lesson 
 they could have. Let us concede it is not. 
 But it is better than none. It defines a policy 
 more equitable than the methods they practice 
 for plundering the millions. It will bury the 
 Plutocrats battle ax of starvation, and teach 
 him a lesson from the manual of humanity. 
 
 Exempting ,the industrial classes it calls on 
 the millionaires for the funds to meet the 
 greatest annual charge against the Govern- 
 ment, from which they have been exempt till 
 they claim it as a right, and also for money 
 for two new funds. 
 
 28. ROUTING THE GUERILLAS OF 
 
 PLUTOCRACY. 
 
 They have prosecuted their war on the 
 toilers through trusted bands of guerillas, 
 covering the intricate mazes of commercial 
 and financial transactions. They flood the 
 lobby with their followers. They fill the 
 
THE TANGLE UNGA.NGLED. S, 
 
 chairs of the press censors with their tools, 
 
 and the columns of the metropolitan dailies 
 with their poison. Labor need not resort to 
 so reprehensible methods to oppose them, or 
 assert the righteousness of its purpose or 
 proclaim the justice of its demands. It can 
 meet these guerillas of Plutocracy with a 
 solid line of labors legions armed with the 
 open and silent, the honorable and invincible- 
 weapon of the ballot, that demands a process 
 of taxation that will not only correct the 
 wrongs of the present, and make restitution 
 to labor for the wrongs of the past, but that 
 will call back these wild and reckless free- 
 booters to the realms of virtue andloyalty. of 
 fraternity, charity, and liberty. When once 
 understood there need be no fear but that the 
 industrial classes will sustain the Kansas 
 State Government in its endorsement of the 
 measure for a Graduated Tax on the property 
 of the millionaires for the purpose of dissi- 
 pating the plunder in their vast accumula- 
 tions, and giving to labor its rightful posi- 
 tion — its just reward. 
 
 29. AS TO THE EX-CONFEDERATE. 
 
 It is more than thirty years since our civil 
 war closed. The Southern people are now 
 as loyal as those of any other section. The 
 lessons the war taught us can never be for- 
 gotten. The faith and spirit of the contend- 
 ing hosts, and the sacrilices they made in 
 maintaining their interpretation of our funda- 
 mental law. will make these lessons 
 enduring as monumental brass; bul il is time 
 the Last vestige of its sectional prejudices, 
 and partisian animosities were buried, 
 because there is no sense in longer nut 
 them, and because political valets of PI it tec- 
 racy have used the opportunities they o 
 
88 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT 
 
 to serve their masters and wrong the Nation 
 and its loyal people. Had the civil questions 
 of the war been settled by the men who fought 
 its battles, instead of the ferocious "stay at 
 home rangers," the spirit of harmony and 
 good will would have spread its mantle of 
 fraternity over the victor and vanquished 
 twenty years ago. 
 
 The past however is beyond our reach. The 
 present and future alone remain for us to 
 improve. A spirit of fraternity between the 
 "Bold Johnny Reb," and the "Brave Billy 
 Yank" prevades the measure under discussion. 
 It has already been shown how a release of 
 the industrial classes from the load of war 
 charges would practically release the state; 
 as by taking this sum from the pockets of the 
 multi-millionaires instead of from the laborer's 
 scanty pay, the latter would have this vast 
 s"um for their own use and the former would 
 not be pinched so as to materially curtail his 
 personal expenses. If we tax him enough 
 to enable the Government to keep all of its 
 contracts with its defenders, and pay them 
 from this fund; it will, while releasing the 
 industrial classes from present exactions, add 
 to the business stimulant and impulses 
 throughout the country, as an enormous sum 
 would at once be thrown into industrial 
 channels without taking much out. 
 
 30. ANOTHER CHANNEL OF RECIPROCITY. 
 
 The veteran soldiers have been swindled 
 long enough for the purpose of pouring un- 
 warranted dividends into the cotters of the 
 bond holders — dividends not authorized by 
 the original contracts and the Southern 
 States have been punished long enough for 
 any good purpose. 
 
the tang; e untangled. 89 
 
 They no longer look on the north as their 
 enemy; nor have they any reason to. They 
 know too that in the conflict that tested the 
 mettle of both sections, however much of 
 treasure and blood they freely gave in defense 
 of what they then thought their rights, it 
 cost us more of treasure and more of blood to 
 bring them home. While they may not thank 
 us for the vigor displayed by the North during 
 the struggle, they show their appreciation of 
 the forbearance evinced when they yielded to 
 force, by their sturdy loyalty of the present. 
 
 One channel of reciprocity has already been 
 outlined in the examination of the Union 
 Soldier's interest in this measure. Another 
 one is contained in the method of distribution 
 of the proceeds of this tax. The project calls 
 for a semi-annual deposit by the U. S. treas- 
 urer with the several state treasurers, of an 
 amount in proportion to the area, population 
 and wealth of the states. From these deposits 
 the Pension Bureau then draws what is 
 required for the veterans claims, drawing 
 from each state treasurer the amount required 
 for residents of that state. The residue of 
 the state's share of the proceeds of this tax 
 is then expended under state authority on 
 public improvements and the military estab- 
 lishment. So whether a state has a large or 
 small roll of pensions its receipts under this 
 bill would be just the same; and what was 
 not expended to cancel the claims of the 
 veterans, would be the funds of the State, 
 appropriated for the purposes specified above. 
 Now let us see 
 
 31. HOW THE SCHEME WOULD WORK 
 IN PRACTICE. 
 
 Take as examples the two states before re- 
 ferred to that would receive the same amount 
 from the net proceeds of this tax — Georgia 
 
90 CUTTING THE GORBIAN KNOT. 
 
 and Kansas. On the estimated first year's 
 receipts from this tax the U. S. Treasurer 
 would deposit with the treasurer of each of 
 these states the sum of $45,333,333. Without 
 counting in the service pension or the back pay, 
 which the bill provides for, the draft of the 
 Pension Bureau on this fund would be about 
 $6,000,000 for the Kansas soldiers, and $500,001 > 
 for those in Georgia. Kansas would then 
 have upward of $39,000,000 for the other 
 purposes, and Georgia would have nearly 
 $45,000,000. This would give Georgia a surplus 
 to smooth over the last vestige of the scars 
 of war. The south would then have the means 
 to develop their yet latent resources, in stu- 
 pendous public improvements, that for thirty 
 years they have been forced to forego for the 
 lack of funds; and at the same time the North 
 would have the cash to pay the last nickle of 
 the soldier's just claims, as well as immense 
 sums for the same grand purpose of public- 
 improvements. 
 
 32. THE SENSE OF RECIPROCITY; THE 
 NONSENSE IN ANIMOSITY. 
 
 Is there any reason why the gallant South- 
 ern soldier, who, with his parole in his 
 pocket and wringing the hands of his com- 
 rades in silence, turned his back on the grave- 
 dotted Virginia hills about Appomattox and 
 began his journey home, as pictured .by 
 Grady, cannot support such a measure of 
 Reciprocity as will, while releasing them 
 from an onerous burden and carrying back to 
 their laboring people a large per cent, of 
 their lost earnings of the past thirty years. 
 force the government to turn the current of 
 its generosity from the plundering capitalists 
 to the patient and patriotic veterans whose 
 valor and sacrifices brought us safely through 
 that memorable struggle? 
 
THE TANGLE UNTANGLED. 9 1 
 
 Is there any reason why the brave Northern 
 soldiers, who, at the grand review at Wash- 
 ington came surging down Pennsylvania 
 avenue, of whom Talmage says: "billow after 
 billow; passing in silence; yet I heard in every 
 step the roar of those conflicts through which 
 they had wadecl; and seemed to see, dripping 
 from their smoky flags the blood of our 
 country's martyrs," cannot support a measure 
 of Reciprocity that, while forcing the Govern- 
 ment to forget its many times redeemed 
 obligations to the bond holder long enough 
 to cancel its unpaid debt to its sturdy defend- 
 ers in our "hour of darkness and peril and 
 need," — while releasing our laboring masses 
 from an onerous burden of taxation and offer- 
 ing them the opportunities for advancement 
 and the comforts of life which are rightly 
 theirs by the command of God Almighty and 
 the promise of our fundamental law — accords 
 to the men who wore the gray and their sec- 
 tion, opportunities for a new lease of life and 
 a new song of liberty as they share with us 
 the proceeds of this readjusting measure'? 
 
 There is no reason why the heroes who 
 wore the blue should not make a treaty of 
 reciprocity with the heroes who wore the 
 gray, and form an Alliance as outlined above; 
 A co-operation for saving the Nation, of the 
 bold Johnny Rebs with the brave Billy Yanks. 
 
 33. LET US HAVE PEACE. 
 
 In holding out these opportunities to the 
 industrial classes, to the Northern veterans, 
 and the ex-Confederates, the measure in 
 question possesses the attributes that will 
 enable it to command the support of a major- 
 ity of the American people when fairly under- 
 stood. 
 
92 CUTTING THE G )RDIAN KNOT. 
 
 Iii the replevin of $20,000,000,000 of the 
 Plutocrat's plunder, in the next decade, and 
 restoring it to the toiling millions, it would 
 make record of a long step in the re-adjust- 
 ment of economic conditions, that would 
 Inevitably be continued until the demand of 
 the Omaha Platform for ' 'equal rights for all 
 and special privileges for none" would pass 
 from a dream to a fact. 
 
 In offering land to the landless, and in 
 restoring to every industrious American citi- 
 zen a home of his own, it would re-establish 
 the fabric of our institutions on a substantial 
 foundation. 
 
 In turning into the State Treasuries a large 
 fund for public improvements, which the 
 measure provides shall be expended in sites, 
 right of way, tools, and the employment of 
 idle labor, it would furnish the states the 
 funds which they could use if they, chose for 
 either the construction or the purchase of 
 railroads and telegraphs. With money they 
 could use for this purpose in the treasuries, 
 and more coming in every six months from the 
 counter current of a re-adjusting pipe-line, the 
 people through their state officers would be 
 masters of the situation. State ownership 
 would be less cumbersome, and probably 
 more successful than National, as the man- 
 agement would be nearer the people — more 
 closely watched, and more accessible. 
 
 34. labor's jubilee. 
 
 With these immense funds flowing back 
 from the piles of plunder, whose vicious get- 
 ting and corrupt use have contaminated the 
 springs of individual effort and corrupted our 
 vast system of public service through the 
 various state treasuries into the channels of 
 industrial activity, every resting nerve and 
 
THE TANGLE UNTANGLED. 93 
 
 muscle of the Nation would resume its work. 
 The lack of confidence would be dissipated in 
 a night. The depressions in business would 
 vanish with the morning sun. The last wheel 
 of industry would resume its merry hum. for 
 we would have Cut the Gordian Knot that locks 
 the property of the Nation in the corsair's 
 coffers, and turned a steady counteracting 
 stream from the Vampire's Vaults through a 
 Re-adjusting Pipe-Line back into the produc- 
 er's pockets. This process would soon restore 
 to those who have created it, a reasonable 
 per cent, of the Nation's wealth. 
 
 With the idlers employed; with business 
 revived: with the veterans rewarded; with 
 confidence restored; with the producers 
 garnering a profitable harvest; with consum- 
 ers able to double their purchases and willing 
 to pay fair prices, a rainbow of content would 
 span the country from Sanely Hook to the 
 Golden Gate: and the anthems of a prosper- 
 ous people would again carry to the tyrants *of 
 the Old World, the tidings of America's despots 
 deposed and the American lie public restored. 
 
 That is what the Sunflower Tangle meant. 
 It is what the Kansas State Government en- 
 dorsement of H. R. 659.") meant. It is what 
 the present bill (No. 8618) means. 
 
 Will the Kansas delegation to the National 
 Peoples Party Convention help to cut the 
 Gordian Knot of combined capital, and in the 
 pending case vote to re-establish human 
 rights rather than condone money wrongs? 
 
 Will they uphold the action and efforts of 
 their State Government in behalf of A Grad- 
 uated Property Tux for attacking the combina- 
 tions and corporations that now hold the 
 battle ax of Starvation over the heads of 
 American Laborers by the help of their allies, 
 — perjured Courts and a boodling Congress? 
 
94 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 Will they, armed with the powerful and 
 harmless — the peaceful and conquering — the 
 mild ajid effective weapon of Graduated 
 Property Taxation entwined in an olive 
 branch ^nd stamped on a ballot, lead the 
 assault on the intrenchments of an insolent, a 
 law breaking and God defying enemy of Re- 
 publican Institutions, who holds fortified posi- 
 tions in every state and has been able to 
 "quarter a soldier in every house?" 
 
 The details in the measure discussed are not 
 essential. They were drawn tooutline a basis 
 for discussion to get a starting point; to 
 modify or amend as debate or experiment 
 revealed the necessity. The general princi- 
 ple of a graduated tax on property, and the 
 necessity for it and the possibilities of it are 
 the vital features of the measure. 
 
 Shall the conclusions of our State Govern- 
 ment on this question be sustained, and will 
 Kansas again guide the car of progress over 
 a great "divide" between hostile theories — a 
 divide between a land cursed with the blight 
 of industrial slavery, and a realm where the 
 laborer as well as the loafer may gather 
 the fruit and enjoy the shade of his 
 own vine and fig tree? 
 
 Let us of Kansas in doing the part to which 
 destiny seems to have called us, in behalf of 
 the cause we advocate and the justice we 
 demand, realizing that, under present con- 
 ditions, Republican Institutions are a practi- 
 cal failure, and that the curtain must soon fall 
 to close the last act of the great comedy- 
 tragedy play, so mould our purposes and 
 inflexibly draft our designs, that from the 
 very fairness of our plans and the equity of 
 our projects, we may convince the jury of 
 12.000,000 men to whose calm judgement we 
 
THE TANGLE UNTANGLED. '.».") 
 
 appeal, that it rests with them to now say to 
 
 our imperious masters, whether or not we 
 
 will sit idly by to see Republican Institutions 
 
 go down, or whether from, 
 
 Justice's honored castle 
 
 We will hurl the wild Pretender 
 
 And install our old Defender. 
 
 Let us speak in 1896 in hard words the thoughts 
 of 1896, (Did hold out the olive branch of lasting 
 peace to the autocratic usurpers; an olive branch 
 whose every leaf will sparkle with the jewels 
 of fraternity ; and whose nodding sprays will 
 make fragrant every breeze that fans them, 
 by the exhalations from the blessed message 
 it bears to the agents and representatives of 
 capitalistic despotism, that it is hereby 
 decreed that no law abiding and in- 
 dustrious american citizen shall longer 
 Buffer from want in a land of plenty; 
 that no american children shall be 
 longer forced to get their education 
 in the city streets; that no american 
 family shall be turned into the high- 
 ways and scattered to the winds in a 
 
 LAND DOTTED WITH DESERTED HOMES, for 
 
 lack of an opportuity to earn, not only the 
 necessaries but the comforts of life; AS the 
 shackles of industrial slavery, with 
 the Golden Calf it has enabled the 
 masters to rear and induced them to 
 worship, are to be thrown together into 
 the furnace of 
 GRADUATED PROPERTY TAXATION. 
 
96 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 The Grip of a Great Corporation, 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Contents: 1. Railroad Assessments. 2. Specula- 
 tive and Assessed Values. 3. "Slipped a Cog.'* 
 4. Old Friends. 5. Cornered Populists. 6 First 
 Reports. 7. Reports Confirmed. 8. A Pro- 
 test Filed. 9. A Meeting of the Board Called. 
 10. Two Uninvited Guests. 11. King Party and a 
 Spectre Come. 12. An Important Question. 
 13. The Senate Orders an Investigation. 14 A 
 Triple Alliance Annuls the Order. 15. A 
 Difference of Opinion. 16. One Good Turn 
 Deserves Another. 17. Spiked Guns. IS. A 
 Guarded Wood-pile. 19. "Watchman! What Of 
 the Night?" 
 
 1. SOME RAILROAD ASSESSMENTS 
 
 -,-v 
 
 HE Gordian Knot of capital, that sup- 
 r^i ports a barrier usually dividing the 
 masses into two nearly equal contending 
 forces, and keeps them disputing over "local 
 questions," shimmering illusions and the 
 smoke of extinct volcanoes, cannot be cut 
 without unseating some party gods and sweep- 
 ing some wayward watchmen from party 
 decks. 
 
 To cut this knot, parties must be forced to 
 say what they mean, .and leaders to practice 
 what they are told to preach. When they do 
 this they will "Hew to the Line." This is 
 the purpose of the Populist party. Among 
 the things on which more light is necessary, 
 to enable them to hew to the line in Kansas r 
 are the railroad assessments of 1894 and '95. 
 Nor will the opportunities offered by sending* 
 
THE GRIP OP A GREAT CORPORATION 97 
 
 some X rays through these transactions, be 
 confined to Populist hewers. They will 
 carry to the moguls of our wily enemies, an 
 invitation to inspect the bones, and measure 
 the dimensions of the skeleton in their closet, 
 though a Santa Fe guard may stand at the 
 door. 
 
 Corporations and combined capital are 
 sjmonymous terms. The relentless purpose 
 and noxious methods they follow are their 
 common attributes. 
 
 I have referred in a previous chapter to the 
 grip of a great corporation here in Kansas. 
 The handiwork of the Santa Fe R. R. Co. is 
 found at every turn in the political history of 
 the state for the past twenty years. 
 
 There has been for several years, an un- 
 usual interest in the question of Railroad 
 Assessments, both on account of the large 
 interests involved, and the efforts of some of 
 the companies to evade their share of public 
 burdens; and also from a feeling that politics 
 had something to do with adjusting the val- 
 uations. This work is done by a state board 
 consisting of the lieutenant governor, auditor, 
 attorney general, treasurer and secretary of 
 state. 
 
 Reports show the milage and valuations for 
 the past six years as follows: 
 
 Year Miles Valuation. 
 
 1890 8762 64 $57,866,233 
 
 1891 8852.81 50,865,825 
 
 1892 8844.62 51,404,544 
 
 1893 8839.96 61,731,035 
 
 1894 8832.31 59,764,683 
 
 1895 8829.22 59,503,654 
 
 The great reduction made in the assess- 
 ment in 1891 was defended by an elaborate 
 argument in the report of the board and criti- 
 cised by the press and condemned by the 
 people. It is generally understood that this 
 argument was written by the attorney general 
 
98 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 who was a Democrat elected by the aid of 
 Populist votes. The general protest against 
 the work of the board found expression in 
 the refusal of the conventions of the next 
 year to renominate any of the officers con- 
 cerned in it. 
 
 In 1H93 the Populists came into power and 
 the railroad valuation was raised over $10, - 
 000,030. At the request of the board I wrote 
 the argument in the report of that year de- 
 fending the increase. Most of the railroad 
 companies, and especially the Santa Fe, 
 grumbled severely at the change. 
 
 2. SPECULATIVE AND ASSESSED VALUES. 
 
 The railroads reported to the State Board 
 of Railroad Commissioners in 1893 that their 
 outstanding liabilities for their Kansas 
 mileage amounted to $419,892,908, or $47,208 
 a mile. 
 
 The United States census report for 1890 
 says Kansas assessments average 19 per 
 •cent, of true value. Had the railroads in 
 1893 been assessed at 19 per cent, of their 
 capitalization and liabilities they would have 
 paid a tax on about $80,000,000. But the 
 board took the pains to get more reliable data, 
 than either the census report or the railroad 
 returns, and assessed then at $61,731,000 
 which was less than 1 5 per cent, of what they 
 reported their liabilities at. 
 
 There has been much comment and criti- 
 cism on the printed report of 1894 and the 
 reduction that shows in behalf of the Santa 
 Fe company from the valuations of 1893. 
 This criticism has been mostly in a quiet way, 
 by wire pullers and ward heelers who had 
 evidently been posted for the purpose, but 
 these criticisms have not been half what they 
 would have been if the papers of either side 
 
THE GRIP OF A GREAT CORPORATION 99 
 
 felt at liberty to look at the sores. The 
 whole matter has been so adroitly manipulat- 
 ed in behalf of the Santa Fe company, that 
 the papers of both sides understand they are 
 living in glasshouses, and for that and other 
 reasons have been induced to hunt through 
 Armenia and Cuba for important news. 
 
 3. SLIPPED a COG. 
 
 The genuine report of the board for 1894 
 has never been published; nor have the full 
 taxes it levied on the Santa Fe company been 
 collected by many thousands of dollars. The 
 report which was printed that year, several 
 months later than usual, showed a reduction 
 from the valuation made by the Board (in round 
 numbers) of $1,420,000, of which reduction the 
 Santa Fe system got the benefit of $1,410,000. 
 The interest of political parties should, and 
 the cause of good government does, require 
 that, if these enormous changes were accidents, 
 provisions be made to prevent "bunching'' 
 such clerical accidents in one company's 
 accounts and on one side of the ledger. If 
 they were designed, public sentiment is still 
 loyal and true enough, whatever public ser- 
 vants may happen to have it in their power 
 to bring censure on their party, to condemn 
 such proceedings. It is a mistaken conclusion 
 — a tainted judgment that says that party 
 interest requires the condoning of such trans- 
 actions. Party interest requires that a party 
 retain the confidence of the public, which it 
 cannot do without condemning such perform- 
 ances, and its faithless servants. It then can 
 be censured only for the mistake in selecting 
 its servants, and the servants will bear the 
 responsibility of the wrong. Condoning their 
 follies or defending their faults, it does not 
 deserve and cannot expect public confidence. 
 
100 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 4. OLD FRIENDS. 
 
 At first thought the general silence of the 
 Republican papers on this matter seemed 
 strange, but it was not. It was what they 
 call "good politics" to keep still. It showed 
 the harmony and sympathetic co-operation 
 between that party and the Santa Fe company, 
 and was natural enough. They were not 
 only glad of the favor shown their party's 
 friend, but they could see it gave the incom- 
 ing administration a chance to repeat and 
 enlarge the favor. 
 
 5. CORNERED POPULISTS. 
 
 The enemies of the Peoples party were 
 .satisfied. If the Status quo could be main- 
 tained they could make the Populists carry 
 the censure. The party was in a corner. 
 Their papers were muzzled. Leaders who 
 understood the facts could not satisfactorily 
 explain the situation and they let their party 
 take the blame by trying to cover up its 
 causes. Workers in the townships and 
 precincts heard rumors, and charges and 
 various stories, but they could not meet or 
 parry them. The siren's song of party 
 interest had cut their communications. 
 
 The Republican workers had all the facts 
 
 necessary, with such variations as their 
 
 political methods and experience prescribed, 
 
 and they used them with telling effect. An 
 
 extract from a letter of one of our present 
 
 Representatives to me, written last February. 
 
 will illustrate the point. He says: 
 
 "For instance on the farm adjoining mine are three 
 brothers, who are nominally populists, but they 
 learned of that R. R. assessment scandal the night 
 before election in '94 and as a result voted for Over- 
 meyer and his ticket; and I, thinking that our men 
 were too honorable for such a thing, tried to convince 
 them, with the result that they voted against me 
 also " 
 
THE GRIP OF A GKEVT CORPORATION. HI 
 
 There was then no chance for the Popu sts 
 to learn the facts except through those con- 
 cerned in the transaction, or from the en< 
 If the changes in the report were mislft 
 how could the Republican heelei-s get infor- 
 mation (?) showing a scandal before the report 
 was sent from the auditor's office to the = 
 printer'.' 
 
 6. FIRST REPORTS. 
 
 At that time I had heard a story of a larg 
 reduction in the aggregate, but knowing how 
 the members of the Board had talked, how 
 they had voted and what valuations they had 
 decided on, I looked on the charge as too 
 absurd to investigate. But when the fig 
 appeared in the papers, it was at once appar- 
 ent to those who knew that the board had 
 voted at one of their first meetings in 1894 to 
 make no changes in valuations that would- 
 materially alter the aggregate assessment 
 from that of 1893, that the report was not 
 the genuine one. 
 
 7. REPORTS CONFIRMED. 
 
 On Monday, Nov. 26th. I received a Topeka 
 Press of the 23d which contained a statement 
 that the assessor's report on railroad valua- 
 tion showed a reduction of about $2,000,000, 
 and I immediately wrote to the secretary of 
 state-requesting him to go and examine the 
 original minutes, and let me hear his coi 
 sion on the cause for the discrepancy, as soon 
 as convenient. 
 
 On Dec, 3d the secretary replied as I 
 
 Hon. Percy Daniels, 
 
 Dear Sir:— Your letter at hand. We are at pres- 
 ent so overwhelmed with work in this office that I 
 can hardly find time for anything outside, but have 
 looked up the matter of R. R. assessment and find 
 the following. The reductions of the board on branch 
 lines amount to about 8700,000. The reductions of 
 telegraph (by change of rate ) 8-400,000. The remain- 
 
102 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 ing reductions come by the several companies re- 
 porting a less amount of rolling stock and material 
 than before, and the difference in side tracks, etc. 
 There is now no remedy so far as I can see * * * 
 Hurriedly yours, 
 • R S. Osborn. 
 
 As I had my memoranda of every change 
 from the valuation of '93 which the Board 
 voted to make, I took the mileage table, and 
 "extending" the several changes on track and 
 right of way, found, — as was the intention 
 when the changes were made — that the addi- 
 tions and reductions about balanced, showing 
 no material change in the aggregate. This 
 showed that the information that the Secretary 
 got before answering my letter was not 
 reliable. The figures on the telegraphs I 
 thought subject to the same suspicion. 
 
 Dec. 8th I called at the auditor's office and 
 examined some of the assessment books, and 
 saw that many of the valuations fixed by the 
 Board had not been "extended" or carried out 
 by the clerks; and then got proof sheets of the 
 tables from the state printer, and saw that 
 these changed valuations were about to be 
 published as the work of the Board. 
 
 8. A PROTEST FILED. 
 
 I then decided to call a meeting to give the 
 Board an opportunity to straighten the mat- 
 ter; but the auditor was at home sick, the 
 attorney general was away and the treasurer 
 left that afternoon to be gone several days; 
 so a meeting was then impossible, and 
 I wrote a protest against further work being 
 done on the report by the printer until 
 the Board could meet and decide what should 
 be done about it. In this protest I, as chair- 
 man of the Board, demanded that my protest 
 against its completion and circulation as a 
 valid report, be given a place therein unless 
 it was corrected. Before filing this protest I 
 
THE GRIP OF A GREAT CORPORATION 1 3 
 
 took it to Judge S. H. Allen at his room, and 
 talked the matter over with him and made a 
 little change "at his suggestion. The assistant 
 secretary of state, D. C. Zercher, was there 
 part of the time during our talk. After 
 making the change suggested by .) iidge Allen 
 I filed it in the secretary's office (the secretary 
 of state being secretary of the printing board) 
 with Mr. Zercher, as a record of that office, 
 and came home the next day expecting to be 
 notifiedjWhat action the Printing Board took 
 on my protest, The three members of that 
 board comprise a majority of the assess s 
 Not hearing as I expected, I wrote the secre- 
 tary Dec. 11th to learn why. as follows: 
 
 Hon. R. S. Osbom, Secretary of State. 
 
 Dear Sir:— I am expecting to hear from the 
 printing board, in reply to my protest against the 
 changes in the assessment ( as they are a majority of 
 the assessors), either approving or disapproving the 
 changes made These changes, I see by the proof 
 sheets, make a reduction in main track of one and a 
 quarter millions. The proper way to get at a cor- 
 rection of the report I think, is for the printing- 
 board to reply requesting me as chairman, to call a 
 meeting of the assessors. 
 
 The report as furnished the printer shows a dif- 
 ferent value per mile of main track on several lines, 
 from that decided on by the board at any session 
 when I was present and the minutes do not show 
 that the valuation of the lines in which these 
 changes appear, had been reconsidered and changed. 
 Unless the discrepancies and alterations in the re- 
 port can be rectified, I must file with your commit- 
 tee a protest for publication to be appended to the 
 report. The minutes now show that I was present 
 when most of these changed valuations were made, 
 while part of them you are positive (as you told me, > 
 were not made at all. 
 
 I am sorry I could not get the board together when 
 I learned of the situation last Saturday. 
 Yours Truly, 
 
 Percy Daniel?, 
 
 The Secretary replied as follows: 
 
 Office of Sec'tv of State, \ 
 Topeka, Kansas, Dec. 14th, 1894. J 
 Hon. Perry Daniel*, Girard, Kansas. 
 
 Dear Sir:— Yours at hand. Mr. Little and myself 
 — Mi-. Biddle being absent for two weeks, ordered no 
 further work to be done on the report of the R. R. 
 
104 CUTTING TBE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 Assessors until further notice. The press of care in 
 finishing up the canvas of the election returns, put 
 the notifying you out of my mind. I should have 
 done this several days ago. Mr. Biddle will not be 
 back for over a week yet. 
 
 The report has been printed and any changes 
 made will have to be made by pages of corrections 
 added to the back of the report as there is no funds 
 left for reprint. You can call the committee(board) 
 together at your convenience, but I would suggest 
 that you would be more likely to get a full board 
 between Christmas and New Year's than any other 
 time, yet take your own time. 
 
 Very Resp'ty, 
 
 R S. Osborn. 
 
 9. A MEETING OF THE BOARD CALLED. 
 
 I went to Topeka again the 20th and found 
 the reports had been completed and were 
 being circulated. I then called a meeting of 
 the board the 22nd. The auditor and treasurer 
 were not present. We voted to request the 
 auditor to furnish a tabulated statement of 
 the amount of changes made from last year's 
 valuation, by order of the board; and adjourn- 
 ed to Jan. 4th, 1895. • 
 
 As the demand that my protest be given a 
 place in the report if it was completed and 
 circulated without the changes necessary to 
 make it conform to the votes of the board, 
 had been denied by its completion and circu- 
 lation when I supposed work on it had been 
 stopped by order of the printing board, I 
 then made a statement for the public giving 
 the more important of the facts above stated, 
 sending copies to the Topeka Capitol, Journal 
 and Press. 
 
 1(1. TWO UNINVITED GUESTS. 
 
 Jan. 4th the Board met according to ad- 
 journment. All the members were present. 
 In calling them to order, I stated that the 
 meeting from which this was an adjournment, 
 was called to inquire into the cause for the 
 great difference between what we supposed 
 we had done when we adjourned on the 16th 
 
THK GRIP OF A GREAT CORPORATION. 1' >5 
 
 of June, and what the auditor's report said we 
 had done; and to find out if possible, when 
 our computations as a board showed no 
 practical change on main track valuations, 
 how the Santa Fe company got a reduction of 
 $1,300,000, on that schedule. 
 
 The auditor's statement showed nothing 
 satisfactory and the minutes of our regular 
 meetings were not to be found. After mak- 
 ing some comparisons between '93 and '94 
 main track schedules where the '94 figures 
 were materially different from those the Board 
 had made, and listening to Mr. Prather's 
 statement .that he had not been able to give 
 the matter his personal supervision as he was 
 sick and away from the office much of the 
 summer and fall, but the only explanation he 
 could give of these discrepancies was that 
 they were mistakes, we turned to the schedule 
 of buildings of the Santa Pe company and 
 found reductions of from five to twenty per 
 cent, running through a large part of this 
 list. As we had voted to assess these the 
 same as "last year'* this was as much of a 
 surprise as the reduction in track values. 
 
 I then moved "that the auditor be instructed 
 to correct his report; and to certify to the 
 counties the proper additional amounts to be 
 taxed, and that the tax be added to this year's 
 assessment." I listened for a "second" to the 
 motion. It did not come. No question was 
 before the meeting, but the proposition was 
 discussed. Then a long and desultory talk 
 about the gratification it would give the 
 enemy to get us into a quarrel over the <tu<'->- 
 tion, followed 
 
 11. KING PARTY AND A SPECTRE COME. 
 
 An unwelcome guest appeared. It was the 
 mightest fool in the land — the biggest power 
 saveone — the devil's vicegerent in America — 
 
106 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 King Party. The people's interests were in- 
 definitely postponed. King* Party took the 
 floor and what do you think he said? Not 
 "let us pray;" but "hear me bray." A ma- 
 jority of the Board, I have no doubt, preferred 
 to have the wrong righted; but King Party 
 stood by every chair with his cutlass and his 
 whip. He was not there for amusement but 
 came on business; and standing his whip 
 before each member's chair he said ' -Beware ! 
 I gave you your position and your first al- 
 legience is to me. Serve your people when 
 you can without disrupting any plan of mine, 
 but when their cause and mine conflict you 
 must remember me. I move this meeting 
 adjourn." 
 
 Another uninvited spectre came. The gilt 
 letters on his cap were A. T. & S. F. R. R. 
 and addressing the preceding speaker, spoke 
 as follows:. "Thou hast well said my noble 
 friend King Party. So mote it be. Thy 
 timely motion has from me a willing, hearty, 
 second."' And it was so. King Party and 
 his spectre friend adjourned the meeting. 
 
 12. AX IMPORTANT QUESTION. 
 
 In chapter II I have referred to the grip of 
 a groat corporation. The important question 
 in this connection is: How much of a foothold 
 has this giant corporation got within our party 
 lines? Can they get Populist assent to their 
 schemes to enable them to find opportunities 
 to shirk a goodly per cent, of their proper 
 public burdens, and lay them on an over -taxed 
 people, as they have done in this case? Is the 
 People's Party ready to sanction the triple 
 alliance? If not, as Emerson says, they 
 should speak in '96 what they think in '96. 
 
THE GRIP OF A GREAT CORP - RATION. 107 
 
 VS. THE SENATE ORDERS AN INVESTIGATION. 
 
 During the first week of the following ses- 
 sion of the Legislature (Jan. 1895) the Senate, 
 on motion of Senator Taylor, ordered an in- 
 vestigation, and I appointed a committee for 
 the purpose. That was the situation when- 
 the Republican State Officers were inaugu- 
 rated and the Populists relieved at the open- 
 ing of the second week of the session; and I 
 came home, expecting to be called back to' 
 testify before the committee. 
 
 14. A TRIPEE.ALLIANCE ANNULS THE ORDER". 
 
 The committee could do nothing without an 
 appropriation. The session was nearly over 
 before the call was made. Appropriation bills 
 were crowding. An item for the neces- 
 sary funds was put into the miscellaneous 
 appropriation bill— House No 1031 — by a 
 Senate amendment, but King Party haunted 
 the corridors. His spectre friend was a power 
 in the lobby. The Republican side of the 
 Legislature was ready to support anything 
 their powerful ally required. Party interest 
 among Populists was chaperoned by the same 
 spectre that seconded his motion for the ad- 
 journment of the Board of Assessors. They 
 sat side by side in committee meetings. They 
 went hand in hand to the conferences over 
 appropriation bills, and when one said at one 
 of these meetings, "Let that item for an 
 appropriation to investigate the railroad 
 assessments be stricken out,*' the other said, 
 "so mote it be," and it teas so. The report 
 was then accepted by the Senate. 
 
 It was a great mistake which the friends of 
 good government now see and regret, and the 
 Santa Fe crowd and their allies chuckle over. 
 
108 CUTTING THE GORDIA.N KNOT. 
 
 The same questions as before naturally 
 recur to every friend of reform and of good 
 government. How much of a foothold has 
 this powerful corporation got among Populist 
 leaders or Populist officials, that, with the 
 aid of King Party, it can in so clandestine a 
 way, accomplish its purpose. 
 
 People may well inquire how it happened 
 that the virtuous purpose of the Senate, ex- 
 pressed in the resolution of the first week of 
 the session, was undermined and swamped 
 before the close. Was it the enervating in- 
 fluence of a winter in Topeka that annulled 
 the purpose to investigate, or was it the 
 insiduous work of the third house? 
 
 15. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION. 
 
 A few days after the adjournment, the ex- 
 auditor and secretary of the Populist Board 
 issued a Manifesto in which he attempted to 
 show that even after the changes from the 
 assessment of '93, the Santa Fe was still 
 overtaxed. 
 
 His successor, the present auditor, at once 
 wrote me that the Santa Fe company would 
 use Mr. Prather's statement in a fight for a 
 further reduction, and asked me to let him 
 know if there was anything in Mr. Prather's 
 report. I give his letter and my reply in 
 full, except a few lines of mine that would be 
 a repetition. 
 
 State of Kansas, Executive Department, 1 
 Office of State Auditor, 
 
 Topeka, Kan , March 13, 1895 J 
 Col Percy DaniflH, 
 Girard, Knnsis. 
 My Dear Sir and Friend:— I herewith enclose 
 you an article that appears in the Kansas City Times 
 Sunday morning, March 17th, which I think shows 
 up false on its face, and is intended to be misleading. 
 I also notice that the Santa Fe System will use 
 Prather's statement in a fight for a still further re- 
 duction before the new State Board of Railroad As- 
 sessors. I have no desire whatever to show any 
 
THK GRIP «F \ GREAT CORPORATION. 109* 
 
 partiality as far as I am concerned towards any of 
 the railroads in the state, but think that all should; 
 bear their equal proportion of taxation. 
 
 Now I find that the total mileage of the Santa Fe 
 in the state is 2355.22. This includes main line and 
 branches I also find that the assessed valuation of 
 said property for 1394 was $2 ), 470,033. This, divided 
 by the number of miles, 2,855. would give an average 
 assessed value per mile of i*;7,169.H0. I also find that 
 the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis in 1894 had a 
 mileage of 256 miles (or 255.98) assessed at $2,797,305. 
 This includes main line and branches of said Mem- 
 phis road. This would show an average assessment 
 per mile of $10,927. I only use these two for an illus- 
 tration. You know as well as I that the Southern 
 Kansas Division known as the Pittsburg and Girard 
 Division, is certainly a better paying branch than 
 the Cherry vale Division of the Memphis road, and 
 you can see that the Memphis road averaged over 
 §3,000 a mile more than the Santa Fe. Now why 
 Mr. Prather should make this report is more than I 
 can understand. There may be things pert lining to 
 this railroad assessments that I do not know, and I 
 Avrite kindly asking you to let me know if there is 
 anything in this published report of Mr. Prather's. 
 Very Truly Yours, 
 
 Geo. E. Cole. 
 
 Girard, Kansas, March 27th, 1895. 
 lh, tl . Gen. !■:. Cole, 
 
 State Auditor, 
 
 Topeka, Kanm*. 
 
 Dear Sir:— Yours of the 18th was duly received - 
 also the paper with table made by your predecessor,, 
 from figures found in the Auditor's report of '94. I 
 had noticed the table and the comments thereon 
 before. 
 
 You say you find the average assessment per mile 
 of the Santa Fe is 87,170, and of the Menmhis line it 
 is §10,927. You mean rather that you find figures 
 which indicate that. That part of your letter I will 
 leave till after I touch on the subject of railroad val- 
 uation generally. 
 
 The value of railroad property depends on many- 
 factors, beginning with the road-bed, its condition, 
 and quality, and ending with the most important 
 item, net earning capacity. This is dependent upom 
 the business it does,— the competition it meets and 
 the per cent, of traffic receipts required to meet 
 operating expenses. 
 
 It would be as unfair to put the same acreage value 
 upon all Kansas farms, as mileage value upon all her 
 railroads Nor is the oalue of a railroad dependent 
 upon the amount of fraud the management has been 
 able to perpetrate on "innocent purchasers" or 
 duped associates. These may effect the value of the 
 stock and so called securities (which occasionally 
 become insecurities,) but not of the road itself. 
 
110 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 The purpose of the Board in '93 was to combine 
 tne value of the fixed plaut and its appurtenances, 
 and the average business in fixing values. 
 
 The train mileage per mile of track, — the receipts 
 and operating expenses per train- mile, — the amount 
 of rolling stock used, — and the proportion of siding 
 to main track, are a comparative index of the latter, 
 and yet not positive. The necessity for a large per 
 cent, of tide track for instance, depends not only on 
 the volume of business, but the leading kind. The 
 value of sidings and rolling stock too, swell the total 
 value per mile 
 
 Some roads have nearly as much side track as 
 main, like the Joplin, the K. C, T & W. and some of 
 the terminal lines; while many, including the im- 
 mense C. K. & W. system of the Santa Fe Co. have 
 less than 10 per cent. The G. & P. has a much 
 smaller per cent, than the Cherry vale division of the 
 Memphis Co. of which you wrote. The following- 
 gives the per cent, of oaim of sidings and rolling stock 
 to main, on several lines: 
 
 Mo. Pac, Council Groves division 10 per cent. 
 
 Mo. Pac, Ossawatomie division 13 per cent. 
 
 Mo. Pac, Atchison section 30 per cent. 
 
 A. T & S F., C. K. & W. division 15 per cent. 
 
 A T & S F., Girard and Pittsburg 
 division 41 per cent. 
 
 A T & S. F., main line 56 per cent. 
 
 A T. & S. F., Joplin division 75 per cent. 
 
 Memph s, main line 53 per cent. 
 
 Memphis, B S. division 65 per cent. 
 
 C, R. I. & P.. whole Kansas system. ..20 per cent. 
 
 I". Pacific, Kansas division 17 per cent. 
 
 M. K. & T., main line 27 per cent. 
 
 (These figures are from the report of '93 as the 
 assessment of '94 which I helped to make has never 
 heen printed. The report which appears in the 
 auditor's report showing about $2,000,000 reduction 
 in the aggregate, and -SI, 700, 000 in the Santa Felines, 
 was made after the Board adjourned sine die, June 
 116th, and is something I know nothing about. ) 
 
 These figures on many roads are something of a 
 criterion in estimating the comparative value of 
 main track, right of way and franchise; but on roads 
 that apportion their whole rolling stock to their 
 whole system, like the Union Pacific that had 8792.52 
 per mile, and the Memphis with 83,335, they are not: 
 as there the main track with a high valuation, is 
 <?oupled with a rolling stock value below what belongs 
 to it, and the low rate main is coupled with an 
 excessive value of rolling stock. 
 
 An equitable assessed value must necessarily be. a 
 compromise between cost and earning capacity. 
 Some branch lines in Kansas are operated at a loss. 
 The value of these, figured on earning capacitv 
 would be a minus quantity; but there is an intrinsic 
 value in their rails, right of way, depots and grades, 
 and they help to gather a current of commerce for 
 .the main lines. Others like the U. P. whose state- 
 
THE GRIP OF A GREAT CORPORATION. 1 1 t 
 
 ment in the '93 report of the R. R. Commissioners, 
 shows that their operating expenses are but 57 per 
 cent, of their traffic earnings; and the Santa Fe with 
 a ratio of operating expenses to traffic earnings of 
 63V per cent., which do an immense business and 
 have a great earning capacity should not — ignoring 
 their cost — be taxed solely en their earning capacity. 
 On page 555 of the last commissioner's report — first 
 column — you will find a condensed list of figures from 
 the returns of the companies, giving the proportion 
 of operating expenses to traffic earnings on the 
 different systems. And on page 499 you can find the 
 stock and bonds per mile, both on the whole system 
 and also in Kansas. The figures on page 555, while 
 useful in this connection, would be very valuable if 
 equally reliable, and if they were made under a 
 specific system that required uniformity ; but some- 
 times the managers want to deceive the stockholders 
 or aid speculating friends (or themselves i, and many 
 of them habitually intend to deceive the public for 
 the purpose of evading public burdens and for pre • 
 venting the public from knowing how well they are 
 fulfilling their mission as common carriers. These 
 questions you will find discussed in the Assessor's 
 Report for '93 with quotations from leading author- 
 ities. How far these figures on traffic operations 
 can be relied on, you should be able to form some 
 idea. 
 
 As a sample, the Frisco, with a Kansas mileage of 
 435, and a total of 1328, reports for whole line, the 
 per cent, of expenses to earnings 60.83; but of the 
 Kansas part 91.99. And the Atchison, with 4,582 
 miles, of which 2,487 are in Kansas, reports the per 
 cent, of net profits from operation in Kansas, greater 
 than on the whole system; the per cent, of expenses 
 being, for the system 63.53: and for the Kansas 
 mileage 63.21; making the pnfita from operation 
 $36.47 on the whole system and .$36.79 on the Kansas 
 mileage, of every $ 10*0.00 received from traffic The 
 Board in '93 went back of these returns and got in- 
 formation from other and independent sources; and 
 I spent several weeks that year outside of the time 
 occupied in inspection and the sessions, in examining 
 authorities, in comparing reports, and in figuring 
 percentages. I also worked nearly a month last 
 year before the Board met, reviewing the work 
 bf '93, and satisfied myself that in the distribution of 
 public burdens among the railroad corporations, 
 justice required no material change 
 
 In reference to the comparison you make between 
 the average value per mile of the Santa Fe lines, 
 and those of the Memphis Co., the former has a 
 number of non-productive branches, that seem to 
 have been started with the idea that it was necessary 
 to keep laying steel,— to go somewhere,— which 
 habit was never developed or allowed to sprout in 
 the Memphis Co. The latter are the fairest in their 
 reports, and generally one of the best managed com- 
 panies in the state; conservative, steady and level 
 headed 365 days in the year. 
 
112 CUTTING THE GOliOIAN KNOT. 
 
 Another thing that impairs your comparison of 
 mileage values: you evidently use the figures in the 
 printed report which are not those of the original 
 assessment, the only one I know anything about. 
 
 As I said before, the assessment which I helped to 
 make has never, to my knowledge, been printed. 
 When or by whom these valuations were made 
 which appears in the Auditor's report, is something 
 I have not learned. 
 
 The great reduction which this report shows from 
 the original assessment of '9-1 on the Santa Fe lines, 
 makes, as your comparison leads you to conclude, 
 the Memphis lines too high or the Santa Fe too low. 
 I am satisfied that the latter is the fact, and that the 
 valuation of the Santa Fe lines should be put back 
 to what they were when the old Board adjourned 
 sine die — June 16th, 1894. 
 
 When the Board of that year first met, they decid- 
 ed to make no changes in valuation that would 
 materially alter the aggregate assessments from that 
 of '93. Some changes were made in main track, but 
 the aggregate valuation on this item would vary 
 from that of '93 less than one -tenth of one per cent, 
 and my recollection is that this change was an in- 
 crease. Telegraphs were reduced, and I presume 
 the figures in the report showing 8101,500 reduction, 
 are correct. Pullman cars were raised 124 per cent, 
 making 816,500. Other rolling stock was assessed at 
 the same rate as the previous year but some of the 
 companies returned very much less than in '93 and 
 this fact doubtless accounts for the reduction of 
 8362,059 in the report. Tools, materials and cash show 
 a reduction of «95,920 from the same reason, but you 
 will notice that the Memphis Co., reported no re- 
 duction of tools, materials and cash: and they also 
 reported an increase of rolling stock. 
 
 The only legitimate reduction in the report of '94 
 from the valuation of '93 that I can account for 
 (presuming these to be correctly figured) are as 
 follows: 
 
 Rolling Stock 8362,059 
 
 Telegraph 101,486 
 
 Tools, etc 95,920 
 
 Total 8559,465 
 
 The differences between the valuation of '93 and 
 that which appears in the Auditor's report as that 
 of '94 (and which appears to have superseded the 
 original assessment) are as follows: 
 
 REDUCTIONS. 
 
 Main Track 81,300,001 
 
 Side Track 29,455 
 
 Buildings 93,943 
 
 Rolling Stock 362,0*9 
 
 Tools, Materials & Cash 95-, 920 • 
 
 Telegraph 101,486 
 
 Total..... $1,982,867 
 
THE GRIP OF A GREAT CORPORATION. 1 1 3" 
 
 INCREASE. 
 
 Pullman cars $ 16,515 
 
 Net reported reductions 1,966,352 
 
 Deducting from the total reductions of 1,982,867 
 
 The legitimate reduction of 559,465 
 
 Leaves unacounted for $1,423,402 
 
 The Santa Fe property, Frisco included, was as- 
 sessed in '93 at $24,034,689 
 
 And the Auditor's report says it Avas 
 
 valued in '94 at 22,342,162 
 
 Showing a shrinkage of 1,692,527 
 
 Of this shrinkage in round numbers of 1,692,500 
 
 There is accounted for in the rolling stock, 
 telegraph, tools, materials and cash 
 reductions the sum of 2S0,10O 
 
 Leaving unaccounted for $1,412,400 
 
 An amount bearing a striking similarity to the ag- 
 gregate unaccounted for shrinkage of all companies. 
 If you should add this sum to the amount you 
 divide by the Santa Fe mileage to get the average 
 value, you will have what the Board of Railroad As- 
 sessors valued them at, at the time of the nine die 
 adjournment last June, and the Memphis Co. prop- 
 erty is I think reported a little too high. The 
 original assessment of that line did not carry the 
 s9000 per mile valuation to Paola (see page 406 of 
 the report) but I have not gone over their valuation, 
 ,as reported, carefully. 
 
 No sir! the purported assessment given in the 
 Auditor's report for '94 is not a fair distribution of 
 public burdens. It is not only unfair to the Memphis 
 Co., but to all other companies except the Santa Fe. 
 Our Board made several changes in the Santa Fe 
 main track schedules at its regular sessions,— raising 
 four lines, beginning with the main line which we 
 raised 6500 a mile west of Great Bend and lowering 
 nine. This other document recognizes the original 
 action of the Board in one of the four pieces we 
 raised, (the Girard and Pittsburg,) and reduces nine- 
 teen. As the record of proceedings of the Board 
 contains no minutes of, or reference to, any subse- 
 quent meeting, no legitimate changes could have 
 been made. Nor is the record of proceedings con- 
 sistent with itself as printed; as for instance on page 
 407 the minutes say the C. K and W. division "be 
 assessed the same as last year " Turning to page 
 198 vou find it was valued "last year" ('93) on main 
 track at 84,341,799 with Valuations ranging from 8 I 
 to $6500 per mile Turning to schedule No 2 of '94 - 
 page 429) vou And it all rated at S4000 a mile making 
 a reduction of over 8595,000. Turning again to page 
 407 you find immediately under where it says the C. 
 K & W. be assessed the same as last year, it specifies 
 several pieces of this same division, rating them dif- 
 ferent from that of '93 and some of them different 
 also from what was carried into the table. 
 
114 CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 
 
 I have answered your letter in the spirit in which 
 I think it was written, believing it to be the right of 
 a public officer or board to request such information 
 and suggestions from their predecessors — whether 
 they be Greek, or Jew or Roman — as will simplify 
 their work or help them to avoid error, and the duty 
 of the latter to furnish it.! Public office still remains a 
 public trust, with those whose first incentive is the 
 public weal. 
 
 In closing this long discussion of the questions you 
 ask, I hereby protest as an ex-state officer and 
 Chairman of the Board of Railroad Assessors against 
 the use by the new Board, of what- appears in the 
 Auditor's Report as the valuations of the Santa Fe 
 company's property, for 1894, as being any guide for 
 their estimate or basis for their conclusions. If you 
 lean on them you lean on a "broken reed," and I 
 hope the new Board, ignoring every interest but the 
 demands of justice and their duty to the whole 
 people whose officers they are, will study this ques- 
 tion sufficiently to see that instead of being relatively 
 too high (if this reconstructed table of values is to 
 be honored and legitamized as an assessment) as 
 claimed by Mr. Prather in the statement you sent, 
 this great change in the Santa Fe valuations not only 
 does injustice to the other companies, but perpetu- 
 ates a great wrong on the whole people of the state. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Percy Daniels, 
 Ex-Lieut. Governor. 
 
 To my letter Air. Cole replied on April 6th, 
 saying: 
 
 "On my arrival at the office to-day, after viewing 
 the U. P. R. R. I find your favor of Mar. 27th. I 
 have read the same over carefully, and wish to say 
 that I most sincerely thank you for the ideas and 
 pointers you give me in this communication. For 
 my part I am anxious to equalize the assessment of 
 all classes of property." 
 
 1(3. ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER. 
 
 At that time Mr. Cole considered the '94 
 valuations as published showed favoritism to 
 the Santa Fe company, and when the Board 
 met the next month they came with their 
 demand for a further reduction. My letter in 
 reply to Mr. Cole supported his conclusions 
 that that company was undertaxed; but when 
 they asked for another reduction, backed by the 
 ex-auditor's manifesto, does anyone suppose 
 they were refused by their friends at the 
 
THE G1UP OF A GREAT GOR*»OR\TION 1 L5 
 
 capitol ? Their demands were granted to the 
 amount of over 1650,000 on the Santa Fe and 
 the Frisco, making a reduction of over 
 $2,000,0(10 in two years. 
 
 17. SPIKED GUNS. 
 
 And what did the Populist papers have to 
 say over this reduction for the Santa Fe. and 
 raising the assessment on other roads nearly 
 enough to cover it? Ordinarily they would 
 have opened with chain shot on the indomit- 
 able and yet plastic friends of this great 
 corporation. Their silence was not from any 
 approbation of the wrong; but they have a 
 skeleton locked in their closet. It was a 
 mistaken judgment that forced them to lock 
 it in, but they were muzzled. If they opened 
 on these "Redeemers'" the counter fire might 
 disturb their skeleton, and so they kept still. 
 
 The rank and file of Populism do not believe 
 in such situations. They know if their officials 
 followed their instructions such a situation 
 could not exist. They would, if the facts 
 were clearly seen, repudiate with a mighty 
 shout the work of the cabal that has given the 
 Santa Fe company such great favors, and 
 while muzzling their press, has silenced the 
 defenders of Republican corruption. Their 
 workers are certainly as much entitled to 
 understand the merits and demerits of the 
 situation over this question as the Republican 
 workers; and the party is entitled to an 
 opportunity to say whether it approves or 
 condemns the work of the officers who are 
 responsible for it, whether it was by accident 
 or design; but as said before they cannot cor- 
 rectly analyze and label what they but dimly 
 see. 
 
116 CUTTING THE GORDLAN KNOT. 
 
 This review of these assessments is to enable 
 the people to understand the favoritism which 
 the' Santa Fe company now enjoys and to 
 assist them to reach their own conclusions as 
 to the methods by which it has been accom- 
 plished, and decide for themselves how fully 
 they meet their approbation. 
 
 18. A GUARDED WOOD PILE. 
 
 The agents and attorneys of the Santa Fe 
 company have been sharp enough to run a 
 nigger into the Populist end of the state wood 
 pile (to use a slang jmrase) and set a Populist 
 guard to keep him there. The Republicans 
 could have let him out, but they knew their 
 friend, the company, wanted to run a bigger 
 nigger in their end of the wood pile to reward 
 them for favors and support, and they knew 
 no better way to aid them than to keep the 
 first one where he was — and maintain the 
 status quo. So they helped the Populist 
 guard, while the company's agents were 
 inducing the new Board to grant them greater 
 favors than they were given by the changes 
 made in the report of '94 after the Populist 
 Board adjourned and before it was turned 
 over to the state printer. 
 
 When the Board of '95 issued their report 
 it was seen that they had not only endorsed 
 the altered valuations of '94, but they had 
 granted the Santa Fe company the favor of 
 more than $600,000, further reductions; and 
 the bigger nigger crawled into the Republican 
 end of the wood pile. Now they watch each 
 other while the Republican King Party and 
 Santa Fe company enjoy the fruits of 
 their strategy, and the people '-pay the 
 freight.'' Do the people enjoy it? 
 
the grip of a great corporation. 117 
 
 19. watchman! what of the night? 
 
 Because the laws governing the rise and 
 progress and decay of nations are inexorable: 
 Because it seems certain that on the Popu- 
 list party rests the last hope of the Republic: 
 Because, to successfully work out its mis- 
 sion, it must uphold its righteous purpose and 
 maintain its youthful vigor: 
 
 Because to do this, it must retain public 
 confidence by enforcing, among its honored 
 servants, the maxim that, with public officials, 
 king party, who has come to be as much of a 
 despot as his rival in strength and his col- 
 league in corruption — the great corporations, 
 must always hold a subordinate place: 
 
 Because, condoning such favoritism as this 
 chapter discusses will establish with us a 
 precedent, that has long been the rule with our 
 opponents, of yeilding without resistance to 
 the grip of a great corporation: 
 
 Because if ire establish such a precedent, ire 
 will shake the faith of the people in the sin- 
 cerity of our motives and cast t<> the winds tin 
 opportunity that ties in our path, 
 From Justice's honored castle, 
 To hurl the wild Pretender 
 And install our old Defender. 
 
 For these reasons I have invaded the 
 records of official correspondence and mixed 
 therewith some facts from personal memoran- 
 da, that I might, while showing the greater 
 servility of our wily opponents to a great 
 Kansas representative of corporate power 
 and greed, lay a warning torpedo on the Pop- 
 ulist track with a friendly hand. And I trust, 
 if censured therefor by my party associates, 
 that they may sometime realize that "I have 
 been cruel only to be kind." 
 

 BOOKS-^ 
 
 e). 
 
 BY 
 
 Ex-Lieutenant Governor Percy Daniels, 
 
 EOF - KANSAS. = 
 
 The Free Coinage of American Labor 
 into Honest Dollars. Price, 5 cents. 
 
 A Sunflower Tangle — An address to the 
 People's Party State Convention in 1894.. 
 Price, 5 cents; per dozen, 40 cents. 
 
 The Midnight Message of Paul Revere. 
 Price, 5 cents; per dozen, 35 cents. 
 
 A Lesson of To-day and a Question of 
 To-morrow. A campaign speech of 1892. 
 With cut and sketch of author. Price, 10c; 
 per dozen, 75 cents. 
 
 Cutting the Gordian Kkot. 
 per dozen. #2.00. 
 
 Price, 25c: 
 
 A Crisis for the Husbandman. "Third 
 edition. With supplement ("American Des- 
 pots to the Rear/') Graduated Property Tax 
 Bill, and "A Lesson of To-day." Price. 5<i 
 cents; per dozen, $4. 
 
 ADDRESS, 
 
 PERCY DANIELS, Girard, Kansas. 
 
 K.AJE *** * , 
 
' 
 
1 • ■ r 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 013 788 990