Book _^_^ fiopyrightN COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. x^ Swollen fortunes ^ Author of— "A Crisis for the Husbandman," "Cutting the Gor- dian Knot," etc. JJV vjw «7p< JJV k!p» JJl. »p. JJb «7J^ jy. >>jv JJ*» vjv »JJW ^ ^ Jv vy» »)JU wju » (V vj^. k'Jw JJt, jp» •♦« and the ===== — = ■& (problem of the Unemployed 3 By ect for law, on which social order rests, will not long survive. md fourteen years before that a writer on the North Amer- rleview, said: Even now the system threatens the central government. he Erie Railway represents a weak combination compared to lose which day by day are consolidating under the eyes of le unsuspecting community. Already the dis-connected lembers of these future leviathans have* built up states in the ilderness and chosen their attorneys Senators of the United tates. Now their power is in its infancy ; in a few years they ill re-enact on a larger theatre and on a grander scale, with ^ery feature magnified, the scenes which were lately witnessed ti the narrow stage of a single state. The public corruption the foundation on which corporations always depend for leir political power. There is a natural tendency to coalition etween them and the lowest stratum of political intelligence nd morality; for their agents must obey, not question. They xact success and do not cultivate political morality. The )bby is their home, and the lobby thrives as political virtue ecays. Phis bill was drawn to curb the lawlessness of the opule* f to limit the oportunity for viciousness of the powen. >rs. Kansas has twice asked her representatives to push and Drt the measure, which would limit the "swollen fortunes" raise for the States to expend on Highways, Waterways, *The future Leviathans have come. A BILLION DOLLARS FOR PUBLIC WORKS 5 Reservoirs, and Forest Parks a billion dollars a year if they chose to use so much of their share of the proceeds for that purpose. VI. AN ATCHISON CHAMPION COMMENT. After the bill had been introduced in the House, Senator Peffer introduced it in the Senate ; and in a notice of the measure, the Atchison Champion — a Republican paper — said: The newspapers of the country may ridicule it as they please, but the fact remains undisputed that Senator PefTer's bill for creating a fund for setting our army of idle laborers at work on extensive public improvements, is, next to Secretary Blaine's reciprocity scheme, the wisest and most statesmanlike measure that has ever been proposed since the war. It was some such step as that proposed by Senator Peffer that did two things for France under the reign of Napoleon III — saved thousands of workingmen from starvation and gave France, particularly Paris, the finest system of streets, boule- vards, parks and other public improvements in Europe. There are thousands upon thousands of idle workingmen in this country today. Enforced idleness, such as this large army is subjected to because of trust, corporate, plutocratic methods, and the large influx of foreign workingmen, encouraged and fostered by the very advocates of a high protective tariff — to protect American workingmen against the competition of the pauper labor of Europe — the Carnegies & Co. who employ cheap foreign labor in preference to American labor — the enforced idleness, we re- peat, caused by these plutocratic methods is one of the most" prolific breeders of vice and crime. t Being thus shut out of employment by private employers the only recourse left, as a human and socio-economic means of relief and protection to society, the measure proposed by Sen- ator Peffer is both wise and timely. There are a number of much needed public improvements upon which a fund and labor could be profitably expended, not the least of which is a system of well constructed highways. (This is one of the measures provided for in the bill), and in that way the three great ends would be compassed — the un- employed would be afforded means of subsistance, society would be protected from the vice and crime which idleness pro- duces, and the country would secure at a comparatively small cost what it so much needs — a well arranged system of^properly constructed highways. VII. NOT A POPULIST MEASURE. The scheme never became a Populist measure. It was brought before one State Convention (and I believe two) and two SIGNALS FROM THE KANSAS STATE HOUSE ional Conventions (1892 and 1896) and turned down by the dutions committee in each, except the St. Louis Convention 96. There, after a memorable debate the Kansas delegation about 90) refused to let it go to the resolutions committee, while the Populist Legislature endorsed it T the conventions ised to uphold the legislature; and the measure, while ap- ved by 99% of the Populist voters, was repudiated by their vention under the senile plea of expediency — about as sensible L patriotic a position for a reform party to take, as that under ch our Republican Congress proposes to defer the considera- 1 of tariff reform measures — till after another presidential lion. VIII. DEPOSING THE USURPERS. "The papers of the country may ridicule it as they please," 5 measure would take from the fifty men who now are said to re the power to tie up the wheels of commerce and silence the eels of industry, their power to curse and impoverish — to 1 and betray. A part of this gang are responsible for the present gambler's lie. A part of them are taking advantage of the situation to sngthen the bulwarks of monopoly and to increase its defensive aament. "Ridicule it as they please," this measure would force these y men and their companions to dispose of the bulk of their nopoly stock and enable the laboring masses to acquire it; i thereby accomplish what Judge Grosscup so urgently ad- :ates — "re-peopleizing the corporations." "Ridicule it as they may," tip's measure proposed to build vast system of public improvements as enumerated in the :tion above quoted, extending into every organized county in 1 country, under the direction of the several states ; and to y all the expenses of this work by a scheme of Wealth Diffusion -ough a process of Progressive Taxation. It proposed that storage reservoirs should be built in every inty to hold flood water, and that canals should be built and tural waterways improved as funds from this source were ailable and circumstances required. And it proposed, too, at labor should always have a chance to get a job on such works long as the process of wealth diffusion was going on ; and in is way the battle-axe of starvation — now held aloft by employ- A JOB FOR ALL IDLE LABOR ers and operators at every strike — would be knocked from over the heads of the toiling myriads. IX. OTHER BENEFITS "The papers may ridicule it as they please," but it would reduce the temptation to vice among the rich and crime among the poor. It would scatter the hordes from the poverty quarters of the cities and give every industrious American Laborer an oppor- tunity to own and occupy a home of his own. It would release a million young women from the necessity of choosing between the privations of poverty and a life of dishonor These are some of the blessings and benefits the message signaled from the Kansas State House carried to the people; and if Kansas still believes in conserving our natural resources, and in taxing part of the loot from the pockets of the multi- millionaires with which to do it, she should now officially renew her allegiance to the project. Kansas Thunder, demanding a new deal in human rights, has swept beyond the Mississippi to the East Coast, penetrating New England and invading the White House. Now let her renew her allegiance to the project that the mistake may not be made of starting work on these great improvements with funds derived from a tax on labor. X. THE EXEMPTIONS OF WEALTH FROM NATIONAL TAXES. The $£00,000,000 invested in the battle-ships going to the Pacific was mostly the product of a tax on labor, as the wealth of the Nation pays but very little under our present system of National taxation toward maintaining the Federal Government. In 1903 the 650,000 wealthy class with 90% of the total wealth-assuming they consumed twice as much apiece of taxed commodities as the rest of the people, paid less than 2% of the Nation's expenses; while the latter owning but 10% of the coun- try's wealth, paid over 98%. Reduced to a tax on the $1,000, the first class paid less than twenty cents, and the rest of the people eighty-eight dollars. XI. NOW REVERSE THE PROCESS The Kansas people and Government of eleven and fifteen years ago thought, as a partial compensatory measure, these 8 SIGNALS FROM THE KANSAS STATE HOUSE great public improvements should not only be made, but should be paid for by a progressive tax on the multi-millionaires whose taxes have been mostly paid for the past forty years by the poorer classes. The National Government now proposes that the improvements shall be made; but it also proposes that the major part of the expense shall be paid by a tax on labor. To this, Kansas, who first signalled from her state house an endorse- ment of these plans, should object and file a protest againt entering on these works until provision is made for collecting the necessary funds by a tax, both just and charitable, on the "con- centrated capital," the combined plunderers, and the "fortunes swollen to undue proportions" of the nation. You, Governor Hoch, are among those who have classed this project as "the greatest national project the country has ever known." Believing this, you certainly consider the support of Kansas' in behalf of it as important as will be the action of the legislature on any of the measures likely to be considered by an extra session if one is called. Hence in behalf of this measure as well as of the other important subjects for whose consideration you are requested to convene the legislature this winter, I add my petition for a special session that Kansas may renew her pledge to waterway improvements and that she may again urge Congress to raise the funds for this work and some other important national expenses, by a progressive tax on the holdings and possessions of the multi-millionaires. Also that at the same time the necessary amendments to the National Constitution may be submitted to the several states. That we have not kept in mind the fact that we have among us a class of men, who in their rapacity are bent on enriching themselves by forcibly seizing the property of their neighbors, as we were admonished to do by the Century Magazine nearly twenty-five years ago, is why radical corrective measures are necessary to meet the changed condition with which we are surrounded, and to curb the growing lawlessness of the oppressor and the oppressed. "Some means must be found for putting a stop to them," the same writer said; but instead they have been allowed to continue their forays and multiply their devices for plunder. XII. WHAT IS THE RESULT? We are a nation of 87,000,000 people and a result of the plundering by the monopolies, the forays of the Wall Street brigands, and labor carrying the greater burden of national taxa- CAST THE DEVILSTOUT tion, is, that less than one per cent, of the families of the country hold more than 90% of the national wealth; and fifty men have been allowed to acquire such power that it is said that they can block the channels of commerce and tie up the wheels of industry which minister to the wants and wellfare of these 87,000,000 people. Free homes was one of the theories of early Republicanism. Now more than one half of our people are without homes. In New York City less than 5% are home owners, and 60,000 deserted wives are numbered among 700 thousand families. In Chicago there are one half as many, and the man who has been the greatest factor in bringing this about, goes to Sunday School and tells the children and others that the great need of the present is for people to take Jesus into their business and into their every day life — to do as Jesus would do. Jesus would cast the devils out and He would start with the biggest. The present unrest and discord and turbulence are a direct result of the scheming and example of that class of men — a small body of big pirates. It is disappointment and inability to pro- vide, that, more than any other influence, has made the hordes of broken families and is rilling court dockets with divorce cases. Equality of opportunity is gone. Intelligent labor cannot expect to earn a competence in a lifetime of industrious toil ; and we are protecting the pirates, envying them their success and applauding their genius. We call them "Captains of Industry" and calmly watch them in their new forays in an enlarging field. XIII. NOW IS THE TIME TO CALL A HALT No man has yet honestly earned five million dollars, and probably not one million. A few, lacking good judgement, may think their fathers did; but even if that were so, the greater good to the greater number now requires that they should disgorge gradually, at least to near a two or three million mark, by a graduated tax, and that we put a limit on the suction orifice of the vampires. Not one person would be wronged by such a process, and the myriads would be blessed. Natural incentives would not be curtailed, individual ambition would not be reduced nor human energy crippled thereby; but whatever removes man's opportunity to labor is a curse to the nation; and whatever im- pairs his natural incentive to work is a curse to the race. With so many reasons to favor a progressive tax remedy — a process of Wealth Diffusion — can those who realize existing to SIGNALS FROM THE KANSAS STATE HOUSE conditions and their menace to National Perpetuity see any reasons why any but the cabal of grafters should oppose? They may not think they are grafters. They may not concede they are thieves. In fact, some of them assume to be God's chosen and appointed agents for outlining His plans and enforcing His will. Some of them think individual opportunity has not been impaired by their labors and sacrifice. Fair-minded observers and careful students know the contrary is true. XIV. AND KANSAS SHOULD AGAIN SOUND THE CALL The fifty men and their satelites who control the country's business, direct the efforts and plans of Congress. In most lines of production competition is dead. They have killed it. Competition is the great balance wheel — the Divinely or- dained balance wheel of human energy. It has got to be restored or the Republic is doomed. To do it the all-powerful fifty must be deposed and their fifty thousand allies led into paths of honest effort. Kansas has blazed a way. If the legislature meets they should be urged by the people to make a renewal of our pledge in support of the Progressive Tax project a part of their work. THE TIME IS RIPE FOR CHANGE "Get but the truth once uttered and 'tis like A star new born, that drops into its place, And which once circling in its placid round, Not all the tumult of the earth can shake. "New times demand new measures and new men. The world advances and in time outgrows The laws that in our father's day were best; And doubtless, after us, some purer scheme Will be shaped out by wiser men than we, Made wiser by the steady growth of truth. We cannot bring Utopia by force; But better almost be at work in sin, Than in a brute inaction brouse and sleep. "My soul is not a palace of the past, Where outworn creeds, like Rome's gray senate quake, Hearing afar the Vandals trumpet hoarse, That shakes old systems with a thunder fit. The time is ripe and rotten ripe for change. Then let it come ; I have no dread of what Is called for by the instinct of mankind; Nor think I that God's World will fall apart Because we tear a parchment more or less." The Conquering* March of Capital (SEVENTH PAPER) Man versus Mammon BY PERCY DANIELS EY-LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF KANSAS (Extracts containing the Petition to, and the Preamble and Resolutions adopted by the Kansas Legislature of 1897; also brief extracts from the supporting argument.) An Appeal from the U. S. Supreme Court decision in the Income Tax cases, with a Plea for conferring on Congress full power to tax Inordinate Wealth as Equity demands. SEC. I. PETITION. To The Honorable Legislature of the State of Kansas: The undersigned would respectfully represent to your Honorable Body that perplexing questions and serious dangers are menacing our long-cherished Republican Institutions. That the equal privileges and opportunities guaranteed by our fundamental law to all law-abiding citizens, and which are a part of the consideration in the contract between them and the government, are not within the reach of a majority of our people. That the two most essential of these guarantees which have been annulled through sins of omission and of commission on the part of the general government are: First. An opportunity to earn or produce a living. The Divine command, "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread," does not simply carry the order to work: it carries with it the privilege, the opportunity, the right, to do this; and he who denies it is preaching the doctrine of damnation as an amendment to the plan of salvation. Every human being who comes into this world is entitled to the opportunity and a place to work to procure the necessaries of life ; and in tins era when the aggregate 12 MAN VERSUS MAMMON hours of labor necessary to supply all reasonable wants, and some unreasonable ones, of the total population, are not over three-fourths as much per capita as a hundred years ago, all who are industrious and frugal are entitled to some of its com- forts. The first purpose of Republican government's is to protect them in the enjoyment of that right. There are millions in want, and hundreds of thousands on the verge of starvation in this country, because government, while forcing them to obey both its letter and spirit, his failed on its part to keep its contract : Second. The opportunity to hold — to retain and enjoy — enough of the fruits of their labor and the product of their toil to keep them from want and from the bondage of charity in their declining years. Because our government has broken its promises to its most loyal and useful class of citizens, tens of mill ons of them have lost most of that which they had laid by for this purpose; and they are now being plundered of the pittance which they have left, at the rate of over three million dollars a day. That while aggregate statistics indicate a season of un- paralled prosperity during the last quarter of a century, their details tell a story of appalling injustice. The widening gulf between the rich and the poor which these figures show, and which the depression, the mutterings, the discontent and the uncertainty — evidences which are seen, heard and felt by all, except a very few — also reveal and affirm, is because government has assumed the authority to break its pledge and cancel its contract with the brawn and sinew of the country; and has remunerated, with constantly increasing compensation and re- wards, the cunning sharpers and crafty rogues who have lured it into its treacherous course, while keeping a confiding and patient people deluded by the specious arguments or placated by the hypocritical promises of their valets, on whom the people have showered honors without stint, and to whom they have given official power without question. That not only these circumstances, conditions, facts and events point to a coming readjustment of life's opportunities and economic conditions, but the deliberate judgment of many of our conservative and honored statesmen concede this is essential PETITION 13 to national perpetuity, while others assert that under any con- tingencies it is inevitable. Your petitioners believe both propositions to be true; that it is both essential to the maintenance of the Republic, and that it is inevitable. But we believe an orderly, peaceful and con- stitutional readjustment to be within the limits of wise states- manship; and that thereby the rights of the individual to equal opportunities may be revived, and assured; that the rights of all to a chance to earn or produce the necessaries of life may be restored, and that such restrictions may be put upon the opera- tions of the forces of avarice and ambition, as will protect our institutions from their usurpations, and the laboring millions from their plundering schemes, and lawless exactions. And we therefore most respectfully request you, to whose judgment and wisdom we have voluntarily confided our interests, to drop your routine work long enough to consider and act on the accompanying preamble and resolutions. PERCY DANIELS, ex-Lieut. Governor. FRANK DOSTER, Chief Justice Sup. Ct. S. H. ALLEN, Associate Justice Sup. Ct. DAVID OVERMYER, Democratic Leader. W. H. MORRIS, State Auditor. G. C. CLEMENS, Supreme Court Reporter. J. W. LEEDY, Governor. WM. STRYKER, Supt. Public Instruction. A. M. HARVEY, Lieut. Governor. H. S. LAND IS, Warden of Penitentiary. JAMES SHEARER, ex-State Senator. THE ADVOCATE, bv J. W. Morphy, Mgr. JNO. H. MAHAN, District Judge. W. M. CAMPBELL, Railroad Commissioner. JNO. MARTIN, ex-U. S. Senator. L. C. BOYLE, Attorney-General. D. H. HEFFLEBOWER, State Treasurer. ED. S. WATERBURY, ex-County Attorney. W. E- BUSH, Secretary of State. W. P. DILLARD, Railroad Commissioner. J. D. BOTKIN, Congressman elect. W. D. VINCENT, Congressman elect. JERRY SIMPSON, Congressman elect. 14 MAN VERSUS MAMMON SEC. Xn. A PATIENT PEOPLE. * * t * * * * It is the plunder of the masses by I ssessorsof inordinate wealth, and by methods as cunning and lawless as evei re warded the corsairs and piraiis of : ears ag - brought the conditions which are indigenous in Despotisms an I exotic in a Republic. Their existence with us is not simply a blotch, it is a dangerous disease Its [esters and eruptions and spreading rottenness, are what have brought protests and cautions and warnings from many public men. including several noted doctors of divinity. Some of these cautions have been incited by a fear of the result. Others, and especially those : such men as ex-Governor Francis, of Missouri, the venerable Doctor Holland, of Massachusetts >. I Governor Filigree, of Michigan, and Col. W. A. Phillips, a Kansas . ngi ssxrj were inspired by patriotism and a love of justice. SEC. Xm. SOME READJUSTMENT INEVITABLE. The evidence of these men and a hundred others I might name only indicates the growth of a conviction that some method of readjustment of life's privileges and opportunities, and of economic conditions is inevitable in this country. The time has come when labor, which includes all industrial and producir.. isses, must turn on its oppressors and take the aggressive, or supinely submit to the galling chains of a perma- nent bondage. The dictatorial control of every channel of commerce, and every throb of human endeavor, by capital in support of its own greedy and ghoulish ambitions, has become so complete and barbaric and so well defended by official sympathy — by legislative devices — and by judicial entrenchments, that the onlv escape for American laborers from serfdom, is for them to take the aggressive and take it now. There is not a new mechanism of industry started — not a labor-saving device perfected — not two blades : grass made to grow where but one grew before, that does not bestow greater privileges on capital and reduce labor's opportunitv and reward. The more the total hours of labor required to sapplv human needs are reduced, the harder the struggle oi tlKse. who carrv DEFECTS IN MODERNISM TO BE REMEDIE D 15 the burden; and their dividend from the application of American genius to God's philosophy, is more rags and less rations. A readjustment that will carry relief to the common people and justice to the oppressed is coming. The evidence that the masses of the people (the 70,000,000) have lost over 6,000 million dollars of their capital in the last seven years, while the classes (the 130,000) have increased their accumulations over 15,000 million dollars in the same time, is conclusive proof of this im- pending readjustment. The vast piles of the Nation's treasures stored in the securities and piled in the vaults of the few, represent the efforts and savings of the multitude. They are the booty of a thousand forays of the pirate chiefs. The processes that are supporting this spoliation are going to be stopped. In the name of the "Great Jehovah and the Colonial Congress," if other authorities fail, some of this plunder will be replevined. These ill-gotten piles of capital will be attacked either by the leveling forces of disorder, or by the mild and peaceful process of read- justment by taxation. One or the other of these is just as in- evitable as the freaks of the North Wind, or the tireless surge of the waves at Point Judith. Today we have the opportunity to adopt and enact the peaceful process. Tomorrow that chance will be gone. Then the deluge. A readjustment is coming. Fear it, deplore it or welcome it as we may, it is inevitable. Increasing turbulence and disorder are but the harvest from increasing injustice and suffering. Philosophers who are delving among the cobwebs of the past, can see it; and those who are building castles for the future, will, if they are wise, include in their calculations this inevitable read- justment of opportunities, of conditions, of burdens and blessings, unless they are willing to admit a race degeneracy which they share. SEC. XIV. WILL IT BE ORDERLY OR VIOLENT? This process will be orderly or violent, as the energy and temper of the contending forces are wisely guided and restrained by the arbitration of law; or stupidly permitted to waste their force and consume their substance in hostile efforts to control or to crush each other. * * * * **#* i6 MAN VERSUS MAMMON SEC. XVIII. IN HOSTILE ARRAY. The industrial armies of the Nation are gathering between" the hosts of Pharaoh and the Red Sea. They are a multitude in numbers but puny in defensive force because disorganized. The day is past when the waters will divide to let them escape. They have the weapons of their own salvation, and they must organize and turn on their pursuers or go into indefinite bondage. The flesh pots of Egypt, with their savors and allurements, may tempt and seduce some weaklings who cower before these hosts and fear the alternative. If in that way we lose a corporal's guard for asserting our rights and demanding their recognition, in offer- ing labor a certain opportunity for relief and. independance, beyond the reach of Plutocracy's mandate or artillery, we Will swap every wavering squad for an "Ironsides" division. He******* Then too will be revived and reenacted for the law-abiding Lambs of Labor, and the lawless Lords of Lucre, two of the fun- damental principles of Judaism and Christianity, the two greatest axioms of human rights: For the first. "IN THE SWEAT OF THY BROW SHALT THOU" (always have opportunity to) "EAT THY BREAD." And for the second, "THOU SHALT NOT STEAL." But whether or not these old time and seemingly obsolete laws are revived and again enforced, of one thing we may all rest assured: That a readjustment of opportunities and economic conditions is coming in the United States. It is inevitable. A peaceable process is still a possibility, but it cannot long remain so. That is a process which will start the engine of taxation to eating into inordinate accumulations of wealth. If the ministers want to still a storm they should plead with the winds and not the waves. They waste their breath in saying to the revelers, "Don't strut:" and to the starving, "Don't squeal." Human nature is in as full play in one case as in the other. They should talk of remedies — of measures to abolish the crime of poverty and wash away the sin of want. The laborers should be given employment. Every one of them is entitled to it. Turning out vagrants by the million is a serious crime. To stop it I can see no better way than to lay a heavy tax on inordinate wealth — the greater wealth above some definite line, the greater tax — - and expend the proceeds in the employment of all idle labor on GREAT CHANGES INEVITABLE 17 public works of general utility such as roads, canals, water courses and reservoirs ; and in paying the pensions ; thus relieving the treasury and the masses of that burden. If any one can sug- gest a more feasible or a more equitable method, he cannot serve his country better than by making it public. SEC. XIX. A LOST PREROGATIVE ^ . Under the latest construction put upon the contsitution, the people are prohibited from putting a tax on inordinate wealth, as such, a right which they enjoyed, and exercised at their pleasure for a century. So in a Republic we are prohibited from using a method of lightening the burdens on labor, which is used by all the great monarchies of Europe. * * J * * * * * * * * SEC. XXII. A COMING AWAKENING. ******** We are now moving rapidly toward an awakening. The leaven of education spreading among the people will continue its work. It will continue to incite them to awake. It will continue to uncover the injustice of plutocratic rule, and to gather the force to correct it. It will continue to pull the moss from the fossils and demagogues of the oligarchy, that the brand on their backs may be seen. It will continue to expose the methods by which they are now enabled to tax labor by their fiat, the stupendous sum of 2,000 million dollars a year for their personal use and benefit. SEC. XXIII. REPUDIATORS, TRAITORS AND ANARCHISTS. It will continue to show that the great repudiators, the great traitors, the great anarchists of the country sit in their council or are numbered with their vassals. And it will continue to show that they must be disarmed, if liberty is to be restored. So let us hope that this leaven will speedily stir us to decide on the best way to accomplish this, and drive us to add works to our faith, and enforce measures that will peaceably depose the pretenders; that will offer to every American freeman, independence and a home; and that will again make the Nation, "the land of the free and the home of the brave." And hoping, let us each resolve to add our mite to the forces gathering for the suppression of the oligarchy and the re-establishment of constitutional liberty, that this change may be consumated before the tyranny of capital has convinced i8 MAN VERSUS MAMMON • the watching, anxious patriot, that we have passed the line where the duty of loyal citizens to condone injustice and to quietly submit to persecution ceases, and the true patriot and the Chris- tian soldier hear the call of duty and the voice of charity inciting them to meet the tyrant before the court of last resort, and depose the pretender by physical force. God's law is for mankind. His gifts are for the million. Drones, peacocks and butterflies are the tares of our civilization. If civilization offers its best gifts only to the drones, peacocks and butterflies, it is a curse, and its endowments are a fraud. If civilization offers less opportunity for the millions to enjoy His gifts, and for mankind to find shelter under His law, than bar- barism, think you He would intervene to stay a flood of barbarism now, any more than when mighty and majestic Rome went down? When the cry of "Bread!" floats towards the skies from a crowd of struggling, starving men, as a rule they are famishing on account of the absence of something more essential than bread — and that is justice. Is this the kind of repudiation, or anarchy or treason that is disturbing the capitalistic junto, by asking for God's commands to be executed and government pledges to be fulfilled? They may well call us repudiators. We are such. Not those anxious or willing to repudiate honest obligations; but we advo- cate repudiating the sophistries of capitaistic anarchy, and the paganism of plutocratic avarice. One unquestioned fact we should all remember : that human judgment is a victim of mutations. It has always been cumbered with the infirmities of fallibility. The heretics and cranks and traitors of one generation in the world's history, have often become teachers and heroes to the next. SEC. XXIV. AN INVITATION TO EXILED JUSTICE. Four years ago Kansas set her face squarely towards meas- ures that would scatter the gathering storm-clouds and correct these wrongs by a legal and peaceful readjustment through the channels of taxation, by resolution of her legislature and petition of her state officers, asking Congress to tax inordinate wealth — not the proceeds derived from its use, but the accumulated capital itself — enough to employ all idle labor on public works of general utility, such as roads, watercourses, reservoirs, and PREAMBLE TO RESOLUTIONS 19 parks, and to pay all pensions and other war charges. The measure then indorsed was in direct conformity with the recom- mendation of Thomas Jefferson.* 9£C 5jC 3JC - 3JC 9|C 9fC Jft SEC. XXXI. SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 23. Whereas, With an abundance of all the necessaries and com- forts of life in the country, millions of our loyal and industrious people are in want, and hundreds of thousands are homeless, and tens of thousands are starving ; with an abundance of work to do, the means that should do it lying idle, and the laborers that are anxious to do it roving the streets, and drifting into the ranks of the criminals; and Whereas, This state of affairs is the result of unwise political policies, of oppressive commercial practices, and of discriminating financial measures and transactions, many of which have been in open violation of statute law, and all of which have violated the higher law; and Whereas, Through such lawless and arrogant practices, capital has gradually been brought under the control, and not only the control but ownership of so small a circle of individuals, that they are able to enforce a thorough system of co-operation; and this positon of vantage has enabled them to force labor to work under a system of competition. Its congestion in small areas and in few hands, to say nothing of the crimes by which this has been accomplished, has impaired its vitality, so it cannot render the service to the nation it would if it was in more hands; nor is this question of service to the people or the community one that enters into the plans of its manipulators in this circle. "How many men can I dispense with and curse, "rather than "how many can I employ and bless," is one of the problems they have continuously studied. The more idle the less they must pay those who work. The idle millions alone enable the capitalists to hold the battle ax of starvation above all who labor for wages ; and * * * * Whereas, A prerogative which the people had enjoyed and exercised at their pleasure for over a hundred years, becoming theirs by right of possession and undisputed use, had it not come within the concessions of our written law, has recently been an- •See "A Crisis for the Husbandman" p 133 20 MAN VERSUS MAMMON nulled and wiped out by the juggling decision of a judicial sycophant; and Whereas, Thirty years ago, inordinate wealth and corpora- tions were paying more than one-half of the expenses of the national government; and under corrupt influences and with broken promises, this burden was transferred from the shoulders of the men who derived the greater benefits from the war to the backs of the common people, the release from taxation of the wealthy by changes in the tax laws having reached a sum amount- ing to over $200,000,000 a year in 1870, and whose aggregate brought down to the present time exceeds $6,000,000,000, and with interest added reaches 15 per cent, of the country's total wealth, all of which has been wrung from the toiling millions for the benefit of unscrupulous capitalists and financial pirates; and Whereas, The recent phosphorescent and spasmodic decision of the supreme court changes what has heretofore been a per- mission to exempt inordinate wealth from a special tax, into a command to do so ; giving it an immunity in a Republic unknown to the monarchies of Europe; and * * * * Whereas, Other encroachments on the vested rights and God-given opportunities of the masses by the lawless designs and greedy purpose of co-operating capitalists, are now taking several times as much per year from their savings as the repeal of the taxes on wealth; and Whereas, No permanent return of prosperity is possible until the ability of the masses to purchase and consume is increasing instead of decreasing ; and Whereas, The present official construction put upon the tax provisions of the national constitution prohibits the taxing power from considering in the distribution of all public burdens, the first principle of equitable taxation — that of ability to pay; therefore be it Resolved, By the Senate of the State of Kansas, the House of Representatives concurring therein, That we, the legislature of the state of Kansas, request and petition the congress of the United States to submit to the legislatures of the several states, in compliance with article number five of the federal constitution, a proposed amendment to the same, conferring on congress full RESOLUTIONS 21 power to tax inordinate wealth, or its proceeds and revenues, and also all incomes, by such methods and in such amounts as in its judgment would meet the requirements of equity: Provided, That all incomes of less than $2,000 a year, and the property of every individual whose aggregate possessions or wealth is less than $200,000 be exempt from the operation of any law for levying the said special tax. Resolved, That the accumulation of inordinate wealth, which has become a detriment to the masses and a menace to our insti- tutions, should be retarded, and its evil influences mitigated, if not wholly dissipated, by graduated taxation. Resolved, That we approve the propositions of a bill (H. R. 8618) now before congress, for that purpose, which begins with a one per cent, tax on individual possessions exceeding $1,000,000, taxing only the excess above a million; increasing the rate two per cent. (2 per cent.) at $2,000,000; five per cent. (5 per cent.) more at $5,000,000; and ten per cent. (10 per cent.) more at $10,- 000,000, a proposition which has already been approved by a large majority of the voters of Crawford county, and was in- dorsed by the legislature and state officers of 1893. Resolved, That we favor the levying of such a tax, and the appropriation of the proceeds of it as provided for in the said bill — First, to the payment of pensions, the principal of, and the interest on, the public debt: Second, that the residue be divided among the states, either according to population which is the way the constitution apportions direct taxes; or according to population, wealth and area combined; and that the states then use it in the employment of all idle labor, on public works of general utility, such as roads, reservoirs, water-courses, canals and forest parks; and to paying the expenses of the state military establishments ;but no part of this fund to be used for the latter purpose until every citizen of the state wanting work is employed at not less than one dollar a day for eight hours work. Resolved, That a copy of the preceding petition, preamble and these resolutions be sent by the secretary of the state of Kansas to the presiding officer of every state senate and house of repre- sentatives in the nation, with the request that they — the said legislatures — unite with Kansas in asking congress to submit such a proposed amendment to the constitution, to the several 22 MAN VERSUS MAMMON states for their consideration and action ; and also for the purpose of testing, developing an interest in and promoting a familiarity with the application of the initiative and referendum theory to the direction of government policies. Resolved,That our senators be instructed and our representa- tives be requested to urge the reference of such a proposition to the states at once, that, in case the present legislatures should fail to represent the popular wish on this question, succeeding legislatures may be chosen with reference to this problem of putting an equitable share of public burdens on vast accumula- tions of capital. SEC. XXXIII. SHALL WE HAVE A NEW CRUSADE? The foregoing Resolutions were introduced in the Kansas Senate in connection with the Petition that opens this article, on Feb. 25, 1897, by Mr. Ryan of Crawford county. They were called up for consideration February 27, and adopted by the following vote: Yeas 20, nays 9. * * * * March 2nd, the Resolution came up in the House. * * * The roll was called, with the following result : Yeas 68, nays 40; absent or not voting, 17. * * * * By this act the Kansas legislature offers to the laboring masses a chance to force a readjustment of opportunities and burdens; to drop an effective bomb of readjusting taxation into the camps of labors plunderers, that will shake the oligarchy out of its fortifications and help to call those who compose it back to decent methods and honest effort. We need a Crusade again, to smash the fossils of mouldy tradition and loosen the grip of perverted precedent. We need to advocate measures, and prove our allegiance to them, that the millions can see mean certain relief to them instead of a doubtful tender to posterity. They are too tired of waiting for relief, to be interested or amused by any quibbling over trivial tariff changes, or the stupid efforts at doctoring the currency, first by bleeding and then with hypodermic injections. SEC. XXXIV. SIGNALS FROM THE KANSAS STATE HOUSE. Relief is what they want. It is what they demand. They have been gulled and plundered too long to be patient. They are tired of the intricate structures of tradition and precedent tnat sustain policies and methods, whose only dividend to them LABOR'S BURDENS MUST BE LIGHTENED 23 is more rags and less rations. They demand a change, and it must be granted. Kansas has planted her guidons on a line that will bring it, in the above resolutions. * * * * SEC. XXXV. WHERE TO STRIKE IS THE MESSAGE IT BEARS. Recent events and rapidly changing conditions are telling us more and more plainly, that other methods than those sufficient a hundred years ago, must be adopted to protect people in the enjoyment of the rights accorded them by our fundamental law; and especially to protect them from the oppressions of the im- mense accumulations of capital which the many have earned and the few have got. We pass laws against the trusts; and the trusts increase. The acts are purposely defective, or the officers refuse to enforce them. We cumber our statute books with penalties for minor crimes, and they steadily increase. There are better ways to attack both of these evils. Under present conditions both will increase. We might as well legislate against sunshine, as to enact that men with the means and opportunity shall not com- bine. * * * * The power by which they exist offers their only vulnerable point. Stupendous aggregations of wealth constitute that power and the action of the Kansas legislature says, that is where we w T ill attack. This is the only way they will ever be disturbed, without bloodshed, and it will be found a better way than to cumber our statutes with "Thou shaft nots." SEC. XXXVI. WORK FOR THE IDLE, THE KEY. There is a better way to reduce the wrongs of the criminals than statute penalties and stone walls. In the cases of a majority of them, the public may have been the original aggressor. Kan- sas proposes that we try the better way. We would stop stealing and the need for soup houses, food distribution and cast off clothing, by enabling men to live comfortably without them. We would scatter our army of vagrants by enlisting them as industrials and keeping them busy on public works in every organized county; and we would pay them all by a tax that would rout the trusts and gradually replevin the power — the ill-gotten millions — of the plutocrats. We would relieve an army of usurers from duty by qualifying the masses to live without 24 MAN VERSUS MAMMON borrowing — by enabling them to lend instead of forcing them to borrow. That is the message we are signaling — the message now going from our State House to every other state legislature. The first thing to do to accomplish these great changes, is to find employment for the idle millions and remove them from competition with those now at work, and pay them good wages by a tax on inordinate wealth as proposed in the measures sup- ported by the Kansas state government. That is the better way than driving men to crime by forced idleness — than soup houses or work-shops for vagrants — wmich Kansas is signaling to her sister states. Should enough of them join in the demand to force a test of the better way, twelve months of experimental operation would put every industrious laborer in the nation, above the temptation to barter his ballot for beer, or to sell his sovereignty for bread. They would then possess both the knowledge and the independ- ence to fairly decide whether the cause of Justice would be better served by measures more conservative or more radical. SEC. XXXVII. LET MAMMON PAY THE BILL. It would take an immense fund to employ all idle labor and furnish the appliances for their work, but the legislative resolu- tions provide for that feature in supporting a project for a grad- uated tax, (as recommended by Thomas Jefferson) on the prop- erty of all millionaires. The proposed rates begin at i per cent, at $1,000,000, and increase to 18 per cent, on fortunes exceeding $10,000,000. * * * * The imposition of this direct tax on property, would not under the Kansas resolutions, interfere with a tax on all incomes down to $2,000 a year if Congress decided that the demands of equity or the necessity for more revenue required it; but this schedule alone would by taxing about 8,500 persons, raise a sufficient sum to not only employ all idle labor as proposed, but to pay all pensions and the interest on, and finally the principal of the public debt. It will also enable us to decide the great suit now pending, in behalf of the plaintiff — MAN. * *** ###* THE PEACEFUL WAY 25 SEC. XL. THE CONSISTENCY OF CHANGE. Emerson says: "Speak now what you think in hard words; and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words, though it contradicts everything you said today." The endorsement of such a project by Kansas state officers, and the favorable action of her legislature, offers to every one of the industrial classes, a specific, a certain, a speedy and an equitable opportunity to escape from the wilderness of civilized serfdom and enter the Promised Land of Republican freedom. It now remains for them to say by their acts, whether or not they have the sturdy manhood, the desire for Liberty, the love of Justice to accept it. "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. "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 today." — From the Midnight Message of Paul Revere. Extracts from Recent Correspondence To HON. CHAS. F. SCOTT, M. C, 2nd Kansas District Narragansett Farm. Girard, Kan. 6-18-07. Hon. Cha's. F. Scott, Iola, Kan. My Dear Friend : Since the President has appointed a commission to do what I advocated in my paper as a state delegate to the National Irrigation Congress of '97 for solving the flood and drought problem, I often wonder if you took my article to him as I requested in 1904. His points on making the waterways competitors of the R. R's. are quite similar to some paragraphs in my paper. (See Cong. Record 55th C. 2nd S. P. 7522, last 1-3 of 1st column. Also p. 7523, 1st column, next to last par. beginning "The best adjuster of R. R. rates is water transportation. ' ') On the use of progressive Taxation as a remedy for present injustice, disorder and growing lawlessness, he is coming my way faster than any other public man in the country. He now supports an income tax, an inheritance tax and a corporation license tax — all progressive I believe — and thaf'swollen fortunes"(not very different from "inordinate wealth") be not only controlled but reduced. An income tax won't reduce them; nor an inheritance tax for present possessors. A progressive property tax will; hence he must favor the property tax. Do you ever think of Feb. 10th, '93 in the Senate — "Starting a hot wind!" "What we pay for!" et cetera? Now if handy take down your copy of "Crisis Lectures" and turn to page 1 13 — "The Coming Billionaire He Will Not Come." * Perhaps I had figured more closely than any of you surmised. If I had not thought so, I should not have sacrificed time and means, strength and friends in my efforts to induce others and help others to see what I saw ; but I never expected to have so powerful an ally as President Roosevelt; nor that any President would have both the sense and the nerve to recommend such measures, who had not been elected on a platform demanding them. Corruption and intrigue prevented the Populists from carrying them to the White House. The Republicans have done so unwittingly; and so I praise the Lord "who works in a mysterious way." Yours very truly, Percy Daniels. CORRESPONDENCE 27 His Reply COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE House of Representatives U. S. Iola, Kansas, June 22nd, 1907. Hon. Percy Daniels, Girard, Kansas, My Dear Friend : I am just in receipt of yours of June 18th, which I have read with much interest. There is no doubt that sentiment has drifted very far in your direction and you are entirely warranted in the self congrat- ulation which you express that veiws uttered by you many years ago are just now finding acceptance with the leading statesmen of the country- This fact does great credit to your foresight and that it is not to your personal or political advantage is one of the penalties paid by men who see farther ahead than the majority of their generation. I have heard men classified as those who are right too soon, those who are right too late, and those who are right at just the nick of time. You, and the Populist party in many particulars, seem to have had the mis- fortune, to be right too soon — when the country in general was not ready to take the steps you advocated. Our Democratic friends have generally had the misfortune to be right too late — after the things they approved had been done in spite of their opposition. The Re- publican party seems to have been pretty lucky in being right at the right time. * * * *Some day when you have a little time I wish you would let me know how you reconcile your idea of progressive taxation with the equal taxation article of the Constitution. If you happen to have been more industrious and more prudent than I have and acquired a hundred thousand dollars whereas I have one thousand, why should you pay a greater percentage of tax than I do? * * * * Assuring you that I am always glad to hear from you, and with best wishes, I am, Sincerely yours, Chas. F. Scott. COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE House of Representatives U. S. Iola, Kansas, July 27th, 1907. My Dear Governor : I have been away a great deal of the last two weeks and my secre- tary has been away all the time, hence the delay in replying to yours of the 10th. Answering now I do not remember definitely whether I took your article on the Flood and Drouth up to the President or not, but I think the chances are I did not. The President is without doubt the busiest man in the United States and I make it a point never to take up a moment of his time with a matter which is not immediately before 'See p. 20, Resolution No. 1. 28 MAN VS MAMMON him for consideration or settlement. While I have no doubt he would have been interested in your views, yet it was not anything which he could have taken action upon and I did not feel as if I should occupy his time with it. I note that your reform in the matter of taxation, according to your own judgment, seems to depend upon an amendment to the Constitution. Some wise man has said that the Constitution of the United States, except in the matter of the first amendments which were really put in to supply generally acknowledged omissions, the Constitution never has been amended and never will be amended except by war. I am inclined to think he is right, At any rate, great measures such as Woman Sufferage and the election of United States Senators by the people, have been urging an amendment to the Consti- tution for many years and have had behind them a tremendous senti- ment and yet nothing has ever been accomplished. I really believe that whatever reforms are achieved in the way of taxation will have to be under the Constitution as it now exists. Hastily, but very cordially yours, Chas. F. Scott. Hon. Percy Daniels, Girard, Kansas. From Ex=Jusiice S. H. Allen of the Kansas Supreme Court Topeka, Kan., January 14, 1908. General Percy Daniels, Carthage, Mo. Dear Governor: I was out of town Saturday and did not get your first letter til yesterday. I am now in receipt of your second letter, containing the article referred to which I am now frowarding to Mr. Chase with the request that he give it a place in full in the Capital. * * * * You ask me why it is that you have made so little impression in the advocacy of your ideas, manifestly of very great importance and clearly and forcibly presented. I think Congressman Scott answers the question very well. I might put it in different language. You do not work along the lines of least resistance, but work your battering ram against a ledge of solid rock. This may bring about the best final results, but the end of the battering ram is likely to be sadly worn before there is any perceptible progress. Your scheme of taxation has in view what to my mind is a most laudable end, but I am inclined ot think the road you select is about the most difficult and impassible of any leading in that direction. First and foremost in your way is the constitutional provison that "No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid unless in proportion to the census or enumeration hereinbefore directed to be taken." * I think there can be no doubt that all the courts would hold that your CORRESPONDENCE 29 scheme of taxation is a direct tax, bearing unequally on the state, and the citizens thereof, and inhibited by the constitution.* Another difficulty, equally great in the present state of public opinion, is a general antipathy to any scheme of direct taxation, no matter how beneficial, As Congressman Scott says speedy results can only be hoped for when there is a general drift of public sentiment not merely in the direction of your ultimate object, but in favor of the expedient you advance for the accomplishment of that object. I have had substantially the same experience that you have in advocating another remedy, not so thorough as the one you pro- pose, but which has no constitutional barriers to overcome, viz, a change in the laws of inheritnace, making the state the residuary legatee of all multi-millionaires, and limiting the amount that any person might take by inheritance to such amount of property as would give him a fair start in life. I find that even ardent reformers are mostly too strongly prejudiced against any scheme of this kind to give it a hearing or seriously consider it. In looking over the whole field and determining what are the really greatest evils in the organization and uses of government, I have become most firmly convinced that first and foremost of all, and greater than all others combined, is the evil of militarism, and that the greatest reform now considered is that of a general federation of the world, which will dispense with great armaments, settle all inter- national controversies, by reason instead of war, and turn the great armies of the world into useful and productive fields, instead of keeping them in training for the destruction of each other and the infliction of misery on the balance of mankind. I think it would be even better than your taxation scheme, if the money now being expended on the navy and fortifications were used to carry out your solution of the drouth and flood problems. I am painfully aware of the defects of all systems of administer- ing justice, of the disposition of lawyers and courts to decide cases on mere artificial and unjust technical grounds, rather than on the merits of the cause. I have expended much time and effort to obtain a revision of our code of procedure which will eliminate most of the foolishness in our system, and hope to succeed in my efforts when a new legislature convenes, but not at this special session. If my health and strength hold out I mean to make a similar effort for the reforma- tion of the federal judiciary and I hope that others may in the near future give to the* Hague tribunal substantial power and a sensible procedure under which controversies between nations will be settled as are those between the states of our Union. This is my dream of the future, to which I am more attached than to all other conceivable reforms combined. * * * * Very truly yours, S. H. Allen. 'See p. 20, Resolution No. 1. 30 MAN VS MAMMON g-^. -rr\ ^ r - Taylor was formerly a State OtaiOp T ami Fepresentative and Senator, also _ , . ~ , „ President of the State Board of Edwin Tayior, Prop- Agriculture. Edwardsville, Kansas, March 4, 1908. Gen. Percy Daniels, Kansas City, Kansas. My Dear Governor : — I have read your article and have been inter- ested in it. * * * I have thought much about your "remedy", the Graduated Tax, and one or two considerations I will submit : * * * There is much rough road to go over before we come to that. If that proposition could be made effective tomorrow, it would mean war. The popular mind isn't ripe for it. It doesn't see the necessity for it. It is being educated very fast, and it's likely that in the near future it will learn much faster. When one considers how far the nation has travelled on this road since you were Lieut. Governor, one gets a notion of the value of patience that he didn't have before. I am free to own that, for the present, my chief concern is for the ways and means of installing Democracy. Chief among those ways and means I regard the Primary Election Law, the Initiative, the Referendum and the Right of Recall. All of these are heart thrusts at that baneful institution, the political party, which though not strictly the seat of all our woes, is nevertheless to plutocracy what the hair was to Samson. In the last analysis, as I regard it, the irrepressible conflict now on is between the corporation and the individual. Millionaires have ridden to wealth, almost exclusively, on the backs of the (corporate) monsters. They have not been without their uses and their lessons. What I look forward to with intense anticipation is the substitution of the state itself for those creatures of the state. Every blow at the corporation I regard as a stroke for salvation. * * Expecting to see you stand firm at your post and not back out, like Lawson, I remain, Sincerely your friend, Edwin Taylor. From William Allen White. Emporia, Kan., June 18th, 1904. My Dear Governor; — I was glad to get your letter with enclosures. (The enclosures referred to were two sheets of the Crisis lectures of 1889). How the world is wagging. Fifteen years ago they would not have interested me, nor the average prosperous citizen. Today the subject appeals to every one. I suppose it is always that way. People probably thought John the Baptist was a crank; they were so sure that Christ was crocked that they crucified him. This is a curious world. The evils of our civilzation — its many injustices and its chronic ailments — may not be remedied by any law, nor by any movement, until the law is inspired by a change in the character of the people as individuals; and until the movement represents something more than a desire to reform someone besides one's self. So long as people buy trust made articles because they are cheaper than other similar articles made by honest hands in honest shops, there is no real working public sentiment against the trusts, and law against them will fail. But when CORRESPONDENCE 31 the people — rather, when the individual man, is willing to say that he will sacrifice ten or fifteen cents a day getting goods not sticky with the blood of his fellow creatures, made by murdering opposition and com- petition — then the market for trust made goods will fail and the trust will go out of business. Slave made goods would not sell in America. Convict made goods don't sell well. There is real sentiment against these things. But the only sentiment against the extortions of capital in industry — and there are such extortions a plenty— is the kind that a man uses to get men to shouting so that he can slip into office. We as a nation are not very careful about having our money clean. Public sentiment upholds Rockefeller; it takes his dirty money and is glad to have it. Until people at the very bottom of their character revolt against taking Rockefeller's money as they would against taking Jesse Jame's, or Gambler Richard Canfield's, until the people get honest in the core of their hearts, talk of any sort of legislative reform is idle. For if it is not a trust, it will be some other selfish devise that will extort money from producers and consumers with the full and envious approv- al of the people. I don't believe all trusts are bad; I don't believe all rich men are dishonest. But I notice that the people envy the rich men who are dishonest just as much as they envy the rich man who is honest. I do not believe that all poor men are honest, yet I have noticed that honest poverty is respected no more than dishonest poverty by men who talk most glibly about the downtrodden and oppressed. Until public sentiment makes the proud thief a social outcast, as it does the convict thief, there is no sense in hoping to accomplish much reform against smart stealing by laws. Laws that do not reflect character are dead laws. In the mean time, whoever calls out against the false gods as you are calling, has done his full duty. The world has been moved along by those who are willing to die protesting and doing their share of the work in making men see the evil of their ways. I admire your spirit and your courage, and I wish you well. Sincerelv, W. A. WHITE. SOME EARLIER COMMENTS Prof. Richard Ely, John Hopkins University, Baltimore, writes: "I am greatly interested in what you say about the tariff." Ex-Governor Charles Robinson, of Kansas, writes: Lawrence, Kansas, October 14, 1889. "Col. Percy Daniels, Dear Sir: — I have read your "Crisis for the Husbandman" with great interest. It is certainly a hopeful sign of the times when men like yourself are awake to the situation, and can sound the alarm with such convincing facts and logic. The "Crisis" should be in the hand of every farmer in the country, as such literature is greatly needed to set him free. ' ' Sinrecely yours, C. ROBINSON. 32 A CRISIS FOR THE HUSBANDMAN From Justice Wilbur of Rhode Island, who was mustered out of the 7th Reg. R. I. V., as captain, June 21st, 1865; was made a judge of the district court the next month and served nineteen years and seven months, then promoted to the supreme court and served twenty years and five months, making forty years of con- tinuous service on the bench. In his letter of approval he says under date of December 9, 1889- "The subject you treat of is a vast one, and of great interest to the farmer. Your reasoning is very clear and logical, and will therefore carry conviction. You are on the right road. Do not turn to the right hand or to the left but go steadily on." From Ex-Governor Wm.Sprague — War Governor of Rhode Island : Narragansett Pier, Sept., 1st, 1890. "Col. Percy Daniels:— I beg to thank you for the copies of the Western Herald that contain your July 4th, '90, oration. I had just finished reading the history of Kossuth, and the Hungarian revolt. Kossuth's speeches and your oration could easily be mistaken as from one and the same person. * * * Cordially, W. SPRAGUE. From the Rt. Rev. Thomas M. Clark, Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Rhode Island: Providence, R. I., November 29, 1890 "Col. Percy Daniels: — Dear Sir. — I thank you for your very able pamphlet, which expresses to a great extent the views which I had already penned. Since you wrote, the country has expressed itself on the tariff question with an emphasis, and I do hope that those who are soon to come into power will have wisdom and principle enough to re- form the various abuses now existing. The good old Republican party seems to have entered upon the stage of decomposition. Very sincerely yours, THOMAS M. CLARK. From Judge Allen, of the Kansas bench: Pleasanton, Kansas, February 19, 1891. Col. Percy Daniels, Girard, Kansas. "Dear Sir: — I have noticed with pleasure, the position you take with reference to casting the burdens of National taxation on the rich and lifting it from the shoulders of the poor. I am firmly convinced, that sooner or later this must be the central idea of the new party. "The many growing evils of which we complain, will continue so long as a few men have the vast power now possessed by the great millionaires. The principal thing to do is to destroy their power for evil, by taxing away their possessions. Mere temporary expedients of defence against them avail nothing. Their power must be destroyed.,, Yours truly, S. H. ALLEN. CORRESPONDENCE 32 a The advocates of a progressive property tax as a corrective for wealth concentration, have heen hampered by the tendency to class it as an income tax. Less than a year ago a leading Kansas daily paper headed a two column quotation from my article of 1897 — "The Flood and Drouth Problem Solved by Graduated Taxation" — calling the project advocated, for raising the funds for controlling floods and improving and extending our navigable waterways, establishing forest parks and improving highways, an Income Tax. While I have opposed an income tax generally, as it is not a cor- rective measure, or too superficial to be classed as one, I have occasion- ally assented to it as better than nothing; but if people really want to correct the evils of wealth concentration they must consider. and enact something more far-reaching than an income tax. The following ex- tract illustrates the point: (Topeka Evening Press) Aug. 23, 1893 GRADUATED PROPERTY TAX Gen. Percy Daniels hands the Press the following strictures upon our article of last Saturday commenting upon his tax scheme, and we hasten to acknowledge that in several very important instances we were in error as to the purport of the bill : Office of Lieutenant Governor, Topeka, Kan., Aug. 22, 1893. Editor Daily Press : Referring to your editorial comments on my property tax bill in last Saturday's issue of your paper, I beg to point out the following instances in which you were grievously in error: First — You head your comments on my bill "A Graduated Income Tax." My bill does not tax incomes at all. Second — In reference to the revision you talk of: In the original bill there was no definite provision for a return of the property of aliens. That was added to the new bill, but there was no other amendment except to increase the ratio of the proceeds, that should be devoted to public works — the employment of idle labor. Third — Is it constitutional? If you will refer to page 102 in my arguments on this tax problem ("A Crisis for the Husbandman") a copy of which you have, you will find some reply to this query. Pre- scedent, too, has established the right of the government to tax any- thing it chooses, and luxuries are especial objects of its solicitude. A million dollars may not be a luxury, but there is no doubt but what two millions are. Fourth — You say that the bill provides that the revenue of the government shall be taken entirely from the taxes on the millionaires; 32 b MAN VS MAMMON while the facts are that the bill provides that the whole proceeds of the tax shall be applied to meeting the war liabilities i to setting our idle laborers at work and to paying the expenses of the state military, and that nothing from it shall be used for the normal expenses of the govern- ment. Fifth — You say that the bill would tax 5,000,000 people, implying that there are that many millionaires in the nation. If you will turn to page 97 of the "Crisis" lectures you will find a table showing that three years ago of the 310,000 people who own 90 per cent of the nation's wealth but 10,000 of them are millionaires, and on page 103 you can find a table showing that under this bill 8,000 of these millionaires would pay a tax of $1,780,000,000. Respectfully, Percy Daniels. As stated in our editorial under question we had not given the bill a thorough and critical examination, and we confess it was dense ig- norance on our part to have so far misconceived the scope of the bill as to have considered it to be an income tax. That a taxing measure should have been conceived that had for its object no relation to revenue whatever, but solely for the purpose of gradually confiscating for public use the inordinately large fortunes of the millionaires, was a proposition so unique and ingenious that the special attention of most anyone would necessarily have to be called thereto to avoid the error into which we had fallen. Gen. Daniels' bill has no relation to national or state revenues. It simply provides for the annual accumulation, through the taxing power of the government, of a large fund gathered by a grad- uated property tax on the possessions of millionaires, this fund to be divided each year among the states, one-third in proportion to their valuation, one-third in proportion to their population, and one-third in proportion to their area, the money thus falling to each state to be ex- pended in liquidating war obligations to the old soldiers and internal improvements. The mere suggestion contained in Gen. Daniel's letter above quoted will give the reader an idea of the measure he has promulgated, and which is now before congress. As to its constitutionality, practicability and expediency, we must leave that for future discussion. CORRESPONDENCE 32 c OFFICE OF The GIRARD FURNITURE COMPANY Girard, Kansas, June 13, 1907. Gen. Percy Daniels, Narragansett Farm. Dear Freind : In assorting my old papers this morning, I happened on to some- thing, that in the light of events that have come and gone with the years, since and before 1894, to my mind is both amusing and instructive. I refer to the "Allen Letter." over which most of the Republican daily papers had conniption fits. The full page HURRAH of a certain metropolitan daily, consisting of great scare head lines, with fac simile type-written letter of Judge Allen to you, your letter to me written on Santa Fe train May 21, 1894, all faithfully and accurately portrayed, is lying before me at this time; you could feel of my face after night and tell that I was smiling. There must have been quite a good deal of trouble, time, care, per- severance and expense put upon that page, which to my mind now, as well as then, was nothing more or less than a great big "mare's nest." When the reporter came to me, asking for an interview, and what I knew about it, I remember that I had very little to say, for to save my life I could not see wherein the case demanded it. Even then, I was not correctly quoted. I remember telling the reporter that it seemed to me they were taking it very tedious, and were making "much ado about nothing." That both you and Judge Allen were my personal and politi- cal friends; that Judge Allen had written a very sensible letter to a very sensible man — that he had submitted it to me (at that time Clerk of the District Court and a member of the Populist Committee) that the letter was a private one, that some thief had stolen it and had given it to the press, and that they had tried to make something out of it, had failed, and would fail. That there was nothing in it to show that you had thought of jumping Lewellings claim for Governor. Rather that you had put your quietus on any such arrangement made by your friends. That I despised the methods of Joe Bristow (who was the Republican state committee secretary) and his outfit and that they could not make those who knew you lose faith in you — and just a few more things. "The world do move." You are a bigger man today than Joe Bristow would have been had he landed for Senator. I notice by the papers of these later days, that you and the immac- ulate and irrepressible Theodore Roosevelt, President of these United States, are now trotting along nicely together in the same harness. That even he has learned what you knew then, and that the Graduated Tax and conservation of the elements is also a hobby of his — in short that you and your plans are good enough for him. The things which you contended for then are good sound doctrines now, by those who sought to belittle you. You have outstripped them all. You have 32 d MAN VS MAMMON stood "by until the morning, and in the evening you have not withheld your hand." Bully for you ! The only pity is that we have not all your foresight and that you have not more of your best years in which to do battle for those who did not and do not appreciate you. Your friend, Wm. M. McDonald. Office of OVERMYEH <& OVERMYEH Topeka, Kansas, May 10, 1906. Hon. Percy Daniels, Girard, Kansas, Dear Mr. Daniels : Yours of the 5th inst is at hand. I also received your other letter to which you refer in this last letter, and was under the impression that I had answered it. But it seems that you did not get my answer and perhaps I did not write it though I am impressed with the idea that I did. I am glad to see that you feel that you can turn in and support us. I never blamed you for feeling as you have felt for many years, for I myself entertained similar sensations much of the time, but considered it best, upon the whole, to stay with the procession. I note the newspaper clippings you send me, and to me it is amusing to see how some people talk about the President's recent speech on the graduated tax question. Some body ought to send him some of your literature of several years back. The petition which a great number of us signed at that time would doubtless interest him. The President is only in the vestibule of the subject, and we ourselves, had not gone its full length, for we were seeking to give the idea a favorable introduction by the application of the avails of our scheme of taxation to particular and favored subjects. In my own mind I go further. I recognize the truth of Chief Justice Marshall's saying that "The power to tax is the power to destroy." If, therefore, there have grown up in this country great and sinister powers (and that fact is universally conceded) and the people wish to prevent these powers from destroying popular govern- ment, justice and righteousness; why not apply to them the power of taxation ? For by the proper application of it they could be absolutely destroyed, and by a very limited application of it they could be so curbed and restrained as to deprive them of their dangerous character. For, if the power to tax is the power to destroy, it is the power to curb and restrain. It is amazing to my mind that some of our so-called "statesmen" do not accentuate this proposition, seeing that they are so alarmed by the progress of socialism. This is the one great outlet and road to relief from plutocracy on the one hand and socialism on the other. That it must ultimately be adopted as the true course for the regulation and control of inordinate wealth seems to my mind clear. Very truly yours, David Overmyer EXTRACTS FROM A Crisis for the Husbandman Lectures to the Qirard Kansas Orange 1889 CHAP. I. SEC. VIII. CORPORATE POWER LIMITED AND SUB JECT TO REVISION Many people look on a charter as a contract to which either party can legally hold the other. This is a mistake. They are simply privileges, usually given in this country without consid- eration, and accepted subject to the restrictions and limitations of the state constitution and laws. It is an axiom of ours that all power not specifically delegated to the government, is retained by the people. The constitution of Kansas says in Sec. 2, Bill of Rights: * * No special privileges or immunities shall ever be granted by the legislature, which may not be altered, revoked, or repealed by the same body; and this power shall be exercised by no other tribunal or agency. Also in Art. 12, Sec. 1.: The legislature shall pass no special acts conferring corporate powers. Corporations may be created under general laws, but all such laws may be amended or repealed. The present tendency of public purpose in reference to rail- roads, is to assist them to that commanding position of willing servitude that shall make them the most useful to the public, themselves included as an integral part of that public, but not superior to it, as the part can never be superior to the whole. The drift too of both legislation and decision is toward the same 34 A CRISIS FOR THE HUSBANDMAN wise result. Gathering evidence from the extremes of the coun- try, we see within the past few months the legislature of Ver- mont passing a law to compel railroads to make connections at railroad crossings to the convenience of the traveling public; and from the Pacific coast we have the case of San Francisco vs the Spring Valley Water Co., in which the issue whether a state had the right to modify or alter the charter of incorporation, was brought before the United States supreme court. The court, Chief Justice Waite presiding, held that the corporation was, from the moment of its creation, subject to the legislative power of alteration, and, if deemed expedient, of absolute extinguish- ment as a corporate body. Under these facts, may we not reasonably expect that the railroads may be compelled to take up their share of supporting the national government, thereby relieving the farmer and other laborers of that portion of their unjust load? This would save the people of Kansas, who are one-fortieth of our total population, something like $2,000,000 a year, and greatly help the farmer to reduce his annual deficiency.* SEC. IX. A DERNIER RESORT. This we may expect to accomplish if we go to work in a me- thodical manner, and get some relief without an appeal to the dernier process, of proceeding against these corporations for overstepping their chartered privileges and authority in dis- criminations, habitual, persistant and sometimes malicious dis- criminations against small dealers and shippers, whereby thou- sands of them have been ruined or driven into other fields. The powers given to these corporations cannot be violated with im- punity, unless the state authorities are interested, directly or indirectly, in behalf of these violators of law. There are very few railroad corporations in this country but what have so per- sistently violated their legal powers— the ultra vires of law — *William Allen White's article of sixteen or eighteen years ago, "What's the Matter With Kansas," was followed by a brief article entitled "A Change of Heart in Kansas" in 1905, of which the following is the close. "The other day a pamphlet came to the Gazette office which seemed about the right thing. It was going after railroad discrimination. It seemed sane and calm and well poised. The man who wrote it seemed to have his head full of facts well grounded through the wheels of logic. When low! and behold the pamphlet was written and printed in 1889, and was written by Percy Daniels ! The sun do move. This is a funny world!" CORPORATION DELINQUENCIES AND A REMEDY 35 that they have forfeited their right to their charters; and this forfeiture can be enforced when a formal demand is made, and the necessary proof furnished, of their willful overriding individual right and public interest in their discriminations in favor of their friends. Prof. Dwight, of Columbia College, says on these points: "Every franchise is accepted on the implied conditions that it shall be properly exercised. If there be abuse of corporate powers, a proceeding may be instituted in behalf of the state, to forfeit the charter. The most common mode of dissolving a corporation is by Judicial Decree." A letter touching this point from *Chief Justice Doster follows: JOHN MARTIN, Clerk FRANK DOSTER, Chief Justice G. C CLEMENS, Reporter WILLIAM A. JOHNSON, STEPHEN H. ALLEN, Associate Justices STATE OF KANSAS Supreme Court Marion, Kansas, July 25th, 1897. Hon. Percy Daniels, Girard, Kansas. Dear Sir: — Your letter of the 18th was found by me upon my return home. Holding the position I do it is a very delicate matter for me to express a legal opinion, even concerning a matter of general or public concern. What I might conceive the law to be were the case stated by you to be presented for decision, I cannot now say; but I have always assumed that all substantial violations of obligations due from corporations to the public, if persisted in, constituted grounds of forfeiture of their charters; and that discriminations between patrons of a railroad company constituted a violation of corporate duty. I should think that Prof. Dwight states the law with substantial correct- ness in the quotation you make from him on page sixteen of "A Crisis For The Husbandman." I have read the newspaper clipping concerning the enormous wealth of Rockefeller and its rapid increase. I had no idea of its magnitude or the amount of income derived from it. I have come to the conclusion that the saving grace in social life is the democratic sense of equality. Inequalites of moneyed fortune such as exist between Rockefeller and the common laborer are as abhorrent as inequalities in political station such as exist between a monarch and his vassal. The one form of inequality will be tolerated no more than the other. We shall experience trouble, however, in the equalizing process. Sincerely yours, FRANK DOSTER. 36 A CRISIS FOR THE HUSBANDMAN CHAP. II. SEC. IV. Girard, Kansas, August 2, 1888. Hon. J. J. Ingalls, Washington, D. C. My Dear Sir: — I enclose a clipping from the Girard Press containing third paper of an "Open Letter" with two or three points marked. The condition of certain business combinations is such that the general public is rapidly coming up to the point of assert- ing that positive legislation must interfere. Assertions of these wrongs in resolution, nor idle and perfunctory discussion in legislative bodies, will long suffice to satisfy this growing con- viction. I have studied the matter considerably and give the result in my "open letter." Few dispute the ground I take that something in the shape of corrective measures must soon come. It is much more important that something be done, than what that something shall be. I have not only stated that cor- rective measures must be adopted, but have suggested a reme- dy — simple, speedy and certain. The procedure proposed, at first would seem arbitrary, but it would not be half as arbitrary as the methods employed to accumulate the volume of capital that makes the present wrongs and oppressions possible. Are either a Republican Senate or a Democratic House in a temper to assent to the position taken, that the time has come when every instinct of justice, patriotism and charity demand that some method be devised by which the power of the capitalist for oppression and wrong be curtailed? Yours Respectfully, PERCY DANIELS. SEC. V. SENATOR INGALLS' IDEA. VICE PRESIDENT'S CHAMBER. Washington, D. C, August 7, ii Hon. Percy Daniels, Girard, Kansas. Dear Sir: — I am in receipt of your letter of 2d inst., with enclosed copy of an open letter upon pending questions of in- terest to the American people. I belong to the school of politicians who think that govern- ment should interfere as little as possible in the affairs of its TAXATION TO CONTROL THE TRUSTS 37 citizens. I have no sympathy with the paternal idea, but be- lieve that the best results are attained when the people are left to settle the great questions of society by individual effort. All that legislation can do is to give men an equal chance in the race of life. We cannot make poor men rich, or rich men poor, except by making the natural capacities of all men ex- actly alike. The difficulties in society arise from the fact that Providence has established unequal conditions, making some men wise and others foolish; some men provident and others thriftless ; some men industrious and energetic and others idle and self-indulgent. Every man ought to have the same chance. The poor ought to be protected from the aggressions of the rich, and the weak from the injustice of the strong. When we have done this, I suppose all has been accomplished that can be reached by statute. Wendell Phillips stated the case very sensibly when he said that the temperature of the country could not be increased "by boiling the thermometer." Very truly yours, JNO. J. INGALLS. SEC. VI. PER CONTRA. Girard, Kans., August 12, 1888. Hon. J. J. Ingalls, Vice President. K? My Dear Sir: — Yours of the 7th replying to my question on a financial matter is at hand. * * * * i >3 You say "All that legislation can do is to give men an equal chance in the race for life. We cannot make poor men rich, or rich men poor except by making the natural capacities of all men exactly alike. * * Every man ought to have the same chance." I cannot see that the distribution of wealth is very closely allied to our individual capacities. There are men here in Kansas that are barely making a living raising grain, who are as able and unscrupulous as any of the Wall Street financiers, or the men who divided a quarter of a billion in the various Pacific Railroad deals. Opportunity is the larger factor in most of these transactions — lack of integ- rity taking second place, and capacity third. You say. every man should have the same chance. Will the government ever 38 A CRISIS FOR THE HUSBANDMAN give any one again the same opportunity it gave those men? It cannot give the same to all. Again : Your reasoning followed to a conclusion would make wealth dependent on capacity. Take the Senators and write down their names in the order of their Dollars. Would you concede that the man whose name headed the list, is the ablest Senator, and the second next to him? If so, Kansas would com- plain at being represented by one so near the foot of the list as our Acting Vice President. Nor will the rule work with our great men of the past. Lincoln, Webster and Grant are among the greatest names in our history. Lincoln said in 1859 if ne should get the Vice Presidency he hoped to save enough to make $20,000 and that was enough for any man. I think when he died five figures easily covered his pile. Webster could not take care of his own pocket-book; and Grant, who had so much given him, died well nigh penniless. It is not a creditable thing to our civilization that when a man like Cyrus W. Field gets stuck in the mud with a hun- dred thousand shares of the most valuable stock in the country, a man with a gun of larger caliber can jump out of the bush, and tell him he may pull out of the mud if he will drop 70,000 of his stock. To be sure, in transactions between the brokers, it makes but little difference to the country who gets on top, but these deals are not confined to that class. In most of their transactions, instead of attacking a few men with a few The following from chapter V of Monopoly the Paramount Question of 1902 also shows a change of heart: SEC. IV. A NOTABLE CONVERT In a correspondence with Senator Ingalls fourteen years ago over this proposition which I discussed in my open letter to the Republican party, he attempted to ridicule the idea of taxation as a remedy. Soon after, from the failure of that party to keep^their promises of 1888, Mr. Ingalls lost his position After improving thw-opportunity for study thus acquired, Mr. Ingalls changed his mind, and a few years later, in a newspaper article discussing the subject, he said : INGALLS ON TRUSTS Says They Can Be Destroyed by Taxation if the People Will. * * * * "The trusts must go. It is written. They will not depart volun- tarily. They will protest at every step. They will stand upon the order of their going. They will denounce all inquiry as uniquitous, THE CLASS THE NATION MUST LEAN ON 39 million dollars apiece, they attack a few million people with a few dollars apiece. And here I believe it the duty of the government not only to break these blockades, but to put the Armament of the Belligerents on a peace footing. Government cannot give every man the same chance or opportunity, but it can correct some of the inequalities it has helped to make; and I believe no party will long retain control of the government that does not make the effort. Truly yours, PERCY DANIELS. CHAP. III. SEC.XXI . FARMERS' SAFETY IN UNITED ACTION Daniel Webster said, "The farmers are the founders of civil- ization." Now let the farmers but say with one voice that the barbarism of civilization shall not be the destroyer of its found- ers, and the hostile movement of plutocratic forces will be stopped, and the discriminnting acts of their subservient legis- lators will be recinded. As custodians of this heritage of our institutions, we have been neither wise nor careful. If we have failed in our duty, we cannot defeat the enforcement of a penalty. In all such things is a law of equivalents, and the penalty must be paid, or a day of retribution cometh. Now we come to see what account we can give of our stew- ardship, we can readily find how seriously we have been at fault. It will be more difficult to apply a remedy; but the remedy must include a process that will gradually restore the immense piles of plunder, to the mass of our people whose earn- ings they represent. When we stop the over production of inquisitorial and inspired by partisan malignity. But this will not deceive the people. They want the truth. The object of Lexow com- mittees is to disclose the existence and the methods of the conspirators to limit production, control prices, depress wages and strangle compe- tition. Public opinion will do the rest. "The problem is not insolvable; the power of the people to suppress injurious trusts and monopolies is ample already. The state can outlaw them as public enemies, and through the courts forfeit their powers, annul their franchises and declare them against public policy and void, in accordance with the precedents of many centuries. "But the nation can wield a mightier weapon still. When the supreme court declared in the sate bank cases that the power of congress to tax was the power to destroy, it delegated a formidable weapon to discontent, and placed in every bondsman's hands the means to cancel his captivity."— JOHN J. INGALLS. 40 A CRISIS FOR THE HUSBANDMAN millionaires, we will also stop the over production of impover- ished farmers and idle laborers. Any theorists who promise such a policy as will result in the distribution of even justice to all our citizens, without including the immense fortunes of the country which have been piled up through bribery, extortion, confiscation and robbery, as the main source of the present critical condition of our industrial classes, are making promises they do not intend to keep, and the sooner these advisers, with their delusive theories, are rele- gated to the domain of the sophists, the sooner we will have the light to start intelligibly at the root of the trouble. We are standing on the threshold of a conflict, foretold but a short time before his services in his country's cause were ended, by the greatest mind in our history. The crisis on which we have entered is as serious and portentious, as threatening to our in- stitutions and as doubtful in its results, as the one he was a participant in, when, two years before the mighty echo of the first gun at Sumpter called a nation from apathy to action — speaking of the wealthy and aristocratic combinations of the slave power against him — he said, "Broken by it, I too, may be; bow to it, I never will. The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause which we deem ot be justyind it shall not deter me. If ever I feel the soul within me, elate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of Its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside, and I, standing up boldly and alone, and hurling defi- ance at her victorious oppressors. Here, without contemplat- ing consequences, before high Heaven and in face of the world, I swear eternal fidelity to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my liberty and my love." The eloquent words, the unselfish life, the noble example of the pioneer who was called from the Illinois prairies to pilot the nation through its years of tribulation, may well move us to heed his warning words of later years; and this clear statement of his early resolution and purpose, we may well consider to have been instigated by some influence beyond the range of hu- man perceptions. Destiny had already taken him by the hand to lead him along a path o^ such trials and responsibilities and honor — trials that were always bravely borne, responsibilities A PATRIOTIC EXAMPLE 41 that were never aught but cheerfully carried, honors that were ever modestly worn; — as no American was before, or has been since, called to assume or accept; — never to release her hold, till in the shadows of the grave, she laid it on his breast with his life work finished, and drew the misty shroud of eternity over the remains of our Hero and Patriot and Guide — Abraham Lincoln. Will his great friendship for this country and this people, his efforts and labor and sacrifice that "a government of the peo- ple, by the people, and for the people might not perish from the earth;" and the known unselfishness of his advice, impel us to recognize his wisdom and honor his counsel? Then we will, without delay, set about the difficult task of solving the prob- lems, I have presented for your consideration. * * * CHAP. V. SEC. XIII. FUTILE EFFORTS AT RESTRICTIVE LEGISLATION. Legislation may be able to prevent the combination of cor- porations; it may recall all its grants of privilege and power; but it cannot prevent two or two hundred individuals working together through a common agent. When it shall succeed in preventing a man from buying his neighbor's onion crop, hold- ing them as long as he chooses, and selling to whom he pleases for what he can get, it will require the full moon to rise at mid- night, and seed-time and harvest to come together. SEC. XIV. A HYPOTHETICAL CASE. Suppose some genius should invent a process by which he could gather, condense, store, and pile up our atmosphere, and that the highest condition of earthly satisfaction and content would be reached when he had done this. When he had set his ponderous pumps going and stored a supply many times greater than any possible requirements of himself or his friends, and we felt the pressure running down, so it took an unusual effort to supply ourselves with a normal ration of oxygen, would we be justified in going singly to commend the genius of the inventor, to adore his machine and applaud its operations; or would we, though our forefathers had never found it necessary to legislate for such a contingency — without searching Caesar or Croesus for a precedent — without consulting the Zend Avesta, Roman law, or Greek mythology for authority, put a statutory limit on the suction orifice of the great machine? We would say the restrictions and limitations of the past do not meet 42 A CRISIS FOR THE HUSBANDMAN the needs and conditions of our present civilization. We will make the environments of law conform to the necessities of the present — to the new environments of fact. We will maintain equal conditions of protection for our people, if we have to modify our machinery rather than abandon the former that we may retain the appliances that our forefathers found sufficient. That is the question, the great question, that we have to settle now. Are we cowardly enough to evade this responsibility and run from this duty? SEC XV. THE REMEDY. An agreement on the best course to pursue will not be a matter of easy adjustment. A little study may give any of us some plan, but we will not all concede that any one scheme is the best. Nor is it probable that, however much we may have studied the question, any one of us will be able to suggest the best solution. The more important thing to do first is to decide that we will all assist in any reasonable process, trusting that investigation and experiment will remove its inequalities and supply its deficiencies. * * * * SEC. XIX. REFORMS AND INDEPENDENCE The reforms here considered and advocated, are in their scope and ultimate purpose consistent with the fundamental princi- ples, the very corner stone of early Republicanism, but they are too radical in their details and results to be acceptable to pres- ent party management, and I have to step out into the broader arena that encompasses all parties,beyond the bounds of party discipline, where I will find growing legions of earnest workers in behalf of oppressed humanity, and a literature unculled by a party censor. If loyalty to the principles of yesterday is not loyalty to the party of today, it is the fault of those who have made the party of today hostile to the principles of yesterday. SEC. XX. A RIGHTEOUS PURPOSE ESSENTIAL TO CONTIN- UED PROSPERITY. Parties, like individuals, must know the world moves on, an irresistable force. It has never yet met an immovable body. All that man knows of earth or nature is transient. Nations, parties, individuals are but things of a day. What the pur- pose of our presence here is, we need not try to guess. It is NEW ISSUES CALL 43 probably more closely allied, in our transient stay, to the wel- fare of the mass, rather than to the gratification of the individ- ual. Nations, communities, parties will prolong the energies and enthusiasm of youth so long as the good of the mass of their people is the inspiration that guides their counsels; but when they relax their efforts to grant the greatest good to the greatest number, they are passing the borders of their dotage. If they fill their systems with a toothsome poison, and turn away from the bitter antidote to revel in its sweets, the Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin, that startled the haughty Babylonian monarch in his revels, was no more certain of fulfillment than that a cleansing sore, or the corruption of death, would testify to their successors that the world moves on. * * * * SEC. XXIII. NEW ISSUES BEFORE US The world moves on. The questions of the war are settled, New issues are upon us. Parties cannot live on past achieve- ments. Living issues alone prevent disintegration. The ques- tions here discussed are the important ones for consideration and settlement now. The controlling faction in parties is more interested in party supremacy than in party principle. The people, as a whole, are more interested in principle than in party suprem- acy. A majority believe the highest service a party can render is to promote good government, to encourage honest industry, to distribute even justice; and these are allied with parties for the sole purpose of assisting in such results. Another class be- lieve the highest service a party can render is to promote exter- nal harmony in its ranks, to enforce a proper adoration of all new dogmas, and to distribute the offices. These are loyal par- tisans for the good they require the party to be to them; but true party loyalty consists, not so much in a blind adhesion to all the party's acts, as in a purpose to make one's vote assist in the adoption of principles that are the basis of its structure; and those who have the most interest in our instituitons will do this in spite of the growls of the party machine. * * * * HOW -? Now, realizing the necessity for radical corrective measures , we are confronted with the question of how they may be applied and enforced. In considering methods of bringing about the reforms ad- vocated in the preceeding pages, the great obstacle we find in the way is the tax provisions of the Federal Constitution. While this impediment was recognized in the Kansas Resolution of '97, it was not thought that when the necessity for and the justice of the measures came to be understood and appreciated, there would be any greater difficulty in getting the necessary change in the constitution, than in the passage of the necessary acts. There were then but few men outside the bar and not con- nected with the government officially, who realized that the Federal Constitution, has by court decisions and legal juggling, been carried out of the reach or nearly so, of the people. These changes — like the 5 to 4 income tax decision, have been mainly in the interest of predatory wealth. Now the cry of "Unconsti- tutionality" is used as a bogey to prevent voters from demanding what they know justice entitles them to. The greatest impedi- ment in the way of a restoration to the people of the blessings of Republican Institutions — of an equality of opportunity — is the difficulty in mending our organic law and in wiping out court made amendments and correcting the (let us charitably say) blunders of judicial decrepitude. The President — for one of his positive convictions and direct habits of expression — has been mild in his arraignment of the courts; more so than he would be likely to be as a private citizen. Justice Gaynor of New York has hit the bar harder in helping the people see their responsibility for court delinquencies. Congress is practically made up of attorneys; and under their control, legislation has been friendly to the interests of predatory wealth and the holders of swollen fortunes. A large percent of them are there for the purpose of protecting the corporations in then- lawless practices, and it is mainly thro' their control of govern- ment policies and their influence on courts that present unjust conditions have been forced on the American people. II CORPORATIONS ENTHRONED The day foreseen and foretold by our lamented Lincoln, A CROWNED USURPER 45 when corporations would be enthroned, is here. THEY ARE ENTHRONED. They are the crowned usurper before whom legislatures and courts bow; the tyrant who gives statesmen their position; the despot who grants politicians their opportunities. The tax which this usurper imposes overshadows that of the federal government 60%. Corporations, through their com- binations, are taxing us $80 per family; they have the nation by the throat and their hands in our pockets. Fortified in then- position, as they are by the legislatures they buy, and defended as they are by the courts they have leased, the people are now without a chance to protest or power to prevent. They can reclaim the chance and regain the power if they so will it, but they are without them today. III. BUT ONE JUST AND PEACEABLE PROCESS AVAILABLE. Taxation is the only peaceable method by which the trusts and corporations will be called down and the concentrated loot of the multimillionaires replevined; and it would furnish the money at once to employ all idle labor on public works. It is the only thing plutocracy fears but the mob. Way back in the early days of corporate viciousness when people were confiding and simple, some milder and better process might have been possible, but even if so, none other is now within their reach. Let us cut the gordian knot of capital and restore to labor some of its lost earnings by the engine of taxation, and not bequeath to the next generation the shackles that are cursing this. IV WEALTH CONCENTRATION THE SOLE CAUSE FOR THREATENING CONDITIONS. The sole cause of discontent in America and the source of the inequality of opportunities, that the rank and file of all parties ask to have corrected, is wealth concentration. The purpose to correct this evil must be the first object of any reform party. It is the main purpose of all sincere reformers. In the two great old parties the majority 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 and chicanery practiced to prevent it; and so they take the dose prescribed without regret. An equal opportunity for all cannot be restored without not 4 6 HOW? only stopping the rapid absorbing of the country's wealth by the few, but diffusing the inordinate part of it they now have which gives them the power for evil they so viciously and mercilessly use. V. THE PENDING STRUGGLE. We are face to face with a conflict between the capitalist and the laborer. Willing or unwilling, ready or not, the struggle is upon us. There are avenues, broad and accessible, sunny and Christian, open before us, and a large majority of our people ready to follow them, that lead straight to a certain and peaceful overthrow of plutocracy and the restoration of the masses to their privileges, rights and power. Another course leads down to revolution and the unknown sea beyond; and we are following the latter today, while holding in our hands the power to take the better way. But one thing we should remember as our days of probation go by : That there is a limit held before our faces in the warning pages of history, where the duty of loyal citizens to acquiesce in injustice and submit to oppression ceases; a point where the patriot sees a duty in resistance. Self-preservation, too, is the first law of nature; and under that law is a line of decisions with precedents reaching back to the dawn of history, that outrank any session laws and all the acts of congress of the nineteenth century. VI. THE WRITING ON THE WALL It is a condition that trifling changes in policy will not materially effect, that is the matter with the American republic. It is the practices and facts that have produced this condition that is the matter with the nation. It is the robbery of labor by "concentrated capital" that is the matter with the country. It is the knowledge that no existing political party is making a correction of these wrongs its chief purpose, added to the failure of the government to keep its pledge to give equal opportunity to all, which has produced the discontent that is so serious a menace to our institutions. And yet, those who are wronged by these startling facts and threatening conditions are more to blame THE BASIS OF OUR INSTITUTIONS 47 for their existence than those who have so cunningly and skill- fully taken advantage of their foolishness and reaped where the masses have sown. VII. A BOUND SAMPSON. The industrial classes have had the power to prevent this great wrong. They possess the power to stop it. They should blame themselves more than those at whose feet they have cast their heritage. They have voted the tickets their trusted be- trayers have approved. They have brought the cords and held up their hands to be bound. They have brought the bandages and turned their backs to be blindfolded. But like the blind Sampson, they stand between the main pillars of the temple with the power to shake it down : And better than that, they can tear the seal from their eyes as Sampson could not, and either tumble their haughty oppressors in the gutter, or lead them back by the strong grip of the tribe of Judah — the invincible and omnipotent ballot — to descent method and honest effort. VIII. THESE THINGS MUST BE ACCOMPLISHED BY CON- STITUTIONAL CHANGES While many emminent men believe no change in the Federal Constitution is possible without revolution, justice cannot be assured to American labor until such amendments are made as will give Congress the right to make any discrimination in taxes, either direct or indirect, it chooses. Not only must the constitution be amended in that way, but the difficulty of mending it must be reduced to bring the government nearer the people. It is senility for people to sit down and allow their laws to be overthrown by some attorney's quibble. There is no more reason why an organic law should not be mended when found defective, than a statute law. And that organic law is defective that annuls a session law which has been passed with the approval of three-fourths of the people. If we want a Monarchy, let's have the kind in which the Commons rule and no Court or King can reverse them. But true Republicanism is better; and that is the kind of which Washington said: ' The basis of our institutions is the right of the people to make and amend their constitutions of government." 48 HOW? Justice Brown of the U. S. Supreme Court referred to our constitution and amendments to it, in an address to the Yale College graduates of 1895, as follows: 'The problem whether the constitution of the United States embodied a feasible plan of government is already settled. Weak spots have undoubtedly been devel- oped — some changes seem almost imperative; but it still remains the most marvelous work of constructive genius that was ever created. It has grown with each decade in the affection of the people. The danger is not that it will be changed, but that it will be regarded as too sacred to be changed." And again he says: "In fact, patience under affliction is a leading defect in the American character. Instead of applying the rule "obsta principis" we are rather given to submitting with easy acquiesence to encroachments upon our natural rights, until further toleration be- comes impossible, when we reverse the old maxim, and declare that what cannot be endured must be cured." A vast majority of the people believe they have already acquiesced too long in court encroachments on both their natural and their constitutional rights. They believe further toleration is impossible and that the old maxim must be reversed, and the conditions which have become intolerable must be cured, what- ever congressmen may think, whatever courts may rule, whatever executives may propose — by changes in the United States Con- stitution in behalf of that element in national strength which Lincoln said was superior to Capital, and that is labor. IX. VESTED RIGHTS The trend of court rulings and decisions for at least a third of a century has been to affirm and extend the so-called vested rights of the capitalist. Tho' the courts have never seemed to discover it, there are other vested rights than those of property. Humanity has a vested right. It is the right to life — the right to an opportunity to maintain it; a right not only promised by the Declaration of '76, but guaranteed by the higher law. It is more of a duty of the individual and of the government to manitain it, than to maintain any vested right of property. Thos. Jefferson, in writing from France in 1786, said: ' Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Wherever there are in any country unculti- vated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural rights. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. If, for the encouragement of industry, we allow it to be appropriated we must take care that other employment be furnished to those ex- cluded from the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labor the eaxtk returns to the unemployed." STATESMEN AT SEA 49 Thos. Jefferson did not believe government had a right to permit its citizens to be denied this fundamental right of an op- portunity to earn a living. When other sources fail government must furnish work. The time is fast coming when, if we continue in our present course and keep our eyes shut to the responsibility of government in this matter, labor will assert its vested rights in a demand for bread or a chance to work ; and if denied both will assert its Constitutional Rights and enforce its demand with its muscle. X. SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST LAW. Senator Sherman, in his speech in defence of his anti-trnst bill of eighteen years ago said : "Sir, now the people of the United States are feeling the power and grasp of these combinations, and are demanding of every legislature and of Congress a remedy for this evil, only grown into huge proportions in recent times. They had monopo- lies and mortmains of old, but never before such giants as in our day. You must heed their appeals, or be ready for the socialist, the communist, and the nihilist. Society is now disturbed by forces never felt before." "And sir, while I have no doubt but that every word of this bill is within the power granted to Congress, I feel that its defects are in its moderation, and that its best effect will be a warning that all trade and commerce, all agreements and arrangements, all struggles for money or property, must be governed by th t universal law that the public good must be the test of all." Now Predatory Wealth, finding this measure, whose autho: thought its chief defects were in its moderation, is curbing the opportunity of combined capital to plunder — -that the law is beginning to do what it was designed to do — appeals to courts and congress for aid. They ask to have it amended so instead of preventing combinations it may promote and protect them. If newspaper reports are true many of those who exert the greater influence in controlling government policy are in favor of granting the request. If such amendments are made we will have an anti-trust law for protecting the trusts, and the people can continue to "Point with pride" to laws that have failed because of the servitude of government to the possessors of Predatory Wealth, until they decide to depose the usurpers and elect a government which will recognize and uphold the Vested Rights, not only of the dollar but of humanity. This is XI. THE GREATEST QUESTION BEFORE US. The To^eka Capital of April 12th, 1900, says: 'T>e paramount political issue in this republic is the control of the%reat trusts by national and state legislation. This issue, that reaches every man, from the da_y laborer to the millionaire, is greater than all other great issues combined. 50 HOW? 'Over 500 American trusts, organized to extort great profits on combined capital by destroying competition and raising the prices of food, wearing apparel, household goods, building materials, machinery of every kind, reaching all useful and orna- mental articles of the household, the office and factory, have placed a burden of 25% added cost upon the expenses of the people of the country. The whole system is built deliberately to rob the people and enrich those who form these criminal trusts. Never in the history of this nation has such gigantic and menacing power come into existence under the protection of law, as the trusts constitute today. The whole question needs no argument. The billions of watered stock issued for use as gambling paper upon which the people must pay interest; the constant increase in the cost of living the utter helplessness of congress to cope with the great issue; the contempt of trusts for oppostition, all point to the importance of the Republican party in every county and in every state, placing the party squarely in plain and unmistakable language against the encroachments of the trusts and in favor of legislation controlling them. ' The defenders of the trusts ridicule the idea of putting the Republican party on record against them. They argue that competition will regulate prices, but forget that the trusts destroy competition. The farmer who pays $25 advance over one year ago on a reaper and $10 more for a wagon, and in proportion on other agricul- tural machinery, nails, barbed wire and all building materials because of the trusts controlling these prices will not vote with the party that protects or defends such robbery." XII. MOLOCH AND THE COURTS These vast combinations, in seeking for aid, plead with Moloch and the courts to shield them from Progressive Taxation this scourge of justice, this pestilence of righteous purpose. And what say many of the courts sitting at the feet of Moloch? "MOST GRACIOUS DESPOT; THY WILL BE DONE." Ex- Justice S. H. Allen, of our state supreme court, in writing of a comment of mine on the supreme court's reference to pro- gressive taxation in its war tax decision, says: " It is useless to try to make ourselves believe that the courts merely declare and apply the laws which congress and the legislatures enact. They veto what they do not like, and little by little, build up what they think is needed." The U. S. Spureme Court once threw out a hint showing how much of a menace they consider this process to be to predatory wealth and the holders of swollen fortunes. In an opinion on the war revenue law it assured the great trust magnates of its loyalty to their interests as against such a project; and that it may be able to defend them not only to the extent of the law, but outside of its provisions. This assurance is most significant. The opinion, rendered by Justice White, in discussing the pro- gressive feature of 'taxation, said: AN IOWA CASE 51 'A number of economic writers contend that a progressive tax is more just and equal than a proportionate one. In the absence of constitutional limitations, the question whether it is or is not is legislative and not judicial. The grave consequences which it is asserted must arise in the future, if the right to levy a progressive tax be recognized, involves in its ultimate aspect the mere assertion that free and repre- sentative government is a failure, and that the grossest abuses of power are fore- shadowed unless the courts usurp a purely legislative function. If a case should ever arise where arbitrary and confiscatory action is imposed bearing the guise of a progressive or any other form of tax, it will be time enough to consider whether the judicial power can afford a remedy by applying inherent and fundamental principles f >r the protection of the individual, even though there be no express authority in the constitution to do so." The above quotation injects a simple query into the opinion. It does not directly say the court will protect plutocracy from such taxes. And yet it conveys the information that it may find an excuse for annulling such a law, passed "in the absence of constitutional limitations," by congress in the exercise of rightful legislative functions, on the ground of violating fundamental principles. S< risible people who are not cowed by the arrogance of the oligarchy's tools or the assumption of subservient courts, in such an event would ask where these nine men got the authority to define the inherent rights of 85,000,000 people. XIII. TWO NOTABLE CASES. The readiness with which courts annul laws in Ixhalf of wealthy cli nts makes it necessary that there should be an appeal to the people, where the constitution has been the cause of the eleieat of the law. There was a case in Iowa four years ago when action was brought against two railway companies on a charge of conspiracy to fix the amount of demurrage charges. Judge Piatt of the District Court promptly declared the Iowa trust law — which the action of the corporations violated — unconstitutional because the penalty was too big for the crime, and because the penalty was lager on a great corporation than on a small one. The purpose of the people and their legislature was to stop railroad combinations. They passed a law and fixed penalties for violations which they thought would stop them. The roads knew of the law and the penalty when they made their agreements. They expected the court would protect them and they were not disappointed. Judge Piatt, in defending the combination also notified the people and legislature of Iowa that in fixing penalties for crimes 52 now? they should first see that they harmonized with his ideas and his environment. There was another case reported in the press dispatches from Iowa on the same date — February 12th, 1904. Dick Palmer stole a ham. There was no high salaried attorney to enter a demurrer. Palmer plead guilty and was sentenced to ten years at hard labor in the' state prison. An attorney general of Rhode Island a little more than twenty-five years ago, said: 'Laws are made and executed to restrain and control poor men." I thought of the n mark when I read in the Topeka Capital of Febriiary 13th, 1904, the two dispatches — one from Waterloo and the other from D t s Moines — about these two cases. XIV. A KANSAS CASE. Kansas decisions are not free from evidence that the corpo- ration/ robber with its high priced attorneys stands a better chance of defeating justice than the small thief. Four years ago Kansas people realized they were payi: g more for their coal oil since it became a home product, than when it had to be shipped in. They found they were paying at least $2,000,000 a year more than if the price was established by com- petition intsead of a monopoly. So they decided to have a state refinery to compete with the Octopus. The legislature, when they met in 1905 did not look favorably on the project until they heard from the people and practically got instructions. Then they passed a bill for a branch penitentiary and a state refinery to be operated by convicts, as the state twine plant is operated. The Kansas Constitution — fortunately as many thought — has a clause providing for public improvements which might reasonably cover such a project. Section No. 5 or Article XI says : "For the purpose of defraying extraordinary expenses and making public improvements, the State may contract public debts; but such debts shall never in the aggregate exceed $1- 000,000 except as hereinafter provided." ** The bill carried an appropriation of $410,000 for building and operating a State Refinery. Surely any manufactory that would save the people $2,000,000 a year could not be less than A KANSAS CASE 53 a great public improvement and, this would have been had the Lawyers permitted the law to stand. The attorneys and lobbyists of the Oil Trust did not seem much concerned whin the Act passed. Tiny thought they saw -a way to defeat the popular will, Ai oiher clause in the same Article of the Constitution — Section No. 8 — says: "The State shall never be a party in carry- ing on any works of internal improvements." So the only thing i pessary for the attorneys of the trust to do was to show the court that the state refinery was not a Public Improvement which the constitution provided for, but an Internal Improvement which it forbids the state being a party to. And the court prompt- ly saw it that way When the Kansas Constitution was made, exploiters and pro- moters were working on a variety of projects for internal improve- ments such as railroads, canals, river navigation and pikes. In Some localities the air was filled with wild cat schemes for getting state aid in support of such projects. The convention — after providing for public aid in behalf of necessary public improvements, evidently feared this wise pro- vision might possibly be construed as opening a way for state aid in support of transportation projects such as were then bring discussed. And so they put in the closing clause of Article XI that the state should never be a party to carrying on any works of Internal Improvements. Surely the convention was not foolish enough, after making provision for public improvements, to add a clause prohibiting them. A railway, canal, improving navi- gable rivers or piking roads would be internal improvements without any strained construction. A State oil refinery, or a State salt plant for the purpose of breaking the bonds of monopoly and saving the citizens of the state millions of dollars a year would be a great public improvement whether it was run by convicts or free labor. Two years after this case was decided in favor of monopoly a couple of men were tried in Salt Lake City for stealing $75. They were convicted and sentenced to fifteen years each in state's prison at hard labor. These cases show how the law and the gospel, the ten commandments and modern articles of faith arr not vindicated in the dealings of courts with the two classes cf cases. 54 HOW? Of this Kansas case, the court in its syiibus, says: * ******** 2. "State Oil Refinery. — Work of Internal Improvement." The construction, operation, and maintenance of an oil refinery * * * constitute a 'work of internal improvement.' 3. Act of igc-5 Void. — Senate bill No. 30 is an act appro- priating money for 'work of internal improvement.' It con- travenes Section 8 of Article XI cf the Constitution, and hence is void/' Section 8 of Article XI referred to, was evid. ntly an after- thought and was inserted to prevent the state b. i; g plundered by corporations interested in transportation schemes. The Kansas Court in its finding shows the importance of knowing the purpose of the convention in its adoption of that clause, and quotes the following from the 23rd Mich. "Con- stitutions are to be construed as the people construed them in their adoption, if possible." It also quotes at length from the 1 20th Mich., from 2 Cycl, Pol. Science and from Cool., Hist. Mich, to show the disastrous consequences of being a party to works of internal improvements. But what were those internal improvements? They were "roads, canals and navigable waters." No public improvement like an oil plant had lost its bearings and suddenly burst on their vision. They were the Internal Improve- ments for facilitatirg transportation. Section No. 5 of this same Artie' e XI which provides for public improvements, was apparent- lv wholly ignored by the court in its opinion which arnuled the law and defeated the popular will. Whether the Governor was in sympathy at that time with popular setiment or not, knowing the well nigh universal wish to see the plundering operations of the Standard Oil Company at least reduced by the operations of a state refinery, it was his duty to convene the legislature in special session that the unwilling law makers might again have been driven by their disappointed constituents to start the necessary process for ac- complishing their purpose. If a branch penitentiary is an internal improvement, a main penitentiary is an internal improvement. If a branch prison with an oil refinery attachment is an in- ternal improvement, a main prison with a binding twine and a ITS AUTHORS WOULD NOT RECOGNIZE IT 55 coal mine attachment is an internal improvement, and according to the ruling of the court, unconstitutional. Whether these two measures were combined in one bill as a legislative trick in the hope of defeating state competition with the octopus, I know not; but it was a mistake on the part of the people and the Governor to permit it. It was & subterfuge, a trick of politicians and not a project of statesmenship; and if we had had a Hughes or a Folk for Governor the people would prob- ably have been given a chance to reverse the court and have tbe Public Improvement of an oil refinery for which the constitution seems to provide in Sec- 5 of Article XI, or to amend it so it will. COURT AMENDMENTS These decisions illustrate the terse statement of Justice S. H. Allen, of Topeka, that 'It is useless to try to make ourselves believe that the courts merely declare and apply the laws which congress and the legislatures enact. They veto what they do not like; and little by little, build up what th e y think is needed." In this way and in others more direct, with the hlep of the great corporation lawyers, the courts have amended the consti- tution to suit themselves and their patrician friends; until, as said by President E. J. James of the University of Iillnois, in his address at the Jamestown Exhibition last September: "The fact is our constitution has been so changed by construction and inter- pretation that its authors would never recognize it. 'It is highly demoralizing for an individual, a state or a nation to pretend to live up to a principle and make no attempt to do so; to pretend to observe a law and yet habitually violate it; to pretend to keep wthin the limits of a written constitution and yet constantly overstep them. 'It is equally, if not more, demoralizing to go our own way, do what we please without regard to anything but our own views of expediency and then maintain that all these things are in harmony with our professed principles, our accepted laws, and our written constitution, when in order to justify this view, it be necessary to in- terpret these principles, laws or constitution in such a way as to violate all rules of logic and accepted canons of interpretations." The courts from the position of quiet interpreters of the law have gradually raised themselves to the position of dictators, building up what they think is needed in behalf of vested rights of dollars and for the benefit of the patricians. Of the lawyers, power and the peoples' apparent helplessness or ominous apathy the Emporia Gazette said in August 1906: TOO LATE The depositors of the Stenslahd Bank are going to hold a mass meeting to pro- test against the lawyers taking all' the assets of the wrecked bank. A lot of good that will do; the depositors have started three or four thousand years too late. The lawyers have got this country and every other country tied up, and the people can't 56 HOW? do any thing. If every legislature in the United States, and the congress of the United States would proceed in form and order to pass a law preventing the admission of any more lawyers to practice in this country for twenty years, the courts which are run by the lawyers would immediately declare the laws unconstitutional, and go right on. If all the Governors and all the executive officers of the federal govern- ment would try to enforce laws against lawyers, the courts would impeach the ex- ecutives. The lawyers run this country and about the best a private citizen can hope for is to have a breather's license and a lot in the cemetery." While Mr. White in the above may exagerate the seriousness, of the situation — the arbitrary and lawless doings of courts and congress — yet there is too strong a current of truth filling in between the lines to permit the wrongs which he and hundreds of others describe and denounce, to allow their warnings to be safely ignored. Few if any men have had a larger experience in the past ten years in directing legislation and influencing courts in behalf of the interests he serves so well, than the railroad magnate, E. H. Harriman. He is reported too, to have been generous in his donations to certain campaign funds; but in 1906 seems to have had a falling out with the powers at Washington, and when invited to continue his donations, he emphat- ically refused. Mr. Harriman's interview on the subject was with. Congressman Sherman of N. Y. As a close friend of the President, Mr, Sherman reported the interview to his chief. In replying to this by letter Mr. Roosevelt summed up Harriman's theories and ideas of constitu- tional government as given in his interview with Sherman; (and he speaks with a candor and possitiveness that evidently comes from ex- perience) as follows: (as quoted in the N. Y. World.) "You inform me that he told you that he did not care in the least because those people (Hearst's) were crooks and that he could buy ihem that whenever he wanted legislation he could buy it; that he could buy Congress, and that if necessary, he could buy the judiciary." The greater efforts of the bar the courts and congress since the civil war have been directed to building up the system and defending the interests which feast and fatten through their skillful and cunning plundering of the laboring masses. As unscrupulous as they have been in working their schemes, it is not strange they are equally unscrup- ulous in defending their plunder. So when laws or the constitution have stood in their way, they have usually found means to annul the one and amend the other. This they have been able to do because of the connection with the great corporations of many of the ablest law- yers of the country; of the friends their influence puts on the bench, and of the preponderance of lawyers in congress, so many of whom have been identified, either directly or indirectly, in the consumation of the schemes of the holders of Predatory Wealth. LAWYERS IN CONGRESS. 57 CONGRESS TO BLAME Congress, designed to represent the people and to defend their interests, is controlled by attorneys, who comprise two-thirds of its membership. Many of them became eminent because of their success in defending great criminals and combinations of law-breakers. That is a part of their business; but it is no reason why we should send them to congress to represent those whom their clients are plundering. Nor is there any reason why two-thirds of congress should be taken from a profession embracing not one-half of one per cent (or 114,703) of our "occupied" classes, while the agricultural class, numbering 10,438,219 out of a total of all occupied classes of 29,285,922, or more than one- third, fill but four per cent of the seats. But there is good reason why on account of their services to the trust promoters and the railroad and oil kings, their number in congress should be limited and men from other occupations substituted: Nor would such a project be without em- inent historical endorsement. Even before the constitution was drawn up, Thos. Jefferson spoke of the folly of filling congress with lawyers, as follows: (from his au- tobiography) ' I never heard either of them (referring to Gen. Washington and Dr. Franklin) speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point which was to decide the question. They laid their shoulders to the main points knowing the little ones would follow of themselves. 'For the present, congress errs in too much talking. How can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers whose trade is to question every- thing, yield nothing and talk by the hour. That 150 lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected." They still yield to the same proclivity. Of the difference between the country people and those of the "commercial cities" he says, Feb. 5th, 1803: "They are as different in sentiment and character as any two distinct nations; and (the cities) are clamorous against the order of things established by the agricul- tural interests." So the influence of attorneys in congress is no new defect, being as old as the constitution. And our efforts at correction should include this with other defects. The following table shows the vocation, when elected, of members of two congresses: SENATE HOUSE VOCATION 53rd 60th 53rd 60th Lawyers 58 54 229 238 Public Officials* 2 14 10 44 Bankers and Capitalists 4 5 8 22 'Many of these were attorneys when they first entered congress. 58 HOW? Farmers 3 3 39 15 Editors, Publishers and Writers 3 2 12 13 Merchants and Manufacturers. 5 4 25 10 Miscellaneous. . . .' 13 10 23 48 *Many of these were attorneys when they first entered congress. The occupied classes in the nation are reported in the 12th census as follows: Professional service* 1 264 737 Trade and transportation 4 778 233 Domestic and personal service 5 691 746 Manufacturing and mechanical pursuits 7 112 987 Agricultural pursuits 10 438 219 Total 29 285 922 *This includes the 114,703 lawyers. Twenty years ago Senator Plumb of Kansas said it was time the people had their inning but they are still waiting for it. When they get it that class of our population on which the nation has had to depend in times of great peril and trials will have a representation in congress more commensurate with their numbers, patriotism and good sense than today. In such times as the present the settlement of grave questions of public policy has with us usually fallen to the lot of country people. TO RESTRAIN AND DIFFUSE PREDATORY WEALTH- To curb the avarice and control the ambition of those who have corruptly gotten possession of the nation's wealth and people's govern- ment, and to limit the concentration of capital to reasonable bounds, as these are the main sources of present evils, are the great problems we have to solve now; and they necessarily involve radical changes in our fundamental law. Some of these changes the people have been clam- oring for for years. Others, the necessity for has not become so ap- parent until recently. In the early days of the nation they were unseen problems. A hundred years ago our contsitution stood without a parallel in the chroncles of human endeavor. Today — to say nothing of the changes made in it in behalfof an oligarchy — we find that the conditions and restrictions which were ample then, have become useless and futile in the multiplied facilities and grasping ambitions that are the com- panions of our present civilization. The corporations are enthroned, and their promoters, and those who direct their operations and who believe themselves to be the agents and custodians of modern progress, have thro' the power of their stolen 'This includes the 114,7 03 lawyers. WANTED, A REPUBLIC . 59 billions, forced such changes in it, both by interpretation and elimina- tion, that it now stands among civilized nations as the greatest defender of these audacious forces in the chronicles of modern grafters. If such a situation satisfies a majority of our people well and good. But if we have not got a government that suits us, if we have not got a govern- ment whose administration brings the greatest good to the greater number, let us organize one that will. And if we have not got a consti- tution which in its operation satisfies our ideas of right and wrong, let us be men enough — no matter what powers or ambitions, no matter whose avarice or vanity may stand in the way — to make one that will. WHAT IS A REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. The first thing to do is to make such changes in our constitution as will establish a Republican form of government. Many people think we are living under one now. They are mistaken, deluded. While we are now farther from it than ever before, the original Federal Constitution did not establish a Republic. Had it done so there is little doubt but that we would still be enjoying its blessings. The people would have had and retained the power to enforce their will. Many will be surprised at the denial that we are citizens of a Re- public. But what is a Republic? Webster says. "A Republic is a state in which the sovereign power is exercised by representatives elected by the people.' Our Government consists of three parts or branches — the legislative, the executive and the judicial. Are these chosen by the people? Not one of them! One house of Congress is chosen by the people, but the other house, not elected by the people, and the President, not elected by the people, and the Supreme Court, not elected by the people, can either ■of them block the efforts and measures and overturn the work of the only part of the National Government chosen as are the officials of a Republic. So instead of being governed by representatives elected by the people, we are governed by officials not elected by the people, and there- fore are not citizens of a Republic. Great Britian is more of a Republic than this country, as it is governed by the House of Commons which is chosen by the people; and neither the House of Lords nor the King attempts to thwart or over-ride the will of the people speaking thro' their chosen representatives in the House of Commons. The last attempt of this kind was in the reign of King William IV, when Earl Gray was prime minister, in 1832. The House had passed 60 HOW? a reform measure and a majority of the Lords were known to be op- posed to it. The prime minister got authority from the King to ap- point enough new lords to overcome the majority against the measure. Rather than permit a resort to that extreme method the lords yielded and passed the reform bill. Should the upper house there attempt to block important popular reforms as ours has repeatedly done, the next reform to be considered by the voters of Great Britian would be that of the abolition of the House of Lords, a proposition which has already become a subject of discussion. SHALL THE SENATE BE RECONSTRUCTED OR ABOLISHED. » Our upper house has frequently blocked the will of the people speaking thro' their representatives in the lower house. They have defied those they pretend to represent for the purpose of holding a position where they can defend the interests which a majority of them do represent. As a body they have shown an incapacity to appreciate the responsibilities of their position, their duty to their constituents, instead of to the interests whose pernicious influence and corrupting power did put them into the Senate. For this reason and also to bring about the changes necessary to give us a republican government, the Senate should be elected by the people unless, after further consideration we should decide to abolish it. But there are other reasons why it is not a representative body. In 1900 New York had 7,268,894 people and two Senators; and Nevada had 42,335 people and two Senators Pennsylvania had 6,302,115 people and two Senators; and Wyoming had 92,531 people and two Senators. Ten states with more than half the people had twenty Senators, and ten other states with less people than the state of Missouri had twenty Senators. A senator in the first group represents about 1,930,000 people; and in the second group 146,000. The state of Rhode Island has the same pernicious system. The city of Providence with nearly one half the population of the state has one Senator. The city of Pawtucket with 43,000 people and adjoining Providence has one Senator, the combined population of the two ex- ceeding one half that of the state which in 1905 was 480,000. Thirty- six other cities and towns having less than one half the state's poplation, have thirty-six Senators!! That is one of the factors that have held the state in the boss ridden list and kept Gen. Brayton at the head of the machine for twentyfive years. Before we can have a Republican Government the Senators must not only be elected by the people but they must REPRESENT people. CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES NEEDED. 61 Article V of the Constitution says: "No state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate." In a proposition for mending the constitution so as to get a Republican Government, it is a question whether an amendment supported by three-fourths of the states, can annul this clause. But whether they can or not, it has got to be annulled before we have a Republican Government. If the lawyers decide that the same proportion of states as can amend the Constitution, cannot abolish this clause, they can amend the Constitution and abolish the Senate; and then either provide that the present special duties of the Senate may be performed by the House Committees or a National Council established instead. The condtions in this country have become such that a Republican Government is impossible without great changes in our fundamental law and especially such'as will make the whole of the government consist of representatives chosen by the people. A hundred years ago the country had practically a Republican Government as we might today under the same conditions. There are two reasons for this : First, the desire and intent of the officers chosen was to serve the people and their country. They expected to fulfill their trust and to execute the popular will. Second, the people of that time would not tolerate in their officials what the people of today tolerate. The officials of ioo years ago did notjeach their high positions thru the efforts of men who had great schemes of graft they needed'official aid to carry out. The purpose of the great men of that time in ruling the country was to faithfully execute their trust^and comply rigidly with the terms of their oaths. That is why our forefathers enjoyed the blessings of Republicanism under a constitution that had so little of its fundamental theory in its articles. So let us resolve — without waiting for a party machine to recognize the popular demand for such constitutional changes as will restore to the people the blessings of a Republican gov- ernment which our predecessors enjoyed — to use our individual in- fluence in behalf of them. So, also, let us bear in mind three things: First, that our consti- tution does not comply with present needs and existing conditions. Second, that Washington said, "The basis of our political system is the right of the people (not the courts) to make and alter ther constitutions of government." Third, that the people must release the courts from their self-imposed duty and use the right, asserted by Washington, to so alter the constitution that an Equality of Opportunity may be re- stored to all law abiding citizens, that monopoly will be crushed, and Predatory Wealth may be diffused. Then will the people enjoy the blessings which the Socialists vainly promise. 62 HOW? As To Socialism. The common ownership of the means of production and distribution of the necessaries of life is an impossibility. The organization of human- ity and the ordinances of nature forbid it. Our inherent attributes of selfishness, jealousy and greed (controlled in part thru the operation of conscience in one class, and given free rein from the absence of Moral Sense, in another) render it wholly impracticable. We are not on the border of the millenium. It is as far below the horizon as in the dark ages of a thousand years ago. But we are at the threshold of great changes that will open to us the door to greater peace and a new posper- ity thru a radical system of economic reforms, or to a season of tumult and calamity, as we may choose. Monopolly is the Handmaid of Socialism. Competition promotes vigor. Emulation stimulates effort. Monopoly blunts the one and hampers the other. Individual protest against monopoly is futile. Its agents smile in derision. Only vigorous laws will crush it; and laws must represent public sentiment to do so. They must express a pubilc purpose to command respect and obedience. Constitutions must be the chrystalized wish of a majority, and that majority must know that the responsibility of enforcement rests on them. Otherwise they are im- potent. We must remember we have got a government. We call it Republican, erroneously. We claim to be patriotic . If we are, we will make it what we call it that its flag may carry no false claim. Vested Rights Again. — The courts must be so organized and elected that they will be in- debted to the people for their positions and responsible to them for their work. Then will the vested rights of property and the vested rights of people have an equality of opportunity. Then will vested rights cover something more than the demands of great rascals, Law abiding citizens have some vested rights. Honest labor has some vested rights. The peaceful and upright part of the Nation has some vested rights. One of them is to curb and restrain the great rascals. One of them is to protect the orderly and law abiding part of the community from cor- porate plunderers as well as from footpads. One of them is to protect their homes and their families from the arrogant forces of predatory wealth. One of them is to revise our economic system, to mend our statute laws, to alter our Constitution so these results of public policy and official effort may be reached without tumult or disorder. The United States' Constitution guarantees to every state a Republican form of government ; but before it can consistently use its AMENDING THE CONSTITUTION 63 power in that way, it must set the example of having one itself. It must be brought nearer the people so they may alter it at their pleas- ure. It must pro- vide a way for stopping the plunder of the laborer by the capitalist and for making some recompense for the wrongs of the past. 5 n g XXIII. PROPOSED CHANGES. The following amendments to the Constitution and changes in government measures and methods will bring about the reforms dis- cussed and defended in the preceeding pages and settle on a sound foundation "The Problem of the Unemployed." FIRST. A State Iniatiative for Constitutional Amendments. The Constitution now requires Congress to call a convention on the petition of two-thirds of the states, for which the following should be substituted : Whenever the Legislature of any state wishes the Constitution al- tered, it shall pass a resolution embodying the proposed change or amendment, and send a copy to the U. S. Secretary of State, who shall without delay,transmit a copy thereof to the Governor of every state,with a request that it shall be brought before the State Legislature either at the next regular session, or at a special session, as the Governor may think advisable. The original resolution and the proposed amendment to the Constitution shall remain in the office of the Secretary of State of the United States until the proposed amendment has been ratified by the legislatures of three=fourths of the states, when it shall become valid as part of the Constitution; or until the endorsement of it shall have been withdrawn by every state legislature which had approved it. At present two-thirds of both houses of congress can submit amend- ments to the states for their approval or rejection; and it must call a convention when two-thirds of the states propose amendments. The above proposed amendment^ will give the states the power to amend the Constitution without a convention, and without congressional in- terference or consent. XXIV. AN APPEAL FROM THE COURTS TO THE PEOPLE THRU THEIR LEGISLATURES. SECOND. Whenever any law of the United States shall become void through the ruling or decree of any court of competent authority, it shall be submitted by the President to the Governors of the several states and by them to the legislatures thereof for their approval or rejection; together with a proposed amendment to the constitution 64 HOW such as would be necessary to make valid the law which had been dis- credited ; the said amendment to be drafted by a commission consisting of members of the supreme court, and of the judiciary committee of each House of Congress. If the said law and the proposed amendment to the constitution shall be approved by the legislatures of three fourths of the states, the law shall be and remain in force the same as though it had not been dis- credited by the court, and the proposed amendment shall become a part of the Federal Constitution : Or if the proposed amendment shall be ap- proved and the law rejected, the amendment shall be in force as a part of the constitution. These two amendments would give the people an absolute control of their constitution; and the second would also probably prevent Con- gress from passing laws to defeat a known wish of the people, under the belief that they would be annuled by the courts. Nor could people then be deterred from demanding what they might think proper and just by the cry of "Unconstitutionality!" Other defects in our fundamental law, some of which have been considered and discussed for years; and others that may be entirely new to the reader, should be corrected with those already named, and especially the ones necessary to give us a Republican Government. The Constitution now provides that the President and Vice President shall be chosen by an electorial board; that the Senators shall be chosen by the state legislatures; and that the judicial power shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and such inferior courts as the congress may from time to time ordain and establish. All of these judges shall hold their offices during good behavior. They are now appointed by the President as also are postmasters, district attorneys and marshals. These officials should all be chosen by popular vote. Their terms of office should all be fixed : Some of them now fixed should be changed, and also the representation in the Senate. These necessary changes comprise article third of the proposed amend- ments, as follows : THIRD: The President shall be chosen by popular vote for a term of six years, and shall not be eligible to succeed himself, except after filling an unexpired term of not more than three years, or after an interim of not less than four years. The representation of each state in the Senate shall be one Senator for each seven Representatives and major fraction thereof which the AMENDING THE CONSTITUTION 65 state has in the House; provided, that any state with less than seven Representatives shall have one Senator. The term of Senators shall be four years, and no Senator shall be eligible to succeed himself after ten years continuous service, except after an interim of not less than two years. The number of members of the House of Representatives shall not exceed four hundred; and they shall not succeed themselves after ten years of continuous service, except on the condition applying to the members of the Senate. The several states in making up their delega- tions to either House of Congress shall limit the number selected from any profession or occupation to one member plus one fifth the state's full delegation in that house, unless the said profession or occupation comprises at least five per cent, of the occupied classes of the state; and clause one of section five of article one shall be so amended as to give the states the power to enforce this proviso on the qualifications of their members of Congress. The members of the Supreme Court shall be chosen by popular vote and by districts,the boundaries of which shall be fixed, approximately, by population. Their terms of office shall be ten years and they may succeed themselves during "good behavior." The decisions of the court must be approved and supported by not less than two thirds of the members thereof to become effective. United States Marshals and District Attorneys shall be chosen by popular vote of their districts. Postmasters shall be elected either by the voters resident in the var- ious towns and cities, by the votes of the patrons of the offices, or by the city councils as Congress may decide. The Collectors and Surveyors of Customs may be appointed as now provided, or by some other authority, or elected, as Congress may pro- vide. The terms of office of the marshals, district attorneys, post- masters and customs officers shall be for four years. XXV. THE GRADUATED TAX. The Constitution now pro- vides that no direct tax shall be laid unless in proportion to the enum- eration herein before directed to be taken. Under that provision a state with 500,000 people and $500,000,000 value, would be taxed just the same as a state with 500,000 people and $5,000,000,000 value. The absurdity and injustice of such a process is apparent to all ; but it is more just than the in-direct taxes under which most of the nearly$3,ooo- 000 a day that is now required to run the national government, is 66 HOW raised. Most of the money that now goes into the National treasury is from a tax on what we consume. The government is now taxing us $12 each per year or $60 for a family of five. The average laborer and his family consume nearly as much of the taxed commodities as the pos- sessors of many millions of dollars. The injustice of this is considered in Part One of this work on page 7. The direct taxation provided for in the Constitution would pre- sumably be levied against the states ; and the states to raise the amount required would doit by a property tax; so the man with $100,000,000 would pay 1000 times as much as the man with $100,000; while under the preseut indirect taxes of the government, when it asks the hod car- rier, living from hand to mouth, for $60 — possibly a months pay — it asks of Rockafeller about $100 which in some years has rolled into his pocket three times in a minute (see page 7 ante). A more unjust and iniquitous process of taxation could not be devised, and this stupendous wrong a Graduated Property Tax would immediately correct. It would also gradually correct other evils by its diffusive process. The railroads are estimated to be worth about one-sixth of the nat- ional valuation, hence they should (in a Repuhlic) pay one-sixth of the cost of the national government, or $168,000,000. When any one can find out what and how much of taxed commodities they consume, they can tell how little they pay for the support of the government. This $168,000,000 is mostly paid by labor To enable Congress to correct this injustice, and to levy taxes on anything and at any rate justice demands, the following substitute for clause four of section nine of article one of the Constitution, as proposed in House resolution No. 80, 1st session 55th Congress (July 22nd, 1897) is suggested, and in this list of needed changes is proposition the FOURTH: "Congress may impose taxes on incomes, inherit- tances, corporations, corporate stocks and obligations and estates of living persons, in excess of such exemptions as it shall deem reasonable, and may graduate the rate of taxation and impose higher rates per centum on large incomes, inheritances, and estates than on smaller ones" Line one of clause three of section two of article one would also have to be amended by striking out the three words "and direct taxes". These four propositions cover the amendments to the Federal Con- stitution necessary for the people to restore and maintain an equality of opportunity to all law abiding citizens, and to enable them to enact measures for restraining and controlling the operations of the "Male- factors of Great Wealth." USEING THE MONEY 67 These are the great essentials; and they must be followed by legis- lation to improve the opportunities for a restoration of justice, which they'off er as follows : FIRST — A Progressive Property Tax and a Progressive Inherit- ance Tax, as provided in the bill discussed in Parts one and two of this work, or something similar. SECOND — The proceeds from these taxes after paying the cost of assessment and collection should be applied to paying all pensions; interest on the public debt; all expenses of the military establishments, State and National; to a general system of public improvements as outlined in the aforesaid bill as follows : Flood control by the consturc- tion of dykes in the highlands connecting adjacent watersheds, of suf- ficient capacity and so connected as to practically maintain a normal flow in the streams and thus extend and improve the waterways; the construction of canals; the improvement of highways, and acquisition and maintainance of forest parks and to the payment of old age pen- sions. This great fund expended in these ways, the military, pension, inter- est and public improvements cost would all be placed where they belong, on the swollen fortunes, until the swelling was properly and quietly reduced; and this would enable us to limit the indirect taxes to a per capita not to exceed $2 per annum, an amount about the same as the total expenses of the government in i860. One of the reasons given in the Republican platform of i860 why the National Government should be put in their hands, was the extravagance of the Democratic administra- tion whic h was governing the country for about $60,000,000 a year. The present admistration has expended $3,428,000,000 in the past four years which is millions above the cost in cash of four years of Civil war. If we are rich enough to continue this profligacy, those who get the greater benefit from our extravagance , should be forced to bear their share of the burden. ' The progressive Tax will put this burden where it belongs. The State Initiative on constitutional amendments will put the control of the constitution in the hands of the people and do away with pleading with, or trying to drive, an unwilling Congress to yield to a popular demand, The appeal to the State Legislatures on court decisions involving questions of constitutionality, will help the courts to more carefnl= ly consider both sides of such cases before rendering their decisions. 68 HOW? XXVI. ONE THING MORE, about the Progressive Tax. Most and possibly all of us would like to be millionaires; and yet we have got but tenor twelve thousand. The Pro- gressive Tax would not decrease the number. It would increase it. The man with only a million would not be taxed; but when he got more it would call for a small dividend on the surplus. From two millions the tax rate would increase rapidly until it reached 18% at ten millions. So instead of decreasing the number of millionaires we would open an opportunity for a great increase in their numbers as the wily plunderers and mighty buccaneers were forced by government demands to grad- ually surrender their booty. Now, having seen how corruption may at least be reduced if no-f wholly rooted out by popular supervision of official acts, and the usu rpt ing oligarchy dethroned, the next great problem is who will undertake the task? Whaxan if they pull together correct the evils of misgovern - merit? Who hasjfower and patriotism and ought to have the will? WHO? "Swing inward, O gates of the future! Swing outward, ye doors of the Past! A giant is waking from slumber, And rending his fetters at last, From the dust where his proud tyrants found him, Unhonored and scorned and betrayed, He will rise in the sunlight around him, And rule in the realm he has made!" In the preceeding chapter we have seen how the Equality of Op- portunity — the heritage of all law-abiding citizens from republican in- stitutions — has been destroyed by the mighty forces of concentrated and organized capital. The injustice and iniquity of the situation are now universally known and conceded. We have also seen how the evil may be remedied and the blessings of Republican Institutions conferred on all our people. But we are here confronted with a greater question than, How? II. THE GREATER QUESTION IS, WHO? Who can bring about the great reforms which we find are essential to the Nation's future prosperity? Most classes of American labor are organized for their own protec- tion. Thru their organizations they have increased their daily pay and •decreased their hours of labor. Their efforts have been a success. It is organization that has brought them to better conditions. But the organization was based on a willingness to make personal sacrifice and to join in mutual efforts in which individual interests have sometimes been lost sight of for the good of a cause, which has brought them their re- ward. In this age, organization is the key to progress and success, and the unorganized class must remain the hewers of wood for the rest. In addressing the great Presbyterian meeting in Kansas City last May, Mr. John B. Lennon spoke only the truth in saying "The unorgan- ized working man or woman is of no more potency in the labor move- ment, or for civic betterment, or for moral uplift than are the dumb driven cattle." There is but one class of people in this country who can answer the grave questions and settle the great problems which I have brought up, and settle them right; and that is the Farmers. At present, unorgan- ized, they are as impotent as the dumb driven cattle though having the numbers to enforce any reasonable demand. 70 NECESSITY FOR ORGANIZATION III. THE BASIS OF ORGANIZATION. Most of the trades unions are organized on a basis of pay and time. It is useless for the farmers to try to organize on any such basis. Their interests are so diversified, that it is impossible. But their organization on the basis I have outlined — the forcing of such changes in the govern- mental policy and methods as will make it the friend and helper of the industrial masses, instead of the friend of the "Malefactors of great wealth," will decrease their work hours and increase their pay as much as tho they organized on the basis of pay. Not only is it their duty to organize for their own protection, but it is their duty to organize for the defense of our institutions. They are the class and the only class who have the opportunity and the power to enforce the necessary measures. Not to do it is shirking a sacred duty. Not to do it they will remain the hewers of wood for the rest, and continue of "no more potency for civic better- ment or moral uplift than the dumb driven cattle." Organized, they can elect Congress and legislatures by each one acting thru his own party channels that will give them the state in- itiative for Constituitonal amendments and a Progressive Property Tax for the wiping out of the trusts by diffusing the force on which they are based. They can get legislation that will establish freight rates based on the physical value of the lines instead of on the amount of stock, bonds and certificates Wall Street has been sharp enough and lawless enough to load them with. These are the two great schemes or systems of wrong and injustice the farmers are suffering from — the two evils that coax the farmer boys to yield to the "Lure of the Cities." IV, FREIGHT RATES Railroad managers are figuring now on an advance in freight rates. Some roads have already decided on an advance. They base their demand for higher prices on the claim that there must be a change in one of three ways; either business must increase, wages be reduced or rates advanced. Other people who may not know as much of rail- roading in 1908 as they, know of a fourth way the situation may be corrected, and that is to reduce the dividends on watered stock. The people are more tired of paying interest on watered stock than the railroad officials are of the public demand for rate reduction. The total railroad capitalization now exceeds $16,000,000,000. Not less than one-half of this is water on which the people are paying inter- est the same as they are on actual investment. The following from the ALONG CONTEST 71 Editor's Record of Harpers Magazine for November, 1873, P a S e 944> shows a view of the practice in it's infancy: WATERING STOCK Not only the railway companies, but other corporations, are called to accouat by the public press. The Independent has noticed the practice of "watering the stock" — issuing shares to stockholders for which nothing has been paid. Banks, insurance companies, and some other corporations are expressly prohibited from doing this, but railroad and other companies exercise a wider liberty. The nominal stock of a corporation affords but an imperfect idea of the amount of capital actually invested. A few years ago Comodore Vanderbilt, it is said, gave up the endeavor to acquire control over the Erie Railroad because he "could not fight a paper-mill." Yet the road over which he presides has indulged in the same practice to which he alluded. The total cost of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad was $63,299,624; but it is represented by and dividends are paid upon stock, bonded debt, and consolidation certificates amounting to $105,924,349 — an excess of over forty-two millions. A railroad in Ohio, it is asserted, receives by such hocus-pocus an annual dividend of forty per cent on its actual cost. Gas-light companies are also offenders. The Brooklyn Gas-light Company, with only an actual capital of $287,000, has issued $2,000,000 of stock, on which the annual dividends range somewhere from ten to twenty per cent. Similar things are true of other gas-light companies; and the endeavor on the part of legislative or local authority to ascertain the facts has been resisted with great energy and ingenuity. Other corporations, at the time of beginning business or subsequently, pursue the same practice, till the artless community suppose it to be a "vested right." It enables stockholders to realize large profits by selling their shares to others, and affords a pretext for requiring from the public a higher rate for service. The practice enters largely into the pending controversy between the railroad companies and the farmers of the West. Corporations of large means have ever met with much favor from legislative bodies. The controversy, however, has begun, and is likely to be a long one involving more questions and issues than is now imagined. The contest has already been a long one, and so far the railroads have the best of it because the farmers are not organized. The Kansas City Journal of January 29, 1904, has an interesting ar- ticle from a prominent Topeka banker, Mr. P. I. Bonebrake, discussing the same subject, and especially touching on the N Y. Central Road's inflated capital. Gov. Larrabee also in chap VI. of his work in the rail- way Problem, helps to reveal the operations of its early promoters and this is thought to be one of the best managed systems in the country. The figures of the past twenty years indicate no necessity for an ad- vance in rates to enable the roads to meet all reasonable obligations. V. RAILROAD VALUATION AND DIVIDENDS. The following averages deduced from tables in the World's Almanac, 72 WHO? show the track mileage,the capitalization and the net receipts per mile of the railroads of the country at three periods : Year Total miles Stocks & Bonds pr mile Net rec'ts pr mile 1886 125,000 $62,100 $2,400 1896 / 81,000 59» 2 °o 1,830 1906 218,000 68,580 3,620 So the net receipts of the roads per mile in 1906 were ioo%more than in 1896 and 50% more than in 1886, in spite of the enormous increase in fixed charges and dividends This increase bears harder on the farmer than on any other class. The Union Pacific road in Kansas is capitalized at over $130,000 a mile. The cost of it was not over one-fifth of this, so Kansas farmers are paying rates to enable the road to pay interest and dividends on $100000 a mile of watered stock. They can stop that robery when they become united enough to send to the legislature and put on the bench men in favor of stoping it; but it is not probable they can protect themselves from those organized forces of capital until they are organized them- selves. Organization is what they need; and it is what they must have to protect their interests and defend their homes. A Nation's perils and a People's needs incite them to organize. The pleadings of justice re- quire it. The Voice of Humanity commands it. The opportunity is ours. The duty is ours. The responsibility for neglect or delay will be ours. If every individual farmer waits for every other individual, the sun- set will come and find us fleeing in disorder a bewildered and stupified mob. If every State waits for every other State to lead, we will sneak out of ou r camps under the noonday sun before the advancing legions of the usurper. ORGANIZATION must be the watchword, if we would put the control of the constitution into the hands of the people. It must be the watchword if we would establish an opportunity for an appeal from the courts to the people on constitutional questions. ORGANIZATION must be the watchword if we would have the President and Congress and the Judiciary chosen by popular vote and their terms of office changed to meet present conditions and ideas. It must be the watchword if we would change the make-up of the Senate. ORGANIZATION must be the watchword if we would enact a pro- gressive tax law, and use a large part of the funds derived f r om a tax on ORGANIZE, 73 swollen fortunes for improving our waterways, for building reservoirs for the storing of storm water, and for establishing forest parks. ORGANIZATION must be the watchword if the farmers are to help stop the discrimination in freight rates and give to railroad commissioners the power to limit dividends to a fair interest on the physical value of the roads. In this purpose the eommi<| ioners would have a powerful ally in the progressive tax which would ;radually restore competition as it scattered among the industrial class s the inordinate holdings of stock from the vaults of the multimillionaires which they would be forced to sell to meet their taxes. These great changes in our fudnamental law and in government policies cannot be brought about without the help of the farmers — with- out organization for that specific purpose; and if eleven or twelve mil- lion people who are engaged in agricultural pursuits will organize for that purpose, this generation will reap of the benefits therefrom. If they will not organize they will continue where they are; they will continue to work more hours per day for less pay than any other important class of our people. VI. CAN THE FARMERS UNITE, It is a big proposition for 11,500,000 people to come together for a specific purpose, and it will never be if each one waits for someone else to pull or push him. Individual effort can solve the problem. Individual effort; each in his own locality, can start a wave of enthusiasm. Reader! If you approve the measures herein defended; if you be- lieve in their justice and favor their adoption, you can readily find six others cf like belief who will join you to form a club. My belief is that nineteen farmers out of twenty would support the move if assured of the general support of the class; and the best way for them to do is to put their shoulders to the wheel regardless of what others may do. Indi- vidual effort must be invoked to bring about an organization. Don't wait for some self-appointed committee or self-chosen officials to pull you into line, but ORGANIZE your own neighborhood or school dis- trict and include in your constitution a pledge that each Club or Union organized, shall organize one more as long as unorganized farmers are within reach. Faithfully carried out this will carry the Union to the four corners of the land. When ei°;ht or ten clubs are started in a county, then thev should call a meeting to organize the county and adopt temporarily a constitu- tion, by-laws and ritual; and when several counties in a state are or.r , an - 74 WHO? zed a state meeting should be called by the county presidents to form a state organization, and proclaim their purpose not only to become a factor for civic betterment, but to help give the control of the consti- tution to the people; to establish a Republican form of government; to bring the Judiciary into harmony with the popular will; to make needed changes in the method of choosing public officials, and their terms of office; and to restore to the people a part of the swollen fortunes of the Plutocracy — which the masses have earned and lost — by Progressive Taxation and Public Improvements. Then pass the watchword and countersign down the rural 'phone lines: ORGANIZE! ORGANIZE'.! ORGANIZE!!! Lb Ap '09 NOV 28 1901 Graduated Taxation* The Nation now has an eminent leader who realizes the neces- sity for and the possibilities of such a measure to stop the plunder- ing of the industrial masses by the great Trust Promoters. The incidents and rumblings of the 1906 election are prophetic and a timely warning. They show that American Labor will soon use its power to go out of its bondage to Predatory Wealth. Aggregated capital is go- ing to be controlled; Inordinate fortunes will be limited; Concen- trated plunder will be attacked and scattered either by the levelling forces of disorder or by the mild, the just, the certain, and the peacable process of progressive taxation. One or the other of these is just as inevitable as the coming of the North Wind. THE QUESTION IS, THE VESTED RIGHTS OF THE MAN OR THE DOLLAR. WHICH DO YOU SUPPORT AND DEFEND FIRST? The Kansas Legislature has twice endorsed a corrective meas- ure; first in 1893 and again in 1897. It urges us to follow the better way. A list of other books and papers by the author of "Swollen Fortunes and the Problem of the Unemployed," all of which advo- cate a Progressive Tax for reducing, controlling and limiting in- ordinate wealth is given below. A CRISIS FOR THE HUSBANDMAN. Third edition. With supplement 1889, 50c. (Out of print, but the 3d, 4th and 5th lectures can be had. Each 10c.) A LESSON OF TO-DAY AND A QUESTION OF TO-MORROW. A cr ^ipaign spesch of 1892. Each 10c. A SUNFLOWER TANGLE. An address to the People's Party Convention in 1894. Each 5c. (Cutting the Gordian Knot is sequel.) THE FREE COINAGE OF AMERICAN LABOR INTO HONEST DOLLARS. 1895. Each 5c. CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT. 1896. Each 25c. MAN VERSUS MAMMON. With petition to and Concurrent Resolution cf the Kansas Legislature of 1897. Each 10c. "A PROTEST ON THE COUNCIL DOOR." 1898. (Out of print. Can be found in supplement to tbe Independent News, Girard, Kans., of October 28, 1898.) The above prices include postage. Address the Author at Girard, Kansas. Thompson Co. Printers, Carthage, Mo,